I’ve been really ________ lately, and I’m not too sure how to fill in that blank.  Lethargic doesn’t work because I’ve been fairly active, apathetic doesn’t work because I’ve been more interested than ever, depressed doesn’t work because I’ve been fairly happy, and bored doesn’t work because I’ve had too much to do.

I guess what I am is kind of a mix of all of those things, and then some… a mixture of emotions that I’m not sure has a name just yet.  Or at least, no word exists in my limited 21-year-old vocabulary to suit it.  I’ve been lonely in the middle of the crowd, I’ve been bored during the busiest part of my workday.

This all probably has something to do with being out of thyroid pills until the end of the week (or the start of the next).  I can’t focus on anything, and I’m a big, under-metabolized emotional mess.  I can’t even begin to tell you all how long this has taken me to type already.

I wanted to write a letter today, but upon going through my address book, I realized that I don’t have current addresses for, like, anybody in my life.  I should probably work on that before I move across the country again.

At the Drive-In, in the Old Man’s Ford.

(Copied out of my paper journal, written at about 9 this morning.)

Approximately once every million years or so, I have a dream that I actually remember. I just woke up from one of those dreams.

———Wayne’s World noises———
Nick and I were sitting in the living room of an apartment that was a few floors up on a street that looked sort of like Commonwealth Avenue, but wasn’t. It was a very bright, sunny day, and the living room had a wall of huge windows facing the street/mall (as in, park). Nick looked down out the window and saw a black Viper/Spyder/Corvette convertible-type-liquid-hotness-on-wheels and said, “That’s the car that they’re using in the new Poison video, right? Some kinda Chevy?”

I look out the window and fall down stammering about the liquid hotness on the street in front of our apartment building, and in partial disbelief that he just called it “some kinda Chevy.” I start searching up and down the street. “Where’d the guy go that was driving it? Maybe it was Bret Michaels!”

“Oh, he’s in the bathroom, but I didn’t recognize him.”

I get up off the floor and wait near the living room doorway so that I can hear when the bathroom door opens. In just a few seconds, out walks Bret Michaels in FULL-ON BM ATTIRE… cowboy hat, black leather pants, boots, light brown leather jacket; my Dad probably could have recognized him as Bret Michaels, and he says things like “Steinfeld” and “Paul McCarthy.” Oh, Bret was also wearing pinkish-purple pearl lipstick.

I step in his path to the door, we hugged, and I say, “I don’t mean to be annoying, but…” and I start to move the brim of his cowboy hat out of the way so that I can kiss Bret Michaels… so that I can tell everyone in dreamland about how Bret Michaels was in my apartment and we kissed.

He took off his cowboy hat and was wearing a blue bandanna over his still long, but now also sporadically curly, blond hair. The kiss felt like some old cakey lipstick that my mom gave me ages ago, leaving my dream-self to suspect if perhaps he wasn’t snooping around my bathroom.

“I’m really sorry, you probably have to go, and I don’t mean to keep being annoying…” and he pulled out a pen and asked me, “Where do you want it?”

“Shit, I don’t know if I have anything that can be signed.”

“Just let me sign your body like all the other girls.” He sounded annoyed.

“No, that always washes off eventually, and I need to be able to prove this to my mom.” I started walking toward the bedroom, and dug around looking for a piece of paper that wasn’t a Walgreen’s receipt. “Sorry about the mess, I have a hard time putting laundry away sometimes.”

“That’s okay, the bathroom was immaculate.”

I found my blue journal (the one I hand wrote this story in this morning), and then spent even more time looking for a blank spot for him to autograph. While searching, I SWEAR that I passed something that said “Justin Timberlake.” Finally, I located blank space, and had Bret sign. I thanked him and we hugged again.

I noticed that he was looking towards the door to the back balcony, and I apologized for not having a back stairwell that he could sneak out of. “You could shimmy down the building, but you’re wearing lots of leather and that might draw attention.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bret said, “I’m pretty unassuming.” And then he left.
———Wayne’s World noises———

 

Yeah, Freud… have fun with that one.

 

PS – I look different.

Dirty Pop

Before we get started, let us take a moment to recognize that Linkin Park (the band, not the elementary school) has become pretty fantastic of late. The sun WILL set for you. Yes it will. Actually, this point is sort of relevant in that it deals with modern popular music. I’m pretty sure that my love of this video has just about EVERYTHING to do with the fact that they let the sync sound overpower the song. Emphatic.  (And sound editing aside, Chester’s starting to get really fuckin’ hot.)

I’ve been thinking about popular music a lot recently, and of pop culture in general. This probably has something to do with all of the Chuck Klosterman essays that I’ve been reading.  And maybe also because I’ve recently watched both Spice World and On the Line. (Though, to make matters slightly better, I’m currently typing this while watching Cube 2, so don’t attack my nerd cred just yet.)

I spend a lot of my down time at home either playing Scrabulous on Facebook (and yes, I WILL accept your game) or watching music videos OnDemand (or both, simultaneously).  I realize that these are not incredibly productive endeavors; I could be painting or writing or cleaning or maybe putting away that giant pile of clean clothes in my bedroom.

I have always loved music videos, which is why it’s heartbreaking to me that they’re so hard to find these days.  Instead of blocks of videos, VH1 spreads its programming time between Bret Michaels (whom I am unashamedly attracted to), more than a few decades-in-review (which admittedly I adore), and America’s Next Top Model marathons (which quite frankly make NO FUCKING SENSE existing on VH1).  We won’t even get started on what’s happened to MTV.  Everyone’s been standing on the sidewalk staring at that bloody car wreck for years.  It was during one of my searches for music videos OnDemand when I stumbled upon the new one by the Backstreet Boys.

Now, I was always more of an ‘N Sync fan myself.  I started out during my tween years as a BSB girl, but once I heard “I Want You Back” for the first time it was like a light shone down on me and I saw through bubblegum bullshit.  I didn’t just stop liking the Backstreet Boys, I became anti-BSB.  I was militant.  Fights would erupt between my friends and myself.  They still do.  The difference is that now I’m no longer militantly anti-Backstreet.   I can–most of the time–see why they had an equal-or-greater-than following.   And I still really like “As Long As You Love Me.”

There are a few simple truths that exist that aren’t a product of my distaste for this particular male pop vocal ensemble.  The Backstreet Boys were easily the most UN-attractive group of guys to ever sing love songs to teenagers.  Granted, all of these groups had “the ugly guy,” but BSB had “the attractive guy.”  The rest were (and still are) pretty darned fugly (though, to be fair the ugliest caught on and bounced in ‘06).  Also, the new song and accompanying video are both positively atrocious.

And while that annoys me, here’s what really gets to me.  As arguably the least appealing boy band from that era, the Backstreet Boys just won’t let it go.  Granted, the fellas over in ‘N Sync Land have been on a “six-month hiatus” for years, and Lance never went into space and thus the hiatus should have ended… during that time they’ve released some solo stuff, but for the most part, ‘N Sync as an entity has pretty unofficially called it good and done.  This makes them a far superior pop fad.   Not only did their music grow and evolve with every record they released, they were able to call the kettle black and realize that their rein as the Kings of Pop was coming to an end.  The Backstreet Boys are completely unwilling to evolve.  With the exception of AJ’s neck growing to tree-trunk-like proportions and Howie chopping off that terrible long hairdo, little about them or their sound has changed.

However, while contemplating this I came up with a great idea for MTV’s anti-video programming director: A Road Rules challenge-type show, featuring the four remaining members of the Backstreet Boys, the five reunited Spice Girls, and the never broken up and still there for each other ‘N Sync.  It’s like a physical battle of my teenage years.  There can be special surprise challenges featuring LFO, Youngstown or 98 Degrees.  (Or, if the producers are really strapped for talent, C-Note.  Just wait til I get home to that sweet, sweet lovin’.  Classic.)  The show’s theme song can be “The Ketchup Song” by those really hot Spanish girls.

I think we’re on to something here.

Answer the Phone; I Know that You’re Home.

I always thought that free time was the catalyst for creativity.

Unless I’ve simply not had enough of it yet to be of any use, I’m not seeing this to be true.  The question that remains, then, is what is the catalyst?

Experience, probably.  Actually experiencing things… nouns.  People, places, ideas.  These are the catalysts for life’s greatest creations.  Some write about ideas they encounter, others photograph locations.

I don’t seem to accomplish much when I’m less busy.  My To-Do list yesterday was a joke, and consisted of items such as “call Starbucks about health insurance” and “sign up for Netflix,” both of which never even happened.  I did cook a considerable amount of food yesterday, and I changed the utility bill to come in my name earlier this week, so I guess it’s not a total loss.  I even learned some German from a Steve Martin movie that I watched On Demand.

Still, I feel as though I haven’t done any of that stuff that seems to “matter.”  Activities such as cleaning the house or doing laundry or painting.  I haven’t even been able to force myself to dig through the pile of mail that I collected at my parents’ house, and that is relatively time-sensitive material.

Maybe that’s what I’ll force myself to accomplish tonight.  I’ll sort through my mail and my notebooks from last semester, and I’ll probably even sign up for Netflix, just so that list of movies from my notes has somewhere to go.  Hell, I might even put my clean laundry away, since it’s basically time to wash a fresh load.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.