What I Was Wearing: First Kiss Edition

My first kiss would be at the elementary school, atop a play structure, a frigid January evening. If my memory serves, I was wearing a floral pattered, rayon, knee length, scoop neck dress, some fake Doc Marten’s, black tights and a strictly utilitarian black coat that did not match my dress but oh well, it was freezing and I needed it. Plus, matching was for suckers. I never liked getting gussied up as a teenager, putting on a dress used to feel so gross to me. This was the mid 1990’s so my everyday look was cosplaying a missing member of the Beastie Boys. Thrift stores were the only way, their clothing was inexpensive and had personality. Which is a lot more than I could say about this dress.

This dress was purchased at the mall, quite a big deal. My mom was so excited that a boy finally asked me to a dance that she sprung for a new dress. I was so inexperienced at shopping for dresses I just went with the one that most resembled something Angela Chase would wear in “My So Called Life”, my favorite show at the time. Thinking I was ready for a shift in fashion direction, it ended up feeling completely unnatural. I think I understand why. My modus operendi was to avoid being the center of attention. It’s much easier to slip into the background wearing a vintage Newport Cigarettes ringer tee and a pair of workwear khakis than it is to stand out with a pretty dress on a pretty girl wearing lipstick that’s definitely on her teeth. I don’t think I understood it at the time but my resistance to all things “pretty” was certainly no accident. Being pretty meant attention, attention from boys in particular, and I did not want that, no, no, no. Boys were terrifying. I had a lot of friends that were boys, but the moment any sort of non-plutonic feelings were detected from either party, I bounced. I was protective of my heart, I believe that’s where it came from. By this point in my life I had been let down numerous times by literally every man in my life. And when I say “let down” I mean let the fuck down. So boys turn into men. And men suck. So avoid boys at all cost. Made sense to me.

I just wanted to exist in some loveless, asexual protective bubble, I suppose. Until I became friends with a very nice boy at the beginning of my junior year. With regard to him, I was developing a crush but I was also doing my normal “shove all feelings inside and never talk about them” thing. But then he went and did something really unexpected and asked me to the Winter Formal. I did something even more unexpected and said yes. We were already friends, so this, our first official “date”, was awkward. These things usually are. We snuck out of the dance to go get high on top of the play structure at the elementary school down the road to escape the unnaturalness of the entire evening. Our safe space.

We climbed up there and huddled close to stay warm. It felt good. I remember liking being that close to another person. I had nipped a bit of herb from my dad’s stash. He had a pipe. It was one of those little metal types with tin-foil reinforcements to prevent the smoke from escaping the pipe tunnels. We smoked a little bit, talked a little bit, looked up at the stars on that very clear night. I felt like a kiss could potentially happen and I was very nervous. I am sure he noticed. He kissed me. And I kissed him back. It was so quiet, I remember hearing our kissing sounds and thinking that was weird. But then something happened and I immediately fell in love. Hard. Is that me being a naive teenager who loved her first real attention from a boy SO MUCH that she “fell in love” seconds later? Probably, but he was guilty of the same since from that point on we were inseparable. We were cut from the same cloth, similar backgrounds, big dreams of leaving the small town we were both forced to exist in by our parents. It made perfect sense. I’m sure I was a horrible kisser. Maybe he was good but I had no point of reference. Suffice it to say, we improved over time.

All of the sudden I had a ray of sunshine in my otherwise cloudy, lonesome life. He would go onto become another man who hurt me, maybe the man who hurt me the most. I’m only now beginning to truly understand that a great deal of that pain was self-inflicted. But he taught me how to forgive. How to love. How to kiss. All of that.

Soul II Soul – Jazzie’s Groove (1989) — Samuelsounds

YouTube – Spotify – iTunes – Discogs The last track on Soul II Soul’s seminal debut LP Club Classics Vol. 1 is ‘Jazzie’s Groove’. It reflected Jazzie B’s manifesto for the London collective he’d founded. Tapping his own work on sound systems and his admiration for the likes of Jungle Brothers, De La Soul and A Tribe […]

Soul II Soul – Jazzie’s Groove (1989) — Samuelsounds

Weekend Writing Prompt #202 – Yonder

Weekend Writing Prompt #202 – Yonder

The quiet burg of Yonder. No Jones’ thus no need to keep up. Glass houses everywhere but not a single stone to be found. Yonder is the on the other side where the grass is always greener and taxes are much higher.

Digital Underground “The Humpty Dance” (1990) — Hip Hop Golden Age

“The Humpty Dance” is a song by Digital Underground, which was featured on their debut album Sex Packets. The single climbed to #11 on the pop charts, #7 on the R&B charts, and #1 on the Billboard Rap Singles chart. The single is sung by Shock G’s alter ego, “Humpty Hump”, marking the character’s second musical appearance; the first being Digital Underground’s…

Digital Underground “The Humpty Dance” (1990) — Hip Hop Golden Age

Writer’s #BLOCK

I was in my mid twenties when MySpace became a thing. I just read through an old journal and there was this particularly entertaining entry about how I was worried that MySpace was going to destroy genuine human connection eventually because it causes folks to assume so much about another person without taking the time to actually get to know them. I referred to it as a “dog and pony show” and a system that I’m completely enabling by participating in. I made note of how everyone seems to enjoy it, and think it’s this really great thing, but it’s making me feel “gross” inside. Well, I’ll be damned if it’s not almost 20 years later and I’m still feeling gross. Maybe even grosser. Okay, a lot grosser. 

With the mountains of evidence claiming social media isn’t the greatest space for those who struggle with depression, addiction and anxiety (alas, social media creates much of that anxiety), every day I wonder why I still mess with it. Some days it’s totally wonderful and I love it and it’s this amazing way to connect. But then some days it only makes me feel like shit, inadequate and a complete and total failure. Lately, it’s been doing more harm that good. I would completely reconsider my relationship with anyone who’d make me feel that way IRL, we’d call them “toxic”, so why do I keep giving social media so many chances? Rhetorical question, of course. We all know the answer to that.

BECAUSE IT’S ADDICTIVE AS FUCK! And that’s by design.

It is no exaggeration that I am a sensitive soul and sometimes don’t feel tough enough to handle this new world of social media ruling everything, all of these weird rituals and unspoken rules, most days it feels a lot like a game I really don’t want to play. It is completely overwhelming. I hate how it distracts us from life. Real life. We see different versions of it on our tiny phones, but it it’s only the version someone else wants us to see, or it’s the version you want to create or procure. I do it, you do it, we all do it.

I despise how it mines our phones for data, then uses that data to sell us things. The more time you spend using social media, the more shit they sell to you using your own data, the more money they make. We are paying them with our time to sell us things. You lose productivity, money and self esteem and they become billionaires. But that’s an entirely different conversation altogether.

I’m lucky enough to have grown up without social media until my mid-twenties. I say lucky because I’m fortunate I didn’t have to struggle as a teen or child with the dark side of social media as so many teens do today. It wasn’t a thing in high school. We didn’t even have cell phones. Take a moment and imagine a world where people aren’t obsessed with their phones. Or laptops. Or social media accounts. If you’ve lived in that world, then you know how it feels. To me, not having the burden of social media always peeking its head around the corner felt wonderful. I see how much of a struggle it is for me today, a grown up, to reckon with my opposing feelings toward the technology, to see how it impacts my own self esteem, and I can’t imagine what it would be like for a kid today. A kid who is already confused about their place in this world. 

At this point I’ve spent days, weeks, maybe even months of my life reading news stories about the dangers of social media. I’ve listened to so many audio books and podcasts pertaining to this subject. Shit, I have friends who have written and published whole ass books on the dangers of social media. I have done my research. I know it’s bad. Real bad. Not good at all for our mental health. I know all of this stuff. Yet I’m still here.

I think it’s obvious I love long form writing. I love to be honest with myself, lay it all out there for my friends. I don’t know if social media is the right place for me to do that, since there seems to be a lot of stigmas attached to most everything on social media. So many confusing built-in social mores. What’s acceptable, what’s annoying, blocking, muting, following, unfollowing, private profiles, public profiles, cliques, close friends only, liking, oversharing, not sharing enough, the entire concept of content, being relatable, fun, edgy, cool, unbothered, totally bothered, woke, political, apolitical, apathetic, dealing with that special brand of passive aggressiveness that only the internet can offer and the list goes on. NOT to MENTION conspiracy theories, misinformation, and how social media is being used all over the world to influence and sway elections, and not in the good way. My enthusiasm and desire for all of these things in my life has really plunged, it’s at Marianas trench levels at this point. So my hope is that I can connect with writing again. Writing is something that I used to do A LOT of before social media. Notebooks and notebooks and notebooks full of journals and stories. I want to get back to that.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CONNECTIONS WITH OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILIES?!

Yes, I realize there are some benefits to social media, but we all know what those are and I don’t really need to beat you over the head with it. I’ve gone years without social media in the past and I wasn’t erased from the planet just because I lost my digital identity. In fact, I felt really good. Free. I texted with my friends. I didn’t have to accept a FB request to get invited to a party. I laid low. I made art. I got my daily news from a variety of unbiased news outlets. I signed back up because I felt the pressure as a professional person in the world to have a digital identity. Isn’t it mandatory? I know it’s not, but it certainly feels that way sometimes.

My main point here is that right now, it’s not working for me. Maybe it will be further on down the road, but I’m realizing that I’ve been feeling this way for quite some time, almost 20 odd years. It’s time I actually listened to myself and put my money where my mouth is instead of screaming it from the rooftop. I’m sure everyone’s tired of hearing me scream it at this point. I would be too. And that’s essentially my point. I’m removing myself from the equation right now because I see that it is me with the issue, not everyone else. I hope one day we can all see how we’re letting social media take over our lives, but I guess everyone needs to come to that realization on their own timeline and deal with it in their own way. Or not. It’s not my place to force that on anyone. With regard to social media, I’m going to lay low for a while. I don’t know how long. To be honest, I hope it’s forever, but we’ll see about that. I’m sure everyone feels the same way I do as well, to varying degrees. I’m just a tortured soul type and need to be dramatic. I love you. Thank you for understanding.

CLUTCH

coil_spring

I always see what I think is a cool purse at the thrift store but then realize there are no purse strings and get real sad. It’s not a purse. It’s a clutch. I can’t do clutches. I most certainly will lose it. I lose everything. All the time. Always. This is my truth. Keeping track of small items has always been a challenge. My point: Unless it’s surgically attached to my hand, clutches are out of the question.

I drive a clutch. I prefer it. I’ve only driven an automatic once. Was much nicer when facing a four-way stop on a steep hill but overall I like the control the stick affords me. Plus, not everyone can drive a manual so therefore not just anyone can ask to drive your car, which is a major plus to me. I think I will have my daughter learn to drive on a clutch when that day comes. My dad taught me this way when I was 15 only because that’s the only type of transmission that was available for me to learn. I’m pretty thankful for that.

via Daily Prompt: Clutch

Musical Eggshells

I have worked at a record store for the past 10 years. I’ve picked up a few tidbits of wisdom along the way.

Never try to convince others that your music is best. People are born with musical tastes written into their DNA. Attempting to alter these genetic codes is a fruitless endeavor at best. Sure, the music you love is great. You enjoy the shit out of it. Wonderful. This does not contractually obligate anyone else to care/agree.

There is nothing wrong with being a loyal fan, but where you start getting into the weeds is assuming that your music is better than someone else’s. Because it’s not. It’s just not. You’re nodding your head no right now. But I promise you, Supertramp is the worst. Not to me, of course, but to someone else; they really suck. And that’s okay.

Imagine a band you love, how much they’ve changed your life, how much you believe in the power of their music. Now imagine someone else loving a band that you are musically repulsed by. They probably love that band with that same amount of passion and unbridled enthusiasm that you have for your favorite artists. So you’re really the same, just at different ends of the spectrum. Bagging on said person for their taste only ends up making you look like a bitter control freak with serious self esteem issues. Is that what you want? Didn’t think so. Let the people like what they like.

We all enjoy music in different ways and for different reasons. Someone else’s music is sacred to them, just as yours is to you. Poke fun at it. Try to figure out the appeal. But don’t judge. Because that makes you the know-it-all music asshole. I have been that person. It is truly exhausting. So I quit.

For better or worse, it’s just music.

Hiatus Kaiyote

I’ve been listening to Hiatus Kaiyote lately. At first I really had no idea what to think. It’s this strange and engaging mixture of late 90’s/early 2000’s neo-soul with a full band replicating these Soulaquarian madlib/dilla-esque beats. The lead singer/guitar player is named Nai Palm. A fire dancing woman with a voice coated in honey. Her vocals encapsulate the spirit of almost every female jazz and/or R&B singer that I’ve ever loved. She is white. And not only is she white, she is Australian. The entire band is composed of Australian people doing American soul at a level of musical competence that is somewhat confounding. Having heard their two albums one might assume that they have been playing together for decades. On the contrary they are a very young band. Needless to say, given the above mentioned factors, consider my mind fully blown.

I’m so hooked. I just want to thank this band for proving that Australia has so much more to offer than Iggy Azalea. Not that I am anti-Iggy, but yeah, who wants that to define your nation’s musical contribution to the world? They are overcompensating in the best way possible.

Every now and then someone does a throwback album that works. Are we that far ahead in the future that people can be paying homage to Erykah Badu’s “Mama’s Gun” and sparking a neo-neo-soul revival at the same time? I suppose so. When I hear these songs I hear Voodoo, I hear Mama’s Gun, I hear The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, I hear The Unseen, I hear Brown Sugar, I hear Mariah, I hear Sarah Vaughn, I hear Billy Holiday, I hear Ella Fitzgerald. It’s very powerful female-driven music led by a very charismatic and poignant woman. Her lyrics are quite spiritual and based in the ancestry in her homeland, the geography of the outback.

It’s more than a good album, it’s an album that has given me just a small bit of life. And who could ever argue against that? It is too easy to become disillusioned with buzz bands and one hit wonders and youtube sensations. It’s SO refreshing to hear a full album that works beginning to end. So thanks for breathing a bit of fresh air into my musical existence, Hiatus Kaiyote.