. . .

Sometimes I don't know which is worse.

Having something awful happen and making an awful decision in response.
Or watching someone have something awful happen and make an awful decision in response. And knowing there's nothing you can do about it.

My heart is heavy. And it's not even my burden.

Of music and such things to revive the pieces of one's soul

Peter Bradley Adams and Matthew Perryman Jones each have voices that have stolen my heart. I was listening to them both earlier tonight, and the only thing that came to my mind in terms of describing the feeling I get from their music is that it feels like cold water running down a parched throat. You know what I mean. The cold water that not only feels marvelous on your tongue, but you can feel it go all the way down like a slow relaxing exhalation that goes all the way to your tummy.

It is refreshing. It is a deep breath. It is much needed. It sometimes lulls me to oblivion of all other things. It feels good. I believe in soaking up music the way a fois gras connoisseur savours every ounce of their dish. Absorbing to the full extent everything there is to absorb about a truly fantastically crafted portion of the ever growing music library. You might have to close your eyes to get the best experience. Unless you're driving. Don't close your eyes then, please.

Like riding a bike!

In that one never forgets. Supposedly.

I haven't worked at Beans & Cream in over two years. And I haven't filled in for someone at Beans & Cream in well over one year. Yet when I returned to fill in for two nights this week, I found that though there have been a few changes in the business over the past two years, I slipped quite easily back into my routine.

And I'm not gonna lie. I miss it. I quit because I didn't enjoy giving up my nightly study hours. It wasn't like my gpa suffered, B average was pretty good for my freshman year, I thought. I had been considering it for a month or two prior to my final decision. What finalized it for me was sitting in the cafeteria in early November sitting next to Melis and across the coffee girl.

Coffee girl: I need to go to Walmart. Y'all wanna come?

Me and Melis: Sure.

Coffee girl: other stuff I don't remember ... and let's get a movie YOU GUYS WANNA WATCH A MOVIE?!?!?! *eyes darting back and forth between the two of us like she does when she gets excited*

Melis: says nothing and shrugs

Me: I can't. I have to work. (I never understood why I have to constantly remind people of my routines, especially since this particular one had been set for about a year.)

Coffee girl: *eyes fall and huge sigh and turns to Melis* I'm so sick of her having this job.

Yeah. I was too.

But the truth is that when I return to that routine, I remember everything from that time in my life. Graduating high school. My first car wreck. My awkward but wonderful and memorable eighteenth summer. My freshman year of college. My sister's apartment. My first car. My tiny dorm. The smell of the coffee and the supply closet. Washing the coffee pots. Wiping down the espresso machine. refilling the sugar. The scrapes of the chairs as I sweep. And I miss it. I miss all the things I used to think about when I was there by myself. I miss the way it would wear me out each night. I miss the leftover stale donuts. And how my hands would always feel cold from all the water from all the dishes I'd wash and all the surfaces I had to wipe down.

It was truly my job. And I knew it well. And it knew me. I obviously didn't forget it. And it obviously hasn't forgotten me. Like riding a bike.

I think hipsters are the dead end of western civilization.

"Oh my gosh we are so cool!"

You all know how much I despise labels. so I apologize for spending time talking about a certain one, but I think we can all agree that things need to be said about hipsters.

First, let's go back to the history of the term. According to Wikipedia, "hipster" was a term first used to refer to aficionados of the jazz age. You know, the middle class white people who began to try to "emulate" the (musical) styles of African Americans. Jive talk, hot jazz, etc. A literary scene eventually became associated with this subculture after WWII.

And now my favorite commentary on the hipsters of contemporary days:

"Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear t-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care." -Time 7/09

I love all people, but sometimes liking certain ones doesn't come easily, and maybe not at all. I see nothing wrong with identifying oneself to a certain style or like of things, however, I'm not okay with seeing someone buy or "be interested" in things and issues because that's what people like them are supposed to be interested in. You know, I can just see their thought processes:

"I shop at thrift stores because I don't give in to consumerism and capitalism. Although I have no problem spending all my money on music and plays and road trips and band shirts and expensive shoes (you know the kind I'm talking about)." Because apparently that doesn't benefit capitalism. I feel like these people take what's genuine, claim it as their own, and strip it of it's genuineness by doing so. You know why? Because they and all their friends and their friends' friends and their myspace music gods, and their indie film actors are all the same. So I see nothing authentic.

Then there's the most well-known attribute of these folk: their disdain for their peers and their apathetic nature. "Let's criticize them for their hair/clothes/money/car/music/movies/book tastes because ours is better and the world just doesn't understand it. Let's be judgmental and give weird apathetic looks because we are a pathetic people." And yes I meant to spell it that way.

But then again, I've never had a true conversation with very many of these people. I only go on appearances and attitudes and emo blogs. Just the surface stuff. So maybe I'm the judgmental one.

I just want to be me. Even though I don't fully know what that means, I do know it means no pretending. So help me not to. You're the only ones who can. And when I forget, please remind me. That's all. Thanks.

I should be writing papers instead...

I'm wide awake now thanks to the energy of my favorite redheaded person with whom I traipsed through Walmart while she claimed to be sleepy, but managed to find excitement with nearly every item at her eye level in the store. I do not know if that is an entirely grammatical sentence.

So instead of writing a five page paper on Shakespeare's sonnet 14 or my memoir for nonfiction writing, I'm here. I have no thoughts except that I am feeling rather accomplished. I've done all my homework for tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday. So yay me!

I was labeled a liberal last night. I don't know who was the originator of the pairing of that term with my name. And then when we were trying to make the film we were told to "do what your shirt says." What does that mean? How do you do liberal things while playing Clue? At least I wasn't the "slob" or the "blonde."

So the definition of "veracity:"
"We see into our memories in much the way that we see across the floor of a sunbaked desert: everything we conjure, every object, creature, or event we perceive in there, is distorted, before it reaches us, by mirages created by subjectivity, time and distance. . . The best the a would-be nonfiction writer can do is use imperfect language to invoke imperfectly remembered events based on imperfect perceptions."

SO in creating a memoir, or memory in words, the facts aren't just so. Unless one has a journal they keep all the time and photographs. Oh hey! I do! But still, memories are subjective, selective, and clouded by time. But it's my memory. And even if it isn't true, I'm being faithful to the spirit of my memory. Because it is mine. My memory, my perspective, my viewpoint.

I still haven't decided what memory I'm going to write about. I'm thinking a conversation I had with my granddaddy at dusk on May 27, 2000, on a patio swing, just the two of us. A walk to get the paper. One sentence I'll never forget.