Audiomusicbiographically – A Most Unreliable Narrator

broomball

Dear Internet,
If you missed it, the last couple of days I’ve been recording audio of various love poems. I planned on doing one a day until Happy Massacred Heart day, but I’m currently feeling a little eh right now, so WHO KNOWS if I’ll finish the series.

I’m coming up on nearly a month of being smoke free! With what money I have left in my checking, I’m transferring $12 a week (what I paid for two packs of cigarettes) to my savings to get an idea of how much I’ve saved since I quit smoking.
I expect millions.

I start rugby practice Monday.
I know. Rugby. WHO KNEW.
Level of entry is pretty cheap. I stole clothes from TEH (from his skinnier days which equal my fat days) and the only big purchase was my cleats (I wear a size 11 womens or an 8.5 mens. I had to buy a size 9.5 mens for my cleats because the fuckers run small. But hey! Cleats!) and the small purchase of my mouthguard. I’ll also have to get game day socks and shorts¹ down the road.
I’ve either played or tried other sports before this; tennis, softball, and basketball to name a few. I either didn’t like them or couldn’t play for shit. Rugby seems to take advantage of my size and aggression and it’s a well known fact I have tree trunks for legs (I’m nice and sturdy) plus I love finding new ways to get my aggression out. If I ever move to a place where I can hang a punching bag, boxing is so going to happen.
Wanting to play rugby has been a long time coming. When I was still married, I tried to get a rugby team started in Grand Rapids, but it fell apart as there were only three of us gung ho about the idea and you need 15 people on the field. I don’t know what sparked me to start looking in L-Ville, but boom! Two seconds searching and I found an active team. Practice starts on Monday!
I have games all over the Ohio Valley region through March and April, so if you’re in Louisville, Nashville, Youngstown, Lexington, Cincinnati, or Dayton, let me know and I’ll give you info about those games for you to come cheer me on! (I’ll post the fall schedule, the second season, if I’m still in L-Ville at that time. Yay tree trunk legs!)

How do we get over heartbreak? No one really knows² yet everyone seems to think they have the answer.
After reading Girl on the Net’s piece, I started thinking about my recent heartbreak and the process to heal.
Based upon friend’s reactions these last few months, it’s expected I should be discoing my way to someone else. As time marches on, this round of break up many feel I have already said all there is to say about him, the relationship, and the ending. What more could there possibly be? (A lot apparently.)
I spend most days without TheBassist’s presence hovering on the peripheral and then something benign reminds me he hasn’t been thought of and fuck, there he is!
God dammit.
Every couple of therapy sessions there is at least a brief mention of this occurring, how it pisses me off, and how my heart has ghosts of the devastation, which pisses me off even more.
There is no exorcism to dispatch a broken heart.

There is, however, only one thing of his that has remained in my life and that is the hair wraps I made out of one of his workout shirts³. The hair wrap thoughts are along the lines of when I’m getting out of the shower with and “Oh. A t-shirt hair wrap.” rather than some deep rooted creepiness on my part. I will admit, however, during the throes of the early stages of the break-up, I swore to never wash the shirt again as it still smelled of him (I sniffed it a lot. Don’t judge.), to never pack it away so I have a constant reminder of him, and all of this has led to letting those feelings go except with, “I need t-shirt hair wrap. Here is one handy. Cool.” (And yes, they do get washed on a weekly basis.)

I don’t have an exact time frame of when my heart began to heal when he broke it off with me in 2005. I know I dated a rebound guy a few months later, which was good times as rebound guy cried on my shoulder about his ex-fiance and I cried on his shoulder about TheBassist. I can safely guess I was open to the idea of seriously dating someone around the time I started dating TheEx in the fall of 2006. Heart beginning to heal sometime before then? Most likely. I was writing mainly on LiveJournal in those days, I didn’t divulge my soul, and I was not paper journaling so the timing is not terribly clear.

Then we had a few months of long conversations and one weekend together. Now we had a year of conversations and many months of living together. Both crammed with so much stuff in those too short times.

There have been twinges of him, sure, throughout the years. I checked TheBassist’s LiveJournal on occasion in the beginning, my heart hurting when he talked about his beautiful wife and wonderful family. Eventually I stopped torturing myself and let that piece of my heart be put to rest. This time after the great FB unfriending⁵, within a few weeks I stopped looking at his profile or any other social media we shared. Currently I’ve been navigating around any type of interaction of him within our mutual friends updates. I am the queen of curating Facebook news feeds.

We once agreed it was all or nothing. It is now nothing.

On some days when I’m alone and feeling particularly sad, there tends to be benign event that gets me thinking, and thinking leads to yearning, and yearning leads to heartache.
Those days are few and far between.

What I think about the most is not what has transpired from our time together, but a fear that at some point I will mark him as a memory of when I was high manic and crashed or I did not love him after all. I was delusional then and now about our relationship; fantasies were never meant to be real. I feel despondent when others tell me he was just the rebound guy from the dissolution of my marriage and all the trappings rebounds entail. That I am more upset my ego was bruised rather than the loss of him. That the words whispered in my ear about his predilections and indiscretions before me or hints of all the promises of forever was not for me alone but also repeated to all of his previous loves.
I was not as special as he said I was.

What I also often fear is one day he’ll put all the pieces together and believe he held out for an ideology rather than for reality so he never loved me at all. That everything he said and promised was nothing more than a huge mistake and he rued the day he found me again.

That is the borderline speaking.
I doubt my feelings, my emotions so I can be easily swayed by others opinions of what I should be feeling. I doubt his feelings, his emotions and I believe he too can be easily swayed by opinions, though history dictates this is not true. But the voice inside my head insists that is true and I get out of control.
It is far easier for me to create a world where it was all a huge mistake, and thus less responsibility for our actions, our selves. Nothing was real, whatever that means.
If I want to heal and move forward, it’s not about reconciling the logic and the emotion the relationships is over because that is already being dealt with but it’s about believing in myself and my feelings. Believing in him and his feelings. Stop second guessing every intent and act. A million decisions lead up to then and now. This is what is true.
Something I am having a hard time in believing as I think I can change the past as easy was with a snap of my fingers and the outcome would be much different.

Knowing I did and do love him. From the way he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a knuckle on his right hand to his rapid fire response when he was passionate about a topic to the way his feet felt when I rubbed them after a long gig.
Knowing he did and does love me. From the way I looked at him with my amazing (his words) eyes to my happiness being dependent on coffee and rides around cloverleafs to how I felt in his arms.
This is not about wish fulfillment of futures yet to be revealed; it’s about taking what I experienced and using it to learn to heal. To move forward. To not make the same mistakes again.

The few times I tried to reach out, in the beginning of the breakup in regards to things that needed to be settled, I was ceremoniously rebuffed. I may write here the longing for him, but I do not go begging back to those who act as if they do not want me. This could be the bipolar megalomania speaking but no matter of how low I am, this is a consistent self-respect I have for myself .
I never have gone begging for someone and I never will.
Remember: He left.

At some point I will date again. I am not going to stop living my life because he is gone. And I will need to place faith and trust in someone without reservation. I need to not assume after fights they are going to leave me and I need not question why they like me.
I have no intention of clinging to our life together as the end all be all to the point I am paralyzed by being alone or with someone else – I am not that unrealistic or truth be told, not shying away from taking a future lover. A girl has needs.
I need to put faith in myself to set boundaries, healthy boundaries, and learn how to negotiate a relationship without expecting the world on a string.
I am, however, pretty damned sure while others may come close (and go), there will never be anyone like him.
And I don’t want there to be.
(You could be an asshole and argue how no one is the same; no one is like another. I know that. He hit all the major points, something only one other person has come close to doing, and that will be what my soul will ache but continue to look for and the likelihood of finding someone like that will near impossible. So I’ll take the lovers and the suitors but it will be a goddamned miracle before I get heavily involved again.)
I need to have faith and trust in myself in all relationships, platonic and romantic.
To be happy.

There is no arbitrary time when one person heals from emotional pain. There is no one fits all recipe. We’re assholes when we try to force the thought of, “Well. It’s been x months. Let them go and move the fuck on.” No one can really explain what “moving the fuck on” really entails or means no matter how much they want to. This is my interpretation of healing. This is how I work. This is what I do.
I’ve said it a million times before: If it takes me writing about it, talking with my shrink about it, or just plain thinking about to get to the point I can be freely undistracted (or triggered) by what happened, at my own pace, then that is totally okay. Fuck the haters.
(We are all changed, even a tiny bit, by the people important in our lives. To attempt to eradicate them emotionally and mentally is fucking impossible, unless you are a psychopath but that is not here nor there.)
These are some of the things I need to remember when the time comes to meet and accept someone or I will not have learned a fucking thing.
xoxo,
Lisa

1. No matter what sport I try to play, finding Lisa-sized clothes is always a fucking pain in the ass. The people complain about fat people being lazy assholes but the people won’t provide clothes for the fat people to work out in. I suppose it’s one of life’s mysteries .
2. They also know if you’re in emotional pain, taking acetaminophen can help. No joke.
3. Krazy Kate, whose hair is similiar to mine, convinced me to wash and style my hair with products free of parabens, *cones, and SLS.⁴ T-shirts are more absorbent for hair than towels, which is why I’m being I’ve kept said t-shirt. If you must know, my hair looks fabulous.
4. Too long of list of products I use but for shampoo / conditioner, I’m totally digging Burt’s Bees.
5. Let us not forget after all he dumped me via Facebook, something I quite right have to bristle about.

This Day in Lisa-Universe:

recitations

Dear Internet,
Today’s Lisa-reads-a-love poem is Recitations by Leonard Cohen. I can’t get the sexy swagger Cohen has unless I drink a few bottles of bourbon and smoke another 100 packs of cigarettes, but hopefully you won’t hold that against me.
Recitations by Leonard Cohen

P.S. There is several versions of Cohen reading this poem, this one is my current favorite.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015, 2003, 2002, 2002

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

Dear Internet,
Yesterday, I was tipped off, by @twobossydames, Richard Armitage¹ does the narration for David Copperfield. After much poking around, I discovered Mr. Armintage also narrated a book of classic love poems², one of which is [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. cummings.
I love cummings’ work but this particular poem has special meaning, which I discussed a couple of months ago:

I cannot write this without thinking of e.e. cummings’ [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in], because that poem sings of my feelings for TheBassist. I have reconciled we may never see each other again, let alone get back together. I do know if/when I see him again, I will cry. Tears of relief, happiness, and everything in-between. Even if that is the only time I ever see him, I will cry. I better remember to not wear make-up.
Together we were not toxic, but I was toxic and in that toxicity I changed the pattern of the relationship. Love, faith, and want, at times, are simply not enough no matter how badly we want them to be.

Which sounds a bit depressing but really is one part hope and another part realistic.
Since it’s coming up on Valentine’s Day, and if you can’t be honest on the 14th of February, when can you?, I thought I would read a few loves poems, one a day, just for fun.
Here is the first poem, which should be obvious:
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. cummings

xoxo,
Lisa

1. He’s a future husband, natch. But you may know him as Thorin Oakenshield from LoTR.
2. Audible, an Amazon company, has the book for $7 while Amazon itself is selling it for $4.

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2004, 2001

a music historiography of boyfriends past

Dear Internet,
Sirius/XM 1st Wave was rocking out today with their hour long Halloween mix, which I then was pumping through my stereo and singing along badly. Somehow this pushed me down the rabbit hole to generate a Spotify holiday playlist of (mostly) punk, pop, rap, ska, and other non Michael Buble artists. Tada! So below is 12.5 hours of holiday music to get you in the mood.

When TheExHusband and I returned to the cabin from our errand running this afternoon, and I had finished building the holiday playlist, this seemed like a damn fine time to import 100g (not including new stuff I’ve picked up recently) into iTunes so I can play my own shit at home without necessarily relying on Spotify or Amazon. It’s been so long since I’ve looked into this dark corner of my nas, I was truly clueless to what was hiding in there.
The lack of playing music at home has nothing to do with not wanting to listen but the relative ease of using Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, and buying mp3s from Amazon/iTunes. Why should I pull up my mp3s of Elbow when I can stream all of their albums in Spotify? Why should I track down a CD when I can buy the digital album via Amazon?
Long live physical media. Physical media is dead. (Except for vinyl. Shaun Cassidy for the win!)
When I was packing my stuff within the recent years, I found one of my old mix tapes (yes, on cassette), from 1992 or so? I would have been driving at that point (I got my license at 19) and more than likely driving the inherited mumsy’s old Cadillac Cimarron. So about ’92 or ’94ish? One side of the tape was “Manic” and the other was “Depressive.” Aren’t I clever? The tape is packed somewhere amongst the ruins of my material life thus the track listing is escaping me. That is probably the only physical evidence I have of my early music mixing youth.

Making mixed tapes, from cassette to CD to Spotify playlists, is part of my DNA. If I love you, platonically or romantically, you’re getting a mixed tape. I became more active in making said tapes when I made one for TheBassist in ’05:

(TheBassist confessed when we started dating last year that over time, as he swapped from computer to computer, he made sure a copy of that mix was always with him and he played it constantly during the last 10 years. You can imagine I was flattered like hell.)
TheEx and I would exchange mix tapes during the course of our relationship:

For the first holiday with TheEx, I created a holiday mix, which I also gave to people who wanted a copy:

I know I’m definitely not alone in using music to convey my feelings. I once read somewhere those who use music to pontificate their emotions was due to their inability to vocally articulate said feelings themselves. Articulating feelings is not a problem for me as I have nearly 20 years of my life on the internet, but I use music to manage those feelings and it’s freeing. It’s much more satisfying to dance manically in one’s living room to a pounding beat over chewing thoughtfully on a pen after you scribe. Amirite?
Roping back to listening to 1stWave (or any station really), it’s been particularly hard these last few weeks and years. While I’m driving, I often find it difficult to listen to a particular tune without wanting to flip everything off or pound the steering wheel in fury or having tears well up. It’s not necessarily just the recent string of my lovers but how I associate music with people, places, and times.
(It doesn’t help TheEx and TheBassist are the same age so of course I bonded with them on the music of our youths, which is primarily played on 1stWave. The dicks.)

I was just outside. The stars are shining bright and the gods are talking to me through the tree tops again. I thought writing this would exorcise some of the feelings associated with these songs and I think I was wrong. It’s hard when nearly every memory is easily accessible via music and it all feels like yesterday. It’s been nearly 20 years when TheExHusband and I first dated, 10 years since I met TheBassist. Nine years since I met TheEx. Those three were, in various incarnations, my heart for a very long time. And now, now, all of that music is just a burning bright reminder of where I’m at now. I feel like I’ve been handed a big bag of memories and it’s up to me to sort through it all, donate some to charity and keep others. I forget at times they may be going through the same thing themselves, but fuck’em.

For the last ten years, I’ve been banging on about my life is High Fidelity. I am the female Rob, something I had in my dating profile long ago and what wooed TheEx to contact me. The following fourth wall monologue by Rob resonates how I often feel:

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while I thought it would interesting to pull up the music from my exes and talk about the influence the songs (and them) had on my life. Memories at the push of a button.
TheExHusband (1997-1999, 2008-2014)
TheExHusband and I reconnected earlier in 2008 right after TheEx and I broke up. Seven to eight months later, we planned a get away weekend which we refer to as The Great Bang of 2008. We were glued to each other’s hip for nearly seven years and it’s hard to narrow just a few songs to encapsulate our relationship.
After we got married, I created a wedding mixtape and here is why those songs still resonate with me, about him, today:

Every couple has an “official” song, usually some Michael Buble remix or regurgitated emo bullshit. We have Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, a band we both gravitated to after hearing them on All Songs Considered. Lyrics can be found here and YouTube is here.

Granted, this is not a typical love song by a long shot but Idiot Wind is off of TheExHusband’s favorite Dylan album, Blood on the Tracks. This album was one we listened to on repeat on one of our second first dates back in 2008 and it is also one of our mutual favorite tracks.

“Intergalactic,” the single off of Hello Nasty by the Beastie Boys, was released in the summer of 1998, right when TheExHusband and I started dating the first time. According to him, I listened to Beastie Boys, Lords of Acid, Sarah Mclachlan, and Afghan Whigs nonstop during that period. Since I was not, for the sake of the story, sober for most of that period, I’ll take his word. In 2009, Justin bequeathed me an art poster based off of “Intergalactic.” I knew based on the first few lines of the song, and the history behind it in regards to us, had to go into the mix. Video is available here.

In the world of pop and rock music, one of the definitive albums that is still seen as the holy grail of influence is the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Any kind of music critic, if apparently worth his or her salt, will name check this album in their review at least ONCE, regardless of the song/album/band/genre they are reviewing. Most of my die-hard music friends also name check this album and agreed that yes, one should at least have Pet Sounds in their repertoire. For Christmas 2008, I indeed received Pet Sounds as a present from TheExHusband. “God Only Knows,” in stereo not analog, is included in the mix. Again, with the stupid still photos with musical background only available on YouTube or terribly edited live version, there is only lyrics, which are available here.

“The Sausage” is an obscure track sung by an obscure calypso artist, Baldhead Growler. It’s become an in-joke of sorts, where one of us will randomly start singing this song for no particular reason other than it’s fun and raunchy.
TheBassist (2004-2005, 2014-2015)
When TheBassist and I got back together, he gave me a run down of all the songs he had compiled over the years to express how he felt for me. This seemed like a good time to put together a playlist of songs that resonated and represented how we presently felt about the other.

Interpol’s second album, Antics, had just been released and we were both ga-ga for the band. We quickly proclaimed a particular Interpol song for the other. Mine is Slow Hands about him, his is Obstacle 1 about me. I once had a t-shirt that said, “She can read, she’s bad.” Both songs come up, still, frequently on alternative stations and it should be no surprise they drag up a lot of feelings.
We thought the ultimate pinnacle of our relationship would be to see Interpol live. We never did go.

This song, by Elbow, is the tale of a female drug addict, but to me the song represents/ed what a twat TheBassist had been when he dumped me back in 2005. It still resonates today.

This song, and another one that is not on the list and is escaping my memory right now, is the best description of how he felt about me during all of those years. The yearning, the love, the everything broke my damned heart when I heard them for the first time.

Doves was/is a band that came along the same time as Elbow (they know each other in Madchester) and this song, which is apparently about nothing, was heavily played when TheBassist and I met the first go-round. It was also included on his 2005 mix tape.
TheEx (2006-2008)

If Interpol was TheBassist’s and I band, Bloc Party was mine and TheEx’s. We traveled often to see shows across Michigan and to Chicago. A Weekend In The City came out a month or two after we started dating and we caught their tour that summer and I still stand by my declaration it is one of the best concerts I have ever been to.
This particular song was chosen because there is a Brighton, MI, a city you pass on I-96 as you travel to Detroit. We would crank this song up on high as we roared past because we were, more often than not, driving to Brighton for the weekend.

I’m a big fan of shoegaze and apparently I missed out on a lot of American bands who were the forefront of the movement during the early ’90s. The American Analog Set is one such band and this song was on one of the first CDs he made for me.

Snowden is a relatively little known indie band comprising of one guy but who has a backing band when he tours. TheEx got me hooked on him and when I was one of two up for a gig at AMG, I interviewed Snowden as my assignment for my interview. As you may have noticed, I did not get the job.

Another single TheEx put on of his earlier mix tapes. He must have known one day I was going to become a librarian.
Derrick (2004ish)
Derrick was an old co-worker of mine at UUNet, who I found out a few years after I left, had a big crush on me. That crush turned into a romance that didn’t last terribly long (six months or so?), but we parted on good terms. Within the last year or so, Derrick got in touch and mentioned he thought of me fondly and has been slightly kicking himself for letting me go after he was diagnosed with MS. We are super friendly with the other, BFFs on Facebook and all that rot.

Derrick is a huge ska/punk fan and every time I hear this song, I think of him.
Patrick (1996ish-2004ish)

Patrick and I knew each other forever (hence the 1996ish start date) but didn’t really start to date until around 2003 or so. We split for a number of reasons but still remain(ed) friendly. He’s married now. Within the last few years he said something along the lines that while he still loved me, he found it too hard to be friends. I get a happy birthday from him every year and that’s about it.
ExFiance #2 (1999-2002)

ExFiance #2 and I parted on good terms and were friendly for a number of years after the breakup. BUT since he’s been married (and has a family of his own), he’s been talking shit about me across the Internet. Why? I have no reason but I’ve had several of our mutual friends confess that what he was saying didn’t match up with how I actually was. Men.

Relationships may come and go, but I will always have my music. Just press play.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2001, 2001

Kalendae Januariae: Year of the written word

Dear Internet,
Happy New Year.
I knew my brain had fizzled out on me when I stopped doing two things: Reading books and listening to music. I’ve really, really missed being able to finish a book or listen to an album. Since the music part is covered by Automusicbiographically, I had to find a way to get into all the books, comics, magazines, and other bits that have been floating around here forever. So for 2013, I op to:

Read all the books/comics I own before buying more.

According to GoodReads, I read (or attempted to read), about 17 books in 2012. I used to read about 10 books a month. Touching on the “Buy Nothing in 2013” moto, no more new OR used books/comics are to be purchased in 2013. I get this means I’ll probably be missing out on a lot of awesome new releases but I just can’t keep up at the pace I’m at now (and this is why Amazon wishlists are for). I don’t have a set goal to read by end of 2013, but if I can read at least one books a week, I can cut through my TBR stack pretty quickly. I’m also adding in that I need to do 50 word reviews on GoodReads for books and do reviews here under Bagged & Boarded for comics (which will appear Wednesday when available).

This also includes Kindle/digital purchases (Yes, including the free ones.)
I’m not allowed to source books out from the library until my current stacks have had dents made into them. Which, as a librarian who works in a library is EXTREMELY difficult.

Second on my list under this theme is:

Writing.

Back in August, Anne and I worked worked on our own personal SWOTs – her for going into business herself, me for writing. Since I did my SWOT by hand, I pinned (or rather taped) the pages on the wall above my desk. The ultimate goals were simple.

Write 10 hours a week (Does not include blogging)
Write 250 word blog entries 5x a week (Get proficient enough to knock it out in 1/2 hour).
Keep notes on everything.

I’ll also add in the following:

Write a short story a month.
Write a poem a month.
Get something published by my birthday in June

You can participate by signing up to be a beta reader to help a girl out.
I was talking to Kristin about how to best track our goals, because as this list continues, it seems overwhelming about how much I want to do in 2013. So for the first few months maybe the goals will be more to get one short story finished rather than write a short story every month or write thoughtfully online twice and build up to five entries a week. I have put together a schedule (daily and monthly) for writing online that will help, but much of that is going to stuff that’s built up over the course of a week (Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes) or can be stacked weeks in advanced. The soul will still be bared, but I want less thought provoking content up as well.
x0x0,
Lisa

Kalendae Januariae : 2013 will be the year of creativity (even if it kills me)

Dear Internet,
To continue kicking of 2013’s ass, next up is:

2013 will be the year of creativity, even if it kills me.

I have a lot of hobbies. Well, let me rephrase that, I start a lot of hobbies and never finish them. I also have lot of projects on the burner that I start and never complete. A pattern develops! A big push for the “Buy Nothing in 2013” was realising I spent a lot of time researching / buying supplies for a project, not a lot of time working on the actual project to get it to completion. Something I have said numerous time to people is an example of this is I learn how to play Chopsticks, I think I can then play Wagner. My brain cannot fathom why it does not know how to play complicated when it learned the base, for it thinks that single base is all it needs. I don’t have the skillset on what it takes to learn how to practice. Which sounds grammatically wrong, but is so true. Throw in the ADHD (impulsivity, unable to focus), and you can see where this is becoming a mess. The idea here is to take one of my many hobbies/projects, pick a month, and start working on that said hobby. When the next month rolls around, continue with hobby/project A and then add in hobby B. Continue until all hobbies/projects are exhausted. Some are one-offs, others will be life-long learning. Here is that list:

Start up the podcast, AUDIOMUSICBIOGRAPHICALLY.
- I own 100G of music, which comprises of about 1000 CDs and hundreds of artists. Due to my ADHD fueled depression, I actively stopped listening to music several years ago. The idea is to go through my list of artists, alphabetically from 0 to Z, listen to the band, write out how I got introduced to them and my connection to their music, and then podcast about it. Goal is a new podcast every week, 20-30 minutes each episode. Length of project is going to be over years. For holidays, TheHusband got me a mic and I did a test run reading the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice
Learn a language, namely Anglo-Saxon and/or French/Italian
- Awhile ago, Alice and I decided to learn AS together, but life sort of got in the way. I think I may have to poke her on starting up with me again, but I will be going at it for sure since I have all the books / mp3s and online resources. Why AS? The better question is: Why not?
- As for French/Italian, I have the Rosetta stone in French for levels 1-5, so that would be the easiest to start with Italian, another Romance language, is more desirable since TheHusband and I plan on one day retiring to Italy. Or maybe Scotland. Maybe I should pick up Scottish Gaelic?
Learn to cook
- If you’ve been following me for a bit, I’ve posted recipes on/off for various things, but the truth of the matter is, I’m a terrible cook. I’m a most excellent baker, but a terrible cook. This morning, I nearly destroyed the pancakes I was making. So, I sourced the interents for suggestions on how to learn to cook and they were to get Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything The Basics and Jacques Pépin’s Complete Techniques, which were purchased before my self-imposed buying ban. Here’s hoping I don’t burn the house down.
Finish all my knitting/cross-stich projects.
- Pretty self-explanatory. I bought a lot of supplies for these two hobbies, got really into them and petered out. I want to move beyond making hats/scarves and finish the gifts I promised with the stashes, that would be delightful.
Learn to sew.
- TheHusband planned on buying me a machine for my 40th birthday this year, but since I was having foot surgery shortly after, throw in a long recovery, the machine in question is still on hold. Because I have zero supplies for this on hand right now, this will probably get pushed out towards the end of the year as the other projects take precedence.

While it’s awesome to keep my hands busy, what about my brain? With that, 2013 is also going to be all about the year of the written word.
x0x0,
lisa

reviews: music: bloc party – intimacy

I take Bloc Party seriously.
By this I mean that they are one of the few bands I actually listen to and by listen to, I mean that I sit down and pay attention to the music and the lyrics. I like a lot of bands, but there are a scant few that I return to time and time again. Joy Division is one, R.E.M. is another, Elbow is definitely up there and Bloc Party most assuredly rounds out the set.
For me, and I will assume for a lot of people, music is a very personal thing. This is not to say that I do not enjoy my fluffy pop or my occasional foray into old school gangsta rap, I do. But this is to say, that when I love a band, I really take the band to heart. For those who know me, you know how constantly I refer to High Fidelity as a bible to my life — I AM the female Rob Gordon. (Complete with relationship problems, neuroses and other high jinks. But that is for another post.) And like Rob, who arranges his music automusicgraphically, I too also do the same. I can get from one band to another by telling you where I was, when I first heard it and what I was doing (or who I was doing).
If my choices seem a little chaotic at times, that is totally okay. Straight and narrow never won any interesting awards. But this is not really about me, per se, but more about Bloc Party and the release of their third album, Intimacy, a mere 18 months after A Weekend In The City. The album was released digitally at the end of August, with the physical release set for, in the U.K. and U.S., at the end of October. Word on the street is that the title tracks available on the physical release will differ from the digital download, but like the good little fan girl I am, I will have procured both. Silent Alarm, their first album with the stunning single Helicopters, came out kicking and squalling to the world in 2005. A Weekend In The City was their “falling in love” album in 2007 and I wasn’t too terribly surprised to find out that Intimacy is their “break-up” album of 2008. When the title track is entitled, “Ares,” and the song begins with “War! War! War!,” I got the feeling that Kele Okereke was stalking my life.
So, then, I must step back and do a bit of back story before I continue. Bloc Party, like a multitude of other bands over the years, is a band I heard of but never really got “in to,” until I met TheEx. TheEx and I have an interesting back story in that musically, we were perfect. We could, and often did, spend hours talking about music from producers to labels to motifs, sound, lyrics and design. Our joint collection neared nearly 2000 compact discs (60% his), dozens of vinyls (his) and over 100 gigs of digital music (mostly mine). We were concert whores who would travel hours for a good show, only to turn around and come back home that very night. With him, I found my perfect music man, someone who could discuss with me the nuances of music on a variety of different levels and not have to explain to him why I was found of the production values of X album over Y album or why I loved A band over B band.
TheEx was crazy about Silent Alarm and was eagerly waiting for A Weekend in the CIty, which came out in the very beginning of our relationship. And I’m not quite sure what it was about A Weekend in the City, but that became “my” album while Silent Alarm became his. To me, A Weekend in the City became the anthem of our relationship. Every song, every melody, every lyric no matter how distant somehow spoke to me, about us. I could see him in every song and certain songs became “our” songs. Every time I heard “Sunday,” with or without him near me, my heart would swell with love for him, because he would love me in the morning when I was hung over and strung out. And even though I knew that On was about doing coke, to me the lines, You make my tongue loose/I am hopeful and stutter free, was about how I felt around him. He made me feel hopeful and stutter free — I could (and did) tell him everything and anything, anytime and any place.
At the time, I felt that he made me an honest woman and with him, I was so much better off than without him. I like Silent Alarm, but A Weekend in the City had this energy that I responded to, a hunger if you will for living and for life. I liked the simplicity of Kele’s lyrics and the fact that he was able to lyrically say what he meant without going overboard with metaphor and unnecessary imagery. (I’m looking at you Radiohead and Coldplay — fucking wankers.) I adored the fact that every single time I heard the album, I heard something different and that everything about A Weekend in the City resonated with me emotionally and intellectually.
Like most intimate of relationships, TheEx and I did not end with a quiet whimper but with a huge, ferocious fuck-off bang. For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to reclaim my musical tastes but have found that in reality, I was hiding from it. I forewent listening to Pandora, XM and my CD collection on general to podcasts and NPR. I did not want to put myself through musical depression – even with bands that I claimed as mine were also his and by listening to said bands would conjure up all the feelings, the good with the bad.
When I found out Bloc Party had released a new album digitally, with the physical release forthcoming, I was surprised. I was, apparently, not the only one. Bloc Party has been touring almost non-stop since the release of A Weekend in the City, which was released in February 2007. Other than a single released last summer, the synth dance song “Flux,” there has been no talk or announcement of a new album. Shortly after the digital release at the end of August, reviews started showing up by the beginning of September, with a split vote on Intimacy.
People fell into several camps

That Intimacy was an attempt to return to the area that Silent Alarm began, failed with A Weekend in the City and was struggling to fill and was a mixed-bag.
That Intimacy not only returned to the horizon of Silent Alarm but surpassed it. A Weekend in the City? A blip and could be written off as their sophomoric disc (which it is).
That Intimacy failed on many levels, was absolute drek and that Bloc Party, as a whole, are a bunch of pretentious wankers.

For me, I’m apparently in the minority. I love A Weekend in the City more so over Silent Alarm (and thought it was one of the best albums of 2007) but Intimacy is growing on me. I was looking for, excuse the obvious, but the intimacy and the slowness of A Weekend in the City only to be greeted by dance pop and synth experiments hold over from their single, Flux, which at first annoyed me. But it is the lyrics, oh $deity, I love you Kele, the lyrics more than make up for the choppiness of the disc, the messiness that is “Zephyrus” and the overwhelming urge they have to experiment TOO much.
But it is with their weaknesses that they also have their biggest strengths — Bloc Party has no problem selling out arenas, have gained a fairly successful following in the U.S. and tour almost constantly. They have hit almost every major festival abroad and in the U.S. The fact that they have, somehow, managed to get into the studio to record a third album and not only record it but have the production completed in a relatively short time is almost mind boggling. And according to the interview with bassist Gordon Moakes on pitchfork, the band is just as surprised as their fans at the quick turnaround.
I don’t view the turnaround as a negative thing, rather again, I look to the lyrics for the answers. If A Weekend in the City was about falling in love, relationships and living life, Intimacy is about breaking-up and the obvious, almost debilitating aspects of separating from the one you love. From “Ares,” declaring war on the person who wronged you, to “Halo” about questioning the love, to “One Month Off,” at the anger of one’s partner after a long term relationship ends, to that remembrance of the good times in “Better Than Heaven,” to the pitiful, desperate plea of return to that love in “Ion Square.”
Every relationship counselor (and Cosmo issue) will tell you that separation after a break-up tends to follow the same rules of grief that the death of a loved one follows:

Denial. – “Mercury.” “Halo.” “Better Than Heaven.”
Anger. – “Ares.” “One Month Off.”
Bargaining. “Signs.” “Halo.” “Bilko.” “Trojan Horse.”
Depression. “Signs.” “Halo.”
Acceptance. “Zephyrus.” “Ion Square.”

Some songs resonate with better topics than others, but the point is still there. This is Kele’s exorcism against the end of a love that obviously broke his heart. And it is with this, with Kele’s lyrics and the buffing of the depressing themes with synth tunes and dubbeats that most will find to be a turn-off and thusly, a shite album. Some will claim that this is a desperate attempt to grab the glory they had with Silent Alarm and failing while others will claim they are attempting to parody their influences and are bilking too much of their popularity by riding on the coattails of Coldplay and Radiohead. I don’t think Intimacy is a great album, but I do think it is a good one. I do agree that there is, at times, too much going on at one time while at others, it seems almost perfect.
While I would recommend it, I would recommend it after listening to the first two albums — like most great bands, you need to get the scope of the band’s lineage before diving in several albums in. With several months between the digital and physical release, who is to say what the physical album will sound like? And as for me, I unfortunately saw too much of TheEx inside the lyrics after my first spin with the disc a few weeks ago. The beginning of Trojan Horse chilling reminds me of the rituals that TheEx performed before we too made love. Signs, also eerily like the lasting days of our relationship. And Ares and One Month Off remind me of me, in those “OHNOESHEDIDNOT” moods I would would sometimes (occasionally) cycle through. Despite my initial reservation, Intimacy is the tip of the catharsis to push me over the edge. It is not the time for a new love or to sign a new lease, but at least now, I know that one day there will be.