Prompt: "A song less than 45 seconds long"
Selected by Zach
"Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All the Way Out in Bushnell"
Illinois, 2005
This string part is so sad. This whole album is sad. Sad, sad, sad. Being sad sucks. I am sick of being sad, and to top that off, I feel guilty for being sad, because the thing I'm sad about at the moment isn't something that I feel like earns such a deep sadness, as if this is the Sadness Olympics. It's that summertime sadness that happens around this time every year, end of July, beginning of August. I wanted it to be different this year. And I was more aware of the wave that was coming. But I can't slow down time with my mind, and here we are, August around the corner, days getting shorter, a trip to the US beckoning, the back-to-school ads about to come out. They say there's going to be another war here; they've been saying it for a long time. The other side has longer-range, more lethal rockets. I live with this knowledge and go to work and get ice cream when I can; what else can you do? I go on dates, promising dates, like the one last night. I start to imagine a future with that person even though I know doing so after less than two hours together is blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe we'll fall madly in love and two weeks from now she'll hop on a plane with me? Meet my family, go to the summertime weddings with me, charm everyone? Soon we'd be engaged! I know it's a fantasy, a silly fantasy, a bad idea. I dream about it anyway on the bus ride home. I wait till the morning to ask her out again. I can tell she's addicted to her phone, so I get a bad feeling when she doesn't respond right away, but maybe she's just playing the game we all play, of not acting too interested all at once? Two hours later I get the text: "Hey—I had a fun time last night, but I just don't think that it's matiim [translation: right], all the best with everything!" I actually don't get it, I'm shocked, my dreams of her being the one collapsing into themselves. What did I do wrong? Does she not like the gray hair at my temples? I'm a thirty-something now, and I know these are the hottest years of our lives, but for how much longer? I send her a voice note asking her for feedback about what I could do differently next time because I know it's not cool to ask her why she's saying no, and I hate it when other people ask me that, but I want to know if there's something I'm doing on these dates that's a cardinal sin that needs correction. Maybe she'll tell me why. I should probably let sleeping dogs lie and not ask such questions, but this time I let my emotions speak for me, I can't help myself. It's no problem for me to indefinitely date someone who I'm not interested in, they just keep wanting to go out; it's the ones I'm interested in that say no. Now I sit at work and I'm tired. I slept five hours last night. I have so many goals, but I'd rather refresh a blog that tells me how stupid the Orioles trade deadline acquisitions were (is Seranthony Dominguez good? Who the fuck actually cares?). I'd rather look at the insane news headlines. At least I get to write this post when I sit through a Teams meeting I have no interest in. At least I have dating options, a support system of sorts, food to eat and relative safety. I wonder how she'll respond to my voice note. I wonder how I should be doing things differently. If my energy's all off, and if I'm not attracting the people I want because my soul feels downtrodden. I decide today will be the day I'll send the invitation for the writing workshop/open mic evening I've been dreaming about hosting at my house. Yes. Today will be the day. It has to be. This is when it all changes. This is Day 1.
This post doesn't deserve an emo tag.
This post doesn't deserve an emo tag.
3 comments:
This one was late being published, and that was my fault. Indirectly the mayor's fault for making me unnecessarily take the train to work every single morning, but whatever. I might have to bump the deadline up to 6:30 AM EST, if that's okay with everyone.
Also, for the record: Seranthony is fine. He had potential with the Phillies over all these years, but never truly lived up to it. Luckily for the Orioles, what usually happens is that a player can only reach his true potential after the Phillies trade him, so enjoy his 3-win, 0.96 ERA playoff performance on your World Series run, you bastards.
I always tell this story about Seranthony: when me and Pam were in the delivery room, and Pam was waiting out the contractions to give birth to our first child, we had the Phillies on the TV, and Seranthony made his MLB debut in that game. We made a joke that if the child was a boy, that we'd name him "Seranthony." I have three girls so I guess you could say that this joke never reached its full potential either.
Hahaha that's a great story.
Take care of Austin Hays, when he's being good Austin, he's great Austin (and he hit a three run homer last night so maybe you'll get that!)
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