Romance

When my ex broke up with me (chronicled in painful detail on this very blog) I more or less fell apart.  See years 2011-2013 for The Adventures of Kate the Waster.  I don't really feel anything about it, good or bad, anymore.  But every now and then, I am transported back to the long night drives, in my old gold Jeep.  It was night time in the summer in North Carolina.  The air was warm and wet but smelled more alive than I felt.  So I almost always drove with the windows down- humidity be damned.  And the radio on as loud as I could stand.  Inevitably one of two albums had been thrust into The Beast's CD player: Adele's 21 or Mumford and Sons' Sigh No More.

I drove very very fast those nights.  And I listened very very loud.  And some songs I sang like my physical presence on earth depended on it.

Behind the wheel of that truck, I cried until I choked; I cried until I had to pull the car over; I cried more than I had ever cried before or have cried since.  It's no small miracle that I was never pulled over for hysterics or excessive moving violations.

More than any other song After the Storm gave me a part of myself back.  It's the song I cried the hardest to, the song I sang the loudest with, the song that shakes me today.  I hear it and I'm broken but healing again.  I hear it and I immediately tear up.  In a good way, I guess- a way that is familiar to me, a way that reminds me of who I used to be and who I am and who I will be, I hope, someday.

There will come a time, you'll see
with no more tears
when love will not break your heart
but dismiss your fears
Get over your hill and see
what you find there
With grace in your heart 
and flowers in your hair

Literally wailing like a banshee, and crying like tears were going out of style.

I was a dangerously toxic mixture of sorrow and anger then, of grief and deep deep distress.  I was simultaneously scared and terribly numb.  There is a part of me that is still both.  There is a part of me that thinks a part of me will be both forever.  (Drama, I know.)  Honestly, though, one of the most important things that entire period of my life- the relationship, the break up, the pain of loss (there are so many different types of loss), the insanity- taught me was how not to love.

And because that song is so wrapped up, in my head and my heart, with that time whenever I hear it, I think about love.  I think about how to love and how not to love.  And I think about time.  I hear that song and I think about the future.

Always about the future.  But also always about the past.

Obsession Confession: Post Finals

So I've just surfaced for some air after dead week and finals.  And I'm okay admitting that some of the things that go me through... well, you can feel free to judge me.  

This album and this album.*  Seriously.  Judge me on the second, I dare you.  But before you do, listen to this song and embrace the fundamental David Bowie-ness of it.  I feel like I've been a little out of touch with music lately, falling back on my old favorites and hoping they do the trick.  Rather than digging into new tunes, I've just lamented the loss of most of my digital collection after a computer crash by worshipping the old ones. 

This has caught my ear though.  And this.  Same artist for each, a group that I've been digging on for ages now.  They are something else entirely.  Part rock, part funk, part drama, they do it all and they do it well.

This yoga company is making some deliciously comfy clothes.  Which I'm totally obsessed with. 

In the few minutes that I abandoned studying before my brain rotted, I recalled how much I enjoyed Karl Urban and Simon Pegg in the recent Star Trek reboots. ....

.... Okay let's be honest, I'd watch Karl Urban in Looney Tunes and Simon Pegg's humor is nothing short of genius Brit.  But the movies were a delightful break from books and index cards and lectures and books and highlighters and more lectures and more books.  Yeah.  Dead week and finals. 

And Benedict Cumberbatch. 

In the mean time I've become utterly obsessed with Irish girls names.  They are divine. 

The Keepers is a Netflix true crime series that is worth a shot.  (Speaking of Netflix, which is where I discovered Luther, another series of it is coming out.  Yass, Idris Elba, Yass.)  Steve has described it as 'boring' but what does he know?

And how, that's enough for now, hey?

*Also, sorry if that popped you over to a Norwegian version of iTunes.  

Inspiration.

I've been a little worried, lately, about my writing.*  Since starting school, it feels like my brain has shifted from poetry to periodic tables; from literature to Laurentide ice sheets.  I'm becoming a scientist, of sorts, and it's messing with my words.  

My blogs have been dwindling; daily journals have become 'when I think about it' journals; reading is a luxury at the end of the day.  This is NOT normal. 

And yes, this is the sort of thing that I think about, fairly regularly actually.  I think about how much I used to write, how much I want to write, and how much I do write.  I think about the books I love, loved, and can't wait to love.   And then I do math homework, or an oceanography lab, or get really excited about plate tectonics (yes, has happened). 

I have felt like I'm losing my words, my passion, my writing. 

Turns out I just needed the right sort of inspiration.  Also turns out that I apparently have an inexhaustible well of words for our current administration.  Most of which are x-rated.  Alas. 

While I don't like to post too much about all the dipshit things that moron does day to day (especially considering that my passionate dispassion may lead to a divorce), I find that my writing, my words, comes back with a vengeance when I get even a whiff of the daily news.  It's a strange beast to tackle- feeling what patriotism I have ebb.  And discovering that it inspires me to put pen to paper in a way I haven't in ages.  It's not something that I'm yet comfortable with, this struggle with my American identity.  But it's certainly something that is feeding my mental water wheel, getting thoughts and words flowing again. 

Ahem.... Most of those words stays hidden- note the aforementioned x-ratedness.  There are a lot of private sentiments, a lot of personal feelings and opinions that many of my friends would agree or not agree with.  There are a lot of arguments waiting to happen in those words, a lot of debates and disagreements.

And until I'm ready for them... 

*Amongst some other things.