Feel-good Friday: Kings of Leon, “The Bucket”

This is in honor of Katie, whose birthday it is today and who bought me my very first Kings of Leon CD years ago.

P.S.  I went to college for one year with the hottie drummer, though I didn’t realize that until after I was already a fan.

Scott.

I guess it’s safe to say that, after 13 years, I’ll always remember something sad that happened on this date.

Scott was this soft-spoken, goofy, brilliant boy with the coolest handwriting I’d ever seen.  He dated my good friend Angie off and on for a couple of years, and I just knew they were going to be together in the end, even though they had both been dating other people for a while since they’d broken up the last time.

He and I had several classes together through the years, as we both took academic and college prep classes and it was a small high school.  He could be really funny, or kind of a jerk, or super sweet.  He was #72 on the football team.  His hair was a little too perfect, but he was still a cute guy who would have made a very handsome man.

I sat behind him in Chemistry I.  I had this Santa pen that I would torment him with; I would make it talk and “walk” on his shoulders.  He would laugh even though he was clearly annoyed, and he would blush.  He blushed a lot.

We also argued about the correct spelling of the possessive form of “it.”  I, of course, was right.  I must have had that conversation–or one quite similar–with many of my peers, seeing as how I already considered myself an English major.  I only recall grammar-bantering with him, though.

Weird what you remember, eh?

On July 27, 1996, Scott was driving home from his girlfriend’s house late at night.  He wasn’t drunk, but he also wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.  He was probably tired.  He hit a tree.  With his dad at his side, he was airlifted to Vanderbilt, where he died of his injuries.  Just like that.

I was staying here in Nashville with my grandparents that weekend.  We’d been to Opryland that Saturday.  The Olympics in Atlanta were bombed that same day.  My grandfather asked me when I got up that Sunday morning if I knew Scott.  The question knocked me off-guard, but I still couldn’t have prepared for what he had read in the obituaries that morning.

I couldn’t make myself go to the funeral.  I cried at the football game when all the guys wrote ‘72′ on their helmets and kneeled in a silent circle on the field before a game.  They won that game, and they won it for Scott.  Sometimes, I’d think I’d see him in the halls among his old groups of friends.  Not in any sort of supernatural way…it was just that he should have been there.  It was our senior year.

My class that year, by far, was not the only class to lose someone young in a heartbreaking, wrenching way.  I’d imagine you can think of a similar situation in your own high school.  Indeed, we lost another member of our class a few months later–a guy I’d sat behind in every alphabetical seating chart since elementary school.  It was an emotionally draining year.

Scott and I weren’t best friends.  We weren’t even what I’d call good friends.  We didn’t hang out unless he was with Angie and we were doing something as a group, and we only talked otherwise if I sat near him in a class.  I was never one of those people who, forgive me, always jumped on the death bandwagon and mourned the loudest and invented relationships and memories with the departed.  In fact, I’ve always been disoriented in the face of overwhelming emotions.  I cried a lot in the wake of Scott’s death, but it was usually in private and with a sort of helplessness and confusion.  He may not have been close to me, but his death affected my life in a way I still can’t articulate and will never understand completely.

On July 27th, I think of Scott.  I think of him at other times, too.  And I can never fully reconcile that one mistake on one night in one summer ensured that someone I once knew, someone who dealt with roughly the same life issues that I and all of our classmates did, someone who had plans and dreams and selfishness and kindness and worry and love and a family, someone who was excited about senior year beginning in a few weeks, would stay behind in time and never get to realize any of it.  And so, while the rest of us have gone on to degrees and jobs and relationships and children and four presidential elections and a history-altering catastrophe and the big 3-0…Scott is still 17.  He will always be 17.

Just like Heaven.

This song–the original one, by The Cure–never fails to make me dream of all kinds of beauty.  When Last.fm played me this cover by The Watson Twins this morning, it kind of made me believe in love again for a few minutes.  Silly Holly.  Lovely song.

Caturday happythings.

Since I want to write but can’t think of much at the moment, and since I didn’t do a Thankful Thursday this week, I’m going to tell you about some things that have made me happy lately.

1.  Last.fm.  One major perk of working where I work is being able to plug my earbuds into my computer and listen to music.  Last.fm has done an especially good job of keeping up with my mood.  This week, I got on a 1990s kick, and it was there for me with all kinds of grungy goodness, along with a little bit of top 40 that I remember, a touch of ska, and an appropriate amount of Vanilla Ice (i.e., one song played only once, just enough to bring a smile but not enough to make us want to call Suge Knight).  That totally wins.  Later in the week, I of course switched over to Ryan Adams and the Cardinals Radio, and Every Single Song was a winner.  I was hitting the heart button right and left.

2.  The library.  I’ve long held that the public library was one of mankind’s greatest institutions.  I’ve always been fascinated by the what-might-have-beens in the destruction of the Alexandria Library.  For li’l ol’ me, though, the public library is still a precious gift from civilization.  As someone who has little money and already too many books anyway, the ability to devour the written word for free and then give it back so someone else can do the same is brilliant and priceless.  I’ve started to make use of the CD and DVD collections, too.  And it’s all free!

3.  Harris Teeter.  The name used to always make me laugh when I’d visit Nashville before I lived here because I’m a 12-year-old boy.  I’m LOVING working within walking distance of one now, though.  Their deli and produce section is top-notch.  AND I get a nice lunchtime walk.

4.  My acupuncturist.  I think a lot of things have worked together to make me the happier person I am right now.  The latest and one of the most influential is acupuncture.  I’ve been going weekly for almost two months.  In that time, I’ve only had a couple of migraines and a handful of sinus headaches.  Admittedly, I’d rather have none of the above, but the decrease has made SUCH a difference.  And I can’t describe to you how much more relaxed it makes me, as well as how sustaining that relaxation is.  I can’t explain it, I’m just thankful for it.

5.  My disgusting gut.  Yes.  Let me explain.  So much of the self-loathing I have carried around for over a decade has ended up in my gut, whether figuratively (as in, I end up attributing every rejection or heartache to my weight), literally (as in, acid reflux/indigestion), or physically (as in, I have no waist and look about 7 months pregnant in some shirts).  Gross.  I’ve been in an unhealthy cycle for a REALLY long time.  Lately, though…I’m letting go of some of the self-loathing.  The ultimate litmus test of that has been that I am refusing lately to let my pudge dictate what I can and can’t wear, and even whom I can and can’t talk to or what I can and can’t do.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m still going to work on making healthy choices, seeing as how my dad’s diabetic and I have some issues of my own.  But, one healthy choice is to stop hating myself for something no one else hates me for–and if they do, well, like your mom said, “they’re not the kind of friends you want, anyway.”  Accepting that has definitely made me happier lately.

Okay.  Five is a good number, though there are more.  Very shortly, I’ll be seeing Neko!  Happy weekend to all.

Feel-good Friday: Neko Case, “John Saw That Number”

Ummm…has anyone else noticed that I’m one of only about four people who do Feel-Good Friday anymore?  Very sad.  I refuse to give it up, though.

As I mentioned before, I’m going to see Neko Case at the Ryman Saturday.  I’ve wanted to see her FOREVER, and I’m SO excited about this show.

What we have here is one of my favorites of her songs.  Yeah, it’s about John the Baptist, but it’s about so much more.  (Well, actually, it’s about both John the Baptist and John the apostle if you listen to the lyrics, but I doubt most would know that or notice it.)  Usually, I avoid listening to religious music as entertainment for a number of reasons completely irrelevant to this post.  Sometimes, though, an artist catches me off-guard with a semi-religious track–though usually it’s one I’ll never actually sing in church.  I don’t consider this “religious music,” actually, so much as just a pure rock-with-a-bit-of-abilly revelation.

And that VOICE.  I cannot wait to hear it in the Mother Church.

Sweet song for a Tuesday.

So, I finally got the new Wilco.  I know, I know, it’s terrible that it took me almost a month.  That’s what unemployment is good for, kiddos.

Anyway, I’d heard this song a while back and loved it.  On my drive to work, though, in the mild, sleepy-smile-inducing morning, it was just right.

I wrote a long, incoherent post last night about love and…whatever, but when I read it this morning, I didn’t even “get” it, so I took it down.  This song–lyrics, melody, Feist, all of it–is a much more pleasant substitute.  And what a great Letterman performance!

A year.

 

 

July 17, 2008

 

July 16, 2009

Feel-good Friday for a bug.

This time exactly one year ago, I was sitting in a hospital in Florence, Alabama, waiting on the light of my life to enter the world.  I was tweeting the progress of my sister’s labor and getting all kinds of advice and support from people who’d never met her but who loved me enough to care.  That meant so much.  I was emailing back and forth with someone who, against every wall I’d built initially, had been cunningly and comfortably capturing my heart.  That correspondence at that time is something I’ll always remember and cherish.  I was awaiting word from a job that I was to be offered the evening after the birth I was also awaiting.  I was texting my sister’s and my mutual friends with updates.

I was praying harder than I’d probably ever prayed.  

I was gross and tired and achy from sleeping in a waiting room chair.  I was worried about my little sister.  I was anxious to see the little girl I was already referring to as the “bug.”  

Then, there was a complication and a C-section and, in a matter of minutes, a little squawling conehead behind a glass pane.

In my world, she’s the best thing that ever happened.  I never knew.  I always thought my friends with nieces and nephews were just sort of pacifying their siblings by acting so adoring.  I was nothing but completely ignorant there.  My mom handed her to me not long after she was brought into my sister’s hospital room, and I was irreversibly captivated.  I’ve only grown more enchanted as this past year has elapsed.  I get to the point that I think my heart cannot possibly hold any more love for her or it will burst, then she mercilessly packs more in.  

It’s overwhelming.  She’s amazing.  This song came into my head the first time I held her and saw her eyes.

Happy birthday, little baby Marley girl.  You will never know what a difference you’ve made.

Blue eyes for miles/pretty as a peach…

Weekend.

If I could, I’d treat you like you wanted me to, I promise.

I’m not sure how I ended up seated between you two; maybe you were playing with fire, maybe I subconsciously willed it, or maybe she–with Calvinistic resignation–let it happen.  In any case, not touching was difficult; touching was terrifying.

We waited patiently through each act, applauding politely, unless it was that last band before the real show began–those guys were horrible.  We whispered snark and avoided eye contact.  I looked at you over my glasses; you draped your arm behind my seat.  I made nervous jokes with her; she helped me adjust my shirt (V-necks are always tricky, and never more so than in this moment).

You and I talked about everything–well, not the elephant in the room, since we’d hashed that one out several times previously–as she slept in the back seat on the way home.  I did not want that ride to end.  I knew it should never have begun, actually.

I got the decree a couple of weeks thereafter.  I hadn’t known it was a test in the first place, or I’d not have taken it–I knew I’d already failed.  You were a letter sent to me from too late.  Now, though–I’m glad that’s where you came from.  Still…I remember.