Whenever I change my mind and decide to try and start dating again, I am always always sorry. Not because the other person is a bad date, but because my experiences end up reminding me that I’m the one who is and Friday nights at home are really better than any night out.

That look (on polite women's faces it’s more a flicker) of disappointment as soon as we meet is disheartening, but the false promises of “I’ll call you” or patronizing declarations of "you're so sweet" are more cruel than actual cruelness would be.

“You don’t look like you sound on the phone” is the most brutal and direct it’s ever gotten and even that’s still mild. Better to be slapped with a hard truth than caressed with a soft lie, the saying goes...or somewhere along those lines.

I’m done. I say this to myself a lot when I get home from a bad date, especially a bad blind date. But this time I mean it. I had only tried again anyway because I am so desperate to forget someone I really do like, who besides being a totally inappropriate and unattainable person to feel this way about is so far outside my league she might as well live at the edge of the universe.

It’s funny. I’ve had one-sided crushes before and been just fine. And I’ve had many bad dates before and been fine afterwards, too. In the past, I could rationalize away the pain because we didn’t have much in common (important things like values and philosophies regarding love and fidelity) anyway.

For the first time in my life, though, books and music just aren’t enough to fill those little holes inside that insist on getting bigger and won't be plugged up with my favorite novels and songs.
 

That visage of someone vague but eventual I used to hope I’d meet someday, the one I’d cook and be there for and snuggle with on the couch watching movies after a long day, is fading more and more each year. The hope you can have in your 20s of falling in love and growing old with someone shines a lot brighter than it does in your 40s.

It's not the bad dates or even this gut instinct that I'm meant to be alone that sadden me. In fact, I'm sure I'm eventually going to be fine and at peace with all of this and books and music will once again put everything back where it belongs.

It's just sometimes in life you meet someone so amazing they somehow leave you longing for something you can never, will never and should never have. The dream becomes a nightmare and only when the dream is over, when you realize you never should have had it all, does true happy ever after begin.

 

 

 

 

 

My niece introduced me to this wonderful, wonderful album called Vessel by twenty/one/pilots. The whole effect is kind of what you might get if you mixed Jason Mraz with Weezer and threw in a much gentler and more soulful Eminem. The cover art perfectly captures the surprisingly delightful "what to make of it" elements.

"Migraine" and "Screen" are my absolute favorites, with the latter having an awesome, awesome beat and joyous sounds, even while the lyrics are sad in perfect counterpoint:

I'm standing in front of you

I'm standing in front of you
I'm trying to be so cool
Everything together trying to be so cool

^^^

At this point in the song, everything is swirling together and the earnestness and vulnerability of the singer being in front of someone he likes is almost more than the listener can bear. Your heart rises and falls at the same time.

Later, lead singer Tyler Joseph raps in a touching but tough confessional:

My flow's not great, okay, I conversate with people
Who know if I flow on a song I'll get no radio play
While you're doing fine, there's some people and I
Who have a really tough time getting through this life
So excuse us while we sing to the sky.

I know this is going to be an album I'll wear out listening to over and over again. :)

Ever since I first heard "Chasing Cars" years ago I have been completely and most biasedly in love with Snow Patrol's sound. It can be uplifting to the human spirit and devastatingly sad for the soul at the same time. I pretty much cannot be trusted when it comes to reviewing anything by Snow Patrol because they could just sing the phone book and I'd be right there, ready to listen.

"Lifening" is my favorite from Fallen Empires (how can your breath not catch when Gary Lightbody sings: 'To share what I've been given/Some kids eventually/And be for them what I've had/A father like my dad'?) His voice is magical, perfect poetry.

And just as they have on previous albums, they make your heart break pretty much throughout every song. The closest thing to dance they've probably ever done is "Called Out In The Dark." But just because their mood rarely wavers doesn't mean they repeat the same old thing over and over. There's "The Garden Rules" sad (which is pretty darn sad) and then there's mellow sad ("Those Distant Bells.") The subtle sounds of electronica that appear on such likable tracks as "The Symphony" are kind of new for them, if I'm not mistaken.

The title track sounds different than anything Snow Patrol's done before and "The Symphony" (it's kind of sensual,almost something you softly can groove to) and "The President" are two other stand-out tracks. I love everything here, but you can't really take my word on that, can you? :) You have to listen for yourself.

Maybe some lines from Snow Patrol sum it up best: "A record plays/A song that you've not heard/It is perfect/It is home."

If not for music, I'm pretty sure I would have lost my mind a long time ago. Lots of people turn to music for comfort and peace, no doubt, maybe even therapy. I know I have. Music also is a reflection of what's in your heart, especially when it comes to other people.

Trying to not feel for someone is rather difficult and sometimes it seems like you can no more force yourself to stop caring for someone than you can make that person care back. Obviously, you can't make someone like you back. And you shouldn't. 

But once you accept that and know your feelings aren't going to leave any faster if you try and force them away, there's an odd loveliness to silently embracing it all and knowing just what you'd say to them if you could (and you know they wouldn't mind.)

In two different music magazines within the past two years, Tears For Fears'

The Hurting was mentioned as one of the best albums of not just 1983, but the 80s themselves. I never realized before how much the idea of
primal scream therapy (and emotional distress) played into the concept of it all.

Their version of "Mad World" preceded Gary Jules' (which appeared on the Donnie Darko soundtrack) and is totally different, though equally full of yearning.