Seasons

The first time I ever played Sims (back in the days of Sims 2), I killed off my whole family within minutes due to a fire starting in the kitchen. A few months later, I had the pregnant wife of a family die of starvation. Weirdly, even after like a decade, that death still makes me feel all crushed and awful inside. Over the years, I've gotten much better at keeping the little things alive. Sometimes I kill them on purpose. Sometimes I torture them with rough conditions (I usually just do that to Ron), but even then, I do my best to make sure they're alive.

However, Seasons is proving difficult for me. I've lost three sims this week and none of them on purpose. Two died in a fire. One died because I had him playing in a sprinkler and thought it was warmer than it was. I mean, it was Spring for crying out loud. I should have paid closer attention because he froze to death.

Seasons really changed the game here. When I got Jungle Adventure, I kept sims alive (even Ron), despite them getting poisoned and cursed every three seconds. At least I could always get them cures. There is no cure for freezing to death though. Nature always gets to win.

Contemplation: Hair Addition

It's been about a month since I had my head mostly shaved. To be honest, I kind of want to cut more hair off. It's freeing and I like the feel of it. I like the genderlessness of it. Mostly, I like how cool it is. I don't mean cool as in rock star. I mean cool as in it helps me not to have heat stroke.

I've resisted short hair for a long time. I kept letting mine get long any time I would cut it off. I don't know why. It honestly does not one thing to make me more attractive. I don't think the short hair makes me more attractive either, but it does make me cooler.

Unwanted

Kennedy is retiring from SCOTUS. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable and I am no exception. It's likely that Trump will stick an anti-choice person into Kennedy's seat. It's likely that Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

I'm not fearful for myself. Clearly getting pregnant isn't an option for me anymore. I am, however, fearful for all the women and girls that I know. A lot of them have already had to make difficult choices where pregnancy was concerned and those choices will be taken from them.

Moreover, I'm heartbroken for all the kids who will be born unwanted.  I was born unwanted. My mother told me this infrequently and showed it to me often. My brother, almost six years younger than me, was born AFTER RvW was passed. She had a choice with him and she chose to give birth. The difference between how she treated him and how she treated me was vast.

I've struggled my whole life with this concept of not being wanted, of being a burden, of feeling like love couldn't and wouldn't be unconditional. It's been so nice to see kids born who weren't in that position. Even if American women are religious and opt out of birth control, they still know, on a fundamental level, that this is a CHOICE they are making. They are able to decide to do this. It isn't forced.

That could disappear. That could go away. It's horrible.

Shocking Result

Shockingly enough, Medical Marijuana passed in my state. Everyone is sure the people in charge will do everything they possibly can to make it NOT happen, but for now, it looks like pot is legal. This could make a big difference for a lot of the people who are in pain, physically and mentally. It might also help us with our opiate crisis.

Hopefully, this will be a positive thing.

For Lola

It took me a couple of nights to read this because I had to stop and just kind of process it for a while. It's the story of a family who brought their slave with them to America and how the writer/son of the family learned to process this and understand it.

This is a story about guilt and about the kind of horrible things that can happen when poverty forces people to make awful decisions. At the same time, it's also a story about profound love. Please read it.

So Close

My dad gave me a phone to replace my old one. I knew it was a long shot this would work for me because he had no info on the phone other than it was a phone. It didn't even have a charger.

I took it home, messed with my various charger chords and actually found one that worked! Yay! For a second there, I felt hopeful. The phone charged quickly and soon I had it on. It looked rather easy to work. Even more yay.

But no. It isn't adaptable with my SIM. Sigh. Oh well. For a second there......

Sad News

Saw my dad yesterday, then spent some time with my best friend and her family. It was fun but rather exhausting. I'll probably spend the weekend recovering from it. It was worth it, no matter the pain.

Found out today that a friend's nephew passed. I'd been around this kid when he was a baby. In fact, the last time I saw him, he was a baby. Due to some genetic issues, his heart was enlarging and because he didn't have access to regular medical checkups, no one knew. He had a heart attack at 26. I looked at his FB page. Seemed like that little baby had grown into a pretty neat guy. Rest well.

Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol

I think one of the most harrowing stories I ever heard was the closing of the Grand Guignol. It was a playhouse in France that specialized in horror. They would show stories of vampires and monsters, villains and thrilling, yet deadly situations.

However, after WWII, things changed. People stopped going. And even though the theater lasted into the '60s, things had changed. People went to see plays here because they thought it showed horror no one would ever really do, not anymore. But after all that happened during the war, people knew humans were still capable of every imaginable atrocity.

In the wake of everything that is happening on the US border, I just don't feel comfortable posting about my music stuff on FB. Things were bad for me, but I still had so much more than what these people have. I had comfort. I had my freedom. I had music. I had my friends and family.

I'm not saying my story isn't important or that it doesn't have universal appeal. It does, as all human stories do. But right now, I'm too heartsick to really focus on that.

Project of Influence Album 26

The Album: Transformer Lou Reed

The Story: I think my mom had this album at one time, but when I was little, it didn't cement into my mind the way it would when I was in college. Transformer was in Brian's collection of albums, along with basically everything else done by Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol, and anyone associated with him. I would say that Brian would have been happy in the Factory, but he was really antiseptic and had a thing against random loud people, so I have my doubts.

I love Lou Reed because he was so casually honest about things. "Oh, I'mma do a song about what it's like to wait for my dealer." "Oh, I'mma do a song about what it's like to do smack." It was the musical version of what Warhol was doing with Pop Art. Taking the idea of 'everyday objects' used in Still Life, but changing what is allowable to be 'everyday objects.' Slice of Life, but in a more subversive way.

If you're wondering why I started this by talking about Warhol and referencing two songs from Velvet Underground, these elements of Reed's past tied very heavily into the making of Transformer. Warhol suggested he write "Vicious" and was the subject of "Andy's Chest." Several of the songs on the album were first performed with Velvet Underground but didn't end up on their albums. Still, it can be assumed the rest of the band influenced them.

Speaking of influence, David Bowie produced this album and it was arranged by Mick Ronson. Ronson also played piano, recorder, did all the string arrangements, and of course, lead guitar on the album.

This is actually one of my favorite albums of all time, and I think all of the stuff listed above is why. Transformer is a very collective effort. I love the idea of people sitting around, playing bits of music, discussing their thought process, making suggestions, experimenting, and really being in sync with one another as they create something.

Thank you to: everyone who inspires others to be creative.

The Lesson Learned: We all have this imaginary cup of energy and creativity. Everything in our lives (people, activities, thoughts, hobbies) either refill this cup or drain it. Take an assessment of your life and figure out what is draining you and what is filling you, then take steps to get as far away from the things that drain you as possible.

Now, this isn't always an easy option. Sometimes the things that drain you are the job you have to keep or people who depend on you (kids, elderly parents, etc). In those cases, take steps to find ways to fill your cup outside of them and as much as possible, take what measure you can to protect yourself.

Father's Day

Called my grandfather today. He sounded like he was in pain, but his mind was alert and he was in a good mood. They have someone staying with them 24/7 now. They needed that. He also has a nurse coming out to see him twice a week and rehab 3 times a week.

My dad was also well. He has my niece and nephew for the weekend. I think that was probably what he wanted more than anything. Told him I'd see him on Thursday.

I wrote a music post today, but I didn't publish it. I think I needed a break from it for a few days. Plus, it's a holiday.

Project of Influence Album 25

The Album: Hunky Dory David Bowie

The Story: I don't remember how we picked up Brian. He was in some English classes with Hopcus and me, but I can't remember which ones. It just seems like one day he was talking to us, which is kind of amazing because I think we were convinced he couldn't talk at all.

Brian is a visual artist and a truly gifted one. He works in a lot of mediums and possesses a deep appreciation for and understanding of his field. Any good mentor will tell you to know the history of your field. Brian did.

I liked Brian because he was a study in contrasts. Very clean and quiet, with everything meticulously in place, but also subversive, crazy, and willing to go along with anything. I think he liked me because I was a living embodiment of a John Waters character and I said all the seditious things he was thinking. After a brief conversation in the UC, we decided we'd all move into Hopcus's little college rent house together. There were usually four of us, sometimes five.

Brian brought movies on VHS and tons of albums. The albums were organized according to the artist. The movies were organized according to the director.  Afternoons were an immersion into obscure cinema, foreign films, and music.

And of course, like everyone else, I knew who David Bowie was. I'd heard his songs for years. But this was the first time I heard all of Hunky Dory and it was a marvel. "Oh! You Pretty Things" was just fun to sing around the house. "Andy Warhol" was sort of the topic of the day because we watched a lot of Warhol stuff around this time. And "Queen Bitch," well, how could I not love that?

"The Bewlay Brothers" was my favorite. It captured me because it had this sense of the kind of connected companionship I love to find. People often talk about how the song really connects to nothing and Bowie himself said at different times it was either about his half-brother or maybe just whatever people wanted. I think there is something to be said for just letting a song exist so that people can find what they need to in it.

You know how you have these perfect moments in life? One of mine was this autumn evening when the album was coming to a close. We were listening to "The Bewlay Brothers" with the windows were open, blowing a slightly cold breeze in. All the lights were off except for some random candles and the light of Brian's cigarette. We were quiet, lost in our own thoughts.

Then the Outro began and all of us, at once, started singing it in the loudest, most godawful accents we could. We kept this up until the end, then laughed until we were breathless. We were dorks, but it was perfect.

As I've gotten older, my favorite song on the album is "Quicksand." The guitar is beautiful and powerful. All other instruments arrive at just the perfect point. The lyrics are masterful. There have been many nights when this song got me through dark moments. It's to be on the soundtrack for my funeral.

Thank you to: Brian and the Endless Autumn

The Lesson Learned: When Brian first showed up with all that music and movies, I was emotionally hostile about it. Here was this guy who was only a few years older than me and he had ALL of this. I was intimidated and felt outclassed. Lilly don't like to feel no outclassed.

Once I got over my ego, I realized he didn't bring this stuff to intimidate or be pretentious. He brought it because he wanted to share what he loved. When you bring new art to someone, you're communicating about who you are and what you see in them. So while it was a lot all at once, and while I did not like everything, I am certainly thankful for the experience.

Project of Influence Album 24

The Album: Achtung Baby U2

The Story: This is a story of reclamation. U2 was my mother's band as Ireland was my mother's obsession when she was obsessing over some whatever useless man. She loved their music and loved Leon Uris and had a massive Erin Go Bragh flag in her house. She loved U2 so much and could talk about them endlessly. As far as she was concerned, The Joshua Tree was the greatest album ever made. During that time when she was living in the trailer, she watched Rattle and Hum at least 90 times (always discussing the songs while they were singing, crying drunken tears when songs would remind her of the husband).

She didn't like Achtung Baby. She didn't get it. She thought it was too much of a departure. It was too industrial, too open to the pulse found in clubs, too bitter.

I loved this album. I understood this album. Achtung Baby was about reclaiming the narrative. The band opened themselves up to a more Euro sound, embracing elements of Industrial and all the heady things coming out of Manchester. They continued to work with a lot of the same subject matters (religion, politics, relationships) but did so in ways that were at times more personal, other times more abstract. It certainly was a departure from what they'd done before, but this was a time that called for that.

U2 went to Berlin to record Achtung Baby. In fact, they were on the last plane into the city before the wall fell. They got to watch families reuniting, watch people walking back and forth through what had once been the divide without any fear at all. It was a magical moment in history and they needed that.

By their own admission, U2 basically hated who they were by the end of Rattle and Hum. They needed to regroup and, as Bono said at the time, 'dream it all up again.' It wasn't going to be easy. This was a new direction for them and it was after finding fame as something else.

When you lose control of your narrative, things get weird. The energy around you feels sketchy, jumpy. It's almost like those skittery noises in horror films. At least, it's that way for me. I recently watched the documentary over the making of Achtung Baby and honestly, a lot of the first bits of sound they were experimenting with sound the same way.

"One" is the first song they finally crafted out of all the bits and noise they were throwing out there. They said that while it didn't define the sound of the album, it did define the spirit of it. From there, they could build.

This album helped Gail and me as we finished out that semester in the dorms. We'd sit on the floor and sing the songs. And yes, we'd start digging into their other music as well, but this was OUR album. Mother free.

Bono reinvented himself for this album. He'd been accused of being a megalomaniac and opted to don a persona that embraced that. He took Lou Reed's shades, Jim Morrison's leather pants, Elvis's leather jacket, and became The Fly.

As I started my second year of college, I was ready to reclaim myself as well. Gail and I moved into an apartment. I'd made no friends AT ALL my first year of college, but once I had myself sorted, friends started to happen again. Soon we had a little group of people.

Achtung Baby played a large role in this group. It was much discussed, much listened to, and often sang. Seriously, if you don't have a group of people to sing with, find one. You'd be amazed what this can do for your emotional state.

This album actually has four of my favorite songs of all time. "One" is just about as bittersweet as a song can get. It's about that moment when you're DONE with this other person and just can't take anymore. That moment of exasperation is perhaps one of the most liberating times in life because you know you can move on without one look back.

"Love is Blindness" still kills me when I hear it. I love Jack White's cover too, but the original is performed with a level of intensity matched by very few love songs. "Until the End of the World" is about Judas, but applies to any Trickster in that place where they're having to do the things needed to move the scene. To me, "Acrobat" is the inner dialogue a lot of us were going through at the time. Disenchantment, isolation, and a general sense of unease only filled but our sheer will to NOT feel that way.

Thank you to: To Gail, for bringing me this album. To Hopcus, to Amanda, to Amy, to Lori, to Tina . . . thank you for being my clan.

The Lesson Learned: There are times when everything around us will feel like chaos. When that happens, it's up to us as individuals to work our way through it. That doesn't mean you have to do it alone, but you can't just expect the help to arrive. You have to ask. You have to reach out.

If you've been following this thing, you know reaching out isn't always the easiest for me. Other than Gail (and the disastrous dormmate I had for a while), I'm not sure I spoke to anyone on that campus my first year. I was allowing what I assumed people saw to dictate who I would be.

By the next year, I started reaching out. Instead of finding places to hide between my classes (yes, I did that), I parked my butt in the art lounge and talked to whatever person happened to be in there with me. Some of them didn't respond. Some of them became very close friends.

Oh, and the second lesson is one of perspective.

Teenaged Me: *sees the "One" video* Bono lookin old.

40something Me: *rewatches video* Bono looked so young........oh hell.

Project of Influence Album 23

The Album: The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack

The Story: My grandfather had emphysema. When I started high school, he was as strong as he'd ever been, but by the time it was over, he was using an oxygen machine and getting around, well, as best he could.

At one point during those years, he needed surgery. My uncle came down with two of my Colorado Murphy cousins. We three girls stayed at the house while the adults handled the hospital stuff. To cope and console each other, we rented moves. One of the ones they picked out was The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Small town girl had heard about this, of course, but she'd never seen the movie. As I watched it, I fell for it completely. I loved the movie, I loved the way it both mocked and adored the subject matter of old science fiction films.

Mostly, I loved Frank N Furter. Genderbending, charming, menacing, unapologetic, selfish . . . I adored this character, even if he was the antagonist. That grin, the way he would deliver his lines.

Grandpa being sick was scary for all of us. Finding ways to distract ourselves while we processed this kept us going.

He passed away the second semester of my Freshman year of college. It wasn't a sudden thing, but that by no means made it any easier. He'd been a fascinating man. Funny, hardworking, full of hobbies and skills. The days around and after the funeral are a blur. Even now it's hard to think about.

I still had to move forward. Gail had opted out of going to school that semester. I moved back home and commuted to Tahlequah three days a week. For a while, I had someone riding with me, but he flaked out. After that, it was just me in my little Cavalier, with only music to keep me company.

I bought a copy of the RHPS soundtrack because it reminded me of my cousins and I needed a family connection to keep me going. My first classes were early in the morning and I'd have to leave before sunrise. I'd pop that soundtrack into my player and listen to it, singing the parts, skipping the songs I didn't like as much (and one that wasn't in the movie that later I learned to love due to my current roommate).

That semester wasn't easy. Like I said, I was in a daze during most of it. I don't even remember what classes I took. I do remember this soundtrack comforting me, keeping me going, and helping me to stay awake when I would drive home.

Anything that Frank sings is a favorite, except for the song about Janet because eh. I probably came close to wrecking the car while I car-danced to "Time Warp." My favorite will always be "Science Fiction-Double Feature." I'm sure by now you've noticed I love the way people begin and end albums. Albums should never just be a collection of songs. Some of them are, of course, but the best albums have a flow to them. They take you on a journey. Granted, I guess that's easier when we're talking about a soundtrack, but you get the idea.

The thing is, while this made me feel closer to my cousins, I realize now I could have just called them. I could have written letters or emailed or something. It seems rather simple now, though, I guess one of the things I'm realizing about this whole process is how distant I kept myself from others. I just didn't want to bother them. I didn't want to burden them with my stuff. Mom's scarring ran deep.

Thank you to: Colorado Murphies. I have no idea what our connection is with Tim Curry, but clearly, it's a very real thing. I want you to know that those long trips to Tahlequah were made possible because you brought this music to me. You guys are the reason I didn't fail out of college my first year. I love you.

The Lesson Learned: Death is horrible. We don't know how to process it. We don't know how to grieve. Because of that, often how we grieve takes strange forms. I personally believe that unless grief is leading you to something harmful to yourself or others, you should just accept it the form it will take and let your soul do whatever it needs to do to help you move forward.

Hazel

Last night we found out one of our occasional porch cats had died. When we first met this cat, my roommate dubbed him/her 'Meth Kitty' because there was a lot of twitching involved.

This cat would wander the neighborhood. Sometimes it seemed that she/he belonged to the neighbors, but we were never sure.

Eventually, we renamed the cat Hazel. She had beautiful long fur in various shades of brown. He also had a beautiful purr and stunning eyes.

My roommate, who is so good with animals, eventually got Hazel to trust us enough to where she/he would come inside for a bit, long enough to get a drink of indoor water or some petting. The cat never wanted to stay very long. Some attention and then he/she was headed toward the door.

I told my roommate today that even though Hazel never became a part of the household in life, she/he would now join the rest of the Ghost Cats and wander our rooms at will.

Rest in peace, Hazel. I hope you know you added to our joy and helped to comfort us after we lost the girl kitties. You were beautiful. I will never forget the feel of your fur or the sweet noises you would make. I will never forget how you had this issue with drooling or how Camilla hated you so much she would attack the windows when she saw you. I loved you a lot and I wish you a beautiful journey. Thank you for all you gave to me.

Project of Influence Album 22

The Album: Blood Sugar Sex Magik Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Story: I graduated. Yay! I got good scholarships. Yay! I got into college. Yay! What could go wrong?

Oh, so my mom came home. My uncle finally located her and my brother in North Carolina. The husband had left for parts unknown and she was ready to come back.

We all accepted this. My dad drove out there and got them. My grandparents let them move in. Grandpa bought her a truck. Ohhhh and then we helped her move to the town where I was now living because ohhhhhh Mom had decided she'd go back to college too. Where I was going. What could go wrong?

My mother was being just about ready to boil chaos all the time so I mostly just focused on having my brother back. He'd grown up a lot since I'd last seen him. He had his own love and interest in music now and he started playing Red Hot Chili Peppers for me.

One of my best memories of that summer is coming back from the lake with mom, my brother, and one of my friends. We just played "Under the Bridge" over and over, singing at the top of our lungs. I've always been in awe of the beauty in songs about heroin. More on that in later posts.

RHCP contributed their own elements to the way music was changing. Like with REM and Nirvana, they were blending elements (in this case, a lot of funk and R&B with callbacks to beach-meets-punk sound) and spearheading that with probably one of the best bass players of our generation.

The album itself is in this place of trying to find maturity, slipping back into the same idiotic patterns due to pain, finding brief moments of happiness that never compensate for your own anguish, and the fear of hurting the people around you.

Overall, that was a pretty good assessment of what was happening as college began.

Gail and I moved into the dorms, but on different floors. My mom and brother moved into a tiny trailer in a tiny trailer park. It was still better than the dorms though, so most of the time, Gail and I were there.

Mom was great until she wasn't. It was easy to fall under her spell. She was smart, funny, engaging, and treated all the children around her like adults. We'd stay there. She'd cook for us,  and watch movies with us. Things would get great until she got TOO drunk or ran out of smokes, but I could usually get Gail out of there before it got too bad, until I couldn't.

I have no idea how she made contact with the husband again. She didn't have a phone until he called to have it installed and started paying the bill for it. All I know is that one weekend Gail, my brother, and I went back to Poteau to see people. When we got back, there was a ham in the crockpot, 100 dollars next to it, and a note saying she'd be back on Sunday. We found this ON Sunday.

At first, we just carried on, trying our best to believe the note. She'd come back. A few days later, we realized that wasn't happening. I found the husband's number jotted on a slip of paper and we called her. Nope. Not coming home. My brother was welcome to join if he could manage.

I was livid. It was one thing to abandon the 18 yr old legal adult kid who was defiant and a bigger bitch than you and you never wanted them anyway, but another thing altogether to abandon the 13 yr old kid you LIKED. My brother knew the trash fire he'd be walking into so he declined her offer. We decided to give her a week to change her mind, just live in limbo for 7 days and see if this could change before we had to take the steps that would hurt even more people.

And then we went insane.

Honestly, this is the only way to describe it. It's like we actively shut out parts of reality and just focused on what we HAD to do. We got to class. We manage to get my brother to school. We kept ourselves fed and clean.

We listened to a lot of music, especially Blood Sugar Sex Magik because it made my brother happy. We made up stories and our own songs. We thought there were ghosts in the trailer.

No one was going to wound me without me wounding them back. The only way I could see to get any blood out of this was the fact that the mother's husband would be paying the phone bill. We called EVERYONE we could. Keep in mind, long distance calls were expensive at this time. My brother called friends in North Carolina. I called all my friends in Poteau. At one point, I called a 900 number and told the person that the only pleasure I needed was knowing that I was going to leave this line open for the next 6 hours while mother's bastard husband got charged by the minute.

At the end of the week, the stress was getting to all of us. I knew I had to call my grandparents and my dad. They arrived within the day, looking more devastated than I'd ever seen them, and moved my brother back home. I think we were only like a month into the semester.

"I Could Have Lied" was written about Kiedis falling for Sinead O'Connor and her rejecting him. Even though the song is about a romantic relationship, I found myself listening to it a lot during all of this. I know some people who stop loving their messed up parents, but the rest of us never do. I loved my mother deeply. My brother not only loved her but most always took her side. When she left like that, it was like our love didn't even matter to her. It made me realize we were just obligations to her.

That sucks, but it's also freeing. People either love you or they don't. You can't convince them to love you. You can't guilt them into loving you. You can't scream at them to love you. If they do, they do. If they don't, you have to let go.

Thank you to: my brother, for surviving, for being strong, for being an amazing dad, for marrying the sanest, practical, and stable human I know, and for the music.

The Lesson Learned: There is the family you are born to and the family you choose. Choose wisely.

So when I was standing there looking at that damned crockpot, Gail was standing right next to me. I was mortified. She'd met when I was very much in control of the narrative and my mom was far away. Now things were spinning out of my control. I was so embarrassed.

I felt like trash. I felt worse than trash. All my life drama was vomiting all around us and I couldn't just brush it under a rug and pretend it wasn't happening. I couldn't hide this.

A casual friend probably would have bailed. I wouldn't have held it against her if she did. This wasn't just a casual friend though. This person was committed to being my best friend. She helped us and kept us going.

And understand, this hurt her too. She'd grown up with good parents and didn't know what abandonment was like. It's not an easy thing to process.

After my brother was safe and living with my dad, Gail and I did what we needed to in order to stay sane for the rest of the semester. We're both writers so we escaped into that. We made up more stories, built mythologies, constructed an imaginary world. One of the strengths that synchronic people have is the ability to move through the scary crap with creativity.

My mother, who gave birth to me, chose, once again, to walk away from me to be with someone else. My best friend who had only been in my life for a couple of years opted to look my chaotic life in the eye and NOT walk away.

At this point, I realized my own tendency to walk away from situations needed to be amended. Some people, some situations were worth staying for.

Project of Influence Album 21

The Album: Little Earthquakes Tori Amos

The Story: This is one of those albums that has a lot of connections to me. I was listening to this album when the boy finally came to his senses and told me he was in love with me and I experienced those kisses that mark the purity of fire that somehow ONLY 'teenager in love' kisses can ever achieve. Not my first kisses by any means, but the ones that really imprinted.

Tori handed this demo to Neil Gaiman at one of his signings because she was so inspired by his work on Sandman. I'd be listening to her music at a local musician's house a few years later when he handed me my first Sandman comic and told me I'd love them.

The biggest connection is with Gail, my best friend of what feels like 9000 years.

We became best friends when I was a junior in high school. We'd met the year before, but we weren't friends yet. Gail says one of her earlier memories of me was in math class. I'd been put in a cluster of some of the biggest asshole bullies in school and she thought 'oh that poor fat girl is doomed.' She watched as I would hold my own with them, trading barbs with an unkind smile on my face and eyes full of what was only thinly veiled hatred. I was fully back in control of my narrative by my sophomore year and people like that were only minor difficulties.

My junior year, I joined the local writers' group and she was the only person my age who also attended. We started talking and soon the friendship started. The first time she spent the night with me, I made her watch Dune, Labyrinth, my collection of Siouxsie videos. She was still talking to me the next day, so I knew I'd found a kindred spirit.

She was a year older than me, so my senior year, she left for college. Talaquah still didn't have MTV (honestly, it seems like I wouldn't have access to this station at all until after they stopped playing videos), but it DID have VH1. She would record VHS tapes of videos she thought I'd like. We'd watch them on the weekends when she would come home.

One weekend she came home with the video for "Silent all these Years." The video had too much light exposure and this girl with a shock of dyed red hair (dyed over other red hair) with a piano and a song about the frustration of not being able to express yourself. There was this little girl with dark hair following her around. They never meet in any scene of the video and this made me deeply sad.

I didn't understand why I was so sad until there was just a close up of Tori's face. This woman looked like my mom. Not how Mom looked later, not even how she did at that moment, but in my head, when I thought of her from the perspective of the four-year-old she would read Tolkien to, these were the eyes I saw, these were the expressions.

She looked like my mom. She would sing things that sounded like what my mom would say. She would sing things that I'd not realized my mom was probably also thinking. This beautiful, talented, amazing woman singing about how she's trying to fight for recognition, love, and significance.

This is seriously the hardest post I've had to write. Memories of bad stuff happening are one thing, but my mom passed away when I was in my 30s and I'd not watched this video since. I cried all the way through it. I just wanted to scream that all that love and recognition and significance she was begging for were hers for the taking. She just had to realize it, look inside and claim it. Like the ruby red slippers, she had that power the whole time.

Anyway . . .

Tori composes from the piano and that is always the backbone of her music. Her lyrics are complex, blending conversation and metaphor seamlessly.  She talks about betrayal and anger and guilt. She wrote a song about being raped that is so vivid and raw that even now I have a lot of trouble listening to it.

The first three songs ("Crucify" "Girl" "Silent All These Years") plus "Winter" and "Mother" (songs I could see her singing to her own parents) were this mini soundtrack of anguish I'd put myself through when I'd let myself miss Mom.

Tori's voice has a great deal of purity to it and her music is beautiful. This is always a fascinating contrast to the lyrics that are often about the darker facts of being alive.

And maybe that's why there are so many connections here. This album held a lot of truth for me, a lot of truth for many people. I'm not sure it healed us. Maybe it just reminded us that we needed to heal.

Thank you to: Gail, for bringing the gift of this music to me.

The Lesson Learned: The deeper you bury the pain, the more it's going to hurt you when it starts to heal.

Sometimes when you have a surgery where they cut deep into you, they stitch you up in layers, connecting what needs to be reattached then pulling the next layers together and stitching them. Most of the time, the stitches just dissolve. Other times your body isn't willing to wait for that.

Those deeper stitches will push through the upper layers, working their way to the surface to force their removal. It hurts a lot. It's bloody and easily infected. Often this becomes a self-surgery situation where you find yourself with tweezers and tiny scissors, pulling on the stitch so you can hook the loop, cut it open, and pull it out. It's hell.

When we heal over emotional wounds, the same kind of thing will happen. We bind down the layers of hurt and pull protective emotional tissue over them. We have to. Often this is the only way we can continue to function. Eventually, something will start pushing that pain to the surface, making you do whatever you have to in order to deal with it. This can be sudden and it can be very scary, but remember, your body IS trying to heal you. It's just going to be agonizing in the meantime.

Project of Influence Album 20

The Album: Nevermind Nirvana

The Story: My senior year of high school, I was editor of the school newspaper. In my new crop of students was a kid named Jennifer. She was weird, smart, and opinionated. I really liked that about her.

She says I was nice to her, but I'll be honest, what I remember of my senior year was me being fairly much a haughty asshole to a lot of people. I'd found what I thought was piety and the more pious I got, the worse of a human being I became. Rimbaud once wrote that we have faith in poison. In my case, I'd let my faith become poison.

I guess Jen caught me on my good days or politely ignored my bs because we soon became friends. We'd talk about art and music. I introduced her to some of the bands I liked. She did the same. She's the person who made me really listen to Nirvana.

They were starting to play "Spells like Teen Spirit" on the radio but I wasn't paying attention to it. It didn't connect with me, maybe because I just assumed it wasn't my kind of music.

Sometimes, you have to really hear songs in context of the whole album before you understand. "Teen Spirit" wasn't just a single, it was the intro to the album, the door opening to show you the new things. True things. And as much as I'd liked my truth segregated away from my fun, in the back of my mind, I knew that could only take me so far.

Nevermind is a glorious album, but it isn't a pretty album. It isn't an easy album. There is a song from the perspective of a man holding a 14 yr old girl so he can do horrible things to her and her successful attempt to get him to let his guard down so she could escape.

There are songs that talk about how much easier it would be not to feel, not to exist, ugliness, darkness. There is one of my favorite lines of all time 'the finest day that I ever had was when I learned to cry on command.'

The music is not polished. Cobain had this one guitar (he said he bought it for like 20 bucks) that was being held together with duct tape. I love this image because, in a lot of ways,  that's how many of us felt at that time, just some damaged thing being held together with duct tape.

Frayed. Broken. Hurting. Imperfect. Ugly. I often lose patience with people these days because they seem to be demanding this kind of pollyanna perfection from what people create. That isn't life works and it isn't how art happens. There are some artists out there who are looking for the ideals, but others are there to record, comment on and document everything that fails to reach those ideals.

Thank you to: Jennifer Phillips, the person who brought me to Nirvana.

The Lesson Learned: I'd survived childhood and I'd reasonably functioned through most of my teen years. I thought the rest would be a cakewalk but ooooh, bitch was I wrong. The people just a few years older than me were already starting to realize this themselves and were struggling to come up with some reasonable way to accept it.

As a collective, the kids raised with chaos, screwed up parents, dashed hopes, and space shuttles exploding in the sky were old enough to start coming to terms with all of this. The zeitgeist was changing again.

Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be in the position to really think about that for a while.

Project of Influence Album 19

The Album: Violator Depeche Mode

The Story: I was in Hastings at Central Mall, the sad one in the middle, not the fancy one at the edge of the mall that would come in a few years later. I knew of Depeche Mode, but I'd never owned one of their albums. When I saw the cover of Violator, I just had to have it.

By the way, if someone wants to get me a gift, I would LOVE to have that album cover in poster form.

Anyway, another perfect purchase for me. Violator opened up some doors in my mind that needed to be opened starting with the first song.

"World in my Eyes" is a wonderful way to start an album. It's an invitation to someone's playground. It hints at the fun they can give you, in various ways, but with a warning that there is a limit. You only get so much.

I found the whole album seductive, enchanting, and just the perfect level of jaded. I suspected a lot of these songs were about drugs, but having not been exposed to such things since I was a child, wasn't really sure.  The album was clearly about pleasure and various aspects of pleasure, including following the decorum of not ruining the pleasure. "Policy of Truth" and "Enjoy the Silence" offered such unconventional but needed wisdom. Shut up. Don't tell me the truth. Don't kill the moment. Don't ruin this.

Seriously, about the silence thing. Watch people. If they seem to be enjoying your conversation, they'll let you know. Otherwise, they'll like you a lot more if you're quiet. Trust me.

I found that bit of wisdom to be very appealing. As someone who has always been a trickster at heart, the idea of constant honesty strikes me as rather boring. It's like, in early elementary school, every time I would weave some game for the other children, there would always be this one Literalist kid who would try to destroy it. I'd have us all pretending to be monsters and that kid would be standing there, snide and confused, whining in protest "But you're not REALLLLLY monsters." Then they would usually tell on me. Sigh.

Look, YES, there are things you should be honest about where pleasure is concerned. Get consent for all the things. Tell people what you do and do not want. Don't let people harm you (unless you're into that), but in the midst of things, if other people are doing things that are not affecting you, don't suddenly start with all the talking and mehmeh and 'you know you're not REALLY monsters.' If you can't refrain from this, go be elsewhere.

Soapbox over. The power of this band rests in their ability to blend Martin Gore's musical genius with Dave Gahan's vocals. It mixes to create this mesmerizing atmosphere. Depeche Mode could enfold you, bring you into this space where you just felt everything all at once. It was beautiful. Although not on this album, DM also wrote "Never Let me Down Again," which is one of the songs on the list of my personal life soundtrack.

I still love that red flower on that black background.

Thank you to: We were talking tonight about how amazing it was when Walmart and such places still had huge collections of music, with odd offerings that one might not expect. I realize Depeche Mode might not have seemed like a risky selection in many places, but in my neck of the woods, it kind of was.

This thank you goes out to all the people who do the ordering in shops like that and TAKE the risk to order the odd things. You have no idea what joy you have probably brought to others.

The Lesson Learned: I was kind of shallow and awful at this point. I was selfish and way into my own headspace. I didn't words or conflict or the truth because I just couldn't face any of that at the moment.

My mother, her husband, and my little brother had disappeared without a word to anyone. I didn't know where they were. I didn't know what was going on. I worried my mother and brother might be dead and the idea of that was horrifying.

I felt guilty. I thought if I'd just stayed with them, maybe I could have stopped this whole thing, whatever it was. As an adult, I know I couldn't have. I did what was best to protect myself. I wasn't responsible for anyone else in the situation and yet, I still felt guilty.

I couldn't wrap my head around all the possibilities of what could be going on. To keep me safe, my mind shut that off. I focused on what I could handle. I focused on what would keep me functioning. That part of my brain knew there was nothing I could do to fix this.

So the thing I learned was to assess situations, focus on what I could control, and let the rest of it do whatever it was going to do. I do my best (with varying degrees of success) to let go of the stuff beyond my control. This is honestly a time when disassociation is helpful.

When I had cancer, this basically kept me going. Usually, the only thing I had any control over was making sure I showed up to the appointments. I would allow myself to stress about that, but once I got there, I'd do my best to let go of all the negative energy, all the nervousness, and all of the fear. It didn't always work, but when it did, it was quite helpful.

Don't waste your energy on what you can't control. Don't run through all the scenarios of doom if there is nothing you can do to change them. Let them go. Be in the moment. Let your mind go quiet and enjoy the silence.

Project of Influence Album 18

The Album: Lullaby Book of Love

The Story: Back during the '80s, one of the radio stations would do Open House Party on the weekends. I loved it because it usually featured a lot of music not played in regular rotation. I'm not 100% certain about this, but I think that's how I first hear Book of Love.

I DO know that the first song was the "Tubular Bells/Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls" mix. I'd seen The Exorcist when I was a very little kid and it terrified me. The fact that a band would take that theme music, turn it into a dance song, and tie it into late 80s polyamory just tickled me to pieces. In my head, this was always what Lestat would dance to at clubs while Louis sat sulking in the corner.

Is Lullaby the world's deepest album? Nah. I kind of love it for that. In all of my teen angst, this was the album that lifted my spirits. Just dance synthpop with a witchy edge. What more could you want?

Speaking of witchy.....this album has "Witchcraft" on it. Three vocals, speaking alone and sometimes together, casting a spell that is part herblore, part jump rope chant, and part homage to stories about witches. The chorus is a singsong listing of witches from "Bewitched."

Unapologetic praise is given to witches who stole the menzes. Years later, when I finally started watching the reruns of Dark Shadows, I was so thrilled to finally understand the "Angelique takes Barnabas from Josette" part.

I've always loved it when art does that. Our collective culture of stories, songs, and characters has become its own kind of shorthand language. Most people get it when you refer to someone as 'the Ron Weasley of the group.' As much as I encourage people to create new things (and they should! stop doing remakes people), referencing other parts of culture acceptable because it's part of the complexity of our communication process.

Thank you to: Thanks to the powers that be at whatever radio station that was who decided to play Open House Party.

The Lesson Learned: If you'll notice, my last several posts have been calmer. Nothing dangerous. Nothing dramatic. This is because my life was really good at this time.

Safe from my mother's chaos, I was able to just be a normal(ish) teenager. I talked on the phone all the time. I thrived in school. I had plans. I wrote absurdist plays. I was in an absurdist band (we never played any gigs or practiced with instruments. We just wrote songs, created strange dance moves, and chanted our lyrics to each other). I was happy.

The problem was I didn't realize I was happy. I was too busy focusing on the things I didn't have or the relationship not being what I wanted it to be or any number of other minor details that really didn't matter when compared to the fact that I was safe, secure, and creative.

Maybe part of this was my mental chemical imbalance, but more than that, I think it was just flawed thought patterns. Even though I'd learned to survive the terrifying moments of life, I'd yet to learn to live inside of the good moments. For a long time, I thought high school was awful because I just looked at it from the perspective of what I didn't have, instead of seeing all that I did.

These days, though admittedly not always with success, I try to recognize the good stuff going on. Yeah, there is still bad stuff too, but I refuse to let that rule me. The sweet may be something we taste on rare occasion. so why not savor it instead of just dreading the next bite of bitter?

Project of Influence Album 17

The Album: Out of Time REM

The Story: Friday Night Videos (because my town STILL didn't have MTV) and I saw this beautiful, strange, skinny guy just flail/dancing around. "Losing my Religion" stands as great video. Cool imagery, regional lyrics, enough suggestion of 'alternative thangs' to make the powers that be uncomfortable I loved it. Just seeing this was enough for me to buy the album.

I knew the band, but my feelings were mixed. I adored several of their songs but hated "Stand" with a passion. "Losing my Religion" cemented me on the pro-REM side.

There was this energy starting to build in America around this time. A lot of bands were creating regional sounds, blending the influences around them (old and new), playing off of each other, adding a local flavor to music the way chefs do to food. Other areas of the country would go on to spearhead this, but REM was certainly representing the South. Even the phrase 'losing my religion' was a regional expression for getting angry.

Out of Time feels like a night at the band's house. KRS One is there, adding vocals on "Radio Song" Kate Pearson sings on several tracks. It's like a bunch of people got together to sing for and with each other and someone just happened to record it.

"Country Feedback" is my favorite song on the album. It's also Michael Stipe's favorite REM song. At that time, I was in that place a lot of teens get into where what they thought was love started turning into this angsty pit of emotional goo.

The music really is country and offers you that purry, lazy seduction of a steel guitar, but with this kind of string distortion and feedback that one might expect more from Sonic Youth. It's a neat kind of marrying of divergent influences.

This song is about that point of romantic exhaustion when you need to let go, but you don't want to.  You try everything you can to fix it, but you can't. You don't accept that yet, but you're getting so, so close. The end of the song where he's repeating 'crazy what you could had/I need this' starts at an almost whisper and continues until he's using that loud, hurt voice we all use when we want to convey pain to someone without just screaming at them.

Thank you to: every band out there taking the musical influences of their lives and blending them into something unique and needed

The Lesson Learned: With this album, I learned how to just kind of meditate and stew in my emotions. I would put "Country Feedback" on, well, as the lyrics say, 'on a maddening loop' and just process. This was more directed than the catharsis with albums like Lion and the Cobra. This was about just honing in on that one hurt and dealing with it, like wiggling a loose tooth until you could easily pull it. The whole process can be agonizing, but the relief is worth it.

Project of Influence Album 16

The Album: The Sensual World Kate Bush

The Story: Nathan made a copy of Sensual World for me. The cassette tape was bright green and each side had the tracks listed in his beautiful handwriting. I was resistant for a while. Kate Bush had been an artist liked by one of the mother's husbands.  I wasn't sure I was willing to accept anything associated with him into my life. Nathan kept asking if I'd listened to it and there were only so many ways I could pretend I had. I'm pretty good at BS, but I was starting to suspect he was starting to suspect I had no idea what I was talking about. So one day I slipped it into my Walkman and let it start playing. At least that would let me put concepts to song titles.

For some reason, even though I now love the first two songs, I let them slide over me without any kind of response.

Then there was laughter. Then these pipes started. Then the synchronicity hit me.

Just like a photograph, I pick you up.
Just like a station on the radio, I pick you up.

This album is a masterpiece. Most of Kate's stuff is. She now claims she feels a lot of it was overwrought. Which, okay, our style changes, but honestly, sometimes, certain things call for that.

Our teen years are often a time of madness and passions. Everything is intense and we crave things that feed that intensity. This album did that for me. A lot of the songs are about loving things deeply and losing them. Or loving people you shouldn't. Or just the pain.

The title track perfectly expressed the deepening awareness one feels about the world as they come into their own sensual power. "Rocket's Tail" is a song about living in the moment, even if that takes you to some crazy places. When I finally did have my heart broken, I listened to "Never Be Mine" like a billion times.

Oh. This is also the first CD I bought. Ahh, remember that? The amazing quality difference between cassette and CD? Truly a moment of completely loving the technology.

Thank you to: Nathan, his collection of generic green cassettes, and the journey.

The Lesson Learned: When I was 40, I had a surgery that put me in more pain than I had ever been in my life. My sister-in-law drove me home from Tulsa and by the time I was pulling myself into the house, I was in so much pain, I felt insane. It honestly didn't seem something so painful could be real. I'm glad it happened because ever since that, other pain has been kind of minor.

The Sensual World is kind of that way too. The way she sings about heartache catches that same moment, the seconds when you know you're losing this thing you wanted so badly. It's devastating, but knowing you have hurt so much lets you breath easier about the rest of the emotional pain life will bring you. There is comfort in knowing the level of heartbreak you can survive.

Project of Influence Album 15

The Album: Disintegration The Cure

The Story: So in Poteau during the 80s and early 90s, we didn't have MTV. One of the cable stations would play videos all Friday and Saturday night. Nathan and I would stay up and watch those, talking about them over the phone. That's where I first saw "Love Song."

The Cure had been around for a while by then, but what finally caught my attention was a second of imperfection. Smith mangles the note on one of his 'with's. It's completely offkey. The thing is, it's also so perfect. That offkey note conveys so much emotion, it's like he couldn't even contain the love he was feeling at that moment. Glorious.

If I remember correctly, this was actually another Walmart purchase. Walmart's music section was a lifesaver for kids who lived in small towns. I bought this (still, despite the Banshee's back catalog in my house, unaware of my goth tendencies) and wore my first cassette of it out. It was brilliant.

I like the first part of the album too, but from "Love Song" to the very last lines of "Disintegration" is some of the strongest, most beautiful/painful/perfect things ever made. Love, loss, failure, madness, obsession, fear, being broken, all of that and so much more can be found on this album.

I still listen to Disintegration a lot. It informs a great deal of how I perceive myself. The line "swimming in the same deep water as you is hard" is how I always describe what it's like to deal with the chaos and cacophony of thoughts going on in my head when my mental health isn't great.

Some albums rewrite your marrow, sometimes they do it more than once. Realistically, I could put this album in three places on my list because there are three parts of my life that are deeply impacted by it. High school is the first time. The second is in college when I found myself pulling apart some aspects of my thinking. The third was in my late 30s when my best friend's synchronic connection to The Cure began and I found even new and deeper ways to love the album. If I die hearing Smith sing "I will kiss you, I will kiss you...." I will die a happy woman.

Thank you to: Gail. Sometimes the best thing about loving an album is finding someone who comes to love it in new and different ways. It's like discovering it all over again.

The Lesson Learned: I could put a lot of things here, but I'm going to go with the one that has come along recently. Robert Smith is a genius at writing about what it feels like to fail someone else, to hurt someone else.

I'm no angel. I've hurt a lot of people. Sometimes it was intentional and I instantly regretted it because I knew it was wrong. Other times, it was just carelessness. Often I was focused on ONE THING and missed all the other things going on around me.

There have been nights when I thought about this stuff and stayed up just hating myself for it. This didn't feel like low self-esteem to me. I'd always believed low self-esteem was rooted in hating things about yourself that you couldn't help, like having a wonky earlobe or weird feet. If it was something caused by your actions, well, you should just hate yourself for being such a bitch and try to do better.

My recent listening of Disintegration has made me really think about how self-love has to stem from recognizing your own complex and flawed humanity. I have been hateful, selfish, petty, jealous, lazy, neglectful, spiteful, greedy . . . I need to work on being less of these things, but also remember that, again, this is not all I am.

Loving yourself means just that, loving yourself. All of it. The weird stray hairs, the broken eyesight, the awkward laugh, the inability to put down a bag of chips, all of it. You can't work on the flaws until you're healed and you can't be healed until you love yourself. Sadly, most of us will never get there.

After Robin Williams killed himself, a lot of people were confused about it. I remember writing at the time about how people never see us at our most agonizing moments. I think a lot of people kill themselves when those moments become too much to handle when they just can't seem to find a way out of them and they stretch on and on until it feels like there can be nothing else.

The last time I was in one of those moments, instead of just focusing on trying to find a way out of the pain, I let myself move deeper into it. I let the guilt and doubt and criticism just play out and I reminded myself how this kind of intensity, too, was part of being alive. To have a moment this dark could serve as a potent contrast for the next time I had joy. It helped, agony slowly faded away, and I could sleep.

Project of Influence Album 14

The Album: Pet Shop Boys, actually. Pet Shop Boys

The Story: My sojourn at the other school did not last long. The people I needed lived in Poteau and I just couldn't fix my narrative at the new school. It was all wrong. I was all wrong. I came back and sort of pretended like I never left.

It's a good thing I did. The latest Mother's Husband was not the worst of the batch, but he was still more than I could tolerate. He was trying all the usual tricks.

Anyway, I soon found myself in the same cycle of someone with no power over me trying to intimidate me into thinking he did. There was a misunderstanding between and my grandmother, it had nothing to do with him, but the whole 'grounded from all the things' was declared. I told him no. He told me I would do what he said in his house.

When he said that, I hit my second time of that cold, pure calm. I did the smile. I began to tell him the purchase history of the home he was standing in and how it had come to my mother's possession. Her house. HERS. And the fact that he had, and this is a direct quote, what I assumed was 'a small, ugly, disfigured, and deeply disappointing penis' gave him no standing in this house, nor would it ever.

So he said he was leaving my mom. I was THRILLED! This was the quickest we'd gotten rid of one of these bastards! But then my mom cried and told me I wouldn't be ruining another one of her marriages and that I was grounded and blah blah blah.

I realized I couldn't win this. I had to leave. This time, I'd be the one leaving my mom. I moved in with my grandparents and breathed easy for the first time in months. I drew a line in the sand. She didn't cross it, so I had to. I accepted it had to be this way.

It still hurt though. My mother gave birth to me when she was 19, so for those first 19 years, the egg that would be me was part of her internal ecosystem. The first colonies of microbes to become part of me originated in her. It's crushing to be separated from that very fundamental and vital part of who you are. In this case, it was my best option.

To escape that pain, I needed something bitter and salty to sink my teeth into. I found that in Actually.

I'd love PSB since the first mesmerizing notes of "West End Girls" but Actually was the first album of theirs I owned. PSB could take synth to a level like no one else could, as they once wrote themselves, 'Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat.'

While the music of Actually soothed me, it was the lyrics that I needed. This album is so jaded. I mean, granted, it still has one of my favorite love songs "Heart," but it also has a song with a chorus that ends 'I love you, you pay my rent.'

The truly healing thing was the repeated phrase of 'what have I done to deserve this?' and the amazing way Neil Tennant's voice blended with Dusty Springfield's. It's just glorious. I would listen to that song for hours.

I have no idea what happened to that cassette. I probably wore it out and just didn't replace it because I'd moved on to other music. In fact, it wasn't until I moved in with my current roommate that I rekindled my love for PSB. However, when I was 15, they kept me going.

Thank you to: my grandparents, for taking my troubled and difficult self into their home. There is no gift like the gift of a safety.

The Lesson Learned: I learned to walk away. The problem is, I learned this lesson from a place of damage so I find I'm too apt to do it. I always tell friends not to ask for my advice on relationships or jobs because my answer is always 'leave.'

I walked away from people and situations when I shouldn't have. I hurt people because of this. Sometimes, like in the case of my mom, it was needed for my own sanity. Other times, I did it because I was only prioritizing me when other, deserving people deserved some priority as well.

I spent a lot of time in my room when I left mom's house. I needed to just secure my own space. I got used to that stillness and that quiet. It made me emotionally distant. I let things drift, don't send messages, don't call. I get quiet because I assume people want the quiet.

That's the hell of the damage we get in life. I healed my sense of abandonment the wrong way. It made me disassociated with things and people. It made it easier for me to be the one who abandoned others.

If I did this to you, I sincerely apologize.

Project of Influence Album 13

The Album: Peepshow Siouxsie and the Banshees

The Story: I saw an album cover, picked up the cassette and knew, even without hearing it, it was meant for me.

I took it home, opened it up. They'd perfumed the inside and it smelled like mysteries and darkness. Soon I was on the phone with Nathan and we listened to it. Again, the world shifted.

I started buying up the Banshee back catalog and loving it. This band deepened my moxie and helped to shape me into who I would be not only in my teens but for the rest of my life. It also added a lot of attention to my eyeliner.

Peepshow is an album about seduction and fear. Some of the songs are hot as hell, others as cold as the tingling chills that run over your spine when you know things are NOT RIGHT. The hot and cold blend together, moving back and forth. At one point you're at the bottom of a well. At another, you're with a pyromaniac as he burns down everything. The sway from one to the other is hypnotic.

Fun side fact: One time I had this list of videos you could order from various goth/punk bands. My grandmother thought all the names sounded like porn titles and threw it away!! No, Gran, Alien Sex Fiend is a BAND, not a movie. Actually, it's probably a movie too.

Thank you to: My intuition

The Lesson Learned: One of the vexing things about life is that sometimes you have faith in yourself and sometimes you don't. I trusted myself enough to buy this album on a whim but didn't trust my instincts when it came to high school.

My Freshman year was hard. It was a new situation and I let myself lose control of my narrative. I fell into that all too typical trap of feeling like I wasn't good enough. They made a song up about me and my fatness. I heard through the various channels that I was going to be forced to sing this song on a band trip.

I retreated. I didn't go on the trip and let my mother talk me into changing schools so she and her new husband could have more influence on how things went than my grandparents did. To say the least, this was a mistake.

I wish I would have gone on the trip. I wish I would have sung the song, jiggled and danced, made a massive production out of it, and looked the cruel little beasties in the eyes as I did it. I wish I would have owned the moment, owned what they saw, and showed them even more, been, as RuPaul once sang, 'Mother of the House of No Shame.'

Life gets a lot easier when you face up to the things that people deem as unacceptable. I was fat. I was poor. I was weird. These were facts, but they end as facts. The idea that I should be ashamed of these facts, well, that is an opinion. I don't HAVE to feel one way or the other about those things.* Beyond that, those facts are just a very small portion of the facts about who I am. If those facts were all they were willing to see, that really wasn't my concern.

I just didn't know that at the time.

Oh. It didn't help that at the high school I'd moved to, they ALSO made up a song about me being fat. That felt so horrible at the moment, now I just smirk about what a great muse I am.


* This only counts for things that aren't hurting others. If you beat other people, if you rape them, if you harm them just for your own pleasure then yes,  you should feel shame. You should also stop this. Keep your opinions, hands, and genitals to yourself. Stay completely away from people (or animals or whatever you harm). There is no excuse for being abusive.

Project of Influence Album 12

The Album: The Lion and the Cobra Sinead O'Connor

The Story: I actually had help with this one! Yay for friends with better memories. So Nathan's parents had one of those old, massive satellite dishes that could pick up alien signals from space. It could also pick up music stations from Canada and one day he saw the video to "I Want Your Hands on Me." He told me about it and then found the cassette at Wal-Mart. That night we listened to the whole thing over the phone.

It was what I needed in that moment. I'd sustained my bravado as long as I could. I was finally in a safe place and sometimes when you're in the safe place, you can finally let go and feel the pain you've been holding back.

Albums like Lion and the Cobra let you hurt. They let you rage. The great thing about Sinead with this album is that she was completely unapologetic about her emotions. As much as I hate it when people just vomit their emotions all over everything, I DO love it when they channel said emotions into art.

This album explores loss beyond death, glorious passion, brutal anger, group anger, and hopelessness. It ends with a kind of acceptance, a way to sort of lift you out of the storm you've just been through. This album was my middle school therapy and it helped to keep me alive.

Thank you to: Mr. and Mrs. Billy, their big ol' satellite and their beautiful son.

The Lesson Learned: With this album, I learned catharsis. During the years of the last two of mother's husbands, I'd just been in survival mode. This album helped me to begin to let go of those repressed emotions. Not all of them, honestly the process of writing this has been an even greater catharsis and I've remembered a lot of things that I'd blocked out for years. I feel more whole now, but that healing process started with Sinead.

Project of Influence Album 11

The Album: Synchronicity by the Police

The Story: I could have put this at a lot of places on this list, but I think this pause between the dark years of elementary and what came after are the best place.

Synchronicity is the idea that two seemingly random events can have an unseen (but valid) connection, the kind of connection that reveals deeper truths to you.

As an example, you turn on your music player that is connected to nothing you can see. You turn on a Bluetooth speaker that is connected to nothing that you can see. And yet, the speaker picks up the sound from the music device. Now, this seems common to us, because we understand the science behind it, but if we didn't, the fact that one can play what is on the other one would seem magical.

If we are lucky, we will meet people who are synchronic with us. Even though we are individuals without any obvious connections, we will find a connecting energy. These people will reveal things to us about ourselves and help us to find who we really are. They bring us the books, the movies, the artists, and, of course, the music that make us more of ourselves.

These are the people you build businesses with, build worlds with, win independence for nations with. Synchronic people amplify each other's spirits and push each other.

Finding synchronic people can be the best thing that happens to you, but it can also be destructive if you don't understand what it is. The first time you find someone like this, you may assume you're in love. You're not. This is more intense than love and serves a different purpose. Well, it's not the kissy kind of love, anyway, though it probably feels like it. This can be confusing if the person is of the kind you are attracted to and really confusing if they're not. Instead of pushing each other forward, the fear and confusion may have you pushing each other away. You may think it's bad for you because it doesn't fit what people usually talk about. It's too big to just be a friendship and it isn't what you want from 'love' because you find yourself spinning in something that deeper and more profound than a romantic attraction.

This kind of connection isn't usually talked about so when you feel this much for someone (or many someones), you may get confused about A LOT of things. Sometimes being with these people may be too much because it's so BEYOND what it's like with the rest of the people. You have to be careful not to let it drive you mad.

Verlaine and Rimbaud both wounded each other in the hand, knife and then gun if I remember correctly. When Hephaestion died, Alexander massacred the Cossaeans. A bunch of synchronic people started the American Revolution, wrote beautiful documents that still stand today, created a system of philosophy-as-government and then started trying to destroy each other. In some cases, they succeeded (lookin at you, Aaron Burr).

But back to the album. The Police created an album about various moments of synchronicity, revelations of both the best and worst kind. In fact, two of the songs have always spoken to me about the darker moments experienced between synchronic people. "Wrapped around your Finger" and "Every Breath You Take" talk about how messed up and crazy things can get when you're trying to understand these connections. "Wrapped" is my favorite of the two, because it talks about how quickly the emotional power dynamic can switch and suddenly the person who was needing is the one who is needed. The last verse of that song is probably some of my favorite music ever written.

Devil and the deep blue sea behind me
Vanish in the air you'll never find me
I will turn your flesh to alabaster
When you find your servant is your master . . . . and you'll be wrapped around my finger.

Having said that, my favorite song on the album will always be "Synchronicity II" because it talks about the Loch Ness Monster and I loves me some Nessie.

Thank you to: Lori. We have had a million conversations about Sting and the police. A lot of my ideas about deeper connections between people began in those long ago discussions.

The Lesson Learned:
With one breath, with one flow
You will know
Synchronicity