Closing Time

Blowing kisses goodbye

It's here. The final Twisted MixTape, at least until the fall comes.

I'm sad. Saying goodbye to a friend sucks. But it's a part of life.

This last mixtape's theme is "Farewell." I thought about putting together a collection of songs that say goodbye, but I'd like to do something else. I'd like to say goodbye to other friends I've had to part from.

So here are goodbye songs for many of my friends from whom I've parted, and a few little stories about our farewells. Because I can't just give you a list of songs. As always, I have to give you a miniature musical biography,

I hope you don't mind.




This first song is for Uncle Brony. Uncle Brony, the first good friend I made when my family moved to Michigan the year I started middle school. He and I made each other mixtapes constantly. That's not really true, he made me mixtapes for every occasion. And from him, I learned the skill. This song was on the tape he made me to listen to in the car when I got my first driver's license. And it's that tape I was listening to the first time I drove on my own, in the car, with my license. As I drove home, I saw him walking down the street. I rolled down the window and waved... hitting a parked car in the process. I'm not sure he noticed I was listening to his tape while he laughed at me. I never really said a proper goodbye when I moved to Chicago. But I love him and think of him often, particularly when I hear this song.



This is for my friend JP. She was in my wedding. We worked together, once upon a time. She was one of my best friends, and then one day... she wasn't. I called her about something, and she ranted at me for half an hour about all the things I'd ever done wrong during our friendship, most of which had never even happened. I was shellshocked. I apologized, and honored her request never to contact her again. I still feel confused and guilty about the whole thing. I still don't really know what happened. I would still love to hear from her again. And if I could sent her a song, it would have been one that managed to convey guilt, and frustration, and confusion, and affection. And this is the only song like that I know.



This is for Aunt and Uncle Texas, who moved. To Texas. And who I think of often, although I see them so rarely. Uncle Texas and my husband were practically married in college. When Uncle Tex got married, M was in the wedding. And he was best man at our wedding. Aunt Tex was a master at making jokes at M's cancer when he was sick, and made herself MVP for my wedding party. They're two of our favorite people in the world, and no matter when or how, we always know we'll see them again. Though I have no doubt Uncle Tex would prefer I picked a Hanson track for him. That's not a joke.



This song is for Sara, Ellen and Krista, the girls I spent all the sunny days of my middle school glory with. We swam in public fountains, danced down city streets, wore crazy clothes and crazier hair, and blissed out on youth and beauty and freedom. I really haven't seen those girls since, but I think of them often and wish them well in everything.



This is for my art school friends. Keeley, Erica, Nichole, Wade, Jesse... the people I spent so much time with in the dorms, painting and crafting and generally complaining about the limitations of our assignments, and who scattered to the winds (and me with them.) I loved those crazy artists. And I hope they're happy doing what they're doing. Lunatics.



For Aunt Blackbird (do you like the name?), who moved away just when we were starting to get so close. Distance never keeps friendship from happening. If there's anything the internet has taught us in the last decade, it's that we can have friendships that have nothing to do with proximity.



For Dynamic Tension, who I spent so long with. Who I bled with, and sewed with, and danced with, and laughed with, and slept in huge exhausted piles of people with. I leave you with this.



This one is for JS. My oldest friend, my best friend. I haven't seen her in almost six years, and that's about how often I do see her. I'm going to make a trip to visit this summer, and keep the streak going. Every six years seems like was too long. It is too long. But we've seen each other ever six years since we were eleven, with a random brief visit or two in between. I always feel a little alone when I think of her, so far away. But I always feel loved and happy at the same time. She's a kind of magical person that way.



For Aunt Vox, who I love and who marches to the beat of her own drum- always. I miss you constantly, and I wish I had a better chance to say goodbye before you left the midwest. And every time you leave it again.



To all my Community High School friends- Cat, Kent, Eric, Nick, Teo... I love you all, and even though I didn't graduate with you, the sappy "graduation song" thing still makes me think of everyone from high school so fondly. I love you all.



Last but not least, goodbye to the Twisted MixTape crew.
I'll miss you.

Oblivious

I love this little girl.

I have dwelled long enough. It's time to put this blog to therapeutic purposes and tell you a story.

It's the story of how when I looked in the mirror on Tuesday morning and found three, yes, three brand new grey hairs growing out of my temple, I knew exactly where they came from.

There are moments in parenting that make you want to simultaneously throw up, curl into a ball and cry, and drink until you pass out. There are always going to be those moments. And the thing that makes them so awful is they're always such a surprise when they happen.

Once upon a time, I had a wonderful pyrex mixing bowl. It was a thing of wonder and beauty, even if my husband did nearly concuss me with it. I also had a marvelous pizza stone. And they were both dirty.

I did what any reasonable adult would do. I washed them.

First, I washed the pyrex mixing bowl. And I set it in the drying rack on the counter. Then I washed the pizza stone.

Of course, this was in the build-up to making a family meal, which meant RH was toddling around me like a noisy shadow, tugging and my skirt and demanding juice, asking for apple slices as I prepared to boil water, the usual.

As I set the pizza stone into the drying rack, RH walked around me, to paw at the drying rack. I rolled the vacuum cleaner into her way, so she couldn't pull down the rack filled with heavy stone and glass objects. Seemed like a no-brainer.

And then I grabbed the pyrex mixing bowl, for mixing purposes.

As I lifted it, the weight distribution on the rack shifted, and the heavy pizza stone started to fall forward. Right over RH's little head.

I reacted instinctively. I threw my hands in between my twenty one month old child and the falling piece of heavy stone.

My hands, still holding the gigantic glass bowl.

The glass shattered into a million pieces, shards as long as my forearm and as sharp as any knife in the kitchen exploded from my hands onto the floor. Tiny slivers rained down.

This all happened one foot over my toddler's head.

Unfortunately, she wasn't wearing protective
headgear

I screamed. Of course I screamed. And RH, her hair full of glass fragments, with glimmering pieces of broken glass shimmering all over her clothes, froze.

She didn't cry. It was like she'd been turned to a pillar of salt.

As quickly as I could, I set down the chunks of razor sharp glass still in my hands, and moved the pizza stone into the sink. Then I did what you have to do when your one and a half year old daughter is both covered in and completely surrounded by broken glass.

I stepped into it to rescue her.

I spent most of the night cleaning up broken glass. Picking it out of her hair, out of the bottom of my feet, off of the vacuum cleaner. I had a beer and I called my mother, because apparently that's how I deal with trauma now. I'm still not satisfied the glass is completely gone. There was so much of it.

But RH? Not a scratch. Not a single scratch on her.

And I keep reliving it.

I couldn't have been more terrified and certain that something terrible was about to happen to her if she's beed surrounded by snakes or crocodiles or tarantulas.

And as soon as I put her to bed that night, satisfied that she wouldn't roll over and slice her scalp open with a hidden bit of glass, I realized how badly hurt I could have been, with my arms and wrists right there, next to the explosion of glass.

And I had a Bailey's on ice to help me get to sleep.

First of all, let me say I know, drinking is a terrible way to deal with stress. And it's one I don't generally resort to. But I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking. I couldn't get my heart to start racing. I needed to do something to force my body to act like it wasn't in fight or flight mode, and I happen to know I'm a more competent parent on a glass of Bailey's than I am on a xanax.

But to be perfectly honest, nearly killing my kid with a giant glass explosion seriously fucked me up.

I know, she wasn't "nearly killed." But she also was. The enormous, sharp, heavy chunks of glass all around her could have easily killed her, and just as easily mutilated her for life.

Not a damn scratch on her, though.

Every time I think about it I feel sick. I blame myself, because I should have been so much more careful. I blame myself because I hesitated for a moment before I put my shoeless feet into a mound of glass shards. I blame myself, because who else is there to blame?

She's okay. She's totally unharmed. She'll never remember it, she won't know it happened. That's how toddlers work.

Me? I'm growing a nice streak of grey at my temple because I'm responsible for giving my youngest child a broken glass shower.

And that, right there, is what parenting is like some days. You worry and worry and blame yourself and second guess yourself because you're responsible for the life and happiness of another human being in a way that only comes with children. And after all that worry and self-blame and fear and agony... the kid is fine. The kid is happy. The kid is oblivious.

The kid loves you, even though they have no idea what you've just gone through in the simple hope that they will remain happy and healthy and safe. Because they already trusted implicitly that it was the most important thing to you. And they were right.

She's a quirky little thing.

That's parenthood, some days. Some weeks.

Picking glass out of your toddler's hair while she drinks a cup of juice and laughs at being shaken upside down to knock the glass of her shirt.

Picking glass out of your feet and ankles and being relieved that it's your skin that got scuffed up. Committing to memory every adorable and heartwarming thing your kid does because you never know what you'll have to remember if next time you aren't so lucky.

Some days, that's it.

Not today, thank God. But some days.

And those other days, there are always extra hugs to enjoy, smiles to ignore, or fights to end. Because life is messy, and it doesn't stop just because one day last week you traumatized yourself.

You just have to learn to be a little oblivious to your own trauma, too.

All My Little Words

A glimpse of my own writing process

I know it's a day late, and I apologize... but this week's Twisted Mix Tape is a doozy.

Really, an enormous challenge.

You see, the prompt is lyrics.

I'm a writer (as you've probably noticed).  And, if you've been reading along and listening along for my own Twisted Mix Tape contributions for the last... months or so... you'll have noticed that lyrics are kind of a big deal to me. I pick them apart. I look at their poetry, at their meaning, their symbolism and their innuendo.

You might not know this, but before I ever started writing this blog, or short stories, or books, or anything else, I was a poet. I still am a poet. And I wrote songs. I appreciate how difficult it is to tread the line between insipid and pithy, and the challenges of putting those words to music.

So- lyrics. How to choose? How to narrow it down to something even borderline acceptable?

You take two whole days staring at your computer, humming in the car, singing to your children, and generally thinking about the songs that speak to you, and why.

A lot of these songs are self referential when it comes to writing, and the process of writing. Because lyrics are written. And a lot of them are melancholy or bleak, because I've always found that there is more that sticks with you when grief or anger or loneliness is exposed than when you find another way to express joy. But even so, it's all worth a listen.

It's all more than worth listening to.

It's all worth savoring and memorizing and scribbling in the margin of notebooks.





Let's start with the act of writing, as poetry itself. No, let's just start with one line. "I've got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains." Sometimes it's the lyrics that make the song. It doesn't matter what beautiful instrumentation or arrangements are behind them. Like so many on this list, picking just one song to represent the amazing oeuvre of songwriting was nearly impossible.



One of the greatest songwriters of all time. Picking just one Bob Dylan song feels like insanity. But I tried. Feel free to start a debate in about which song I ought to have chosen, and please include links. I'd love to have an extra mixtape made by all of you in the comments.



Ani is getting the second spot, because her words have always spoken to me so strongly. It's a strange thing, being a thirteen year old girl. I wasn't fortunate enough to have flawless skin. I was short and busty, big haired, heavy browed, somewhat broad shouldered. I didn't look like a willowly, blond haired, tan skinned Gwen Stefani clone. I didn't look like the girls in the magazines, or on TV. And while part of me understood all the while that it didn't make me ugly, it did make me... not pretty. This is the song that opened the doors to Ani for me. For a few years of my adolescence, "I am not a kitten stuck in a tree somewhere," was my mantra.



Any list of brilliant lyrical songs would be incomplete without Leonard Cohen. His earlier works weren't so much folk songs as they were beat poems to rival Kerouac or Ginsberg, set to music. He's not just a songwriter, he's a Canadian poet laureate.



The 20th century was filled with incredible song writers, who told stories and made jokes. I thought for a long time about putting a Cole Porter song in here, but in a lot of ways Cole Porter was limited. There's a great beauty in the longing in his lyrics to say something more- but he was constrained by the times he lived in. Stephen Trask wrote this number, and if you've never seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I can't recommend it highly enough. I don't know what the rest of Stephen Trask's work sounds like, but I'm happy to judge him by one score along. And that by this song.



Bjork is so much more than a writer. She's an inventor, and an artist, and an innovator. But yes, she's also a poet. I love the way she puts words together, and sets them to music without any kind of care about styles and norms. It's a beautiful thing to hear.



I wanted to put in a Beatles song here. I really did. But no matter what I started with, I always came back to this. I love Sir Paul, but John Lennon was the better writer. And this might be his lyrical masterpiece. (Okay, it's a six or seven way tie.)



You know somebody is a genius of a lyricist when you absolutely can't choose. I actually had to pass over "I Am A Rock." I finally settled on American Tune. "I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered, I don’t have a friend who feels at ease, I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its knees"



Songs with lyrics that stay with me, that change me, war protest songs are at the top of the list. But no song has moved me personally so much as this one. It's painful. But it's honesty is moving and jarring and hard. And that's important. That's what good lyrics, great songs, should do.



Another one that stays with you. One of the greatest and saddest and most poignant songs of all time. I include this version, not because it's Billie Holiday singing and she wrote the thing and deserves your everlasting respect and admiration for doing so, but because of this performance. Pole dancing really is evolving into an art, and with a song that is so thoroughly art as "Strange Fruit" for her number... well... it haunted me all over again.



Now that we've covered pain and suffering, let's move to love. And the pain and suffering it entails. If you haven't listened to the Magnetic Fields triple album "69 Love Songs," you're only punishing yourself.



I leave you, at the end of this painfully incomplete and insubstantial list, with Etta James' magnum opus.

April Fools

I'm a clown, what can I say?

I love pranks. LOVE them. But, sadly, my love of pranks usually eliminates any hope I might have of actually pulling one off.

There was one time, back in my wild and reckless youth, that I had a nasty fight with Aunt Something Funny. I have no idea what it was about, but it was ugly. After a long night of drinking coffee and complaining about big sisters with a friend, I came up with a plan.

I bought a pie. I would stay awake all night, waiting for Aunt Something Funny to come down to the kitchen for breakfast. As she came down, I would offer her a slice of pie. Naturally, she would say yes. As I carried the pie across the kitchen, I would accidentally slip, stumbling forward, and smashing the pie into her face.

Can you imagine a more gratifying scene? Me neither.

So I stayed up ALL NIGHT, giggling with my friend and NOT eating the pie.

And finally, she appeared, bleary eyed and foul tempered.

"Would you like some pie for breakfast?" I asked, trying not to grin.

She scowled, still angry about the previous night, or maybe just not a morning person. "Fine, sure, I'll eat pie. Whatever."

So I lifted the pie from the counter. And I turned towards her, and put one foot forward.

And then I attempted to put my other foot forward. But I was stepping on the opposite leg of my pajama pants.

And I fell.

And landed face first in my own pie.

My friend and I howled with laughter. We laughed so hard we couldn't speak for so long that Aunt Something Funny turned around with a confused, disgusted look, and went back to bed. Pie free.

I never got any better at practical jokes.

One ridiculous attempt to prank M ended with me giggling in the trunk of our car while he drove circles around a parking lot, pretending not to notice I was in the trunk, giggling, getting ready to pull some kind of prank him.

The only person I can successfully prank is SI, who at four and a half years old shares my love for being startled. I have a tendency to hide behind doors and just jump out at her for no reason.

Seriously. I'm winning all the parenting awards over here.

The only prank I've successfully pulled on another person was while M was going through chemotherapy. I posted an update to my friends online that I was finally going out and getting that tattoo I always wanted. A purple crescent moon. On my face.

The fact that they believed me really says more about my inability to make good life choices than my prowess at coming up with a good joke.

So no, you can't expect any April Fool's surprises from me. I guarantee they would backfire and I'd end up with a face full of whipped cream or something.

There are worse things.

Happy April!