On the Radio

With my need to tidily wrap up everything into a pithy aphorism, or lesson learned, or funny story, I sometimes get accused of being somewhat less than emotive. Being in that strange, interesting, and somewhat terrifying place of relational nihilism(take me out-franz Ferninand), neither pining, brooding, dreaming, or wondering about anyone, my itunes playlist serves as a reminder of just how pathetic and cliched I can really be(Some Place we only know-Keane). I say nihilism because there is no other word to describe it. I think I’ve passed that place that people talk about, you know the one where they stopped looking and suddenly met someone?(Brighter than sunshine-Aqua Lung) You know, the speech about how they looked and looked and finally gave up and in that moment met their special, special love?(Close to you-the Carpenters) It’s more than the drag of being the only single person at a wedding, or bitching about bad bridesmaid hair(Polyester Bride-Liz Phair), or hearing inspirational stories from your grandmother. It’s more than the moment when you, realizing that having escaped one cliche, become another-the single woman at thirty cliche(Creep-Radiohead). The one with the cat, the gay male friends, the unkempt hair, the coffee breath, the parents reminding you about your biological clock, and reading novels in bed(Is that all there is? Peggy Lee).

The strange thing about being such a cliche, is that the deeper I go into it, the less of the cliche I become.(Losing my Edge-LCD sound system) If chick lit is any indication of what my reality should be- somewhere in my environment should be this sexy man that I hate, yet find myself secretly drawn to(I wanna be your Joey Ramone-Sleater Kinney). Through a series of misfortunes, I should find myself stuck with him, through another series of impossible events, through the bickering, I should learn something about myself and the possibilities of love(You’re all I need to get By-Marvin Gaye). I can tell you, no such man exists. At least at this time. I am not just single. I am really, really, really single-one might say profoundly so(Fidelity-Regina Spector). I don’t own a matching underwear set, I not only sleep in the middle of my bed, I sleep diagonally in the middle of my bed(One, Aimee Mann). If it wasn’t hot out, I wouldn’t see the point in shaving my legs regularly. It doesn’t escape me that these are, in themselves, cliches(Born in the Seventies-Ed Harcourt).

The weird truth of the matter is that these cliches are not as neat and pat as they seem. It horrifies me to remember just how many men have patted my arm and told me how nice I am(Useless Desires-Patty Griffin). When people say such things about you, what hurts is that they clearly never really knew you(Meaningless-Magnetic Fields). As there is no way in hell that I am really that nice(Bitch list- L7). Rather than face such another such slanderously bland appraisal, I would rather hear anything else, like how they hate me. How they never want to talk to me again, how awful I am(Turn on me-The shins). How wonderful I am. or a hundred other adjectives. In fact, this is a pathetic love song that should be written, and the title should be “you’re so nice” ……the problem is that there is too much scope for wondering, because you know it’s followed by a silent, but ubiquitous “But”. But what? And as much as you’d like it to be, it’s never “but I am too much of fuckwit to recognize how wonderful you truly are.” I digress.

I was going to go back to the playlist, having been in the car a lot lately, I feel assaulted by my past cliched emoness(Lost Cause-Beck), when those songs really spoke to me, described a feeling, a moment, where I did stay up in my pajamas smoking and listening to them on repeat(Don’t play that song for me-Aretha Franklin), wallowing in grief(I wish I was the Moon-Neko Case) and loss(Willow Weep for me)and hope(Secret Heart-Feist) and fear(Fix you-Coldplay) and optimism(Summer Samba-Astrud Gilberto). Where even in the worst moments, when I felt completely stupid and absurd, the fact that Billie Holliday and Elton John experienced something equally as pathetic was comforting(Reflections-Diana Ross).

Having read Habermas, I know romantic love is some construction of capitalism or something(Chances Are-Johnny Mathis)-but we live in these cliches all the same. It pisses me off that the cliches that women are given are so limiting, that people actually think it’s ever appropriate to say “tick tock tick tock”. That one escapes one cliche to find refuge in another(If you leave me now-Chicago). On the other hand, at least this wealth of coflicting emotions are cliches-isn’t it sort of nice to think that after one cliche must come another?(Read my Mind-the Killers)   I suppose, I should be sorry that I wrapped up this entire entry so neatly.