Music&Lyrics

I love wondering about lyrics. How, exactly, did the writers come up with the idea?

I remember reading an interview with John Mayer, where he was asked who, exactly, his songs were about? He said they were a mixture of experiences with other girls. I thought that was an interesting, surprising, but definitely believable answer.

When I presented that tid-bit to my boyfriend, he said "That's a cop-out. But do you think he would really call out actual girls names? I'm sure he has multiple songs all about one girl."

So when you're boyfriend's a musician, and he sends you lyrics in an email because you're sort of long-distance, and they seem like maybe sort of they're about you, how do you react? I don't want to assume anything, but I do want to praise him and feel flattered.

I dated this guy for like a second freshman year who was also a musician. He played open mic night all the time, and every time I went with my friend, there was always this one song that made us look at each other suspiciously because it sounded so much like me. I thought it awfully bold and quick of him, since you know, we dated for only a second. So one day my friend asked him if it was, in fact, about me. He scoffed and was like "Um, no. I have dated other girls."

Okay, so my bf is clearly like, totally waaay more rad than this kid. But still, the point is I don't want to assume. The point is, how vain am I really by thinking his lyrics could be about me?

Like, OhMyBlog!

Do it.

http://likeohmyblog.blogspot.com

(Well, maybe don't do it yet. Wait until we finally get a couple posts up there. But my friends and I are more hilarious when we're together, just you wait and see).

Dreams DO Come True!

When I was just a girl, I had to do something to keep myself entertained on my family's 6-hour car drives to the beach. Since I'm a hopeless romantic, I day-dreamed about the range of boys I saw in the cars we passed on I-95.

I imagined that they would spot me, as equally bored and wistful as they were, and be amazed at me and all my 12-year-old scrawny glory. So naturally, they would hold a sign up to the window of their car with their phone number. Now, back in those days we didn't have cell phones, which just increased the melodramatic-ness of the situation, for I would have had to wait until I got home from vacation to talk on the phone to my lover.

Aw.

I (sort of) out-grew that little day dream, especially since it's so technologically passe. (Last time I shared this day-dream with friends, they imagined someone throwing their cell phone out their window into yours! So that you could put your number into it! That just sounds dangerous to me. Hmm...)

I had dinner last night with one of my lovely loving friends, and she said she had a good boy story, but that it was kind of weird, and she hoped I didn't think she was a horrible person.

She was driving on, whatdoyaknow, I-95 when she noticed she was keeping pace with a crazy SUV darting in and out of the lanes. When she thought SUV, she thought soccer mom, crazy old man, or high schooler who just got her license. But when she happened to glance at the driver, it was a cute guy! They flirted as they weaved in traffic, and after about three or four glances, he actually...held up a sign!!

It wasn't a phone number, though. It was better: "You are beautiful."

After losing and finding each other again, the next sign was his phone number. They've been talking almost every day and are making plans to meet up. Whatdoyaknow, he actually lives close by to her - even though anyone could be driving on 95!

There is hope for love in this world!

Sex and the City

It's almost cliche how much that fabulous show and now movie have become an icon to represent young women's dating lives. It's a guilty pleasure of mine, but I'm not so sure why I feel guilty.

A poignant quote from tonight's rerun on the CW:
"Saying I love you is easy. What comes next is a little scrunchier."

My immediate thoughts afterwards:

• ew! Scrunchies!
• Aw, so true.
• Man, I love my boyfriend.
• I can't believe that I have a boyfriend.
• I want to see that movie again.
  
• I want to blog more about SATC.
• I miss New York.
  
• ew! Scrunchies!
  

Girl Crush

I - I don't know, judge me if you must - develop a lot of girl crushes. There was one today on the metro. She was wearing the cutest little shift dress, with sandals just like the ones I bought yesterday, and similar curly hair to mine, but much shorter (maybe my crushes come purely from vain). But! So out of character for me, she had a huge tattoo on her arm. Not quite a full sleeve, but definitely not cover-up-able. She also was sporting the cutest indie-chic big, bulky headphones, kind of bopping her head to the music a bit.

Actually, when I saw her, I thought "this is the kind of girl my boyfriend would LOVE." I don't even know how I could assume that - except for the fact he's a hippie-ish music lover with a tattoo - but I did. And annoyingly - and also so out of character for me - I began to feel insecure. Like me, the conservative Christian girl who would never ever get a tattoo and occasionally enjoys Top 40, should never deserve his indie-open-loving affection.

I dated this guy freshman year for like two seconds who was a pretentious musician wannabe. He was skinnier than me and thought smoking cigarettes would be good for his image and one of the other guitar-players on our hall called him a "whore" because he tried to play his guitar for anyone at anytime. A million girls had crushes on him and I could feel the hearts breaking around me when he played at the campus open-mic. At the time, I was proud that he "picked" me. But I was also weirded out - what would a guy like him want with a silly, preppy, conservative girl like me?

I've always said that I don't have a type. Maybe others stick to their types less, and I should stop stereotyping and start enjoying.

Brilliant Thoughts ... by My Dad

"Love is almost too precious to take the chance of giving it up."

Isn't he great?

Leaving... by Giselle

I know Giselle from dance (get the pseudonym yet? No?) and work. Together, we are a creative force not to be messed with. And talk about boys a little too much. I love her! You should love her too.

I’m not sure if it’s because my iPod is full of shaggy haired boys playing slow acoustic guitar and singing about unrequited love or if it’s because I had just left a certain shaggy haired, guitar playing boy behind...but I could not find a single song on my long drive home from Harrisonburg tonight that made me happy.

Who am I kidding, the latter is most definitely the reason for that.

For my fellow fans of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, you might recall Lena and Kostos’ meeting in Greece at the end of the final book, Forever in Blue. Kostos is Lena’s ‘person’. You know, the someone you can’t get past despite anyone else…

…Sound familiar to anyone? Anyone?

Sorry, I digress.

Life had separated the two for months, and when they finally chance meet again, it’s the day before Kostos has to leave the country. They spend the night in their special place- an orchard at the top of the village- and when the sun starts to rise in the morning and they hold each other for the last time, he whispers to her a word in Greek that she doesn’t understand.

“κάποια”.

Lena seaches every English/Greek dictionary she can find, she asks her grandparents, her cousins, her aunts and uncles, but no one seems to know the word that she means.

Finally, on her last day in Greece she finds it in an old dictionary.

“Someday”.

Did I expect anything like that? Oh no.

But I can’t decide what I DID expect.

Experience and reason should leave me without expectation when it comes to this boy. But experience and reason should have taught me a LOT about him, and without fail, despite experience…and reason…something always brings me back to him.

Today was full of packing and loading and hauling and moving…so needless to say, by 7:00 tonight I was physically exhausted. And then there was the packing and loading and hauling and moving help that I received from shaggy haired, guitar playing boy- the very same shaggy haired, guitar playing boy who left my bed earlier that morning with a kiss goodbye- but when everything was packed and loaded and hauled and moved, and it came down to the ACTUAL goodbye, the REAL ending, I got a one armed hug and a “see you when you visit the beach this summer”. Now, I didn’t expect much, but I expected more that that.

… needless to say, by 7:00 tonight I was emotionally exhausted.

I sat across from my mom at Applebees, picked at my salad and tried not to cry. And after a while of staring at my pathetic-ness she said, “When did you become such a wimp? What in this 2-year-long friendship, or relationship or whatever makes it impossible for you to say how you really feel? That’s not you.” And of course, she’s right.

With Chicago Boy last summer, I promised myself I wouldn’t get attached.

Sound familiar?

I promised to let it be a physical thing only.

Sound familiar?

I promised to not expect anything and go with the flow and let what happened happen.

Sound familiar?

And then came the end of the summer, and the anxiety of leaving him behind, and knowing I didn’t want to be without him and having the conversation I knew I had to have and the resulting relationship and that was me. That was me telling him how I felt and getting what I wanted and being real.

But for some reason I cant say those things to Shaggy Boy. I can’t even ask him to say those things or prompt him to say anything at all. I never say anything I want to say or anything I mean. And I don’t know if it’s because I never know where I stand, or because I think I know where I stand and it’s not where I want to be standing, or because I think I’m more invested than he is or what, but I didn’t say anything. I drove away from JMU for the summer and from him for who knows how long and I pretended to be content with that one armed hug, and despite attempts to drown my sorrows in a Sheetz milkshake and cheese fries, I cried all the way up 81.

So here it goes- what I might have said if I had any courage or any faith or any hope:

“Maybe, κάποια?”

I obviously think this guy is lame. You should too...

One of the weird things about being in love

Is that all those really crappy Top 40 songs that you used to roll your eyes at or made you turn away and shutter ... now you love. And turn the volume knob clockwise to "blast." Only when you're alone, of course, because if your lover knew you felt that way (about the song, not him) it would just be awkward. And your friends would think you're just bragging.

But really, you're just enjoying the endorphins of being in love.