6:45 a.m. - 03/16/02
reason#1 censorship would not be *all* bad.
I thought I woke up around six this morning, but looking back now, it was probably more like four. Oh, well. I couldn't very well try and remain asleep when I had that damn "Down By The Bay" song spiraling around in my head. I mean, it's a perfectly legitimate tune, but when you're doing your best to rest, and you have to listen to little kidsong kiddles echoing every non-poetic little line, you begin to feel trapped in a bad game of Shadow. (Is there such a thing as a good game of Shadow?) Or at least I do. Somewhere along this paragraph I began to journal in second person, and that really isn't a good sign.
I wonder if codependent people journal in second person.
But I'm doing better now because I managed to switch from "Down By The Bay" to "The Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, which is either fitting or ironic, simply because I was mulling over how *loud* the keys are at six in the morning (when everyone else is asleep) when that popped into my head. Simon and Garfunkel are like tea with honey, thick and sweet and soft and warm. Mary is like a bad simile, oddly constructed and making little sense.
In other musical arenas, (I am supposedly chordchild after all) for some reason yesterday I began thinking about when I first began to enjoy the radio. I remember being a little kid and having my older siblings listen to the alt. rock station whenever we were in the car, begging for the dial to be pushed in the direction of "disney radio" and "fun radio" and other scary kiddie stations. My best bet, really, was that a soundtrack would be played - I got along well with tapes and musicals; they weren't so loud and edgy and I could remember the words. The radio always seemed to be playing a different song than it had the last time, and this bothered me.
So I was trying to remember when I first really began to appreciate the radio, and not feel so ostracized by its presence in the car, and I remembered being very young and enjoying that "Two Princes" song by the Spindoctors- even though at that point I only understood about half the words, and could never remember the name, seeing as I heard nothing about Princes in the song. Mostly I just liked the part where the guy sang, "and if you/ want to buy me flowers/ just go ahead now" ... I was young yes, but I suppose I was already enthused about the destruction of gender bias. Kind of like now when I see that Starburst commercial where the guys are fighting over the strawberry chew, and the tag line says "Starburst: making pink acceptable for guys" - except whenever I see that, I have to point out that everyone likes orange the best, so no one is going to sit there and fight over the strawberry. Unless of course, only lemon is left.
Anyway, I was intrigued that the first song I had liked was a.) sung by a boy- though that might have been simply coincidental as the majority of bands played on the radio in the early 90s were boy vocals, and b.) said boy was singing about how he wouldn't mind getting flowers. How friggin precocious of me. I was also amused to remember that this song was one of the first "hard" songs that I liked- the first time I could handle *real* radio, and listening to it now it's like, "Ah, the early 90s, so dark without the commercially-influenced synthesized sounds of a bought-out America" ... do you remember the Spindoctors? They aren't exactly Marilyn Manson or anything, and that might as well have been, except that I liked them, and despite our sharing the double M monogram, Marilyn and I don't get along too well...
I like thinking of my little self as a mini-advocate for gender identity issues. I think it helps "integrate" my fragmented self to find common ground between who I was and who I am. And I often feel guilty about how long it's taken me to be aware of what's going on socially, politically, nationally, internationally, et cetera - so thinking that as a kindergartender I was doing this is soothing. And remembering that the other song-loves that quickly followed, "Seether" by Veruca Salt and "Zombie" by the Cranberries, were both by relatively loud (at that point) girl vocals also cracks my smile.
I read a journal entry today about a girl's whose maid of honor was a boy, and I got overly-excited. Overly, meaning as I was grinning and skittering all over the place, it occurred to me that being that enthused about something so minor is silly- because it just shows how behind our social perception of what's acceptable is. Wedding ceremonies are *way behind the times* and we all know the times are way behind what they should be, so that really is saying something. I really like the idea of having a boy for a bridesmaid, if he deserves the job, and I'd suggest it to my sister, except I think if she does get married she'll do a really good version of a traditional route (for the sake of extended families)...plus, her best boy-friend next to her boyfriend would probably hurt the feelings of said boyfriend if he were chosen to be in the wedding. Just because Sarah was in love with boy-, or tried to be, for a really long time. And I wouldn't want to hear the crap my brothers would give Sarah about David (the boy-) being a maid, because David's gay and my brothers, while generally accepting, are kind of shitty in their humor sometimes.
Anyway, if she's not going to do it, I might have a fake wedding. The kind little kids have on sit-coms, except all wacked-out and amusing. I'd like to get married for fake, in a low-cost, high-entertainment sort of way. I mean think about the dress-up opportunities, and the decorations, and the fun casting of people (oh, we'll need a ring-bearer and a flower-girl, and how can we weird out this role, and that tradition, and does Dr. Seuss have any good wedding vows?) See, you think I'm kidding, but lately I've been doing a lot of semi-random things, and have started to get addicted to going for it.
For instance, I'm teaching myself ballet, which will be hard, but I have this thing about I-don't-know-how-to-dance-and-I-can't-ever-dance-and-Sarah-is-the-dancer-and-my-body-is-klutzy-and-rectangular-and-bad, and I think treating myself like a five-year-old learning first position and second position and however other many damn positions there are might help. Until it stops being fun at which point I will stop.
It's not like I intend to be a prima ballerina or anything. I mean, I'm not a pro-boxer but I can still send the bag flying...If only I had one of those mirror-walls.
Oh I did not just say that. ::shudder:: This entry has been completely pointless, and will therefore, be posted with its kin.
lovelles,
chord
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