Spiral Notebook Sunday: Sunday, September 10, 2006

You know that occasional moment when you realize you're maybe not as crazy as you thought you were? Or at least, if you're crazy you're in some good company? I had one of those moments this past Tuesday when TangledLou over at Periphery wrote a post about how our perspective changes over time and the ways we might do a little (albeit inevitably tainted) time travel in order to reinhabit that other self. She mentioned music and its ability to bring "your lizard brain right back into a certain time."

 

I immediately thought, "Hey! I've done that!" Not only have I done it, I've done it more than once--and one of those times, I actually made a note about it in my Spiral Notebook. So now, not only was I not as crazy (or, at least, not as lonely) as I once thought, I also had my Spiral Notebook post all figured out for this week, four days before I actually had to post it. Bonus!

 

Tonight's entry was written nearly two months after Mr. High School's death when I was struggling to put down on paper something remotely sensible about what his presence, and now absence, meant in my life. I know now, of course, that it was way, way too soon to try to make sense of anything. What resulted from this experiment was another disjointed and babbling journal entry among many. Given the fact that today, six years later, I have two half-finished pieces--one in a manila folder and one in my blog's draft folder--about Mr. High School, maybe it's still way, way too soon.*

 

(So that you can fully appreciate how absurd my response to these particular songs was, a track list follows tonight's entry. I created these CDs for Mr. High School in late 2005 after having laughed with him over my habit of quoting goofy songs in the margins of my high school Spiral Notebook entries about him. The CDs were labeled "Sappy Crap Soundtrack," but in retrospect, "Three Decades of Mediocre Music" would've been equally fitting. The list is even more hilarious when you take into account the fact that in the yearbook next to his senior picture, his favorite song is listed as Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law.")

 

 

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Sunday, September 10, 2006

 

So I had this Big Idea--of making copies of those CDs I made for Mr. High School and putting on headphones and listening to them to set a mental/emotional mood for writing more about him, about us or the non-us or whatever it was or wasn't. It's been on my mind for a while now--I've imagined it at length.

 

I've imagined it failing miserably and making me feel like an immature and melodramatic cornball. I've imagined it succeeding brilliantly and the words pouring out of me in moving yet grammatically correct sentences.

 

What I didn't imagine is what actually is happening to me as I sit here at the dining room table, headphones dutifully attached, Cheap Trick blaring in my head.

 

I am sincerely stunned at this moment by the effect these songs are having on me. Stunned immobile. A couple of times near tears. As AS (pharmacist and soccer mom extraordinaire) would say, "What the EF?"

 

The first CD was on its tenth song before I even picked up my pen.We're now on song 16. Not exactly what I'd call speedy progress.

 

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Sappy Crap Soundtrack--Disc One

1. "When I Need You"--Leo Sayer

2. "Where Are You Now"--Jimmy Harnen with Synch

3.  "Abracadabra"--Steve Miller Band

4. "Leader of the Band"--Dan Fogelberg

5. "Lead Me On"--Maxine Nightingale

6. "These Dreams"--Heart

7. "We Belong"--Pat Benatar

8. "Always Something There To Remind Me"--Naked Eyes

9. "My Sharona"--The Knack

10. "Mirage"--Tommy James & The Shondells

11. "Oh No"--The Commodores

12. "Tainted Love"--Soft Cell

13. "In Your Eyes"--Peter Gabriel

14. "Believe In Me"--Dan Fogelberg

15. "Tonight It's You"--Cheap Trick

16. "Best of My Love"--The Eagles

 

Sappy Crap Soundtrack--Disc Two

1. "Words Get In The Way"--Gloria Estefan

2. "I Miss You"--Klymaxx

3. "Crazy Love"--Poco

4. "Against All Odds"--Phil Collins

5. "Separate Lives" Phil Collins

6. "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues"--Elton John

7. "Total Eclipse of the Heart"--Bonnie Tyler

8. "Hurts So Good"--John Mellencamp (back when he was still John Cougar)

9. "Sometimes a Fantasy"--Billy Joel

10. "Sleeping With The Television On"--Billy Joel

11. "What About You?"--Crystal Gayle

12. "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You"--Stevie Nicks

13. "Everybody Has a Dream"--Billy Joel

14. "What A Fool Believes"--Doobie Brothers

15. "What About Love?"--Heart

16. "Time After Time"--Cyndi Lauper

17. "After The Fire"--Roger Daltrey

18. "How Does It Feel To Be Back?"--Daryl Hall & John Oates

 

Sappy Crap Soundtrack--Disc Three

1. "Waiting For A Star To Fall"--Boy Meets Girl

2. "I Go Crazy"--Paul Davis

3. "Long, Long Time"--Linda Ronstadt

4. "One More Night"--Phil Collins

5. "The Search Is Over"--Survivor

6.-16. The remaining ten tracks were Foreigner's "Records" album--a greatest hits compilation. I told Mr. High School to consider them his reward for sitting through the rest of it. He had always liked Foreigner and had lost both the record and CD versions of his Foreigner albums, among many other things, material and otherwise, in his nasty divorce.

*Or, maybe, I am unable to finish either of them because it's just a silly topic that my mind picks up again and again in order to avoid all the less silly and more dangerous topics that are lying about. But that's a question for another day. Or never.