a short reprise for Mary Todd, who went insane, but for very good reasons

While at the grocery store sometime last week (or the week before), my nose caught whiff of something so intensely cinnamon that I nearly keeled over from happiness. It ended up being a gaggle of cinnamon brooms, arranged artfully in an oversize white cardboard corral near the front of the store, and as I approached it I really did almost keel over from the sheer potency of the smell, and had to make an well-executed retreat to save myself from what could have been my doom. Which was reason enough not to buy one, I guess, even if I've been craving the rich warm scent of cinnamon (maybe with apples thrown in for good measure) for more than a week now as consequence.

Guys, my nose hurts. There's a little cut on the inside of my left nostril, and it's impossible not to touch it every few minutes just to make sure it's still there. Yeah, I know that makes little sense, but it's one of those things that's so deeply ingrained in human nature that you really can't stop yourself. It doesn't matter that all during lunch today I was gingerly sticking my finger up my nose, and wincing when it inevitably hurt really bad, and it doesn't matter that there's a 9-1 woman to man ratio in my office. And that they all watched me (painfully) pick (at) my nose for half an hour. I couldn't not do it.
I know you know what I'm talking about, so don't make that face.
While most of the women I work with are older than, say, thirty (to be kind), there're a few that fit somewhat awkwardly into the twenty-something category. They flock together hardcore, and yet somehow still manage to act some twenty years older than they really are. One girl - she looks to be 23 or so - wears cat sweaters, knits during lunch, drinks ensure, and reads romance novels. Another is 25 ans has four kids. Another is about my age, and talks about nothing but her cat and two dogs. It's as if sitting behind a computer all day processing bank forms ages you prematurely, sending you spiraling down into an abyss of youth-sucking awful.
That said, there's still an entire group of people who work at my office who I've never seen. Occasionally I'll hear a voice drifting across the space above the cubicles on an errant A/C'd breeze, but it's hard sometimes to put faces with voices, especially when a good portion of the people I work with are customer support types, who generally have much younger voices when compared to their age.
And so it was that when I ducked into the lunchroom around eleven to get some water, I met with about eight women who I've never seen before, all staring directly at me. It was obvious I was a new face to them as well, and so I waved a muted hello, got my water, and stared intently out the window for a few moments.
On the way out, I could feel their eyes.
For the rest of the day, I kept feeling the weight of people's gazes as they walked past my turned back (I was doing some mad sorting), and it left me feeling sort of dirty, sort of amused, and oddly... like I fit it.
Now all I need is some sexual harassment and I'll feel right at home.


Today's Friday, which means that it's my last installment in this week's series of ten albums that help make up part of who I am, and why
So without further ado:


Morning View by Incubus
High School is a series of half-memories for me; fragments of conversations, the way meals tasted, the smell of the hallway when the kiln was being fired, the drone of Mr. Galvin's voice, the sting of the cuts on the bottom of my feet after running barefoot in Shaffer Park on the last day of school...
This album fits neatly in with all of it, somehow. I don't remember when I bought the album or why, but I do remember listening to it on a bright, rainy day in mid-September, my nose buried in one of the countless Sword of Truth books that Johnny had let me borrow. It was during class, and I was supposed to be working on some assignment or another that I really couldn't afford to miss, and I was absolutely absorbed. Morning View, on first listen, doesn't seem like it would be a good match for the kind of sword and sorcery rubbish that makes up Terry Goodkind's novels, but I was steadfast in claiming that they fit. I didn't know how, but the intense vocals and lyrics rife with loneliness and angst clicked perfectly with larger-than-life heroes that strode, flew, and fought their way across the pages.
Because of that, I give this album some of the credit for the writing I did that year, which is very possibly some of the best I've ever done. It was as if that queer admixture of plaintive music and forcefully prose combined into a new sort of creativity, rife with strong characters and dramatic landscapes, deep solemnity and epic angst. I'd never encountered before. I've never met its equal since.

Tracks you ought to hear, yo:
11am
Circles
Aqueous Transmission



The Ditty Bops by The Ditty Bops
Since that very first day that sister Kate shimmied her way into my life, I've been hooked to the Ditty Bops, who are just about my favorite bike-riding, harmony-producing, folk-singing lesbians ever.
It was via some link or another on the WWWebernets that I discovered them on one fateful day in the spring of '05. I'm pretty sure I was less than happy at the time, probably because of a girl. I could go digging through my livejournal to make for certain who it was and why, but in truth it really doesn't matter. The fact is, I was miserable, and there was nothing to be done to lift me from my listless funk. I was inconsolable.
But then the aforementioned link made itself available for clicking, and I clicked it, and there were these two cute, very real looking girls singing upbeat folktunes about riding bikes and how the white people can't play the blues. I looked them up forthwith. Back then, nobody knew who they were, and Wikipedia pretty much said that they sang stuff and were maybe into each other. I wrote this last bit off as slander, found some more videos, fell a little bit in love with their tight tight harmonies and sometimes perplexing subject matter.
I bought their album online because I could, listened to it notstop for days when it arrived, and then I came to terms with the fact that these lovely young singer ladies were totally hot for one another. Which was okay, because the replacement for whatever kind of lady drama I was having at the moment couldn't (and shouldn't) be solved or even soothed by celebrity affection.
But in their way, the Ditty Bops did get me through the tough times, bouyed me up on giddy chords, made me fall in love with life a little.

Some songs you might dig:
Wishful Thinking
Sister Kate


So. What do you think? Do you feel edified, oh readers? Have I laid rest to questions you may have had about my character and disposition? Is a week-long exploration of music an adequate way to plumb the depths of the human soul?
I want reactions. I know some of my posts were better than others, and I know some had more relevance than others, but overall I felt it was a worthwhile little project. I'd just like to know what you think.

In other news, Gustav Klimt paintings as done through photographic recreations - here! (NSFW. There's a wee bit of nudity.)

Goodnight, kids. I'm feeling grumpy, and it's supposed to rain a whole bunch tomorrow. Wish me survival.
-James