I Know You'll Never Get Tired of Me. I Hope It Never Ends.

Two parts in one day because yesterday was reserved for a LOST marathon.

I miss that compulsion to move closer to the TV, that "ssshhhhhh sshshhshshs it's back on" after every commercial break, I miss being dangerously invested in the characters. LOST was the best kind of addiction. It never let me down or left me disappointed. I trusted LOST more than I trusted my friends. Someday I will learn to believe I deserve to be invested in my own life instead.


Days 3 and 4, Songs that make you happy and sad, respectively.


First, the happy.




When I first moved to Chicago, my roommate and I used to sing this song to each other. I hadn't been away from home since college, and Xtine was a friend I made due to our mutual love for live band karaoke.

Xtine was (IS) a packrat. She saved everything and kept it on display, making tiny shoebox dioramas of trinkets and junk that we stapled all over the walls of the apartment. Puddle-foot army men gunning down tiny plastic horses from vending machines against a backdrop of old band fliers, a forest of metal jacks and finger monsters amidst dangling Korean key chains, a mosaic of Garbage Pail Kid cards behind a collection of dried roses, Happy Meal toys and one-hitters. Our apartment was a disaster of ashtrays, DVDs, tampons, spools of thread, half-finished glasses of wine, bras and high heels. We had a giant filing cabinet in our kitchen full of clothes and bottles of whiskey and bolts of fabric, and there were always instruments lying around. Whenever we sat down on the couch we'd have to shove over the keyboard and old bags of take-out. It always smelled like cigarettes and booze and hair dye. We spilled a jar of beads one week after I moved in and I still find them in corners, just after I'm sure I tracked down the last one.

We cleaned together about three times in two years. Usually I cleaned. It drove me bonkers, but I knew what I was getting into when I moved in. But whenever we did clean Xtine would pop on her iTunes, and we would sing.

I was so happy when she cleaned with me. Plus, you know. This song is awesome.


And now, the Sad.



THIS SONG MAKES ME FUCKING LOSE IT.

Fox and the Hound is probably the most depressing movie of all time because its message is so simple and pessimistic: you can't be friends with people who are different than you.

I can say with confidence that most of my friends are very different, but everyone is different, really. I don't believe in the mindless masses. Some people just make their differences more obvious.

In the end the things my friends all have in common are drinking, a penchant for the ridiculous, and storytelling. We tell good stories. We tell stories about shit we've done and about shit we want to do. We make boring stories sound exciting, and exciting stories sound better. We're at our best sitting around with booze and memories and the friends we make that stick around are the same.

I know this isn't a unique trait, but it's what brings us together. Some people bond over sports teams, loving their children, hating their boss, music, skiing, sex, neighborhoods, politics, fashion, LOST. We tell stories and we rarely run out of them.

And when that changes it's sad. When someone decides they've told enough stories and it's time to move on to children or work, I understand, even though I can't see anything but stories being my priority. But when their priorities shift to the extent that it pulls us apart, I think of this song and I cry.

...