my so called...

When I was 17, I secretly wanted to be Angela Chase. I wanted to dye my hair a crimson red, adopt pale, flawless skin, wear plaid, grungy shirts tied around my waist (which would be at least 80 lbs. lighter) and ponder the meaning of life. So listening to Buffalo Tom's "Late At Night" is like finding a piece of old-school, sugary sweet candy. The kind that hold memories underneath the wrapper. Like candy cigarrettes, licorice flavored gum or or Brach's neopolitan squares.

It's one of the best scenes in the entire short lived series. After humiliating a love struck Angela, the object of her obsession, Jordan Catalano makes his way down a flourescent high school hallway, his clothes baggy enough to let people know he cares about his appearance but not too much...and Angela is poised against a row of lockers, slumped just enough to make her even more beautiful. Her friends close to her side. And just as she's deciding to banish her feelings for the bad boy Catalano, he approaches her to soft sound of Buffalo Tom's "Late At Night". And as they make their way down the hall, Angela's wish of acknowledgement from her crush is met with a simple grasp of her hand.

"I, I held her hand too tight/too hard to make it right/so I could sleep at night... If I could hold them in my hand/I'd make them understand/I'm not a haunted mind/I'm not a thoughtless kind...I'd do it if I could/I hope you know I would..."

And while it is very rare that I feel a sense of nostalgia for my high school era - the song did it today. And I wanted to be 17 again, an age when I drank way too much soda and didn't fully realize how consequences can span over time. How time can wear on the skin, the bones and the body. An age when I really didn't know much at all - not realizing that ignorance can sometimes certainly be a stage of bliss.

So it was appropriate that the pod next served up The Bravery's "Time Won't Let Me Go".

"If I could go back once again/ I'd change everything/ If I could go back once again I'd do it all so much better...Time won't let me go."

I have an obsession with time. Particularly time wasted.

I think sometimes people are afraid to admit they have regrets. Maybe it's rightly so. But I know if I were 17 again, there's plenty I'd do different. And plenty I wouldn't. I'd still get lost in those depressing songs like Counting Crows' "Goodnight Elisabeth" and "A Long December". I'd still let Tammy and Stacy get me drunk on my 17th birthday. I'd still take every art class and defy every assignment - declaring my hatred for watercolor and silkscreening. I'd still refuse to let my AP English teacher edit my graduation speech.

But I wouldn't be so self-conscious. So self-defeating. So self-aware. I'd read more. I'd let my friends turn into bad influences and feel the rush of adrenaline that comes from skipping a day of school or staying out too late or getting drunk on a school night.

We can never go back. We can never undo what has already been done. To quote the best movie of the year, "that is one doodle that can't be undid, homeskillet". But it is a constant struggle. A constant wish - deep down - even in those who swear in email and myspace forwards that they have no regrets - that we would do things differently if we could go back.

And if I could go back - I'd dye my hair crimson red.

savin' me...

Things have been - a little busy. And I could write plenty...particularly on how disgusted I was to wake up this morning to CNN exploiting those whose family members are missing in the Minneapolis bridge collapse. It's sad to see well dressed "reporters" shoving microphones into the faces of those who deny everything to hang on to the only hope they can muster that their mom or dad, husband or wife will come home - when the reality is - they very well may not.

But because things are busy - I'm going to play it high school - and simply post the lyrics of a song I'm listening to. Because I like that song. And because there's just too much to type right now.

Savin' Me - Nickelback

Prison gates won't open up for me
On these hands and knees I'm crawlin'
Oh, I reach for you
Well I'm terrified of these four walls
These iron bars can't hold my soul in
All I need is you
Come please I'm callin'
And oh I scream for you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'

Show me what it's like
To be the last one standing
And teach me wrong from right
And I'll show you what I can be
Say it for me
Say it to me
And I'll leave this life behind me
Say it if it's worth saving me

Heaven's gates won't open up for me
With these broken wings I'm fallin'
And all I see is you
These city walls ain't got no love for me
I'm on the ledge of the eighteenth story
And oh I scream for you
Come please I'm callin'
And all I need from you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'

Hurry I'm fallin'

All I need is you
Come please I'm callin'
And oh, I scream for you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin', I'm fallin'

Hurry I'm fallin'

damn good

"damn the long distance phone call/making a bastard of me/i don't want to relive the lost child story/Cameron is pushing her jesus/maybe she needs to believe/'cuz nobody sticks around/everybody leaves

55 pictures on the wall/i still don't have the guts to call/everyone moved away and we grew up/we slammed the big door shut/55 pictures in your room/100 chances that you blew/if only these pictures could say i miss you..."

- the damnwells

see my soul makes it home

By 6 o'clock Thursday evening - I wanted to be a writer for Rolling Stone.

I was sitting in the lobby of the Ship & Shore Motel which had been converted into the VIP festival hub, which meant a full open bar - someone to crush the mint for your mojito or get you a plastic cup filled with frozen margarita. I poured myself a T&T and sat down.

The press handler and I were waiting on the arrival of The Damnwells - who were playing live for the street party and who were also the subject of the documentary "Golden Days" - which was showing at the festival over the weekend. The film's trailer had hooked me. The Damnwells, out of Brooklyn, have opened for The Fray, The Dixie Chicks and Blue October and had struggled to get their band on a major label. They succeeded - getting the go ahead from Epic to produce their first professional record. Only to be dropped from the label after months of recording, fine tuning and waiting.

The press handler spoke nervously into her cell phone as she checked up on the band yet again - and Alex Dezen, lead singer of The Damnwells, suddenly showed up behind us both.

Frankly, I didn't expect to get much out of the guy. I write for the local paper, and Dezen & The Damnwells had spent less than 10 minutes in Saugatuck. Dezen had a radio man waiting for a five minute spot and The Grand Rapids Press threw in a last minute call requesting an interview...and the band was supposed to go on stage by 7:30.

Before I go on let me just say - now that I've watched "Golden Days" three times and have had nothing but their latest album "Air Stereo" playing in my car all weekend - it's hard not to fall in love with The Damnwells. Theirs is a kind of genuine rock and roll that's hard to find these days. It's in the sound of a guitar case clicking open and shut, the smell of the strings... It's in small bars and clubs where guys like Dezen and his band play under heavy lights... It's on the road.

Instantly I was hooked on the lyrics...delivered soulfully by Dezen - like on "Golden Days": 'Am I in tune?/Yeah I can't hear much but the melody coming from you...' or on my favorite track so far "I Am A Leaver": 'Lock your lips in Eastern time/bleed my heart, I'm leaving mine/see my soul makes it home/I'm high on wretched wine/spinning here alone...'

Back to Thursday night, Dezen, the handler and I walked across town to get the radio man his five minute sound bite. The Grand Rapids Press was rushing to get to Saugatuck before The Damnwells took the stage. Dezen and I sat down to talk.

We talked about the movie... "Ego would probably be the death of any documentary film," he said. "You have to kinda e on the outside."

Dezen seemed nervous - but he was comfortable enough to joke around. I wanted so much to relate to him as he talked about being young - and then getting older - and still trying to find some form of success. Even with the film and the new record and the band's current tour - he was careful. "Whether it takes us to, you know, large success still remains to be seen," he said.

The subject turned to the band itself - and I got cliche - "So how long are you guys going to be doing this?" I asked him. "Forever?" Dezen laughed and was quick to say - more or less - not really. And it was almost heartbreaking. You expect some bands to break up and go off on their own. Soon that Pete Wentz guy will probably find his way out of Fall Out Boy and I'm sure each Pussycat Doll will sign their own record deal. But bands like The Damnwells you just hope will go on forever. You don't want them to grow up.

"The future is very finite," Dezen said. "I think our goals are pretty much practical. When you're more practical about your goals, you can build to bigger achievements."

The band's music, he explained, will "live on beyond us". "That's the only goal that has any real permanence," he says. And he uses the term "insurmountable obscurity" and suddenly I want to be a groupie. I want to be Kate Hudson in "Almost Famous". I want to be a "band-aid". I want to make a list of every band I've every liked and go on the road with them.

"When you play a show," Dezen says. "You leave more of an indelible impression on people. A record is a permanent memory of that experience."

And suddenly I realize - I want a lot of permanent memories.

Dezen says what he wants, is to feel like "at the end of the day, I can walk away."

And I thank him for his interview. And I wish him luck. And I leave him for the rest of the reporters. I go outside on a high and wait for the band to set up. When I make my way up to the stage to take pictures for the story, I stop at the small table that is sitting just a few feet away and throw down $15 for "Air Stereo".

Unable to make the screening of "Golden Days" at the festival, I get a screener to take home. I pop it in and I watch...and then I watch it again. The festival is over. The weekend is over. I don't want to go to work. I want to sit in the shade of Rachel's garage and drink a beer and scribble notes into a notebook and go home to a slate full of stories waiting for me the next day. I wonder if I'll ever really write full time. For a bigger paper. Or a magazine. Who knows. The future is very finite.

how long, so long

I stand in the doorway and look at my bed...which is littered with clean laundry. Underneath the piles of socks, underwear and a few sweaters strewn about there is my neatly placed bedding.

I can't remember how long it has been since I've slept in my own bed.

Which means it has been a long time.

Sleeping on the love seat, the floor...means that I'll get up on time. But now I'm walking around with a constant, wrenching back ache and knees that throb from being scrunched into too small a space. Last night a draft that came in from the balcony door kept me up for half the night. Standing in the doorway I seriously miss my bed. Seriously.

I spend most of the morning hunched over the coffee table, furiously sipping coffee and conducting phone interviews. And I keep thinking: SPRING. The stories are starting to pour in... My editor sent an email the other day letting me know that he may be looking into launching another newspaper in the area - which means new exposure. I can't wait for the air to smell and taste clean and to get up early, jump in my car and drive around. Interviewing. Reporting.

I rush through a shower so I can hit Starbucks before work. Outside it's 30 degrees, but it feels as refreshing as 50. I wish I were driving to the gym instead of work. I'd walk my miles, hit the bike, the rower, the ellipticals until my body ached with movement. I'd jump in the car and sit in the warm glow of Barnes & Noble until they threatened to close. Crawl into my bed and read until I fell asleep.

I would anyway.

"I put a record on/put it on and sing along with you..." sings Unkle Bob.

And sometimes a song catches me just so...and I think of you. It can't be mainstream. Something indie, something unique. Something that reminds me of the coffee place with a narrow shape and dark wood paneling and the beans sitting in open barrels. It was so dark in there. I never got to show it to you. It was my favorite place. For just a short moment in a place and in a time - you belonged to me and I didn't even know it. I see it in other women now. They feel this...connection when they turn the corner and see their husbands, their boyfriends.

You and I had that a lot. Around the corner moments. Around the corner into blue eyes and a square jaw and a bunch of stuff you wanted to tellme. You were my first connection. We had discussions, not banter. You shook your head at my coffee addiction and I suggested you quit smoking.

"And I wish I could see you/Across over seas/And I wish I could be with you/But I'll always believe/...I gotta hold it down/don't let it show"

I like those moments. In the car. When I want to be somewhere else. Just for a minute.

Can't hold on to them too long.

sugar & spite

That's what girls are made of.

It's also the title of the Unkle Bob CD I was able to find this weekend, which is kick ass and delicious on all levels - but back to the subject at hand...

I have a hard time with girls. Which might sound strange. Considering I am one. But I grew up with two boys. And a father who wanted me to be a boy.

So I can't handle a room full of girls fighting over curling irons and eye makeup and lip gloss and body lotion. Giggles hurt my ears. I don't think it's really bonding to walk around half naked commenting on bras and underwear while you're trying to keep the curling iron straight - or the straightener straight - or whatever.

My two best friends know that I find waxing relaxing, feel like Tom Selleck if I go too long without, like to make sure I smell good at all times and know absolutely nothing about makeup or hair.

Other than that, I like privacy when I shower. I can't sit in a bathroom if there are four girls gathered outside the door - unless I'm drunk. Then all I need is one in there with me to make sure nobody comes in and somehow I muster up the guts to go in someone else's presence. But who doesn't really.

I wandered through the bright aisles of Sephora, the stark bright fluorescent white against lacquered black. Rows and rows of sweet, lovely Philosophy products that I wanted to pack up into several plastic bags and take home. And rows and rows of makeup I didn't know the first thing about. I wondered to myself if I could ever be that kind of girl.

When I think about it - I imagine myself sitting on a floor surrounded by text books, how-to guides and instructional videos. How to be a girl.

Aside from the exterior ritual - I'm pretty much as girly as they come. I believe in romance and commitment and letting boys be boys. They don't need to remember birthdays or anniversaries as long as they make up for it later. They don't have to be sensitive at all times. They're supposed to fix stuff and watch sports and think they're smarter when they're insecure and I'm fine with that because I know better. Different than me. That's what I want a boy to be. And I didn't intend to rhyme.

But back to the curlers...

In the bathroom, where the girls are, curling and powdering and eye-linering, they judge each other's beauty, rate each other's boyfriends and become spiteful towards each other - without saying a word. That is why I have always had a hard time with girls. They get jealous of each other, get moody with each other and get condescending towards each other - then plaster on a smile and imagine everything must be alright in the end. "Fake at the seams", as Unkle Bob would say.

So I cherish little girls like Madison and Alexa, while they're little. Find joy in the innocent and good girls like Noelle and Carmen and find comfort in girls who are sweeter and sans spite - like Rachel & Kim. Because those are the kinds of girls who grow into women and become the best of friends - and help you out with those crazy boys - when you need it the most.

in my solitude

I have a friend who tries so hard to be loved. I imagine there are many like her, myself included - if I ever gave myself the chance - and it makes me wonder... Why do we try so hard when we're really, actually, already loved?

I imagine we want that first look to do something. To create some fireworks. To cause a spark. We want to be loved for our bodies or our faces or our smiles. We try to hide pale skin with visits to the tanning bed, wrinkles with specialty creams and soft parts of our skin with slimming attire or the morning-after pain of a couple hours at the gym.

No matter what we do - the image is the hardest thing for us to love about ourselves. If it wasn't - we'd spend every day in absolute bliss - catching glimpses of ourselves in the mirror and just having to take a second look. "How you doin'" we'd say to ourselves before taking ourselves out for a drink or even a carb indulgent dinner...

When I'm feeling particularly pensive and even a bit - lonely - I search for some sort of soundtrack to keep me from falling into a pint of ice cream...and sometimes I even do that.

Tonight, I slipped on Etta James' "Blue Gardenia" and as I searched through a row of CDs for it, I thought, this is what I want to be loved for. The fact that I own this CD. Unusual, for a 26-year-old girl in a small town in the Midwest. When I look around my apartment - besides clutter - I see books. Several of them I haven't even read yet. I suppose I'm keeping them for a rainy day. They're piled up in the corner of end tables, set out on the coffee table, in my bedroom, on the kitchen counter. And they're quite simply - not enough. My burgeoning CD collection, my DVD's which include several foreign films - aren't enough. I'll always want more. This is what I want to be loved for.

I put strings and strings of twinkle lights up in my apartment because not only are they cheaper than lamps - they are a sense of something I never had growing up. I don't have memories stored in my mind of my dad trudging out in the cold, autumn air to hang lights from the house. Jews don't hang lights - but this Jew does. This is what I want to be loved for.

I cook well - but only with someone to cook for. So a peek in my freezer will find frozen pizzas and a peek in my fridge will find lettuce, cheese, bagels and yogurt. When I shop at the grocery store, I often find that I'll look down into my basket and feel so sickeningly single. But given the chance, I can make one hell of a meal. This I want to be loved for.

I never make my bed. I despise laundry. I love soft blankets, black clothes and the big wooden tables at Barnes & Noble. I like the sound of a pick against a guitar string, thick, soft socks and candles.

And I try hard - to change my image - in spite of everything I've just said. Which makes me ironic...and quite neurotic. Which I also want to be loved for.

Because we love those things about ourselves. You know we do. When nobody asks us, we tell ourselves how much we love those little bits and pieces of intimate fact.

These are things that you can't try hard enough to make someone else see. They just have to see them for themselves.

portrait of (or a long rambling story)

'Living in a small town is hard. It's harder when it keeps getting smaller.'

My aunt tells me this as we sit around my grandmother's kitchen table - at the same time I was supposed to be sitting in Chicago attending a book reading. It is a very disinteresting story. I am not a city driver. I actually hate to drive at all. But I do it. Everyday. For longer than I'd like to. Back to the point... The plan, rather than drive 2 1/2 hours in heavy construction/traffic, was to make a 45 minute drive to Michigan City and read "Pudd'nhead Wilson" by Mark Twain on the way into Chitown, traipse the city, attend the reading and return home.

Michigan City is not the nicest of places. The 11th Street Train "Station" is a bench encased in plexi-glass near a sign that says "11th Street" with a small parking lot behind it. It's hard to see there on the side of the road...near the railroad tracks...when a construction crew has big jagged machinery sitting in front of it pulling up sections of the street.

"Come to think of it…I haven't heard a train all day," says the 3rd gas station attendant I've talked to all f'n day.

And so we have the train that disappeared...if only for the time I needed to ride in it.

Not far from the 11th Street Train Station is the Premium Outlet Lighthouse Mall. Or the Lighthouse Premium Outlet Mall. Whatever. It doesn't really matter. It's surprisingly blessed with such brand names as Burberry, Coach, Movado and Calvin Klein...for being a mall next to a giant, dirty smokestack.

You're supposed to shop when you're down but sometimes the shopping just brings you...downer. So after some pumpkin spice lotion (I have weird taste) and some Harry & David coffee, a present for Madison and a new pair of jeans, 2 1/2 hours later and a couple of aching legs, raindrops starting to fall and you get the picture - I realized that my depression which has been loyally by my side these past few months...was creeping into my already ridiculous day. I started heading home. I passed the train on my way there.

There was one last thing I wanted to pick up. Mindy Smith's new CD. On my way home, I made the disc my mission. The one thing that would go right for me today would be to pick it up and listen to Smith sing her songs on my way home. Two Wal-Marts, a pregnant woman who's pregnancy stuck out in redneck fashion from under her shirt, a Borders and a Best Buy later...I let Smith sing out her woe in the car while I made one last attempt at anything and headed for grandma's house...

Hey friend why are we always crying/All of these tears are going to dry us out/Whatever they're selling we've got to stop buying/Because our pockets are empty now...

My mother moved my younger brother and I into my grandparents house after my parents divorce and three apartments. I hadn't liked the idea at the time. But the old rickety house became the first real home I'd ever known. The friends that I have now, the only ones I've ever known - don't know me before the age of 14. I'd fallen in love with New York City at the age of five. I stood at the window of a small apartment – on what side I can't remember. I looked out into the dark, rainy street and watched as a figure rushed to the door, cloaked in moonlight.

I knew then.

When I was 18 I spent some time in Pittsburgh. Every morning on my way to school, I walked past homeless men on the street, robbed of dignity and looked down upon and just hoping for a quarter, or a cigarette or something to eat. One morning in particular a man and woman crossed my path on my way to the city for a walk. The man had reddish hair that stuck up in tufts, torn jeans and no shoes or socks. He asked me for change. I was afraid and I said I had none. In my pocket my hand gripped quarters, nickels and dimes. I knew then that I had less than that man did. There was less character in me refusing him than there was in him asking for a little help.

I quit school and went home.

I worked hard, floated around town - and made no plans to leave again. Plans mean action and I wasn't ready for action. I had to make a home. When your parents divorce while you're still a child - it means the end of a lot of things. Thanksgiving, Birthdays, Hannukah and Halloween were split in two. I could accept that. As a child with no say. But as an adult I wanted more. I wanted a place to come home to on holidays. I wanted a place that would one day be where I laid out lavish dishes, exotic and authentic food, mouthwatering in quantities large enough to feed every friend I'd made since I'd moved into that little rickety house, in the small little town that I live in now.

But the town has grown smaller.

You set the foundation and you make the friends. Like a story - you outline, you develop the plot - and the rest is the good stuff. The little details, the moments, the dialogue. That's what matters. My friends, my family - they have been my most favorite story. And like a favorite story - you put off coming to the last page. Because you don't want it to end.

You may not be what I will always need/But I call you home/If I can call you home/Then you're good enough for me.

So I'm driving today and I'm wondering just where it is I'm supposed to be now. I missed the train, maybe, I think. Not belonging makes you wonder. The world I'm trying to fit into - what if it doesn't fit? And the world I'm in - well - what if that doesn't fit either? My friends have gotten comfortable now. They are who I always saw them to be. Mothers, daughters, brothers, sisters, teachers, soldiers, engineers, thinkers, owners...believers... As they grow comfortable...they don't fade into the background. They are home. They are the ground.

And so - as the town becomes smaller - I gain less mobility. I can write a good story. I can see it when I talk to the middle aged woman who's held the same store in her family for over 20 years...or the Israeli immigrant who stamps metal for multimillion dollar automotive corporations in a little building on a small street. The charter school where kids laugh and play and run to their parents when they are picked up at the end of the day. I can see it all - but I can't move. I can't seem to move right now. Sometimes I find myself with nothing to say to anyone. Because nothing I say fits in with the conversation.

'All I can say, is try to hang in there,' my aunt concludes as I get up from the table.

I need peace of mind and a hopeful heart/To lose this rage and move out of the dark/I ain't looking for rainbows or shooting stars/Just some peace of mind and a hopeful heart

Would've been nice to catch that book reading though.