Dead End

I think this was a playlist I started with a purpose that got lost somewhere along the way. It's a good one though from a couple years ago. I know I was listening to a lot of these on repeat on my commute to work.

1998 Jetta

So I've actually had this car twice in my life. Once in my actual youth and again when I was older. The first one got totaled when a drunk asshole almost killed my little brother. The second died a slow, lonely death in my driveway because I was driving four hours every day and I bought a sensible little Ford and never had the money or space to get my beloved Jetta working again. 

I'm not a car person but I really, really loved this car.

I imagine one day when I'm making the kind of money necessary to have a "fun" car, this will be the car I choose.

And these are a bunch of songs from those early days, when I had to pull over and switch the CDs in the six disc changer that was in the trunk, when I still had actual physical mixtapes I kept in the glove box. I remember one night, driving with my boyfriend at the time - an amazing post-punk artist type who could play every Jawbreaker song by heart and would read poetry to me in Spanish - and had a very self-aware moment. We were driving with all the windows down on a warm summer night, music up and not speaking, holding hands. I knew that was a moment I wanted to keep, so I let it permeate me, put down roots. I knew then someday I'd be older and different and maybe not with this boyfriend anymore but right then, I was so happy. And moments like that deserve to be kept.

What Lukas Said

I'm cleaning up my Spotify - it's out of control. I have over 100 mixes (I am not exaggerating) in varying states of completion and it's crazy trying to find anything.

Anyway, here's a mix I made a couple years back about a dream I had about someone I knew like 12 years ago. There was this band, see, that I loved called  Emmanuel the Florist. We were buds with all the members, Anyway, in my dream I was talking to Lukas about what I don't remember now, but I clearly remember he was saying, "Fuck what they think, fuck them all."

And in the morning when I woke up, I made this mix.

Come to This

Good evening, dear listeners. 

This is a breakup mix. However, before you start wondering who it's about... it's about me.

I broke up with an idea I had about how things are supposed to be. I broke up with a subconscious need I had to "get back to normal" which for me means some version of being married, because that's all I really know. I broke up with worrying about finding someone, about becoming less attractive with every year I age, with dying alone. I broke up with the bitterness of watching someone who said I was irreplaceable replace me within weeks with someone younger and fitter. I broke up with feeling sorry for myself watching the father of my children step into a new home life and pursue his dreams while I struggle through 20 hour days trying to make my life work. I broke up with guilt and I broke up with grief.

I'm not going to pretend I'll always take the higher road, that I won't occasionally have a little too much to drink and cry that I'm not strong enough for any of this. I will, however, always try to be a little bit better than I was the day before. More mindful, more determined, more confident. 

And I will learn to love without fear. 

I will.

My Own Best Girl

Dug this out from the archives. Yes, those are my boots.

Yes, I still have those boots.

Here's one of those aforementioned bleed-into-one-another type mixes. There's no unifying theme. There's no one event in my life that's dictating my song choices. 

I'm a navel gazer by nature. I like to think it's more that I'm introspective and thoughtful. That I'm invested in my emotional and spiritual growth and in order for one to evolve, one must analyze to understand and therefore change. But let's be real. I'm just fucking dwelling. Sometimes it will take me months or years to process something that's happened because I'm just really fucking slow. It'll happen in the tiniest doses on a drive home, late at night when the kids are sleeping, on my lunch break while I'm waiting in the McDonald's drive through. 99% percent of the time, the trigger is a song. It doesn't even have to be a song from that time. Sometimes it's a song I've never heard before. All of the sudden, whatever it was I was dwelling on, the memory or the emotion gets tucked inside a few minutes of melody, suddenly safe and sensible.

This is probably why I consume new music at a ridiculous pace. Why I need mixes. It's how I organize my memories, my thoughts, my emotions.

I probably need a therapist.

Instead, I have Spotify. 

Enjoy.

Just Get There

Hey there readers, it's your faithless mixtape maker here. I've got so many "in progress" mixes waiting in the wings, I'll try to be better about cleaning them up and posting. I tend to start a new playlist and then one bleeds into the next, the tracks sometimes repeating, finding a place in between newer, more relevant-to-my-current-mood songs.

I'm going to start with this one because I've been meaning to put it up here for ages. Work is a big part of my life. Not just because I need it to live and support my kids but because my job is so much more than a job.

I started out at this company as a secretary. I'm a musician and a writer by trade, after all. Before I went back to work, I was a stay at home mom who played in a band. I was used to not being in charge of anything, not even my own life. I could handle filing and typing and taking phone calls. So I did that for a while. I have zero mechanical abilities. I didn't know anything about boilers or piping or compressors. I wasn't interested.

And then I got interested.

I had some passionate, interesting, intelligent people come into my life who didn't care that I was a secretary and a woman and who couldn't fix anything mechanical if her life depended on it. I wanted to learn and so they taught me. I started taking classes. It didn't matter if it was over my head or not. I discovered I was organized. I could think through a project and manage it. I could manage people. I liked managing people, leading them and helping them succeed. Over the years I was handed more and more. We expanded and I was sent out to help new offices come online. I loved it. I was in charge of things and I wasn't afraid. I learned mechanical systems. I learned accounting. I learned operations. I learned whatever I needed to, whatever I wanted to.

Then I stopped being afraid to take charge in my personal life. I was a woman holding a position women don't hold. What was I afraid of at home? I started asking the same questions I'd been asking for years that I'd been thus far content to let go unanswered. The answers I got were heartbreaking. I started thinking about my dreams, about the power dynamic in my relationship, about my children growing up at an alarming rate who I so desperately wanted to provide a stable home for.

When someone on my team no longer supports the common goal we've all agreed to, we have a conversation about change. We talk about steps to get the train back on the tracks together. I make sure they know how we can get this done together, then I wait to see if they'll pull alongside me. Whether they do or don't, I still keep moving. Sometimes this means leaving someone behind.

My job is more than just what I do for a living. It's my family (in some cases literally) and my world. It's where I get inspired, learn new things, stretch my abilities, test my wings. I meet people who challenge me, frustrate me, teach me, change me.

This is the playlist I throw on in the mornings on my way to work. Some of the songs are cheesy, some are probs deeper than necessary but hey. You're here for the music, right? I promise the music is good.

Kjære - A Mix for Mid-Summer Anticipation

Guys, I'm not going to lie. This past year has kind of been the pits. I've been making hateful, stupid mixes about how the world sucks and we're all going to die, blah blah blah... I suppose that's what happens to people when they get divorced and deal with all that awesome fallout and then try to date someone who is actually normal and have that blow up also because you're a mess and shouldn't be dating in the first place and then somebody you really loved once decides to go and get married and you just kind of lose your shit and retreat into a semi-permanent state of self-inflected late 90's emo/pop mixtape purgatory.

So, I apologize for my silence but I'm pretty sure nobody but me was interested in my mixes that consisted largely of every song off of Static Prevails with the occasional Sunny Day Real Estate song thrown in for extra angst.

Not long ago I said that it seems like my theme this year is that I know it's going to hurt, but I'm going to do it anyway. I think the reason things are working out that way is because for right now, bad decisions feel better than apathy. Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing but at least I'm doing something, I tell myself. I know I'm lost but I'd rather storm off into the wilderness and see what's out there rather than fucking wait on the path to be rescued. I'll probably get poison ivy and maybe get chased by bears but I'll have a fucking awesome story to tell.

So here's my story right now, as much as I understand it. I am enjoying a sweet moment while simultaneously fully anticipating that it will all go to hell.

I know it's going to hurt, but I'm going to do it anyway. Bears be damned.

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