Choice Overload

I should know better than to look at graduate programs online when I’m tired.  I wonder: with a little ingenuity, could I have gotten placement in the UCLA urban planning master’s or PhD program?  Should I be working on that now instead of pursuing a career in biology?  I want to advance quickly, but I can’t do that without knowing what I want to study and I can’t figure out what I want to study without putting the proper years of work in.  I have to be careful of my interest in ecology and evolution: how seriously can I take the lasting influence of an old flame?  Maybe I should be focusing on economics courses and working towards an econ PhD program!  Would I be happier if I were in a geography graduate program?  What if I just got a job as a script reader at a studio and worked my way up to fantastic wealth and fame?  Would my time be better spent if I just enrolled at the musician’s institute and wrote songs all the time?

Like Coyote said: “Some things are easy for some people, but those same things are not easy for me.”

Also relevent: “You keep same-ing when you oughtta be changing…” but I think the opposite is true of me.  Not so much “I made my bed now I have to lay in it…” but there are SO many things out there that I could do well and be really happy with.

I’ve chosen one for now.  I MUST follow through on it.

But what if I’m only motivated because some cute guy told me I’m smart?  I need to learn to separate my interest in the guy from my interest in the subject.  I’m only attracted to other subjects because then the relationship is totally unambiguous, not because I’m actually more interested in those subjects.  SCIENCE!  Just the sound of the word makes me smile.  Not so much URBAN PLANNING!  or ECONOMICS!  MUSIC! does it for me too.  SONGWRITING!  I can unequivocally say I am passionately interested in each of those subjects.  I wish I had a hundred times to be in my 20s.  I wish I had millions of dollars so I could be a full-time student and not have to have a job.  I wish I had the kind of mind where I could learn independently and not have to be enrolled in school to keep going.  I wish we lived in a society where we don’t need a letter on a transcript to prove that we know enough about something to talk about it seriously with other people.

But none of those parameters apply to my reality so I have to keep on living, and honoring whatever song my heart keeps singing.

Coachella: pop quiz in heartache

I remember two years ago, soon after I missed the Arcade Fire for the first time, listening to them on my headphones on the way from work to meet Carl and his parents for Thai food downtown. I was tired from a day with the toddler, but otherwise in a decent mood. It was drizzly and darkening after a hot muggy day. I knew I would need a sweatshirt but didn’t want to go home for one, and that’s all I was thinking about until Tunnels came on.

“You turn all the lead, sleeping in my head/As the day grows dim, hear me sing a golden hymn.”

And then I was weeping by the fence away from the street in Wicker Park.

They were the one band Carl told me to go see that year and I skipped out to float in the lake like I did every day, and would have later that same day anyway.

Then we were supposed to go see them together in Austin but decided not to go for some dumb reason like there might be a hurricane or something.

And then I spent all day Saturday in the front crush of the main stage, since Fountains of Wayne at 3:00 in the afternoon, through Regina Spektor and Travis and Kings of Leon, determined finally not to miss the Arcade Fire, and to do it right. I fought baking sun, no food, running out of water, moshing like a class IV rapids in Kings of Leon and rabid Chilli Pepper fan cunts from Boston to get a prime spot. But then suddenly, 30 minutes before the Band We’ve All Been Waiting For were supposed to come on, as the sun was going down, I bolted. Got myself crowd surfed to the front, lifted out by a security guard, ran to the back of the audience and wept on the ground through half the Arcade songs. I felt like a cruel parent who has promised her child a treat and then just before the appointed time recalls some wrong the child has done and rescinds it. And I was also the child who never anticipated being wronged in this way, and can’t even remember the incident that earned the punishment and is powerless to do anything about it at all. I was paralyzed with melancholy and anger except for when they played Wake Up, when I forced a rally and climbed on top of some stranger’s shoulders to see the stage better, was able to smile for five minutes. When it was over everything was darkness. I wandered around listless and hating myself, trying like everything just to block the feelings out but not succeding. There was no beat I could dance to, no food I could taste. I even called my ex boyfriend, which was really a bad sign since I only ever even think of doing that when something is going wrong with me and I am always able to resist it without effort.

What is it about the Arcade Fire?  And Regina Spektor?  And Joanna Newsom?

They sing to me about feelings I never have.  And because when I was in high school I wanted more than anything to be friends with Will Butler and his crowd and was never able to.  But having seen the Arcade Fire from the front of the stage would not have given me friends in high school or made everything okay with Carl, not any of the other times I’ve missed them and not this time either.

The Arcade Fire really is a fine band, really special, magical, but they don’t give me that strangling feeling any more, awakening my sisyphys to be someone I am not. I love their music but it’s not the music I make. And I can relate to their lyrics now without feeling like a hypocrite, a failure, a liar. I make music, and I feel feelings, and I write lyrics, and I wasn’t friends with the Arcade Fire in high school but I have friends now, and I am happy, and I am okay, and I love the Arcade Fire.

That’s what I learned at Coachella.

Rage against pants

I will join the hundreds of bloggers this Monday who are “joining the thousands of bloggers this Monday” and write about Coachella.

Lost my sunglasses.

Gained a parasol.

Got a haircut.

Raged against pants.