music and memories...

"Dear mother, can you hear me whining?
It's been three whole weeks since I have left your home
This sudden fear has left me trembling
'cause now it seems that I am out here on my own.
And I'm feeling so alone.

chorus:
Pay attention to the cracked streets and the broken homes
some call it slums, some call it nice
I wanna take you through a wasteland I like to call my home.
Welcome to paradise.

A gunshot rings out at the station
another urchin slaps down, left dead on his own.
It makes me wonder why I'm still here.
For some strange reason, it's now feeling like my home
... and I'm never gonna go.

chorus

Dear mother, can you hear me laughing?
It's been six whole months since I have left your home.
It makes me wonder why I'm still here
For some strange reason, it's now feeling like my home
... and I'm never gonna go."

Every so often, you hear a song, and this triggers memories of earlier listenings. It connects all the occurrences of that experience, links them together -- the past mixes with the present, and you can feel what you previously had felt. I'd set my mp3 player on "completely random" earlier today, and some interesting stuff came up, which I hadn't really thought about listening to for a while. I think last year, whilst adjusting to being away from home for the first time, "Welcome to Paradise", from Green Day's "Dookie" album came up. It's pretty well applicable. That's a darn fine album -- although I don't think I appreciated the songwriting at the time, when I first came across it in middle school. It was The Thing for pseudo-skater 13-year-olds at the time, ya know? Baggy flannel shirts, Airwalk sneakers, and Green Day. I'm remembering sitting in the library at the Touraine Drive house listening to this album, along with REM's "Monster"... and not too long after that, probably "Odelay".

Only a coupla people reading this remember this place, or knew me at that point. Middle school was weird.

At some point earlier today, "Hole in my heart" (written by Tony H, the drummer for Circle of Friends, which is the praise band from my home church) came up. This reminded me of a time period around the summer and fall of 2001, with my transition from my highschool life to Tech and my gradual estrangement from Heather (she was in the band and did the vocals for that track), with whom I'd been going out over the summer... I haven't the foggiest idea where she is now, or what she's doing. She should be graduated now (or as of a year ago, I guess), and I heard she was on the road to getting married... probably already is, now. It's odd how infrequently I think of her...

Just a moment ago "I'm Afraid of Americans" came on, bringing up a really vivid memory of riding in Anthony (my stepfather)'s pickup truck, listening to David Bowie's "Earthling" album (most notably "Last Thing You Should Do" and "Dead Man Walking") with him. We were driving through a big open stretch of highway, around which all the grass was brownish and dead, and off in the distance there was a thunderstorm going on, but we hadn't gotten into it yet. I had this really vivid mental image, at this point, of people living in a forest that was a city, where all the human development happened underground, and it was all very clean and perfect and beautiful, and to go anywhere, you could walk through this beautiful forest, and the whole thing was interlaced with computers, but the trees and animals didn't mind because it was very non-disruptive.

There are more -- anything Fleetwood Mac, I've realized, ties in very strongly to lazy afternoons in the house on Bobbin Brook, spent thumping away playing my bass (I found that Fleetwood basslines often aren't particularly complex, but tend to sound good anyway :) ) and the Bosstones' "Let Me Be" leads very distinctly to waking up in my little room in Spain after taking naps (or generally sleeping at odd hours) and feeling hot and uncomfortable and sick as my health degenerated...

I remember sometime around 1994 or 1995, distinctly in the late winter, maybe at New Year's Eve (or possibly Christmas), being in St. Petersburg. I remember hanging around on a dock, over blueish night-time water, talking with my cousin Matt. That felt like... just a distinctive point in time. I think for a while thereafter, I measured time from that point. I think on the car trip to central Florida, I'd been speculating as to whether my parents would get back together. At some other point, I was hanging out with Matt, and he was showing me his yearbook from school that year -- he's about a year older, but had always been two years ahead in school, and I remember distinctly thinking that he seemed so much more mature, that he had grown up much faster. His year book was full of notes from girls he assured me were very cute. Come to think of it, I still think he's grown up faster than I have. Hi, Matt :)

*fire alarm goes off at just before 0300 hours during finals week*
*sticks head into hallway, realizes that the hallway is full of something powdery and smoke-like, goes outside with Corey and all the Hefner residents, hangs around for a while, comes back into a building with powdery-white floors and annoyed residents*

Hrmph. Continuing onward...

I remember a particular night, at Dad's house, when he lived on Ox Bottom Road, suddenly realizing that my summer was almost over and that I had all of these strange conflicting adolescent emotions, and breaking down and crying for no discernable reason. There are particular times in my life when I remember very distinctly being able to remember lots of stuff very distinctly. I think the night going into my 18th birthday, I flashed basically over my whole life. These seem to come at transitional points... like when I'm going back home after two continuous years of being away, I suppose.

I should go to bed -- Practicum exam is tomorrow morning.