Statesman > XL Blogs > Archives > 2004 > July > 15 > Entry
Courtship, adultery, rambling, love. And sky diving.
A while back, my friend Angela told me that she was going to jump out of an airplane on her 40th birthday. Usually, she says things that make more sense than this, things like “another round, please.” But I wanted to be there cheering when she jumped, so I made the trip over to Sky Dive San Marcos with Angela and her brother last weekend.
There is a lot of sitting and waiting to be done before you get to sky dive, or even see someone sky dive, so I huddled at a picnic table with “The Book of Salt” (because I am determined not to be That Unfortunate New Girl in the Book Club Who Once Again Did Not Finish the Selection), looking up every once in a while from Monique Truong’s elegant words to see a human being flutter to a landing through the hot, muggy air.
Finally, it was Angela’s turn, and the tiny little plane that took the sky divers up disappeared for what I thought seemed too long. Bring her back, I practiced saying in my head. Now.
But then we could see her group starting to float down, and before long Angela was back on earth, exhilarated and even lovelier than usual, with dispatches from the sky (it’s cold up there). One thing that she said especially stayed with me: “You think, ‘This shouldn’t be happening,’ but it is,” which strikes me as true of more than sky diving. One more life lesson from a friend who’s taught me plenty.
I know you have been worried sick about this, so I will tell you that my Old 97’s album recommendation last week seems to have gone OK. Or at any rate, the recipient of the recommendation has not acted on threats to stop interacting with me if he hated “Satellite Rides.”
I would like it on the record that I made no such threats regarding his recommendation, “Amazing Race 5,” but they just would have been empty anyway, because I had a blast watching the show. Memo to Charla: If you start your sentence with “Señor,” but then use English words after that this does not count as speaking Spanish. But my favorite moment was when Donny and Allison achieved total meltdown and she told him it wasn’t all his fault that things were going so badly. This is how she took her share of the blame: “I was wrong because I didn’t control you more.” Ouch.
The other major viewing: I finally saw some of “I Love the ’90s” on VH1 and was not feeling the nostalgic love. I had pretty much forgiven myself for not being cool in the ’80s (I mean, from the looks of things, no one was, except maybe Joan Jett), but memories of botching the ’90s are still too fresh. And then there’s the Liz Phair factor. I swear, Liz is becoming like the ex you dread seeing around town. She was running down a list of “The (Liz Phair song title that cannot be repeated here or even said fully on VH1) Guys of 1992,” and it’s possible that I gasped a little. Not because I was surprised at what they can hint at on VH1 nowadays, but just because I remember when that unmentionable song was bracing and different and not a throwaway joke before a commercial. Which means I am old.
Old enough that I’m actually kind of fond of VH1 classic, which isn’t nearly as sad as I thought it was going to be. I pictured 24/7 Blue Oyster Cult, but I love the obscurities they pull out.
Except sometimes when you hear a song you haven’t heard in a long time, and you realize it makes no sense. Like “Been Around the World” by Lisa Stansfield. If you’ll remember, Lisa claims that she’s been around the world and she can’t find her baby. And I guess I believed this when I was young, because apparently I thought no one with a curl like that would lie, but now I just think, “No, you didn’t, Lisa. You maybe drove by his work, but then you just headed for a bar and started telling your sob story.”
But the one that really gets me is “Secret Lovers” by Atlantic Starr, one of the few songs to claim the high ground for being on the down low. There’s a moment when they get kind of “wait, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” but then they talk themselves out of it by rationalizing that the people they’re cheating on probably already had secret loves even before the two of them started fooling around. It’s an underestimated moment of cringe-inducing lyrical genius.
Speaking of, one of my friends had this great quote in her blog: “I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak, and love. And Mother. And God.” — Johnny Cash
Discuss.
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