22B422 Pt. 16: Now You’re Just

Well hey there. A week ago I made the huge mistake of listening to Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” so obviously now I’m super depressed and/or have lost all faith in humanity. A while ago I wrote a list of goodbye songs that aren’t really saying goodbye, and this one just tops them all. 

To deal with my all of my complicated feelings regarding this song, I made a bunch of advice animals and took some liberty with Gotye’s lyrics.

Alternate Endings to The Chorus for Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know.”

Now you’re just somebody’s lawn I used to mow.

Now you’re just some money that I used to owe.

Now you’re just a neon sign that used to glow. 

Now you’re just the pottery I used to throw. 

Now you’re just the sculpture that I used to sew. 

Now you’re just the cleavage that I used to show. 

Now you’re just the bubbles that I used to blow.

Now you’re just the season when it used to snow.  (MN WINTER 2012!)

Now you’re just the sea monkeys I used to grow. 

Now you’re just the college where I used to go. Seeyuh, Carleton.

22 before twenty-two: Part 1

Hey dere old bloggy old pal! I’m sorry that I spent literally all of spring break ignoring you.. The truth is that all of my spring break blog posts talk about how much time I spent watching The O.C., and this year I was a little busy finishing the last Hunger Games book before going to the midnight showing on the 28th (so I could know ahead of time which characters not to get attached to). Aside from all of my complicated feelings about the story once I’d finished the third book, I was mostly ecstatic about the fact that I didn’t have to read any more strained present-tense narration. Holy mother of all that is sacred. If I ever have to read so much as a paragraph of heavy action in present-tense prose I’ll probably dunk my face in battery acid.

Over the past few years that I’ve been browsing dA BlOgOsPhErE, I’ve noticed a lot of people making early deadline bucket lists (see this one, this one, and this other one). SO I’M DOING IT, TOO, GUYS. Cause it’s almost my birthday and if there’s any way I would love to spend my entire birthday, it’s making lists about unimportant things. Also.. this is a palindrome birthday (I’d call it a palinbirthday, but you know), which demands an extra heaping dose of special.

You and I both know that I won’t actually do anything on a bucket list I’ll make for myself, so the goal of this project is to make 22 lists before twenty-two. Wahoo! Also, I’m starting this early because this month starts with April Fool’s Day and saying “I’m gonna make all these lists.. PSYCH SUCKA” is lamer than the current prank I have planned (which is nothing at all) (or is it) (trust no one).

Obviously, it’s not a bucket list without a graphic-designy logo!

Nothing like a fish fossil background to get me excited about being the same age forwards and backwards! 

List One: Songs That Make Me Cry

I think that I spend a lot of time on this blog writing about how much I cry. Make no mistake, it’s all super true. What’s also true is that it takes very little for me to cry. I make Brod’s 613 sadnesses look like an episode of Parks and Rec. I cried when I read The Hunger Games. I cried when I watched The Lorax. I went absolutely ballistic when I got halfway through The Rape of Nan-King, like actual bawling.  Here’s a list of songs that make me cry. Always. Even if it’s only on the inside (but honestly, it’s usually on the outside, too). 

1. “Someone Like You” by Adele. You knew this. SNL knows it. I just had to get it out of the way. 

2. “You Were Meant For Me” by Jewel. Jewel has some weeeird stuff, but this has been my go-to song ever since my first experience with unrequited love in the second grade.

3. “Thank You” by Dido. I’m still debating whether or not to put “Stan” on this list.. (jk) (but seriously, Stan had it bad). 

4. “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap. This is a beautiful song, SYTYCD did a breathtaking piece to it a few years back, blahblahblah.. ALSO this is the song that played when Marisa shot Trey when he was about to kill Ryan and well.. consider this my belated The. O.C. Spring Break post. 

5. “Hero” by Regina Spektor. Because this is the song from that scene in 500 Days of Summer that just rips your heart out of your chest and squishes it into jelly and splatters it into the floor. 

6. “Free Fallin” cover by John Mayer. There’s just something about the way that John Mayer sings this so tenderly that I almost forget he broke T-Swift’s heart. 

7. “Hallelujah,” by Leonard Cohen. In Quebec I met a guy who could play this song on a set of wine glasses. I was super happy with myself for remembering enough French to talk to him, and he was super happy with me because I bought one of his CDs. 

8. “It Will Rain,” by Bruno Mars. .. EARLY APRIL FOOL! 

9. “Aeroplane Over The Sea,” by Neutral Milk Hotel. For summer sadnesses.

10. “Video Games” by Lana del Rey. Like all the best things in my life, I hated this when I heard it for the first time. And the second time. And the third time. After the nth time I skipped it on Pandora, I changed my mind and decided it was kind of hauntingly pretty and sort of eerie and makes you feel like a ghost. In good ways. Basically, this  is my comps in a song.* (see tangent below) It’s also heartbreaking (unlike my comps). 

So there you have it, for days when you really need to cry about how you have to buy full-price wings or how there still isn’t a new Grey’s Anatomy episode. Or if you hate me and want to see me suffer, you know which playlist to play in my torture chamber. 

*GOOD NEWS EVERYONE. My comps title has officially been archived by Carleton College as “This Is How You Remind Me; Of What I Really Am.” Which I think is a work of art in itself. 

Sad Timez

Well, February has wasted no time in becoming the most depressing, soul-sucking month of my life since the time my brother RUINED Harry Potter 5 for me when I was a quarter into the book, and I had to go through the next 400 pages knowing that Sirius was just gonna die and that Harry would never have a family. Yes, it was horrible. Yes, I got my revenge by telling him that Dumbledore dies in Book 6. No, I don’t regret it for a second.

So February was shaping up to be a fantaaastic time right after the Ebony show, which I will write about later. I was actually planning a whole post about Ebony and dance at Carleton College, which was completely thrown on the back burner when Mike Freaking Kelley killed himself. Of all the art majors at Carleton, I’m probably one of the least informed or passionate about contemporary artists, mainly because I spend my free time having karaoke contests with Ernesto to see which one of us is better at Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” instead of watching Art21 or whatever good art students do. You’ll understand, then, that it is a Big Deal for me to go out of my way and fall in love (actually) with someone’s work. I was first introduced to Mike Kelley’s work when I saw “More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid” at the Walker Art Museum’s Spectacular of Vernacular show about a year ago, and later when I came across “Educational Complex.”

 Since then, I’ve written essays and a powerpoint about Kelley because his work largely informed my comps (my senior major thesis project that is currently sucking up all of my time, energy and belief in happiness), so I should be able to write a sentence about why this guy’s work impacts me so profoundly, but honestly I just want to wallow in sadness while listening to “I Will Always Love You.”

… YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING. Whitney Houston is gone. Before any of you bring up the fact that Etta James ALSO died and I didn’t write an incoherent, whiney blog post about that fantastic black singer whose music I seriously wanted to mashup for Da Wedding, let me point out that unlike Etta James, Whitney Houston has been a part of my family since 1992, when my dad got a some sort of cassette-playing alarm clock that would play “I Will Always Love You” at 6:30 a.m. every morning for an entire year. I loved Whitney Houston before I knew what she was singing about. That song is practically engraved into my eardrum. AND there is the fact that I spent the last two weeks of fall term writing a comparative paper about the role of Whitney Houston’s music in the book and film versions of “Waiting to Exhale.” Remember? The paper also provided some insightful insight into the steamy relationship between Whitney’s character and the guy from Allstate commercials.. this is one of the (many) (MANY) scenes I memorized after watching the movie 4 times (seriously). You know, for academic purposes.

You’ll be disappointed to hear that because of Whitney’s unexpected death, they’ve had to cancel the promising Waiting to Exhale sequel.

Let me ask you this. Is it a coincidence that Mike Kelley and Whitney Houston died after the groundbreaking scholarship I produced about them?

I
think
not.

So, this is a public service announcement that the following individuals should consider themselves in danger of death, having recently been the subjects of Paulina’s homework: Adam Brody, Rachel Bilson, Katrin Sigurdadottir, Bill Clinton and Lauren DiCioccio.