my careless contagion

You've probably heard this song, though maybe not for a while. If you're of a certain age, you likely know the song already. Since New Slang was released in 2001, I would peg its inception at 2000, making this song 25 years old, give or take. Feel old?  I don't know what it was about the song that made me want to write something. Let's take a look at the lyrics for clues.  *** Gold teeth and a curse for this town Were all in my mouth Only I don't know how they got out, dear Turn me back into the pet I was when we met I was happier then with no mindset And if you took to me like a Gull takes to the wind Well, I'd've jumped from my trees And I'd've danced like the king of the eyesores And the rest of our lives would've fared well New slang when you notice the stripes The dirt in your fries Hope it's right when you die, old and bony Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall Never should have called But my head's to the wall and I'm lonely...

The movie I Still Believe (2020) is important for a few reasons. It highlights things every Christian goes through if they follow the Lord. You will have loss. You will have questions. You will be broken. If you are following God but haven't experienced those yet, don't let my words deter you. It is worth it, dear, if you let God redeem those moments. And it will make sense someday. I rewatched the movie recently, this time with my son. The first time I watched, I was house-sitting for the woman I wrote about so much on this blog, the one who decided to exit my life last year for good and forever. When I watched it the first time, I had the thought God might allow the same sort of thing to happen to me with the thing I loved the most in this world, just as he did Jeremy Camp, who lost his wife to cancer. To watch the movie again was surreal, as it took me back to that moment. What transpired since that evening roughly two years ago when I relaxed with the family dog in the liv...

Sia's Elastic Heart. If you haven't listened for a while, take a moment. I'll wait. The lyrics, according to Wikipedia, "address 'the overwhelming strength Sia needed to convince herself that life was worth living after coming out of a crushing relationship.'" It is for that reason I post it.  You say, "Hey, I thought we weren't looking back anymore." Correct. We aren't looking back. It was this week I admitted I am healthy emotionally again. (Even said as much.) It's been a long time since I felt this good. It dawned on me. I'm not running. I'm not hiding. God did something in all that chaos. I feel closer to integration after more than a year of dissociation.  Yes, something broke, but my heart is free and intact. My heart doesn't belong to anyone, nor do I need to give it to anyone. If anything happens from this day forward, it comes from a place of health and security.  The song came out in 2013. As for the video, it w...

This is a goodbye, and a hello. This will likely be my last post containing certain themes. It's not that I haven't let go. It's that some things still affect me. In all these things, my choice was to make things work. It was only with great reluctance that I was made to let go. I approached every relationship with kindness and patience. This isn't about healing. I will heal the rest of my life. Letting go is different. I had to try everything — and fail — first. It's a story that repeated. I was more than intentional. I showed up. I loved, was pushed away, and died over and over. Finally, I let go.  They say if a writer falls in love with you, you never die.  The last thing I remember was her small frame standing in the doorway crying. Fade Into You was playing from the turntable. The blonde girl walking on the dark street was so drunk, but when she saw me standing in the Ohio drizzle that night with nothing but the sodium lights illuminating us, she said something...

January 28, 2018, I started this blog. I was alone and the divorce was nearly final (February 8). With no one to talk to about what I was feeling, I wrote here, originally transcribing from a notebook. What began as a form of therapy evolved into a journey of faith. What started in a very bad place ended in a much better place, though I am still alone. This blog garnered 34,000 hits over six years, which is a big surprise. (Also surprised attempts to create a new blog failed, but the love letters written to a certain woman were likely the reason anyone read here anyway.) Thank you to everyone who read here at some point. I prayed you got something out of it. Learned a lot about myself and am a lot humbler at its closing than at its beginning. Honesty, facing problems, and working toward solutions paid off, but it was God who did a work.  I cut my teeth on gospel songs. Win Worley's song sermons were my favorite and listened to them on cassette over and over. Such joy in that man...

I would be remiss to leave this space without posting something from Samiam (it's been a while, but I did post something before). I had to do a bit of a thinky-think session as to what to post, though. She Found You (1997) won, though many others deserve honorable mention. Simply wanted to post a good song from a band that captured my attention for many years. This was one of the first songs I heard and it's still a favorite. I even drove from Ohio to Pittsburg (staying in New Jersey, eww) to see them play a festival, and then turned around and caught them in Detroit about a week later. They continue to record music and tour. Anyway.  Other songs contending for the prize were Mud Hill (a proper breakup song), Dull (about how dull life can be when you're alone), and Sunshine (how I imagine being a girl and the object of someone's affection feels like). None of them made as much sense as She Found You, as it is clear I was greatly affected by relationships with women in...

Fugazi's Waiting Room is probably better discussed by this author  (it's short) than by me. I just want talk about what the band meant to me. Since we're talking about waiting, let me say waiting is a useless enterprise by itself. Waiting does absolutely nothing in and of itself. Waiting — combined with other activities — can yield positive results, but problems don't go away on their own. The passing of time does not solve anything except our own existence. Problems require the application of a solution. There.  I saw Fugazi in 1998 (forget where but somewhere in Michigan), and a few days after that saw Bad Religion (in Ann Arbor) for the first time, so Fugazi was my first show. They were from Washington, D.C., and kept their ticket prices low so kids could attend. Hardcore was always for the kids. (I guess you would call this post-hardcore.) Tickets were $5 plus $1 Ticketmaster fee. Whereas Bad Religion was lyrics-driven, I liked Fugazi because it was guitar-driven. I...

Nothing fascinated me musically as much as the band Bad Religion. I used to spend so much time researching the band and its members, even talking to Jay Bentley on internet relay chat (IRC), #badreligion on undernet. The fascination really took hold when I was in college. I was bored, technologically inclined, and a wee bit malcontent.  No band is as misunderstood as Bad Religion, and some fans like it that way. It's a barrier to the band becoming massively popular (they are more popular outside the U.S.), but it also makes you feel like you're in on the joke. Others don't understand. That's the reason hardcore and punk rock were important to a lot of people. It was a way of excluding those who excluded them from society. When our bands became too popular (a subjective thought if there ever was), we called them poseurs and fled to other, lesser-known bands. Gotta keep it real. But I was always into Bad Religion and remained a fan (even though I didn't share their po...