Wednesday, April 13, 2005
napping and why I love Fiona Apple
I love having naps in the middle of the day.
I'm always a little more awake than I am at night, so I always have the wildest dreams and I almost always remember them. Plus I never put my pjs on when I'm sleeping during the day, unless I'm sick or plan to stay in bed through the evening. There's something just a little more exciting about sleeping in your underwear, or in even less than that. I almost never sleep naked when I'm sleeping alone, probably because there's no one to amuse but myself. Then again, I am ridiculously good at entertaining myself.
This afternoon I went on the following adventures, all without leaving the comfort of my fleecy polar bear sheets:
1) I was a kind of Harry Potter child hero leading a band of ragamuffins on crazy warlike adventures in a land of orange and purple towers that looked like kid versions of the towers in Lord of the Rings. We were fighting against these evil adults who wanted us to go to school and not to spend our days inventing flying machines and learning to do backhandsprings, which was what we really wanted to do. I was an awesome leader and everyone listened to me, and my hair was naturally purple.
2) Then our little play-war got significantly more serious, and all of a sudden I was in charge of the heavy artillery in a trench in World War I. How did I know it was was World War I? Because I had to organize a creeping barrage, which (as I wrote in my exam) is a technique where artillery is fired just in front of the infantry so that they can advance through No-Man's Land while being relatively protected from enemy machine-gun fire by their own shells. Timing is very important, because if the troops move too slowly, the artillery doesn't protect them, and if they move too quickly, they succumb to their own shells. So I had to be really careful that I didn't hit our soldiers with these huge metal shells that I had to pick up and shove into the barrels really quickly.
3) Then all of a sudden I wasn't in a trench anymore, but in the cabin of a battleship, once again firing missiles, but this time in a space so small that I couldn't even stand up. The sense of being underwater was very strong, and I could feel the pressure of the ocean all around me, but the sense of claustrophobia was even stronger. I'm not a clautrophobic person normally, but the space was way too small for me to feel comfortable, and once I got relieved and could sit in the next room (which was also very small), I started to panic, and began hitting my head against the metal wall, hoping at least to knock myself out.
4) It worked, and I blacked out completely. I woke up at a party with a bunch of people I had known on exchange. I was sitting in a corner and no one was talking to me, although I knew everyone there. I started to get kind of annoyed. Kev, my Irish friend was there, and he acknowledged my presence only to say something really mean to me, so without thinking I walked up to him and kneed him really hard in the leg. I didn't mean to hit him as hard as I did, and he completely crumpled to the floor. I felt really bad and kept apologizing and telling him that I really hadn't meant to hit him that hard, that I had wanted it to be playful, and he eventually believed me. I was telling myself to remember that he wasn't the Boy and wasn't used to tussling with me. I started scolding myself for being so dumb as to assume that he too would be into play-fighting. Talk about arrested development! I was so embarrassed. I got him some ice since he was wickedly bruised and we sat on the couch and talked. My last thought before I woke up was about how very sad it was that the only way I could get his attention was by hitting him.
Some seriously weird dreams today. I was hoping they might be much more relaxing and/or plesant, but that never happens when you want it to.
I'm feeling really frustrated with the prospect of having to study again for my exam tomorrow. I'm feeling really frustrated in general. I'm starting to notice that being under stress actually makes me ridiculously horny. And when my boyfriend reads that I'll never get anything.done. ever.again. ; )
In other news, I love love love love love Fiona Apple. I know I've said this before, but I continue to marvel about it because when I was an angsty teenager listening to her music, I figured once I grew up a bit I'd get over music like hers, but the exact opposite has happened. I feel like I GET it so much better now that I'm a bit older, a bit more experienced, and perhaps most importantly, a bit more jaded.
I love that she writes words like this:
The early cars
Already are
Drawing deep breaths past my door
And last night's phrases
Sick with lack of basis
Are still writhing on my floor
And it doesn't seem fair
That your wicked words should work
In holding me down
No, it doesn't seem right
To take information
Given at close range
For the gag
And the bind
And the ammunition round
Conversation once colored by esteem
Became dialogue as a diagram of a play for blood
Took a vacation, my palate got clean
Now I could taste your agenda
While you're spitting your cud
And it doesn't make sense
I should fall for the kingcraft of a meritless crown
No, it doesn't seem right
To take information
Given at close range
For the gag
And the bind
And the ammunition round...
-Not About Love
And that I just happen to listen to them when they're most relevant. I love her ability to engage with all kinds of metaphors: war, colour symbolism, rape, death, love.
Another brilliant snippet:
I don't understand about complimentary colors
And what they say
Side by side they both get bright
Together they both get gray
But he's been pretty much yellow
And I've been crying blue
But all I can see is
Red, red, red, red, red now
What am I to do
I don't understand about
Diamonds and why men buy them
What's so impressive about a diamond
Except the mining
And it's dangerous work
Trying to get to you too
And I think if I didn't have to
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill myself doing it
Maybe I would glisten so much for you.
-Red Red Red
I also love that in the end, she's not completely jaded either.
She has this great song called Get Him Back:
One man, he'd disappoint me
He'd give me the gouge and he take my glee
Now every other man I see
Reminds me of the
One man who disappointed me
Wait 'til I get him back
He won't have a back to scratch
Yeah, keep turning that chin
And you will see my face
As I figure how to kill what I cannot catch
So I say "and on I go"
To another one who disappoint me so, oh oh
The next one up
A contemptible snob
He lived to put things in their place
He did a commendable job
He put himself so low
He can hardly even look me in the face...
But the last one I had
Who was getting my hopes up
I might have been a little fast to dismiss
I think he let me down when he didn't disappoint me
He didn't always guess right but he usually got my gist
So wait til I get him back
I'm gonna bring him home
And I'll watch him unpack
He keep turning that chin
And you will see my face
Is fixed on the one
I'm gonna get back
-Get Him Back
All those songs are from her latest album, Extraordinary Machine, which as I explained in another post, which I'm too lazy to find the link for, remains unreleased.
Well, it's time for CSI, and since I can't FUCKING study, I may as well watch it.
Thanks, valhalla for your questions. I'm still puzzling on them.
Send more, kids!
-N
