Wasting Time & Cool About It
Lathered up and all shiny, glistening with the essential oils of the massage bar I had rubbed into my skin after having my first, leisurely, bubble bath in Idontknowhowlong, I parked my tired ass on the couch for what I thought was going to be just a moment. A moment before tending to at least ten more things on my to-do list before crashing, prepared to be woken by the daughter five minutes after having fallen asleep. A few minutes I was going to use to give myself the pedicure I couldn’t bear to put off any longer, the polish from another lifetime so chipped and telling of its ranking in triviality. There was to be nothing relaxing or drawn-out about this little gift to myself, it was going to be a matter of remove, renew, remain still and seated for a minute or two – get it over with and move on. To real things. The leaking pipe under our bathroom floor. The expenses that needed to be checked for hacienda. The work schedules that needed to be set and synchronized for the week to come. When, miraculously, for the first time since dogknowswhen, I remembered, I have choices.
With the cotton balls spreading my freshly scrubbed, clipped and unpolished toenails, I reached for my bag of randomness. Containing mainly tiny soap, cream and scrub samples from hotels and my go-tos for feel-good-supplies – Lush and DM – it is also home to the two colours of nail polish I have been alternating between for the last two years. Well, for some entirely sensible reason unbeknownst to my preferred way of chaos, every colour I own had found its way into this bag. So, a total of six bottles – four of which I usually use for art projects. I surprised myself by going for something new, something I wouldn’t normally go for – a purplish, blueish hue of glitter I last used on a mission that involved upcycling a chair. I sensed then that things were rapidly headed into a different direction. That giant, tickety-tock-clock, leering over my shoulder like an exaggerated version of the pocket-watch the Wonderland’s rabbit sped through life with, seemed to dissolve into a Daliesque concept, quietening into a slow-motion garble.
As I opened Spotify’s library of countless new albums I had saved to listen to during a quiet moment whoknowswhen, it was a thumb over brain situation. The remote automatically pointed at the new compositions I had most longed to hear over the last couple of weeks. I still felt uncomfortably tickled by a few lone ants who had lost their way to the snore-gy the rest of their colony had relaxed into. Irritated by their disorientated wanderings, I figured I’d just put the album on in the background whilst applying the glitter-party to my toes. Until I realized that, the intro to this album – better said, The Record– is as much a visual experience as it is sonic. My consciousness wanted me to turn this into a multitasking situation but, fortunately, my soul decided to slap me into the pillows and say, bitch, lay back and enjoy…fully, deeply and completely. And so, I did. With my freshly coated toenails sparkling back at me, I flicked those hobo ants into the ether, took an intoxicating whiff of the Sleepy concoction of lavender and bergamot enshrining my body, and eased-in, engaged and elated.
Framed by the couch pillows like Mark Renton in his red carpet on Lou Reed’s perfect day, I embraced a welcoming tunnel vision. Leading me out of the days’ daze of to-dos and in to a triple-split-screen chimaera, complete with ambient sounds and a blur of memories captured in a sequence of dreamy images. Much like how I always imagined the ones in Layne Staley’s box to look like. Only here, the faces, the women, are recognizable as Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, and there’s no wondering as to what the colour that binds them all together tastes like. Without a doubt. It’s tough. It’s tried. It’s the truest, deepest of blue. The kind that bespeckles your hands, your heart and your face with marks as (im)permanent as those you’re born with. It took just $20 to make me feel like I had smoked the joint I haven’t smoked in three years. A delicious kind of stoned. A natural, slow-burner, leaving me red-eyed with delight. The peak of that holy, northern triangle, the xiphoid process, rising and falling steadily, unshackled and beautifully heavy in its freedom.
I hadn’t listened to music in this way since fuckknowswhen. By the time this cryptomnesian narrative flowed from one window into the next, pleading for Emily’s forgiveness whilst crushing her nightmare under the wheels of a perpetual monster truck rally, the experience had reached ritualistic levels. The same I practiced with religious fervor when I first listened to The Herbaliser’s Very Mercenary on the worn wooden floor of my purple, teenage bedroom. When I listened to the White Stripe’s Elephant, hands frozen around the handlebars of my Dutch Omafiets, legs pedaling to the beat as obligingly as the Seven Nation Army of soldiers marching to the house of hell. When the sad reality of Gary Jules’s words on Mad World hit me with the same force that takes over a Dresden Dolls stage painted red with Trash McSweeney’s synesthetic visions. I immersed in the three songs, in Kirsten Stewart’s debut gaze; the tea I had intended on disrespecting, still quietly steaming, the cookie I had intended on dunking in it sitting abandoned, forgotten on a paper towel like a roach waiting to be relit and rescued from the ashen pit of an overspilling tray.
The clocks melted further into the walls and time swirled, unhurriedly, hypnotically from The Film and into Brooklyn Steel, where the trio stood spotlighted under a yellow, hazy halo, then quietly dripped into the Tiny Desk office, framed by a backdrop dipped in pop-culture mementos. I too, was unpacking God in the suburbs – silent fireworks setting my musically malnourished soul ablaze with new energy and devout appreciation. And as I returned back to the unorganized, unscheduled, unclean reality of my living room reality, with only my pedicured feet and a beaming heart groomed and ready for the new week to come, I had an epiphany. All I had felt, all I had gained in those three hours of listening to The Record, watching The Film and embarking on a YouTube voyage that was – boy…oh-so-genius, was time gained. None of the things I had to do where done; but I did me. I spent my Sunday night in sweet surrender and finally, was kind enough on myself to feel cool about it. Promising myself, I will never go sofuckinglong without it again.
