Tag Archives: ridiculousness

The Dreaded Birthday (or: Self-indulgent Sentimentalist Bitchstravaganza with Accompanying Random Thought Spillage)

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Disclaimer: this might get sappy. Or bitchy. Or both. Buckle up, y’all. (Also, for our interactive segment at the end, you will need at least one rum and coke with two limes.)

I’m turning thirty tomorrow.

Yeah. That’s weird, right? (No, Vanessa, it’s not. It happens every day.) Yes I know that! But I don’t know how to feel about it. I mean, I know it’s all relative. I’ll probably feel just as weird about turning forty. Or eighty. I don’t feel old. I just feel weird. Like I should be a grownup by now. But what does that even mean? I have a job. I pay my bills (most of the time). I have car insurance and a will. I have a dog and houseplants and a pretty low level of bullshit in my life. That all feels grownup, I guess. But you know how when you’re young and you think you’re invincible and the thirty-somethings in your life seem sooo old? I don’t feel like that. I don’t feel like anyone should look at me and think “There goes a responsible adult. Good for her.” Maybe they do. Fuck, I don’t know. A hundred years ago I’d be a total grownup by now, no questions asked. Two hundred years ago I’d be a grandmother. Five hundred years ago I’d be dead. Or some kind of revered clan elder. Or something.

I’m not really articulating this very well. Whatever. I’m weirded out, is all. Off-balance.

I just thought I’d have some switch in my head that said “ding” and then I’d feel grownup. It never happened. I’m still just me, goofy as ever. Awkward, certainly, but more comfortable about it. I suppose that’s fine. That’s the trick, though, isn’t it? That self-acceptance? Why does that take so long? My generation is the first to be allowed this weird extended adolescence. Maybe it is our longer lifespans. Or our lack of something to rally around, anything to define us. Takes us longer to figure out what we want. What we stand for. How to get our shit together, basically.

But thirty’s going to be great. And damn it, if it’s not great on its own I will pound it into submission. I had this discussion with a friend a couple of weeks ago and we agreed that in your twenties you have memorable times, and in your thirties you have enjoyable times. Even though they may seem boring, and there’s nothing new to report, you genuinely enjoy things more because they’re not all new and weird and scary. Your twenties are like an acid trip. Your thirties should be like a good glass of wine. Or four. Or eight.

I’m glad I survived this long. That’s actually a pretty impressive feat, all things considered. How many times have I had to say “Dude, we almost just died”? Thanks for that, friends and other hangers-on throughout my teens and twenties. On the other hand, some of us didn’t make it this far. And I miss them. But they’re still around. I think of them and smile. They live on in a way, don’t they? When you smell a particular scent or hear that one song? They’re not here, but they’re not gone. Mostly, I’d just like to hear what they’d have to say about stuff.

Wait, wait, let’s go back. I got all maudlin and missed something important.

I’m glad I’m still here, yeah, but more than that: I’m glad I was even born. Thanks Mom and Dad. Seriously. People don’t thank their parents enough for having sex. I know that sounds ridiculous, but think about it: if these people weren’t attracted to each other you wouldn’t be here, so maybe give them a thumbs-up for having good taste. (And all that raising me stuff they did was pretty cool, too.) But really, more than our parents all having good timing, there are a ton of circumstances that had to line up for each of us to be here. And to be who we are. Eons and eons of time stacked up on itself, and somehow we all ended up here together. I love that.

Urgh. It’s just so weird. Thirty. I should’ve done something by now, right? All I am is here. And happy. Guess one can’t ask for more than that. Here with my thick glasses and my silly sweaters and my typewriter collection. At least I’ve embraced my…whateveryouwanttocallit…weirdness, awkwardness, nerdiness, blah blah blah labels, these past couple of years, stopped trying to cover it or overcome it (but clearly not tried to stop naming the bastard). Fuck that noise. I spent far too long doing that. If people don’t get me, they don’t get me, and that’s fine. Wonderful that our culture has shifted to a point where anything goes and that’s ok. Especially for young people. Hopefully they won’t have to be as angsty as we were in the 90′s (way back in the 20th century, you whippersnappers). What a weird time to grow up, the 90′s. Stuck between hair metal and emo, by way of grunge. Between cocaine and meth, by way of ecstasy. Between pay phones and Facebook, by way of cell phones as big as my head. “We are the middle children of history,” quoth the great bard Chuck Palahniuk. But, urm, anyway, like I said: I’m embracing. That’s my birthday resolution: to embrace. (I make birthday resolutions. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore. Because really, who can stick to anything in the dead of winter?)

I suppose while we’re talking about self-acceptance and the 90′s and moving on I could ramble a bit about getting bullied in junior high and high school. Could? Alright, fuck it. I’m gonna. (Plus I said I would a couple of posts ago.)

You can get used to having no friends. Made me sad, but it made me stronger, I think. I didn’t go down a dark and scary route and get angry, at least. I never got legally committed. And I never got the shit kicked out of me, which is a bonus. I don’t think nerdy girls get beaten up the way that nerdy boys do. Which is not to say that there weren’t fights (redneck ladies can scrap, let me tell you) but I usually talked my way into fights and then talked my way right back out of them before anyone ever actually hit me. I once kept myself from getting beaten up by calling a girl (no, no, a very large girl with a pool cue) a “lugubrious pugilist.” Totally shut her down, like I’d hit restart on a computer, like I wasn’t even speaking English. Awesome. But here’s the unsolvable circular argument: Did I get picked on because I was weird? Or did I get weird because I was picked on? Maybe both. We’ll never know. Doesn’t really matter. Could’ve been worse.

As a point of good karma, though, if any of you happen to be those people who picked on me when I was young, I’m not going to tell you to fuck off and die. Oh, no, I’m totally over it. I’ll just be the bigger person and tell you that I hope you and your eighteen three-eyed flipperbaby crackerspawn are healthy and happy living in your meth lab trailer by the factory/railroad tracks/industrial runoff. See? Embracing. Forgiving. Moving on. Acting like a grownup. (While we’re on the subject, you guys should all watch this – and it’s my birthday so I won’t bitch about the grammatical error in the title, my gift to you.)

Ahem. Anyway. (Cue your rum and coke with two limes.) So here’s to another good year. Many more, hopefully. To embracing, accepting, and letting shit go. To writing snark and learning to do cartwheels. To probably not drinking ourselves to death. Much love and many blessings. Cheers.

Nerd music (and a bad haiku)

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I was trying to write a blog about nerdy music. It was really hard.

That was almost a haiku. Let’s try again.

 

I was trying to

write a blog about nerdy

music. It was hard.

 

That was the worst haiku ever.

Wow, I’m really easily distracted these days. Um, anyway. So I was thinking about nerdy music. And I ran into an unanticipated logistical problem. What’s the difference between the music that nerds listen to, music that is played by nerds, and music that is inherently, intrinsically nerdy? It’s tough.

For the most part, the nerds I hang out with (you know who you are) have really great taste in music. But that’s totally biased, isn’t it? Because I listen to the same stuff. This is not a legitimate control group. We’re metalheads from the grunge era. With a penchant for ska an d classic rock. On the other hand, I love Beethoven and The Smiths in equal measure. There are all these bands that, for no good reason, I lump together in my head as being nerdy. Stuff like Neutral Milk Hotel and The Decemberists. And if I’m being honest, most of the people I know who like them are actually hipsters (sorry, guys). There’s no way to judge the nerdiness of music by the people who love it. It’s just not possible.

Then there are a bunch of 90’s bands that stick out as having nerdy musicians. They Might Be Giants, Weezer. They came around at the beginning of geek chic, or maybe they were the beginning of geek chic. These glasses I wear? Pure Rivers Cuomo. Weird Al comes immediately to mind. But is his music nerdy? Not all of it. Or is he just a tremendous nerd? Definitely. But you’ve got to be kind of a genius to do what Weird Al does, frankly. And a lot of the music he spoofs is mainstream and not nerdy at all. But there’s an air of nerdiness about him and his music that’s kind of undeniable, you know? Dude plays the accordion, for fuck’s sake. It’s one of those “you know it when you see it” situations.

There are all kinds of weird crossover conundrums (conundra?), as well. There’s that one line about ringwraiths in The Battle of Evermore. Ok, I’m kidding about that last one. Not really. But sort of. See? This is really hard.

So then I got to the hard bit of trying to figure out if there actually is anything that stands on its own as nerdy music. Lyrically speaking. I figured I would just begin at the beginning and, being true to my generation, ask the interwebs. And let me tell you, our technological overlords were super helpful. Things I found, in no particular order of ridiculousness:

Nerdcore – hip hop with scifi/comic book/pop culture themes – way more awesome if you listen to it for the lyrics and don’t try to judge it by mainstream hip hop standards

Geeksta rap – like nerdcore, but more about serious science, chemistry, math, computers

Filk – scifi/fantasy fan folk (that is hard to say out loud…really, go ahead, try it) – lots of balladic, medievalish, LARPer stuff, think lutes and lyres and songs about Hobbits

Nintendocore – heavy metal plus video game sound effects – sounds like Russian techno, but good in a thrashy kind of way

Wizard rock – Harry Potter metal. Oh, yes. But only Harry Potter. No other wizards allowed.

Chap hop (my personal favorite, just because of the silliness of it all) – Steampunk rap. Seriously. No, no, let it sink in for a second. I said: Steampunk. Rap. And really, what more can you say?

These are just some teensy snippets from my first eighttenfourteen hours with Google and Youtube. I encourage you to look it up because, man oh man, there is a lot of stuff out there. To a certain degree, which of these you actually like depends on your particular flavor of nerd. But come on: a song about Marvel vs. DC? A song about Neville Longbottom being the real chosen one? A whole album about Firefly? I can dig it. My Spotify runneth over. I’ve been glued to my computer for like two weeks, just eating this stuff up. And some of it’s really great and some of it’s really awful and some of it’s just so fucking weird I listen to it over and over just to see if I’ll eventually understand it. I will say this: I’ve got a whole new and exciting list of references I didn’t understand. Score. New blog topics.

Here’s the bottom line. I’m so happy about this stuff, good or bad, because these people are just singing and making music about what they love. And fuck the mainstream for trying to delineate what is cool or nerdy or whatever. Fuck the mainstream for saying what will or won’t work on the radio, or make money, or find a fanbase. If the musicians are passionate and the fans are passionate, they’ll seek each other out. That’s all that matters, really. Sincerity. Honesty. Earnestness. They’re what music should be about.

Also, while we’re on the subject, I’m learning to play the Tetris theme on the ukulele. I’ll let you know how it goes.