After Hours
This is the story of after hours.
It is Wednesday, 19 February, 2020. After flight delays and changes, I have finally made it to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and have checked into my hotel room. Obviously after delays, I am in later than I would have thought, and the barbecue restaurant I had originally planned to grab dinner from is already closed. This is my first time in town, so I browse the Internet for nearby food options. I settle on a brick-oven pizza place a short drive away and I phone the order in for take-out. I'm alone anyway; I can eat the pizza there with other strangers, or I eat alone in my hotel room with whatever HBO show is on. I choose the latter.
The pizza turns out way too salty to my liking, but as it was approaching 10PM local time by the time I had headed out to pick up, many restaurants were about to close, and my other options would have been fast food, which I did not want for dinner. But it was sustenance, so it was satisfactory. The television still on in the background, I go back to my computer to check if there are any emails I have to answer. Seeing none, I open a tab for YouTube just to browse some videos.
On the front page, along with other trending videos, is audio for the Weeknd's "After Hours" track. Just a week prior, on Thursday, 13 February, 2020, he had a twenty-second teaser video on his Instagram page to announce the title of his forthcoming album, and here he was releasing the eponymous track.
Up until this point, he had already released two singles for said forthcoming album: "Heartless," a typical Weeknd track about his playboy, hedonist ways, and "Blinding Lights," a retrofuturistic 80s sounding track that wasn't too dissimilar from some of the sounds of his last album, Starboy. Both hit number one, and I liked both songs, though both were more pop star Weeknd, as opposed to the original trilogy mixtapes, or his most recent release, My Dear Melancholy, EP. Nothing against the pop star vibes, but the drug-addled, sex-and-loneliness Weeknd is several notches better.
I grab my headphones, plug them into the laptop, and click to hear this new track. From the length alone, this was a more return to form, as opposed to a typical three-minute pop song. Likewise, the production and sound as the song kicks off is more typical Weeknd fare: falsetto voice, reverb, and recurrent tones. Approximately midway through the song, however, drums kick in, and more recent sounding, electro vibes are more present. As a whole, I take to liking it. It's not like "Heartless" or "Blinding Lights," and despite saying it's a return to form, this track is much glossier sounding than anything trilogy mixtape era. But I definitely like it.
It is Thursday, 20 February, 2020. I am in Winston-Salem, North Carolina because I will be visiting Wake Forest Baptist Health later in the afternoon to initiate the institution for our clinical trial. In the morning, I prepare. But among the first things I do this morning, aside from checking emails at 6:30AM local time, is put on "After Hours." I am taking a liking to this song a lot more than I thought. I am hanging on to the lyrics more so than "Heartless" or "Blinding Lights."
It is the same day, I'm sinking more into certain feelings about Person K. For a while, this applied to Person C, but I began questioning whether there was anything there, especially since there was an additional situation that would have prevented anything anyway. "After Hours" becomes attached to this.
I complete the task I am in town for and am not scheduled to fly out of town until afternoon the next day. Perhaps this is for the better, as it began snowing, which was expected. I return to my room to work, "After Hours" playing.
It is Sunday, 1 March, 2020. After a week back home of the usual, I am traveling again. This time, I will be gone for a week, and I will be in Florida and Georgia. I will be in Tampa, which plays a central role in all this, but you will not understand for I will not explain.
And for the entire week, "After Hours" is the soundtrack. In Tampa, as I grappled with emotions that I am still unsure of now, "After Hours" is the soundtrack. I drive around at night, and "After Hours" is on repeat, the lyrics of the song flowing through my veins. I should have made contact, but I was after something else. For the next two months, "After Hours" will be the theme.
It is Thursday, 12 March, 2020. I'm back home, but this afternoon, I receive a message from someone I haven't spoken to in a little while. It is a slight surprise, but more welcomed than anyone will ever know. This day kicks off what will become a rollercoaster ride for the next two months, culminating in where I am now.
I said it takes time, and it inevitably will. Moreso for who I am, an obsession dissipates, but will never truly leave. I will get over it, but perhaps the writing of all this is the beginning of it. Perhaps I will put everything in more concrete terms in the coming days, but I will put out a few more thoughts and stop.
Hindsight will always be 20/20, but taking off my rose-tinted glasses, it wasn't smooth sailing from the get-go. There were pauses, breaks, and things had reached an end of the line, but I would reel it back hoping that wouldn't be it. And that's on me. Recently, it wasn't distancing, but more things had likely run its course. Again, I was pushing for something that wasn't there. And that's on me. I'd say for the past two months, I did something I don't normally do, and that's true. But like I said, I was pushing for it when it had naturally flatlined. And that's on me.
Now, I head back to Montreal.
"Oh, baby, where are you now when I need you most?"
It is Wednesday, 19 February, 2020. After flight delays and changes, I have finally made it to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and have checked into my hotel room. Obviously after delays, I am in later than I would have thought, and the barbecue restaurant I had originally planned to grab dinner from is already closed. This is my first time in town, so I browse the Internet for nearby food options. I settle on a brick-oven pizza place a short drive away and I phone the order in for take-out. I'm alone anyway; I can eat the pizza there with other strangers, or I eat alone in my hotel room with whatever HBO show is on. I choose the latter.
The pizza turns out way too salty to my liking, but as it was approaching 10PM local time by the time I had headed out to pick up, many restaurants were about to close, and my other options would have been fast food, which I did not want for dinner. But it was sustenance, so it was satisfactory. The television still on in the background, I go back to my computer to check if there are any emails I have to answer. Seeing none, I open a tab for YouTube just to browse some videos.
On the front page, along with other trending videos, is audio for the Weeknd's "After Hours" track. Just a week prior, on Thursday, 13 February, 2020, he had a twenty-second teaser video on his Instagram page to announce the title of his forthcoming album, and here he was releasing the eponymous track.
Up until this point, he had already released two singles for said forthcoming album: "Heartless," a typical Weeknd track about his playboy, hedonist ways, and "Blinding Lights," a retrofuturistic 80s sounding track that wasn't too dissimilar from some of the sounds of his last album, Starboy. Both hit number one, and I liked both songs, though both were more pop star Weeknd, as opposed to the original trilogy mixtapes, or his most recent release, My Dear Melancholy, EP. Nothing against the pop star vibes, but the drug-addled, sex-and-loneliness Weeknd is several notches better.
I grab my headphones, plug them into the laptop, and click to hear this new track. From the length alone, this was a more return to form, as opposed to a typical three-minute pop song. Likewise, the production and sound as the song kicks off is more typical Weeknd fare: falsetto voice, reverb, and recurrent tones. Approximately midway through the song, however, drums kick in, and more recent sounding, electro vibes are more present. As a whole, I take to liking it. It's not like "Heartless" or "Blinding Lights," and despite saying it's a return to form, this track is much glossier sounding than anything trilogy mixtape era. But I definitely like it.
It is Thursday, 20 February, 2020. I am in Winston-Salem, North Carolina because I will be visiting Wake Forest Baptist Health later in the afternoon to initiate the institution for our clinical trial. In the morning, I prepare. But among the first things I do this morning, aside from checking emails at 6:30AM local time, is put on "After Hours." I am taking a liking to this song a lot more than I thought. I am hanging on to the lyrics more so than "Heartless" or "Blinding Lights."
It is the same day, I'm sinking more into certain feelings about Person K. For a while, this applied to Person C, but I began questioning whether there was anything there, especially since there was an additional situation that would have prevented anything anyway. "After Hours" becomes attached to this.
I complete the task I am in town for and am not scheduled to fly out of town until afternoon the next day. Perhaps this is for the better, as it began snowing, which was expected. I return to my room to work, "After Hours" playing.
It is Sunday, 1 March, 2020. After a week back home of the usual, I am traveling again. This time, I will be gone for a week, and I will be in Florida and Georgia. I will be in Tampa, which plays a central role in all this, but you will not understand for I will not explain.
And for the entire week, "After Hours" is the soundtrack. In Tampa, as I grappled with emotions that I am still unsure of now, "After Hours" is the soundtrack. I drive around at night, and "After Hours" is on repeat, the lyrics of the song flowing through my veins. I should have made contact, but I was after something else. For the next two months, "After Hours" will be the theme.
It is Thursday, 12 March, 2020. I'm back home, but this afternoon, I receive a message from someone I haven't spoken to in a little while. It is a slight surprise, but more welcomed than anyone will ever know. This day kicks off what will become a rollercoaster ride for the next two months, culminating in where I am now.
I said it takes time, and it inevitably will. Moreso for who I am, an obsession dissipates, but will never truly leave. I will get over it, but perhaps the writing of all this is the beginning of it. Perhaps I will put everything in more concrete terms in the coming days, but I will put out a few more thoughts and stop.
Hindsight will always be 20/20, but taking off my rose-tinted glasses, it wasn't smooth sailing from the get-go. There were pauses, breaks, and things had reached an end of the line, but I would reel it back hoping that wouldn't be it. And that's on me. Recently, it wasn't distancing, but more things had likely run its course. Again, I was pushing for something that wasn't there. And that's on me. I'd say for the past two months, I did something I don't normally do, and that's true. But like I said, I was pushing for it when it had naturally flatlined. And that's on me.
Now, I head back to Montreal.
"Oh, baby, where are you now when I need you most?"