music
I'm attempting to clean my room one corner at a time. Today I managed to get sidetracked by my somewhat decayed music collection. I don't think I've bought more than four or five CDs in the last five years. My once alphabatized CD wallet is almost empty, the discs carelessly strewn about.
The real problem with me and music these days is this: historically, for me to fall in love with a band, I must listen to a CD compulsively over and over again every freaking day for a few months. I have to live and breathe that CD. I am not capable of enjoying music on a casual basis (this is sort analogous to my serial monogamy;
hplovescats was supposed to be my "senior year fling." Five years later I'm still listening to that CD.) Anyway, in college this was perfect, because in college I spent a lot of time organizing a sort of soundtrack for my existance. I'm sure we all do this a bit in college. It was easy, after hours of stifling silence in the library, to want some music.
Turns out, in the real world, between working 30-40 hours a week and trying to get my shit together, I have less time to get obsessive over music. I have enough other things to obsess about. Turns out I am more obsessive than musical (which should come as no surprise to anyone who knew me in high school orchestra). Perhaps I never liked the Cure at all; perhaps I only got off on the obsessive cultish appeal.
No, I take that back. Disintegration is the best album ever.
But anyway, my post-college life is where I've had to deal with things like anxiety attacks and overscheduled time and the existential panic of watching your life drift away on a timesheet. It's not so much that music makes me anxious, but it's that music when I don't have a chance to sink down in it and really and truly own it makes me anxious. It's like the stress of meeting someone new. If you're feeling good, it's exciting. If you're already a little high strung, it's just stressful and upsetting and you just want to go back to your own boyfriend/Robert Smith (I forget which analogy I am on).
Also: checking out CDs from the library just does not work for me. I can't fall down inside the music if it has to go back in three weeks.
Cleaning and organizing my CDs, I'm sort of interested in revamping my music a little. Which means I probably should go to Music Millennium and lay down thirty bucks or so. And then I just need to not worry about finding new bands. There's all this emphasis on finding new bands if you're remotely hip (which luckily, I am not). I don't want to find new bands. I want to find three bands I love and go completely psycho and buy all their CDs and weep when they break up and weep again when they get back together and put out an insipid weak piece of shit (yes, Bloodflowers, I'm talking to you).
Or maybe I'm feeling a little obsessive compulsive right now?
The real problem with me and music these days is this: historically, for me to fall in love with a band, I must listen to a CD compulsively over and over again every freaking day for a few months. I have to live and breathe that CD. I am not capable of enjoying music on a casual basis (this is sort analogous to my serial monogamy;
hplovescats was supposed to be my "senior year fling." Five years later I'm still listening to that CD.) Anyway, in college this was perfect, because in college I spent a lot of time organizing a sort of soundtrack for my existance. I'm sure we all do this a bit in college. It was easy, after hours of stifling silence in the library, to want some music.
Turns out, in the real world, between working 30-40 hours a week and trying to get my shit together, I have less time to get obsessive over music. I have enough other things to obsess about. Turns out I am more obsessive than musical (which should come as no surprise to anyone who knew me in high school orchestra). Perhaps I never liked the Cure at all; perhaps I only got off on the obsessive cultish appeal.
No, I take that back. Disintegration is the best album ever.
But anyway, my post-college life is where I've had to deal with things like anxiety attacks and overscheduled time and the existential panic of watching your life drift away on a timesheet. It's not so much that music makes me anxious, but it's that music when I don't have a chance to sink down in it and really and truly own it makes me anxious. It's like the stress of meeting someone new. If you're feeling good, it's exciting. If you're already a little high strung, it's just stressful and upsetting and you just want to go back to your own boyfriend/Robert Smith (I forget which analogy I am on).
Also: checking out CDs from the library just does not work for me. I can't fall down inside the music if it has to go back in three weeks.
Cleaning and organizing my CDs, I'm sort of interested in revamping my music a little. Which means I probably should go to Music Millennium and lay down thirty bucks or so. And then I just need to not worry about finding new bands. There's all this emphasis on finding new bands if you're remotely hip (which luckily, I am not). I don't want to find new bands. I want to find three bands I love and go completely psycho and buy all their CDs and weep when they break up and weep again when they get back together and put out an insipid weak piece of shit (yes, Bloodflowers, I'm talking to you).
Or maybe I'm feeling a little obsessive compulsive right now?