Marlene

About five or six years ago I used to go to and from school while listening to Suzanne Vega a lot. I remember walking in the brisk cold and thinking how beautifully and perfectly the music was written. Once I went online and looked up not just the lyrics but what Vega had to say about her songs. I was surprised that not only had she written about them but she had extensively described the process of how she came up with song ideas. I found it fascinating.

Beautiful music leaves me despondent; especially music that I find evocative, music that reminds me of stuff I’ve been reading or of stuff I’d like to write. I feel a sort of impotent desperation when hearing music I feel a particular affinity with: Suzanne Vega but also Yann Tiersen, Mumford & Sons, sometimes Ed Sheeran, lately Lord Huron…

When I was a teenager, I would write a lot while listening to The Cure. Frantically I’d put on Wish or Disintegration and try to write out all the emotions and images that came with the music. I always used to associate certain songs, certain bands with characters, with stories I was conceiving. I remember very clearly how my discovery of The Smiths coincided with the crystallization of a character in my head who I always imagined as a sort of sociopath. Morrissey’s apathetic melancholy, his cry of “I was only joking when I said, I’d like to smash a gritle in your head” in a sweet, tired voice made me excited. I thought: “There! That’s the character as I’ve always envisioned him! That’s the core of him! Not just the words but the music and tone, the tired, helpless cheerfulness with which he says it. I’ve caught him!”

It feels like I’m getting old. Thirty-two and I haven’t written any books. Thirty-two and still no degree. Thirty-two and there’s so much I want to do and haven’t done.

What used to elate me now fills me with anxious dread, as if I half suspect I’ll never get to write the book or finish the degree or see the world I want to see. I’ve been working so hard and I still feel woefully inadequate. I still long for so many things I haven’t done yet.

Five or six years ago, when I listened to Marlene On The Wall it used to haunt me even when I knew my favorites were World Before Columbus and The Queen And The Soldier… it must have been a sort of prescience, seeing myself in the lyrics, in her song, as she sees herself in her poster of Marlene Dietrich. I feel a little like that now “but the only soldier now is me, I’m fighting things I cannot see, I think it’s called my destiny…” She speaks to a lover as so many songs seem to… I have no lover now except past ones, but sometimes I feel I am in dialogue with the future ones.

During these last couple of years I’ve told most people I have no interest in falling in love or finding a partner and that is and isn’t true. Falling in love… building a relationship, dreaming of a future… it all takes a certain level of effort and work that I’m not willing to put in at the moment. I am unsatisfied with myself… the truth is, I’d like to become the sort of person I would like to date, or else how will someone I fancy, fancy me back?

No degree, no books, no traveling…

I have to fix that. I have to look for the things I want and dream of. I have to be the person I aspire to be… if I wish to demand all this of someone else, how can I not demand it of myself?

Everything, she said, I would give everything...

"Ah, he knows not that it was I who saved his life," thought the little mermaid. "I carried him over the sea to the wood where the temple stands: I sat beneath the foam, and watched till the human beings came to help him. I saw the pretty maiden that he loves better than he loves me;'' and the mermaid sighed deeply, but she could not shed tears. "He says the maiden belongs to the holy temple, therefore she will never return to the world. They will meet no more: while I am by his side, and see him every day. I will take care of him, and love him, and give up my life for his sake."


If I should stay,
I would only be in your way.
So I'll go, but I know
I'll think of you ev'ry step of the way.

And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
You, my darling you. Hmm.

Bittersweet memories that is all
I'm taking with me.
So, goodbye. Please, don't cry.
We both know I'm not what you, you need.

And I will always love you.
I will always love you.

I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you've dreamed of.
And I wish to you, joy and happiness.
But above all this, I wish you love.

And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I, I will always love you.

You, darling, I love you.
Ooh, I'll always, I'll always love you.

Songs

Just little snippets of songs. I've been busy and working, worrying about school, about the future. Maybe more than anything trying not to think about it, even though it has become sweeter, milder, more like a faint aftertaste than the fulltorrent of pain. It doesn't feel like I'm dancing upon sharp knives anymore. So I think I can stop being dramatic now.

I feel... faintly happy... faintly sorrowful...

Just little pieces, things that jump at me between sleep and laughter and words filling the blank pages of my books...

I guess you could say
I'm a little afraid
What if you go away?
I've seen it before
I've been there before
If I have to love myself
Tell me how to love myself
What's there to love about myself?

Sixpence None the Richer

I'm not afraid to feel
I want you to love me
Cause you are the one
Cause you are the one
Cause you are the one

His Infernal Majesty

I know what you need.
This will really work.
In ancient times if you were sick,
They’d make you bleed.
Oh honey I know it hurts.

Rasputina

So I'm feeling strangely light, strangely free, somehow as if acceptance is finally working... and I'm thinking "when you're on your knees, things seem closer somehow"...


Lately I'm not the only one
I say never trust anyone
Always the one who has to drag her down
Maybe you'll get what you want this time around

To the Moon and Back

It’s strange when you are trying to remember why you liked certain things, certain people, certain days. At the moment I’m remembering why I loved Savage Garden.

It has been a hellish weekend and I’m not sure if I should be glad it’s over. Tomorrow I’m going to have to wake up some two hours earlier to attend a conference and it doesn’t seem to matter how much I actually sleep, but I am always tired, always at the point of exhaustion.

Suffering, they say, takes its toll.

At the moment I’m watching Darren’s baby face fill the screen and his voice fill my ears. This was probably back in 1998 when I was still in primary school, maybe twelve years old. That I was then and am now in love with this band and this particular song and video is not surprising.

She’s taking her time
Making up the reasons
To justify all the hurt inside

I’ve been trying very hard since Wednesday to become better, perhaps to apply finally, the effort and work I should in the things I do. Not going last night to Andy’s house was my way of trying or maybe it was my way of punishing myself for all the time I waste. I’m not particularly sure of the amount of work I’ve accomplished since then.

Because when you ask yourself if you are doing the best you can, when you’ve been accused of slacking, of not taking things seriously enough and you answer that yes you have, this is not your best, this is not all that you can become… then God you don’t seem worthy of anything anymore.

Guess she knows from the smiles
And the look in their eyes
Everyone’s got a theory
About the bitter one

There’s a very beautiful girl in this video, wearing the sort of tiny green dress I’ll probably never even dare look at. I’ve been avoiding the temptation to think about this for sometime, quite a long time actually. But I don’t know if when I look in the mirror I can say I like myself anymore. And it’s not like I’m doing anything about it, because for the first time I’m not. I don’t do exercise, I’m not eating less. And even when I know this is not the best I can look, I’m just not making an effort.

I wish right now that I had even a particle of what is a good singing voice just so I wouldn’t have to feel so patently ridiculous while I wait for my mother to leave the house so I can sing and cry at my heart’s content. I want to watch the screen and tell myself this is beauty, this is genius, this is what you’ll never achieve because you simply can’t be bothered.

They’re saying
Mama never loved her much
Daddy never keeps in touchThat’s why she shies away
From human affection

I’ve never actually said how stupid, how utterly ugly I believe suffering makes me look. I don’t like looking at myself cry, I don’t like other people seeing me cry or scream or simply stretched out on the floor because it is a sorry sight. Because there is no beauty there is nothing ennobling, nothing poetic about this. This is why I find it so hard to think of myself in love, to imagine myself with anyone, because if I even dare to envision it I’ll be so filled with shame, with a deep sense of self-disgust and ridicule that it will make the whole exercise impossible.

So I’d rather just watch this pretty girl, looking at me with incredibly big sad eyes while Darren Hayes (who has the voice and face of an angel in this video, I love him) sings to her about love and second chances.

Well I’m not entirely sure of how I should finish this entry except that I’m not fishing for pity, that this journal is and has always been deeply private, despite the many people who read it. In a few minutes I’ll go back to writing an essay on the role of man in the movie Thelma and Louise and this will be forgotten.

Good Day and I love you all.