a little bit of telepathy must be real

 right?

a list of really basic songs I like for Valentine's day

 mitski's my love mine all mine

father john misty I love you honeybear

beck favorite nerve

beck mattress

Florence and the machine kiss with a fist

the Walters I love you so

the beatles something

That's probably enough. 

When I was in high school I had an iPod that kind of broke and could only hold like one album's worth of music on it. I forget what happened exactly but I remember it still kind of worked but it hardly had any memory left and the one album I put on it was Beck's 1994 album One Foot in the Grave and I listened to that album A LOT!

It's a bunch of short songs about Beck being a sad little art boy and I really liked lyrics like in Favorite Nerve:

Come for a visit

Come for a stay

I won't annoy you

I won't complain

You can be crazy

Tear up all my things

Cut up the kitchens

Wear all my rings

It's definitely not the healthiest but I find it really endearing that there's sad ol' Beck who's really smitten with someone and telling them they can be flawed and he'll put up with it because he wants to be around them. Explaining it makes it sound even worse but part of me really likes the sentiment.

I definitely didn't have a bad high school experience but I definitely felt 'low' in a lot of ways. Like I was short and looked really young and didn't have a ton of confidence and the thing I loved about Beck was that he was low also but he kind of reveled in it and made it this kind of cool fun weird thing to be. He owned it in a way that felt really authentic.

My favorite part of Mattress is

Take me out to dinner

I'm a loser, I'm a winner

I'm a sucker, I'm a sinner

Won't you take me out to dinner?

Your love

Your kindness

Your body on the mattress

My views have changed but at the time I really liked the idea of this low self-esteem goofy white boy who still ends up with someone and it's not glamorous but like, nothing in my life was glamorous. It's sad little dirtbag nerd love. In a way it's it's own kind of fantasy but it's a low-stakes fantasy.

I don't know if that attitude makes you a very good partner but songs don't have to do that.  

anyway there you go

the world is too much with us and blue world

 william wordsworth said once,

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

A sordid boon! An awful good thing. A dirty blessing. A nasty prize. 

Oh William Wordsworth you would've HATED Instagram and TikTok. Oh you would've LOST IT. But also he totally would've been all over those apps. The boy loved to talk!

He's talking about the same kind of stuff as Walt Whitman. All anyone cares about is this made up stuff and we're alienated from Nature which is the thing we are and makes us whole. 

Except Wordsworth uses the much cooler phrase, "we lay waste our powers"

You have powers. We all have powers. And we can't waste them! But we do. What powers you ask? 

Love mostly. If you act from love, dang near unstoppable force.

Mac Miller once said,

Well, it's a mad world, it made me crazy

Might just turn around, do 180

I ain't politicking, I ain't kissing no babies

The devil on my doorstep bein' so shady

Mm, don't trip, we don't gotta let him in

Don't trip

Hey, yeah

I let it go but I never go with it

Well, if you could see me now

Love me then hold me down

My mind, it goes, it goes

It goes, it goes, it goes

It's the same stuff. I think the biggest difference is that Mac Miller doesn't offer an answer or an alternative like Nature or the miracle of everything. He's in it and there's no way out of it. But there is love and companionship and that offers a break from the world and the devil. The ability to say 'no'. Mac says, 'Maybe it'll work out. Maybe I'll turn things around. I'll try my best.' It's the difference between escaping a problem and managing it.

I just think it's really cool that there are sensitive people who exist who put this stuff down in words for other people to see and experience and talk about their life and how they see the world and THAT'S PRETTY NEAT!

I think the right person is out there for me

 Walt Whitman said in "Come Closer to Me"

There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually,

It is not what is printed or preached or discussed . . . . it eludes discussion and  

 print,

It is not to be put in a book . . . . it is not in this book,

It is for you whoever you are . . . . it is no farther from you than your hearing and  

 sight are from you,

It is hinted by nearest and commonest and readiest . . . . it is not them, though it is  

 endlessly provoked by them . . . . What is there ready and near you now?

You may read in many languages and read nothing about it;

You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there,

Nothing in the reports from the state department or treasury department . . . . or in  

 the daily papers, or the weekly papers,

Or in the census returns or assessors' returns or prices current or any accounts of  

 stock.

The sun and stars that float in the open air . . . . the apple shaped earth and we upon  

 it . . . . surely the drift of them is something grand;

I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,

And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot or  

 reconnoissance,

And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without  

 luck must be a failure for us,

And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.

The light and shade—the curious sense of body and identity—the greed that  

 with perfect complaisance devours all things—the endless pride and out- 

 stretching of man—unspeakable joys and sorrows,

The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees . . . . and the wonders that fill  

 each minute of time forever and each acre of surface and space forever,

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's just SO GOOD. 

My attempt to summarize this is that one of the baseline assumptions that everyone has about themselves and everyone else is that we are incomplete. We're missing something. Or we have to get to somewhere or we have to keep going so we don't fall into destitution or whatever. There's always more to be had. And so everything we read and learn about and everything we've created as a society is meant to feed that cycle. It presents a thing you have to acquire so you can go on acquiring more things forever and ever.

And this thing that Walt Whitman is talking about that you won't find in all these places is a thing that you have all the time no matter what. You'll never find it in that endless cycle because the thing is outside of the cycle--it's "the wonders that fill each minute of time forever and each acre of surface and space forever". It's realizing the miracle of every moment as it is. That the universe is whole and perfect and that you are part of the universe--not separate from it.

Do I really feel that right now? No. Not really. But I'm pretty sure I have. And I know I've been in situations where I've felt completely cut off from that and entirely within the cycle. And so my optimism is based in this thing and, "I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness"

listening to music while watching snow fall is PEAK and a blessing on my houseplants

 the other thing I'll say is that a lot of people talk about putting curses on others

"I curse you for this. I curse you for that. Curse your mule and curse your crops and curse curse curse."

But I think a lot of people forget about the inverse curse--aka a blessing.

And recently I bestowed a blessing upon my dear sweet precious plant babies. And by that I mean I bought plant food from Lowe's. And so now all that stuff plants crave like nitrogen and...urea(?) will be absorbed into their bloodstream and give them big huge hulking flower muscles. Or something.

The craziest thing about plant food is that you put a teaspoon of the stuff into a gallon of water--I don't have many things in my apartment that can hold a measurable gallon of water so I had to go use the 'neath-the-sink bucket.

Anyway here is my blessing to my plants:

To all my green children, you are the greatest and most powerful plants to ever exist. You are exotic and wild and free and untameable. You are like bird whispers. You are like the dreams of a horse. You are entangled in many elaborate intrigues and plots and from all of them you will emerge victorious and your enemies squashed, tarnished, and depleted. Not a single star in the whole night sky shines as brightly as any of you, and within each of you lies entire universes that contain even better versions of Shakespeare and Lucille Ball. Arrivederci and ciao Bella per sempre per sempre per sempre

 you know how sometimes little kids will get so excited that they'll just like thrash about--like they're feeling so much visceral emotion that their body can't contain it. 

that's how I imagine the city of philadelphia feels when they win the super bowl and tear down a light pole and parade it around the streets. like they're so overcome with pride and joy for their community that they destroy some of it and wallow in its destruction. 

you just don't see that kind of communal ritualistic behavior anymore and I think on some level that's a shame. 

here's my favorite thing

this is my actual actual favorite thing. actual favorite.

when things break in very specific ways and you discover very specific solutions.

my little Chromebook has been doing a lot of overtime since I got rid of my smartphone and for some reason, sometimes, if I go from a reel to someone's profile on Instagram while also a YouTube video is paused, the screen will freak out and go black and all I can do is restart the computer. BUT very recently I discovered that if I furiously move the mouse as soon as the screen goes black until the profile is loaded, it won't freeze up. 

I'm like Bill Murray in groundhog's day. I understand the loop now.