I started a really intense workout program today.
After my session, with my lungs burning and my throat dry with dehydration, I could only think of one thing:
I really wanted a cigarette.
2013-06-03
Troubadours need not apply
For reasons that escape my understanding, I tend to attract creative types who wish to make me their muse.
I'm not cut out for being a muse. I'm neither beautiful nor tragic, and my personality is as sharp and craggy as a limestone cave. A crippling fremdscham kicks in the moment someone pulls out an acoustic guitar. God help you if you attempt to write lyrics--or, worse yet, sing to me.
Though there've been many, two in particular stand out. The first was in high school. I'm not even sure what made the fellow in question think I'd be interested; I was sort of distantly polite to him, the same way I would be with anyone, but that was apparently enough to convince him that the next appropriate step in Operation Get Into Sam's Pants was clearly showing up at my doorstep with a guitar.
Being that I had never so much as told him my zip code, this scared the shit out of me, so I had my stepfather handle it.
The next week, at school, he asked if I'd like to hear a song. I told him no. He pulled out the lyrics anyway. Now that I'm writing this down, the metaphor is becoming more obvious and disturbing.
Not as disturbing, however, as the content of the lyrics. The song, whose name I have long since cast out of my memory, described in great detail his desire (plan?) to murder his ex-girlfriend, dispose of her body, and move on with "someone better". Though admittedly, my initial instinct was to take a red pen and correct his poor writing, the impulse was short-lived in light of the much more important problem: this guy knew where I lived.
Thankfully, I had stepbrothers who enjoyed any excuse to threaten creeps with bodily harm, so the potentially horrific scenario that flashed through my mind as I read that crumpled, water-stained lyric sheet never came to pass. Still, I have never stopped associating "I wrote a song for you" with "...and I'm going to come to your house and sing it at your window while covered in the still-warm blood of the last girl who rejected me."
The second incident was only a couple years later, but far less terrifying. I'd become acquainted with a soft-spoken, pleasant young man I eventually discovered was The Annoying Guy At The Party.
Virtually every party has one. He's the guy who "just happened" to bring his acoustic guitar (why is it always an acoustic guitar?), and now everyone else has to listen to him play Nirvana covers over and over and over until the mere sight of flannel gives them hives. (Or maybe he's older, and he's going to play "Hotel California" or "Freebird" until you break the guitar over his stupid head.)
Kris, we'll call him, was fun to talk to and knew more about music than just about anyone else I knew. I enjoyed his company. Disarmed by his gentleness and tranquility, I'd told him about deeper and more personal things than I'd told just about anyone, and he was an excellent listener. It was only once I'd actually been to a party he attended that I came to know his terrible secret identity.
I tried not to judge him.
One evening, he sent me a message over AIM, as he sometimes did. "Can I send you something?" he'd asked. "I have something I want you to hear."
My heart sank. No, not Kris! I thought. Why?!
But Kris had never said anything creepy or violated any unspoken-but-bloody-fucking-obvious boundaries with me, so I sighed and accepted.
"You inspired this song," he wrote. "I hope that's not weird or anything, but...I dunno, I hope you like it."
I braced myself and hit play. It was...actually really nice, a lightly melancholy instrumental piece played on, of course, acoustic guitar. Though it's not really my thing, I didn't dislike it. It was even a little flattering. But unbearably awkward.
The song was the turning point of our friendship, the exact moment I realized I'd misread our interactions the whole time. It very quickly became clear that Kris saw in me not a friend or even casual acquaintance, but a muse. A muse isn't a person, you understand. A muse exists to stand on a pedestal and be inspiring and lovely. A Depressive Pixie Dream Girl, if you will.
We stopped speaking a few months after the song. I haven't seen or heard from Kris since.
And why is it always an acoustic guitar, anyway? I don't even like acoustic guitar music, generally. Why can't one of these wandering bards be a cellist or pianist or something? Or how about a drummer? A guy who wrote me a really kickass drum solo might actually have some success. I suppose it's harder to show up beneath a girl's window with a drum kit or a piano or something, but come on. Nothing about me screams "acoustic guitar", I don't think. I just don't get it.
Until I do, I'll just be waiting for my cool drum solo. Any day now.
I'm not cut out for being a muse. I'm neither beautiful nor tragic, and my personality is as sharp and craggy as a limestone cave. A crippling fremdscham kicks in the moment someone pulls out an acoustic guitar. God help you if you attempt to write lyrics--or, worse yet, sing to me.
Though there've been many, two in particular stand out. The first was in high school. I'm not even sure what made the fellow in question think I'd be interested; I was sort of distantly polite to him, the same way I would be with anyone, but that was apparently enough to convince him that the next appropriate step in Operation Get Into Sam's Pants was clearly showing up at my doorstep with a guitar.
Being that I had never so much as told him my zip code, this scared the shit out of me, so I had my stepfather handle it.
The next week, at school, he asked if I'd like to hear a song. I told him no. He pulled out the lyrics anyway. Now that I'm writing this down, the metaphor is becoming more obvious and disturbing.
Not as disturbing, however, as the content of the lyrics. The song, whose name I have long since cast out of my memory, described in great detail his desire (plan?) to murder his ex-girlfriend, dispose of her body, and move on with "someone better". Though admittedly, my initial instinct was to take a red pen and correct his poor writing, the impulse was short-lived in light of the much more important problem: this guy knew where I lived.
Thankfully, I had stepbrothers who enjoyed any excuse to threaten creeps with bodily harm, so the potentially horrific scenario that flashed through my mind as I read that crumpled, water-stained lyric sheet never came to pass. Still, I have never stopped associating "I wrote a song for you" with "...and I'm going to come to your house and sing it at your window while covered in the still-warm blood of the last girl who rejected me."
The second incident was only a couple years later, but far less terrifying. I'd become acquainted with a soft-spoken, pleasant young man I eventually discovered was The Annoying Guy At The Party.
Virtually every party has one. He's the guy who "just happened" to bring his acoustic guitar (why is it always an acoustic guitar?), and now everyone else has to listen to him play Nirvana covers over and over and over until the mere sight of flannel gives them hives. (Or maybe he's older, and he's going to play "Hotel California" or "Freebird" until you break the guitar over his stupid head.)
Kris, we'll call him, was fun to talk to and knew more about music than just about anyone else I knew. I enjoyed his company. Disarmed by his gentleness and tranquility, I'd told him about deeper and more personal things than I'd told just about anyone, and he was an excellent listener. It was only once I'd actually been to a party he attended that I came to know his terrible secret identity.
I tried not to judge him.
One evening, he sent me a message over AIM, as he sometimes did. "Can I send you something?" he'd asked. "I have something I want you to hear."
My heart sank. No, not Kris! I thought. Why?!
But Kris had never said anything creepy or violated any unspoken-but-bloody-fucking-obvious boundaries with me, so I sighed and accepted.
"You inspired this song," he wrote. "I hope that's not weird or anything, but...I dunno, I hope you like it."
I braced myself and hit play. It was...actually really nice, a lightly melancholy instrumental piece played on, of course, acoustic guitar. Though it's not really my thing, I didn't dislike it. It was even a little flattering. But unbearably awkward.
The song was the turning point of our friendship, the exact moment I realized I'd misread our interactions the whole time. It very quickly became clear that Kris saw in me not a friend or even casual acquaintance, but a muse. A muse isn't a person, you understand. A muse exists to stand on a pedestal and be inspiring and lovely. A Depressive Pixie Dream Girl, if you will.
We stopped speaking a few months after the song. I haven't seen or heard from Kris since.
And why is it always an acoustic guitar, anyway? I don't even like acoustic guitar music, generally. Why can't one of these wandering bards be a cellist or pianist or something? Or how about a drummer? A guy who wrote me a really kickass drum solo might actually have some success. I suppose it's harder to show up beneath a girl's window with a drum kit or a piano or something, but come on. Nothing about me screams "acoustic guitar", I don't think. I just don't get it.
Until I do, I'll just be waiting for my cool drum solo. Any day now.
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