seven hours waiting
just to say, "rabbit rabbit," which is good luck to say the first thing of every month. i don't know when or where this tradition originated, or even if it's actually a tradition at all. i first heard about it on a live Jawbreaker album, which i purchased in Kansas City (Kansas, not Missouri) in November of 2000:
obviously, they didn't break the bank paying a layout designer
the band had been disbanded (see what i did there?) for years by the time the album was released, but i had managed to see them once in Chapel Hill during college. two years earlier, i had missed them at a tiny venue in Durham; and two years later, their seminal album:
clock, matches and cannon
took on an importance to me that bordered on the obscene. the details are beyond my present time constraints and attention span, but these lyrics from "In Sadding Around" give some idea as to my state of mind:
Sleeping off the last five years takes another five years.
Recovery in lieu of being here right now.
When I throw myself at your feet, you know it's to be walked on.
We're breaking up every single night.
If I had a choice don't you think I'd make it?
I lost my voice. I hope I didn't break it.
Little demons by my bed whisper secrets.
The kind you never hear.
I dip my toe in this cold, cold life.
I want to dive, but I can't find the faith.
You with a view so unlike my own; I'm trying on your eyes.
So I let go, fall to the ground – It's a long way down again.
Petty cons keep peeling back my ears. We make plans.
Collaborate and give to you my better half.
Until now just dead weight, a prisoner of doubt.
In a cell we kiss and tell all our keepsakes.
Sore, hit the floor. Got my first glimpse of the sky.
The stars were on your side.
Who would've thunk the thirteenth fell on Friday?
Recovery in lieu of being here right now.
When I throw myself at your feet, you know it's to be walked on.
We're breaking up every single night.
If I had a choice don't you think I'd make it?
I lost my voice. I hope I didn't break it.
Little demons by my bed whisper secrets.
The kind you never hear.
I dip my toe in this cold, cold life.
I want to dive, but I can't find the faith.
You with a view so unlike my own; I'm trying on your eyes.
So I let go, fall to the ground – It's a long way down again.
Petty cons keep peeling back my ears. We make plans.
Collaborate and give to you my better half.
Until now just dead weight, a prisoner of doubt.
In a cell we kiss and tell all our keepsakes.
Sore, hit the floor. Got my first glimpse of the sky.
The stars were on your side.
Who would've thunk the thirteenth fell on Friday?
I say hello and it's goodbye again.
the back cover of my journal:
November 7, 1999 - January 18, 2000
November 7, 1999 - January 18, 2000
not long after that i met Nancy, and the song transformed from requiem to prophecy. but, for the time being, this is beside the point.
the point is that the album still serves as something of a sublime object for me, embodying all the potential, sadness and loss that spun like an invisible mobile around my twenty-two year old head:
thus concluded the seventh day of Christmas.
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