1.3

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for leaving comments! Waking up to see that people are actually reading my rambles makes me feel so seen. I thought I wasn't gonna have much to write about today, but some forgotten memories resurfaced in my mind. Long post warning:

An Anniversary and the Wonders of a 16-Year-Old's Mind

The moment I woke up this morning, I felt like something was pushing to reach the surface of my recent memory. I didn't make much of it until I got up to make breakfast and looked at the date: January 6th. It's been 5 years since the insurrection of the United States Capital Building. Five. Years. 

As I'm sat there eating my plain Eggo waffles (I forgot to buy syrup last week, but they're still quite good), I reflected on all the things that happened to 16-year-old me within the 48 hours of January 5th and January 6th, 2021.

First of all, I had COVID for the first time, and it was the kind where you couldn't taste or smell almost anything. The only things I could taste were the sickly sweetness of Lindt chocolate and the salt of some buttered toast. On New Year's Eve, my mom, brother, and I were complaining about how bland our Chinese takeout was. Turns out it was us, not them. 

Second, on December 26th, I had confessed I had feelings for my best friend at the time, whom I'll call Marie. Honestly, in hindsight, I think I just liked her as a friend, but platonic love took me a very long time to understand (I see a whole post about this in the future, but only when I'm ready to talk about it). She was really hesitant to say if she wanted to date me or not. She said she wanted to wait a bit before having a relationship, but kept hinting that she did actually want to be with me. However, it turned out Marie was talking to two dudes and a girl. By the way, in classic 16-year-old fashion, all this occurred within a week, but man, was I mad. The morning before the insurrection, I pretty much told her to go fuck herself and then blocked her. That basically ended our friendship there. We'd try to reconnect a few times after, but we just grew up into different people.

On another note, I was also even more emotionally charged because the CallMeCarson allegations came into light online that same day. (Another reminder that I'm a 2020-era teenager.) I think I was texting my other close friend, 'Ash,' about these allegations, who was also devastated, while also typing out my "fuck you" message to Marie. Once again, in hindsight, CallMeCarson was never that funny. His friends were. But he was the leader of that whole crew on YouTube, so watching them all fall out in real time drove Ash and I up a wall. They were responsible for half of our inside jokes! How could we not be upset? There will never be jokes again!

Third, I accidentally confessed my old feelings to a third friend, 'Faye,' who I still think I actually did like. I became friends with her right before they shut down school my freshman year, and as we kept talking over the summer, I realized I liked her, up until she got a boyfriend. There were never hard feelings because I never told her and just moved on, but my carelessness made me drop a bomb on her. 

I had sent her screenshots of what Marie had said to me. And accidentally, this included a paragraph that mentioned how I used to like Faye. It was something like, "I know that you never told her because you're insecure, but I don't want our situation to make you even more insecure." So then, I had the pleasure of explaining the context of this to Faye herself. She was actually cool about it and said she actually had feelings for me back then too, and we stayed in touch for maybe a year after.

But here's the kicker: the final blow to this teenage melodrama was accidentally coming out to my mom as transgender that night. She asked if I was acting a certain way because of "gender stuff," and I said yes. She's come around now, but she did not believe me then. I've blocked so many of the details out of my mind due to cringe, but god, what a way to end a day. 

I woke up the next day feeling so weird, after dropping my best friend, my favorite youtuber, and lore-bombing my other friends and family. I was now out as nonbinary to my mom, which I wasn't even sure I was (spoilers: I was a trans man in denial! just as I thought as far back as middle school). I get a phonecall from my mom downstairs, and I'm just in bed, like, why the hell is she calling me instead of just coming up here? Is she that upset? Nope. 

"Hey, get down here, they're storming the Capitol."

Wait, what?

The insurrection was, of course, the insurrection, and I'm sure I can't say a single thing about it that a thousand people haven't said before me. But I wanted to really explain why the anniversary of that day is even more surreal to me than it might be to some.

LCD Soundsystem and the Realities of Adulthood

I went grocery shopping for the second time since moving out of my mom's (I got my syrup!). I moved out on September 1st. It's not that I haven't been eating, but figuring out how to manage doing something as simple as shopping can feel daunting when you're living under the crushing weight of your early 20's. Doing anything alone is nerve-racking. Last week, I was so tired of living mostly off of pizza, Dunkin, and gas station snacks that I finally forced myself to make a shopping list and dragged my ass to Market Basket. My friend Brayden and I were talking about LCD Soundsystem last night after I showed him that I bought This Is Happening on vinyl, and he said I need to check out Sound of Silver. So, for today's second grocery run, I got to listen to the entirety of that album.

As I'm walking down the aisles, I'm pingponging back and forth from wanting to dance to wanting to cry. The way this band talks about life resonates with me on a deep level. When I feel alone in a crowded room, when I'm breaking down and have no one to call, or when I spend another night drinking to forget the messiness of life itself, LCD Soundsystem speaks to me. Adulthood is exhausting and lonely, and sometimes the only thing you can do to make things better is to dance through it.

My Music Collection

I decided I'm gonna end each of my posts with a blurb about a record from my collection. When I run out of records, I'll only add this section when I get new ones. The first record I have for you guys is Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished, a crazy experimental folk record put out by Avey Tare and Panda Bear, who would go on to become the indie band Animal Collective. 

Before this album, I had no idea who Animal Collective even was. When I was 16 (post-insurrection), I came across this album somewhere on the internet and found the album's title and cover art stunning. I still remember listening to it for the first time while at school on June 4th, 2021. This was during the hybrid-'learning' era so it was really easy to still mess around all day despite being physically in class. I zoned out during my last class of the day, English, absolutely mesmerized by what I was hearing.

I still have yet to find another album that sounds like this. It's definitely not for everybody but if it does click for you, chances are it will stick with you for life: harsh noise mixed with twinkly instrumentation, melodies that feel like elementary school summer nights, and some fantastic drumming by Panda Bear. The harsh noise is only really an element of the first three songs, and I'm sure that means something thematically that I just can't put my finger on yet. The lyrics take you through the grief of growing up, as Avey talks about imaginary friends, school bullies, and the horrifying passage of time.

he ran out in nature...

That same year, I went camping with my family on Lake George's Long Island, where you can walk up and down the island at night because mosquitoes and other awful bugs only like hanging around on the mainland. I got the really lovely experience of listening to this album while walking through the island's forest at dusk, where there were hundreds of fireflies around me at all times (though it's a little hard to see in my gif). I  ran into a family of deer as well and we all just stood there for some time, observing each other. I got lucky and didn't run into another human being once. It was really beautiful. 

The only complaint I have about my record is that they changed the album cover for the remaster and I'm not crazy about it. Maybe they ran into copyright issues with the original art? This used to be extremely difficult to get a physical copy of as they only did one small batch of reissues after its initial release in 2000. When Animal Collective finally announced a reissue AND remaster in 2023, everyone who had been asking for it for years (myself included) lost their minds. 

    

Here's my record. Big fan of the vinyl color!!

I'll leave you with one of the best songs on the record, Chocolate Girl (no harsh noise jumpscares on this one if that's something you're worried about). I have my grievances with the remaster's artwork, but the remaster itself is lovely. I really recommend checking it out!

the original artwork that I love so much

Talk to you tomorrow! -G