[I once had a dream so I packed up and split for the city]

I’ve heard very few songs that have prompted me to bolt upright and listen intently to the words. Most of the time I can sing along without ever knowing the lyrics, or I can skip the song or change the channel if it’s particularly useless drivel. One of these important songs, for example, is Doug Martsch’s “Heart.” But I heard another such song last weekend, and it stuck in my head, repeating all week. I’ve probably heard this song a million times before, but it never meant anything until now. It’s so cliche when you find a song that sounds so linked to your little insignificant life. But I can’t help but hope that music is made to be identified with, so why not revel in the sound as if it’s your own?

This is for all my friends and all the little dreams we’re chasing.

“That’s Not Me”

The Beach Boys

I had to prove that I could make it alone

But that’s not me

I wanted to show how independent I’d grown now

But that’s not me

I could try to be big in the eyes of the world

What matters to me is what I could be to just one girl

I’m a little bit scared

Cause I haven’t been home in a long time

You needed my love

And I know that I left at the wrong time

My folks when I wrote them

Told ’em what I was up to said that’s not me

I went through all kinds of changes

Took a look at myself and said that’s not me

I miss my pad and the places I’ve known

And every night as I lay there alone I will dream

I once had a dream

So I packed up and split for the city

I soon found out that my lonely life wasn’t so pretty

I’m glad I went now I’m that much more sure that we’re ready

I once had a dream

So I packed up and split for the city

I soon found out that my lonely life wasn’t so pretty

I once had a dream

So I packed up and split for the city

I soon found out that my lonely life wasn’t so pretty

+ + +

I didn’t do much during my visit to M’boro. I got my hair cut super short, shorter than I’ve ever had it, and I bought mousse (sp?) and gel and hairspray, which I haven’t done since eighth grade or so. I bought some work shirts at Target. I got my dad a Father’s Day present: a crazy automobile cooler for his re-enactment road trips. I ate some awesome grilled pork chops courtesy of Phil the Cooking Machine. I sat out on my porch and watched the sun set and the storm clouds blow in. I wrestled with the ferrets and laughed as they did backflips off the couch.

+ + +

The season premier of Six Feet Under was a bummer. A necessary bummer.

+ + +

I found out that Tamara, one of my oldest friends, is moving to Nashville in August. She’s currently living in Buffalo, N.Y., where she moved a year or two ago to escape the heat and oppression of the South. We had a falling out our senior year of high school and, missing one another, began e-mailing back and forth two years later. We haven’t really had the intense connection we had in high school, which I have pined for at times. We are both older now with different reasons for living. It will be a little odd but probably good to have her living here in what I have come to identify as my comfort zone, where I was able to become who I wanted to be without remnants from my childhood always reminding me of who I was. It’s ironic that as my new best friends are beginning to disperse, my old friend is creeping back into my radar screen. Wait, is that irony?