On a Train to Train Wreck Town

There’s a band I like, Bat for Lashes, and they have a song that’s pretty cool, “What’s a Girl to Do.” I would suggest checking it out on the YouTube as there’s a semi-creepy kind of awesome video. I would have put it here, but, well, let’s be honest with ourselves, I am lucky I can find the on button to the computer, and I am too much in the mind of a two-year-old at the moment to try to figure it out.

In any case, a line in the song goes like this, “And when your dreams are on; A train to train wreck town.”

I sometimes feel like I’m on a  train to train wreck town. There are days that I feel like the damn conductor. But let’s look at this in another light; wouldn’t it somehow be comforting to be on a train to train wreck town. I mean, then there’s not much you can to do to make the end result any worse. Like if you drove your train right off the flipping rails; “oh well, I was headed to train wreck town  anyway, so, hey, no biggie;” or if you ram your train clear into someone else’s “You were going to train wreck town. Great! We saved about three miles.”

OK, so I am being kind of morbib, a little negative perhaps, but I love the exaggeration in it. There’s something comforting to me about being a big open mess; you’re not hiding from the world or yourself; the song, of course, is not flattering or really comforting in any way, but for me, it’s the idea of losing control of the world and not caring.

You’re kind of just battering along and shit happens all over the place and you slip up and you do stupid stuff and you’re confused and turned about and it seems like there’s no friends around, but you’re open and you’re free and you’re not scared. You’re headed to train wreck town and that’s OK; somehow it will be OK. Now, I am not referring to addiction or illegal activity or just giving up your life and not caring. I am talking about the aboslute struggle sometimes in trying to find your place; where you belong; what makes you happy. Some people they find their path early and stay on it, and they love it; others get on the path and walk off of it and then back on, and so on; and some others pull the weeds out by their fingertips and make their own damn path. Then there’s those of us who are just kind of wandering about; not sure where the path is and not really caring too much to get on it.

Maybe I’m not a train to train wreck town; though, I have my moments where it’s like my mind is hell bent on getting on one. Maybe my path is just one of those meandering ones where you can never really see the road ahead and there’s no sign that things will ever get any clearer, but you keep on walking because the promise of a straight path is much more entertaining and interesting than actually getting on one.

Addendum: Thanks to Lea Kelley we got video.  Now, that’s one girl who is fully in control of her train. Thanks!!!!!!!

It’s the Most Bi-Polar Time of the Year

Christmas is the most fascinating time of the year. One minute you’re in your car on the edge of tears because there’s an incredibly heartwarming story about a woman who offered free family portraits to homeless families, and the mother of one of these families is speaking about how the photographer is putting a face on homelessness and making people realize they are people too; and you’re thinking the world is wonderful.

Then next thing you know, you and a family of four are hunkering down in a Target parking lot as a Ford F 150 nearly runs you all over and the driver doesn’t even look or acknowledge that he almost made you do an impression of Wile E. Coyote, and then later the guy in line in front of you is screaming at the sales girl because the “sign said $10.,” and you’re thinking, “My God, these people are savages.”

It can be very confusing for a girl trying to find her way.  It’s truly the one time of year where the best and worst of people are accentuated at the exact same time.  If I wasn’t so busy buying crap and running to the store 16 times because I keep forgetting more crap, it would make a very interesting sociological study; you could measure how quickly people go from feeling all warm and fuzzy to acting like homicidal maniacs. No wonder the liquor store was passing out free samples. It’s like the entire population has become bi-polar.

People we need a happy medium. It would be great if all the really good stuff kept up, but we need to lessen the downs. I would suggest hitting the liquor store for some of those free samples before doing the rest of the shopping, but I am not sure that would solve the Ford F 150 problem; so maybe you can try a bicycle but then that’s bad because of all of the traffic and it is like 9 degrees out there. I seem to be running out of ideas. Well, I guess I only gave one idea, which was to drink. Oh I got it, deep breaths; really deep breaths; like you’re sucking in the ocean. The government should run some kind of morning program, where we all breath together (wait, is this communism?).

Alright so I am no help. My last resort to decreasing those dramatic lows would be to somehow pump some Abba into the air. You can pretend all you want, but everyone feels good when they here an Abba song, except perhaps my boyfriend who offered a few choice words when I mentioned this idea. But I guarantee you if the driver of the Ford F 150 heard a few bars of “Take a Chance on Me,” he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry; he would’ve taken some time to relax to the soothing sounds of some Swedish pop music.