It's Time I Had Some Time Alone.
Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003 @ 10:58 p.m.

So, my car is dying. My sweet, dependable, completely hideous '88 Chevy Nova is dying a slow death involving a very rough idle and stinky exhaust. It likes to stall out a lot too. I'm in complete denial and just keep telling myself it needs a tune-up. The thing is, my car cannot die because I have no way of replacing it. Does anyone have a car they don't want? (Hey Claudia - got a Miata that needs babysitting? Ha.)

Along with the engine, the radio is fritzing out which is completely uncalled for. I don't have a fancy CD player or even a tape deck, just a simple AM/FM radio, so when the on/off button broke, I gently flipped out. Oh, it works as long as you HOLD THE BUTTON IN MANUALLY, but otherwise, no. Otherwise I just have to listen to my car sputter and moan. No good.

So, being poor and resourceful, I went to the craft store (God, I hate the craft store. What a horrible place- full of scented candles and angry middle-age scrap bookers.) and I bought a lump of clay. Sorry, not really clay so much as red glitter Sculpy. Anyway, I got in my car, pushed the on/off button in and jammed the lump of Sculpy on it. It stuck. And worked for about 15 seconds. Fucking hell.

See, even though the radio sucks, it's almost always better than no music at all. I actually enjoy the randomness of letting the music industry kick-back system decide what I can listen to. I have about seven pre-set stations that I flip through and in a few seconds I can hear everything from Dylan to Timberlake to Outkast to JesusGodWhatISTHISMILKSHAKESHIT?

See? Variety is the spice of anger. Sometimes too, I get to hear something totally awesome and unexpected - something I didn't appreciate the first time around and now realize I love, like "Hot For Teacher" by Van Halen, for instance. God, that song freaking rules.

There are risks to radio listening however. Because, see, every now and then, some asshole DJ (or the robot they replaced him with) will think it's a good idea to play my single most hated song of all time: "We Built This City" by fucking Starship. This song makes me shriek like a harpy while my hand claws the pre-set buttons in my enraged haste to make it STOP. That song will rot your brain. It will turn you into a rage-filled zombie. It will program you to think maybe pegging the legs of your high-waisted acid wash jeans is a really cool idea. Evil. It must be stopped.

And dammit, it's Christmas time, which means all the really good songs are on right now. When else can you hear David Bowie and Bing Crosby on the radio? When else can you hear a beautiful medley of 80's singers lamenting the lack of snow in Africa*? (Don't you just love it when it's Simon's turn to sing? Love it when I was 12, love it now.) And sometimes they'll even play really freaky Christmas songs like Feliz Navidad, which I adore. I DO. SHUT UP.

So in my fury at missing all the good stuff, I rolled up a small piece of paper and jammed it really hard into the side of my radio's on/off button and it worked. As long as I don't touch the paper, the radio is on. It's like the time when my windshield wipers would occasionally just stop, so when it was raining really hard I'd tie string to them so I could make them move manually. I did too. I was poor! These are the things poor people do.

So now my radio works and thank God, because otherwise I'd have missed hearing "Wild Wild West" by The Escape Club this morning. Remember that crappy song? Yeah, 1988, I think. They played it and I sang along. And knew every Goddamn word. I don't even LIKE THIS SONG. How do I know all the words? I never could get a grasp on my 9 times tables but I know every word to "Wild Wild West"? The entire math section of my brain is apparently filled with 80's song lyrics.

Honestly though, I think I probably put more work into learning all the words of "It's The End of The World (And I Feel Fine)" than anything I did in school. It was an important skill to know all the words to that song. I didn't want to be the asshole who mumbled along and then was all LEONARD BERNSTEIN! Worse, I didn't want to be the dork that wasted all her time learning the words "We Didn't Start The Fire". REM was cool. Billy Joel sucked. Very important to know that when you're 15.

And speaking of lyrics, have you ever listened to the lyrics of a song and wondered what the HELL the writer was on? These people are famous for writing these songs. They're rich because of it. And yet, the lyrics suck ass. Please see my examples below:

Elton John "Rocket Man"

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it's cold as hell
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man

(Seriously, what? Again I ask, what? Raise kids...on...Mars? What?)

Band-Aid "Do They Know It's Christmas?"*

And there won't be snow in Africa
This Christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
Where nothing ever grows
No rain nor rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

(I think my first question is: is there ever? Second question: are they followers of the baby Jesus? Yes? Then maybe. No? Most likely not. Now, shut up, Bono. Let Simon sing some more.)

Train "Drops of Jupiter"

Now that she's back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey
She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo
Reminds me that there's room to grow, hey, hey

(I really hate this song. Tae Bo? Soul Vacation? Die, rich fool. Ha, wait, you're still just a one-hit-wonder. How much do you owe the record label? Ha.)

I'm a little bitter. Happy Holidays, my little monkeys!

4 chatty monkeys

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