It wouldn't be a trip back home without some time spent digging through my old CDs and finding another ancient comp to upload onto my computer. This time around it was one that I had been looking for for maybe years now: the summer 2002 Drive-Thru Records compilation. True, even people who will still admit to being Drive-Thru enthusiasts for one fleeting moment of their youth will tell you that 2002 was a good year or two after the label had jumped the shark. And true to that, a few of the tracks on there have not held up well at all (even among the most die-hard of Movielife fans, I didn't know anyone who thought Steel Train didn't suck). But there are some bona fide pop-punk masterpieces on this disc. Here's my favorite:
Homegrown - "I'll Never Fall In Love"
What a summer anthem! Guaranteed to make you feel like you are fourteen again, nursing what could be sun poisoning because you were too cool to put on sunscreen at the Warped Tour. I was never a big Homegrown fan, but I've always loved this song; I would still contend that the beat in the beginning of this song when the drums kick in is one of the most sublime moments in the whole entire Drive-Thru discography. Here's an added bonus:
Allister - "Scratch"
I can think of no better time than right now, knee deep in summer, to roll the windows down and blast these tracks in your tricked out Civic. Or, you know, if you're really concerned with things as trivial as good taste, feel free to leave the windows up.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
On Fingernails
I had about two hours to kill at my grandparents' house this weekend, so I found myself going through my grandmother's nail polish collection and, for the first time in probably four or five years, painting my nails. It's so exciting. Every movement of my hands is now punctuated with a manicured ladylikeness; I feel uncommonly genteel. This is so new to me that I actually just looked up genteel in the dictionary to make sure it meant what I thought it did. Goodness knows that I have never used it to describe myself before.
But this wasn't always the case. When I was much younger (we're talking ten or eleven) I took nail care very seriously. I had this huge collection of nail polish and would keep my nails really long and meticulously filed. It was strange. I remember attempting intricate designs (peace signs and yin-yangs, really!) with these tiny little brushes and doing French manicures with nauseating color combinations (silver sparkles with navy blue tips was a particular favorite). For some weird reason, my long nails were a particular point of pride for me.
I also played the viola at this point in my life. I started when I was nine. I I liked it a lot at first, but I tired of it pretty quickly. By my end of the year recital in fourth grade, I was so lackadaisical about the whole thing that I "air bowed" most of the songs I played with the orchestra. My parents, greeting me afterwards with congratulatory balloons and flowers, were none the wiser and still probably do not know about the whole affair to this day.
These two things came to a head in the middle of fifth grade. One day during a one-on-one lesson, my orchestra teacher grabbed my hand, inspected it carefully and said, "You're going to need to cut those nails." Cut my nails? In all my life I'd never been so insulted. Of course I wasn't going to cut my damn nails. If I cut them short, they wouldn't be long enough to paint the tips a different color. Did this woman actually expect me to walk around with monochrome nails all the time? Seriously? Get real.
"Why?" I asked her.
"Because they're getting in the way of you fingering the notes. You're never going to get any better if you don't cut them."
"Well I'm not going to do it." That was that. At eleven I was, as you may be aware, more nobly defiant than I have ever been and probably ever will be in my whole life. By the year's end, this trait would have me dishonorably discharged from the Safety Patrol and holding the distinction of being the only girl in my class to receive a behavior demerit. It got me in a bit of trouble at the time, but now I find myself wishing I could approach more daily tribulations with the mentality of a snot-faced fifth grader.
"Well then you're going to have to quit playing the viola," my teacher replied.
"Then I guess I will," I said.
Sure enough, the next morning I dropped my case off in my orchestra teacher's room for good. I don't think we exchanged any words at all. Anyway, I wasn't very good. There wasn't going to be any big cinematic moment of her saying, "You're too talented to throw all this way" and begging me not to quit; I'm pretty sure she was privy to my air bowing at this point anyhow. I didn't feel much of anything as I left the orchestra room for the last time ever. Never again would I see that stupid portrait of Wagner, hanging behind my teacher's piano, that always made my friend and me giggle because of the stupid expression on his face. Never again would I be excused from Math class to go to my lesson, making sure to swing by the adjacent nurse's office to get a mint on the way there and back. It was all over, all because of the pride I had in my fingernails.
I would sacrifice my nails for good about three years later when I started playing guitar. I guess that goes to show what I was willing to do when it came down to an instrument that I actually loved playing, but at this point I had also come to find long nails pretty unattractive. The first time my guitar teacher handed back one of my quizzes to me, I jerked back in surprise when I was confronted with the long, pointy nails on his right hand. A year later, when he was teaching us how to finger-pick, he handed out a worksheet with detailed instructions on how to file our nails into the proper shape for this technique: a slanted, asymmetrical little point, sort of the shape of Gumby's head. I tried it out, but it didn't help me much and it made itching myself a pretty perilous endeavor. I cut them a few days later, and, until this moment, it had been years since I'd given a second thought to my fingernails.
I looked at nail polish at Target today, thinking that I might try out this whole genteel business on a regular basis and pick out a few shades. But it was all so much more expensive than I remember it being! $6 for some of the lower end stuff. I decided to pass. Perhaps the days of fancy nails will forever be a thing of my past. Even so, I think I was right in giving up viola; that teacher was an idiot.
But this wasn't always the case. When I was much younger (we're talking ten or eleven) I took nail care very seriously. I had this huge collection of nail polish and would keep my nails really long and meticulously filed. It was strange. I remember attempting intricate designs (peace signs and yin-yangs, really!) with these tiny little brushes and doing French manicures with nauseating color combinations (silver sparkles with navy blue tips was a particular favorite). For some weird reason, my long nails were a particular point of pride for me.
I also played the viola at this point in my life. I started when I was nine. I I liked it a lot at first, but I tired of it pretty quickly. By my end of the year recital in fourth grade, I was so lackadaisical about the whole thing that I "air bowed" most of the songs I played with the orchestra. My parents, greeting me afterwards with congratulatory balloons and flowers, were none the wiser and still probably do not know about the whole affair to this day.
These two things came to a head in the middle of fifth grade. One day during a one-on-one lesson, my orchestra teacher grabbed my hand, inspected it carefully and said, "You're going to need to cut those nails." Cut my nails? In all my life I'd never been so insulted. Of course I wasn't going to cut my damn nails. If I cut them short, they wouldn't be long enough to paint the tips a different color. Did this woman actually expect me to walk around with monochrome nails all the time? Seriously? Get real.
"Why?" I asked her.
"Because they're getting in the way of you fingering the notes. You're never going to get any better if you don't cut them."
"Well I'm not going to do it." That was that. At eleven I was, as you may be aware, more nobly defiant than I have ever been and probably ever will be in my whole life. By the year's end, this trait would have me dishonorably discharged from the Safety Patrol and holding the distinction of being the only girl in my class to receive a behavior demerit. It got me in a bit of trouble at the time, but now I find myself wishing I could approach more daily tribulations with the mentality of a snot-faced fifth grader.
"Well then you're going to have to quit playing the viola," my teacher replied.
"Then I guess I will," I said.
Sure enough, the next morning I dropped my case off in my orchestra teacher's room for good. I don't think we exchanged any words at all. Anyway, I wasn't very good. There wasn't going to be any big cinematic moment of her saying, "You're too talented to throw all this way" and begging me not to quit; I'm pretty sure she was privy to my air bowing at this point anyhow. I didn't feel much of anything as I left the orchestra room for the last time ever. Never again would I see that stupid portrait of Wagner, hanging behind my teacher's piano, that always made my friend and me giggle because of the stupid expression on his face. Never again would I be excused from Math class to go to my lesson, making sure to swing by the adjacent nurse's office to get a mint on the way there and back. It was all over, all because of the pride I had in my fingernails.
I would sacrifice my nails for good about three years later when I started playing guitar. I guess that goes to show what I was willing to do when it came down to an instrument that I actually loved playing, but at this point I had also come to find long nails pretty unattractive. The first time my guitar teacher handed back one of my quizzes to me, I jerked back in surprise when I was confronted with the long, pointy nails on his right hand. A year later, when he was teaching us how to finger-pick, he handed out a worksheet with detailed instructions on how to file our nails into the proper shape for this technique: a slanted, asymmetrical little point, sort of the shape of Gumby's head. I tried it out, but it didn't help me much and it made itching myself a pretty perilous endeavor. I cut them a few days later, and, until this moment, it had been years since I'd given a second thought to my fingernails.
I looked at nail polish at Target today, thinking that I might try out this whole genteel business on a regular basis and pick out a few shades. But it was all so much more expensive than I remember it being! $6 for some of the lower end stuff. I decided to pass. Perhaps the days of fancy nails will forever be a thing of my past. Even so, I think I was right in giving up viola; that teacher was an idiot.
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