angsty ladies

Oh, hey there.

I'm currently sitting on a very long post that's proved rather difficult to parse through and arrange in a way that isn't just "here's what I think about x, y, and z in order b, g, m. Oh and this: it's only semi-related." It's proving rather manic and looking like this so far:

And what I need is my inner Saul to come in and arrange it in a neat little timeline. Like this:

Preferably color-coded. And preferably as some sort of compelling string ensemble plays in the background. Is that so much to ask?

Anyway, to fill in the time in this fallow yellow (I promise that's the end of the Homeland references) period I thought I'd revisit a topic I just covered (sorta). A few months ago I posted about my favorite gloomy songs. It was perfect for the doldrums of winter, but now we're easing into spring, and I'm feeling a bit livelier.

Enter angst. Specifically lady angst. I made a great little playlist on iTunes called "angsty ladies" (which I alternately pronounce in my head like "hey angsty ladaaay" and "all the angsty ladies") which features ladies being angsty, obviously.

It's filled specifically with some 90's ladystars but no matter the decade they hail from these ladies make me feel broody and riled up and simmering with righteous indignation. GIRL POWAH.

THE ORIGINAL LADY ANGST
"Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways: There is no better lady angst song than this. I feel like any song that uses the word "daddy" in a kind of bratty, whiny tone is firmly in angst territory. Also any song in which the vocalist is literally yelling (a common theme, as you'll see below). There's something kind of seductive about this song. Perhaps it's the sultriness that cherries suggest (I personally find figs to be the most sensual fruits but "Fig Bomb" just doesn't have the same ring to it, y'know?), or the "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch" repetitions. There's something kind of badass and angsty about being one of the first all-girl rock bands, too, am I right?

HONEST ANGST THAT OWNS IT (it being everything...)
"Bitch" by Meredith Brooks: For some reason the lady who sings this song reminds me of the character Heather in The Blair Witch Project which I can only rationalize because both have brown hair and are bitches. But don't try to tell me that you can listen to this song and not start breaking out in a kind of angry, bark-esque yelp when the chorus plays. "I do not feel ashamed" that this happens to me regularly and "I wouldn't want it any other way." Let's revel in our various personas: bitch, mother, child, lover, sinner, saint, tease, goddess, angel undercover. Hell yes, Meredith/Heather!

For comparison...

BREATH-Y ANGST
"Breathe Me" by Sia: Okay, this song makes me feel so many things, chiefly angst, but also sorrow and trepidation and anxiety. It's so perfect. Just the way she says "Ouch": resigned, like she's stubbed her toe but could hardly care, like she's reaching out to something that's too far beyond her grasp. This song is purest prose in lyrical form. It was famously used in the final minutes of the Six Feet Under series finale. Now, look, I've never seen this show but I watched that montage and felt drained and gutted and weepy and also in awe of the power of music and film when in perfect synergy.

QUINTESSENTIAL 90'S ANGST
"Stay (I Miss You)" by Lisa Loeb: Okay, y'all. This song plays in the movie Reality Bites, which is the most 90's movie you'll probably ever see. And when I say "quintessential 90's" what I really mean is Winona Ryder, whom I kind of secretly LOVE, and find endlessly interesting, and I wish she was working more than she is now (that is to say, at all) because I think we need more 90's realness in 2013.

So many things about Winona Ryder (pre-shoplifting, that is) fascinate me. Like how she was engaged to Johnny Depp! Or her super angsty role in Girl, Interrupted. Or her friendship with Claire Danes, which is the most 90's friendship I can ever think of.

 Winona and Claire, BFFs until they weren't. 

There is a documentary about Ben Lee called Catch My Disease about his musical career and life and, back when Ben Lee and Claire Danes dated (yes, let that sink in for a hot sec), they were part of a social circle that is kind of astoundingly cool: the aforementioned Lee and Danes, Ryder, Michelle Williams (who seems in a perpetual state of shy angst/gloom), Jason Schwartzman, Zooey Deschanel, Christina Ricci, and the list goes on. Apparently they'd all hang out in Claire Danes' SoHo loft and shoot home videos and play guitar and lay in her hammock. It's so 90's. Anyway, this song makes me yearn for that alternate reality. I wonder if Claire and Winona still talk....

Claire Danes' SoHo loft, so very 90's. It looks a bit different today.

BRUSH YOUR TEETH WITH A BOTTLE OF JACK ANGST
"TiK ToK" by Ke$ha: I know, it seems kind of odd to include Ke$ha on this list. But I sense some form of inner angst in her that manifests as CRAY in all her life endeavors. She doesn't sing, she sneers, she doesn't laugh, she cackles (a variation on Megan Draper's "you don't smile, you smirk" line from Mad Men, and by the way I LOVE MEGAN DRAPER). The same way that a starlet like Lindsay Lohan or Amanda Bynes has acted out lost her mind as a result of likely inner turmoil, I get the feeling that Ke$ha's shenanigans are the product of some past trauma.

PUNKY ANGST
"Just a Girl" by No Doubt: I'm trying really hard to think of an opening riff that's more awesome than the one on "Just a Girl." As far as I'm concerned, this was Gwen Stefani at her finest, pre-B-A-N-A-N-A-S, pre-L.A.M.B. This song has a great "suck it! I'm a lady"-ness to it that's infectious. It's aggressive but taunting; it's the person that insults you and says "but no offense." None taken, sista.

PUNKY ANGST, PART THE SECOND (aka Angst with a Bindi)
"Don't Speak" by No Doubt: Written after the break-up of Gwen Stefani and that guy in No Doubt who plays the bass, this song has a yearning angst. You can really feel the emotional turmoil bubbling beneath the surface. And if the actual lyrics weren't indication enough, the music video of Gwen flailing and doubling over while her bandmates look on unaffected ought to do it. What's more angsty than half whining, half singing to a garage full of "meh" dudes?

 Oh hey, bindi...

EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME ANGST
Pretty much everything on Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette: Y'all, I LOVE angsty Alanis Morissette (so much better than VH1/vanilla Alanis) and she was never in finer form than in her debut album that is basically just Angst: In Musical Form. Let's take a gander.

"You Oughta Know": This one starts off hushed, kind of ominous. Then the hissing starts. I find this song is excellent to play in the car with the volume turned way up (to drown out your angst, and your singing voice). The chorus is infectiously, deliciously hateful (as is the entire song) in a big "eff you, man!" way. If the five stages of grief were accompanied by songs, this one is pre-packaged already for anger.

"Hand in My Pocket": If "You Oughta Know" was "eff you!" then this song is like "eff this!" It's kind of lackadaisical and "fine, fine, fiiiiiiiine" (three cheers for AM's pronunciation of most words). And you can never go wrong with a harmonica solo. This song also seems very quintessential 90's because it always conjures the images of plaid shirts (preferably one with pockets).

"You Learn": My favorite part of this song happens at the 38th second with the background whisper of "like a jagged little pill." What a perfect title for an angst-filled album. It's very Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted. By the way, this is the acceptance stage in lyrical form.

BONUS! "Ironic": After "You Oughta Know" this might be AM's most popular, quote-ready song, and mostly because she has absolutely no idea what irony is. But! I present to you a defense of the many situations in her song.

I don't think it's that far-fetched to assume that Alanis was watching My So-Called Life one night and heard Brian's explanation of irony and then decided to write a song filled with the most weird situations ever. Let's collectively give Alanis a break.

TERRY RICHARDSON ANGST
"Criminal" by Fiona Apple: Okay, so maybe anything by Fiona Apple would qualify in this category. But watch this music video and tell me you don't feel icky. This is what would happen if that Emma Stone for W Magazine shoot were translated into a music video 15 years ago. Nevertheless, Fiona's deep, kind of husky voice translates well to angst. Especially when she's wailing about "need[ing]... a good defense / cause I'm feeling like a criminal" and being a "bad, bad girl." I mean, I guess it's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable.

BONUS! "Valentine" is superb and makes me want to jab my finger at people and tell them "I root for you! I love you! You you you you!" "Paper Bag" is similarly awesome, if not so recent, and also perfect for singing in the car, although don't ask me how I know.

TEENAGE ANGST
Anything by Birdy: This lady is all of 15 years old, and as such imbues her (beautiful, lovely, perfect) music with tinges of angst and sorrow and I sort of just want to give her a hug. She manages to take a rather upbeat and jaunty Phoenix song and turn it on its head and make it sad and mournful. She does the same thing with Fleet Foxes. She even makes "Skinny Love" bearable. Kudos, girl. Keep on angstin' on!

BALD(ish) ANGST
"Nothing Compares 2 U" by Sinead O'Connor: In the words of Lorelai Gilmore: "When life gets you down, Sinead's really the one to teach you some perspective." AMEN. Nothing compares to you, "Nothing Compares 2 U."

There are few other ladies who are only sometimes angsty, and I present to you a completely non-inclusive list below:
"Paris Is Burning" by St. Vincent: Ominous, somewhat dissonant, basically what a psychological thriller would sound like if condensed into a song.
Most stuff by The xx: Moody, electronicky, deep, broody.
Rihanna on "Love the Way You Lie": Don't try to tell me that Rihanna is not the most angst-ridden pop star living.
"I Knew You Were Trouble" by Taylor Swift: Don't try to tell me that Taylor Swift is not the most angst-ridden pop star masquerading as the most angst-free pop star living.

Like my gloom post, I want to leave off on an anti-angst note. What's the opposite of angst? It's got to be carefree goodness, and, you know, I really don't listen to much sickly sweet music like that. But you know who I think of when I think of music that gives me a headache for being inconceivably twee? Hello, Zooey Deschanel! She masters anti-angst with her black tights and hula hoops. Ya, girl!

The Different Kinds of Gloom

When I wrote my year-end best-of piece a week ago I went on a tangent (natch) about the different kinds of gloom that my favorite music elicited. And then I got to thinking (all Carrie Bradshaw-like again) about the types of gloom that some of my most favorite doomy songs evoked. (You may be wondering why I'm so devoted to such depressing songs, but I'll never forget that my sophomore English teacher said that the best novels are ones that don't necessarily have happy endings, or even happy subject matter. I tend to agree, in literature and in music.)

Like that old story about how the Inuits have several different words for "snow," I too have several different incarnations of "gloom."

The following is not a comprehensive list, but it comes pretty close...

GLOOM THAT MAKES YOU CATATONIC...
"Hallelujah" by Imogen Heap: This song just makes me want to go crawl in a hole and weep in the fetal position. It's haunting, but in a really beautiful way. It's entirely a cappella, and you wouldn't be wrong to guess that some of its beauty is diminished by the connotations it draws from the scene in which it plays on The OC: when Marissa dies. I wish Mischa Barton didn't look like she was about to vomit as she gasped for her final breaths (or that I started laughing when I just watched this scene again, what is wrong with me?!), but you can't have everything I suppose.

ANGSTY GLOOM...
"Civilian" by Wye Oak: Any time there is vicious percussion accompaniment I get a little screamy in my gloom (a little grungy and plaid, if you will). It's more than just "noise" though. Especially when it's accompanied by lyrics like "I still keep my baby teeth/ In the bedside table with my jewelry." So it's creepy gloom, too, if we're being wholly accurate.

YEARNING, SELFLESS GLOOM...
"Someone Like You" by Adele: If you've never performed a dramatic rendition of an Adele song, you haven't lived. This is the perfect candidate for such a performance; it's simple, subtle, not showy at all. But the lyrics twist my insides in the most delicate ways (is that possible?). Adele is like a puppet master manipulating my heartstrings. Remember, sometimes it hurts instead.

HOPELESS/HOPEFUL GLOOM...
"Vienna" by Billy Joel: When the line between feeling hopeless and hopeful becomes so blurred it may as well not exist at all. I nerd-ily love Billy Joel for a 21-year-old girl. What can I say, I am soulful like that. By the way, isn't this song like the anthem of Marissa Cooper (RIP?)?

KITSCHY GLOOM THAT YOU HATE TO LOVE...
"My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion: Don't hate, y'all. This song is pure gloomy brilliance, and if you can't take it, get outta here. Listening to this song in conjunction with the final minutes of Titanic (she rode a horse with one leg on each side! she went on the ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier! she never let go! SHE STILL HAS THE NECKLACE!!!!) never fails to make me sob like Claire Danes, all ugly-like. But it's okay, because I own it.

THIS VIDEO. OH MY GOD.

Plus I have a weakness for circa-mid-90's Celine Dion, because my sister and I used to perform dramatic renditions of "Because You Loved Me," "All By Myself," and most definitely "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (funny, because those memories are all coming back to me now). You can't fight the cheese when it's this delicious, folks.

NO. I'M SORRY. THIS VIDEO.

RAINY DAY GLOOM...
"Wash" by Bon Iver: I love Justin Vernon something fierce and he is never in finer form than in this song. I don't really know any of the words to this song (except "climb," "bed," "sound," and "hardly"). So whenever I listen to it I'm just singing gibberish in the same melody.

Example (actual lyrics in parentheses):
Ohhhhh      (I....)
I'm going like the quickening you      (I’m growing like the quickening hues)
Ooooh aaahhhh      (I....)
I'm telling darkness from lies on you      (I’m telling darkness from lines on you)
Over head falling from the norris      (Over havens fora full and swollen morass)
You're habitat      (Young habitat)
I'll be livin alone      (All been living alone)
With the air snap and the hole, oooh      (Where the ice snap and the hold clast are known)

I rest my case. 

WORDLESS GLOOM...
"Twenty-Two Fourteen" by The Album Leaf: I have a soft spot for purely instrumental pieces. This one is mostly piano with some xylophone ditties and cymbals mixed in. But it's also magnificently silent at some parts and the longing just echoes. It makes you feel sad in a hard-to-vocalize way, which is fitting since there are of course no words at all.

CATHARTIC GLOOM...
"Bad Dream" by Keane: This song is a bit of a strange choice, because it's not immediately recognizable as gloomy. But the lyrics are pretty depressing. Basically I chose this one because at the climax of the song--"Where do we go?/ I don't even know/ My strange old face/ And I'm thinking about those days"--I feel kind of empowered. Empowered by my gloom, or past it, I can't tell. In that way it's uplifting, I suppose. Superficially, this song is rather upbeat, and therefore probably misinterpreted (kind of like how "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day is preposterously like the universal song for goodbye slideshows).

GLOOM FOR MOURNERS...
"Candle in the Wind" by Elton John: aka, the greatest eulogy ever written. When I'm in the mood, I can really get into 40-year-old music by the likes of Elton John or Billy Joel or (God, making me cry) Harry Chapin. It's very generic and safe and just so easy to like. But it's sad in a real and true and approachable way. I love that.

WHISPERY GLOOM...
"9 Crimes" by Damien Rice: This is like the quintessential gloomy, doomy song. It's about loaded guns and infidelity and I'm thinking also some kind of murder-suicide situation. Plus it's all in whispers, so it's really very eerie. The Damien Rice brand of Gloom is like feeling this blanket of bleakness and darkness descend over you. And you're just powerless to break through it. Fun, right?!

EMO GLOOM...
"I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie: I suppose it's kind of redundant to call this song "emo gloomy" because, well, isn't all gloom kind of emo by default? But anything that Ben Gibbard sings automatically has a one-up in the emo department. Can we just consider the title of this song--"I Will Follow You Into the Dark"? I mean, really? Subtlety is so not their thing, but at least it's not as stalker-y as "I Will Possess Your Heart." (I forgive everything for the masterpiece that is "Transatlanticism," though. That song is the most perfect.)

SWEEPING GLOOM, WHICH IS KIND OF NAIVE, TOO...
"Terrible Love" by Birdy: Birdy (Jasmine van den Bogaerde) is 16 years old and singing about "terrible love" and oceans and things that I'm not sure 16-year-olds should be singing or feeling. I'm saying now, for the record, that she will be the next Rachael Yamagata (and you're like, who??), because she has that bleak, wounded thing down pat. She is also pretty powerful because she actually makes me like "Skinny Love."

GLOOM THAT OWNS IT (or, GLOOM THAT I OWN)...
"Fix You" by Coldplay: Say what you want about Coldplay and Chris Martin and Moses and Apple and Goop, but this is a masterpiece of a mainstream gloomy song. I obviously associate it with the penultimate episode of The OC when it actually debuted for all the world to hear. There is just absolutely nothing wrong with this song and whenever I hear it I feel transfixed and helpless and motionless, exactly like Sandy Cohen when he tells his alcoholic wife that her father has just died. (I refuse to let Mischa Barton's dead eyes and/or Ryan's awful haircut ruin this moment.) And that fact--that this song can make me feel like a 50-year-old Jewish man from the Bronx with killer eyebrows--somehow makes everything else before not matter (that was a little Homeland/OC mashup and my life has thus come full circle).

HAUNTINGLY RELEVANT GLOOM...
"Imagine" by John Lennon: Lennon wrote this song in 1971 and more than 40 years later this song still resonates with me. I'm not an overtly political or politically active person, but I do believe in a world where children can go to school knowing they are safe, or where people can worship their own god in peace, or where it doesn't even matter which god people worship, or whether they even do at all. I just wish these beliefs didn't make me a "dreamer." And that is why this song, and the world it "imagines," which still has not been realized today, makes me gloomy.

GUT-WRENCHING GLOOM...

"Fog (Again) (Live)" by Radiohead: I do this thing that I believe is my gut being wrenched (wrenching itself? I'm not sure how this phrase originated...). Usually it involves a facepalm and a noise that sort of sounds like "UuuuuuiiiiigggGGGGhhhhHHHH." Contrary to what you may think, this great expression of emotion isn't a negative reaction but a positive one. Like to something so heartbreaking it's incredible. I'm reminded of a line from My So-Called Life when Angela Chase imagines the best thing someone she loved could ever say to her: "You're so beautiful it hurts to look at you." And that is what this song is. It's so beautiful it hurts to listen to it, but I'm a glutton for punishment and all that, so I can't help myself. (I think my next blog post will detail things that are so beautiful in some way that it hurts to look at them. The wheels are already spinning.)

GLOOM THAT ECHOES...
"Everywhere I Go" by Lissie: This song just echoes for me. I think part of that may be because it always seems to play loudly whenever it comes on, but I also think the singer's voice is so beautiful and conveys a dreariness that enthralls me in the gloomiest of ways and echoes in, you know, more figurative ways. She seems to be yearning for something, anything, and as the song goes on this wanting becomes louder both literally and figuratively. I'm so in love with everything about it.

. . . . 

Finally, because it's kind of depressing to start off the year on such a gloomy note, I give you...

ANTI-GLOOM...
"Dreams" by The Cranberries: This song empowers me. It will empower you. Go confidently in the direction of your "Dreams." I have a "Dreams" today! The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their "Dreams." Explore, "Dreams," Discover. I dreamed a "Dreams." If you can "Dreams" it, you can do it.

Songs I Can't Stop Listening To

I have a very eclectic taste in music. And by eclectic I mean I regularly put Taylor Swift, Paul Simon, Jay-Z, and Bon Iver on the same playlist. So weird is probably a better descriptor but eclectic just sounds more classy, #amirite?

Do you ever discover a song and then put it on repeat for hours on end and then get so sick of it and then months (or years) later come back to it and it's like discovering it all over again? Yeah, that's totally me. Either that scenario, or I'm still listening to songs circa 2005 (Thanks, OC).

The following is a list of songs I can't stop listening to, in no particular order except I obviously left out the ones that are too mortifying to actually admit to. I mean, really.

"Dancing On My Own" by Robyn. Uh, case in point:

"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift. Also known by its alternate title, "Stop Being A Hater and Learn to Love T. Swift"

My favorite Taylor Swift song, like, ever.

"Sour Cherry" by The Kills. This song brings me back to 2008, and a week ago I totally forgot that it existed. Remember when Gossip Girl ran those oh-so-risque "OMFG" ads with captions like "A PARENT'S WORST NIGHTMARE" AND "WHOLLY INAPPROPRIATE" and "HIDE YO KIDS. HIDE YO WIFE" (just kidding on that last one)? Well, this is the song that accompanied those promos. (Side note: based on an admittedly incomplete set of YouTube videos, Gossip Girl is like the dirtiest show on television. Hot damn. Also, Taylor Momsen, I'm #Praying4U.)

"Poison & Wine" by The Civil Wars. The Civil Wars are made up of John Paul White and Joy Williams, aka the Grey's Anatomy music supervisor's fantasy. But this song is beautiful and it's the first thing I listen to in the morning and the last thing I listen to before I fall asleep.

"Blue Lips" by Regina Spektor. Half because it's a magnificent song and half because it reminds me of the scary campfire story "Blue Lips" from my camp overnight days.

"Dreams" by The Cranberries. This is the ultimate walking song. And by that I mean, put it on while you're walking somewhere and all of a sudden you're walking with purpose. Hello, world, I am walking today. Try and stop me. Also it makes me feel like a 21st-century Angela Chase, all angsty and everything and we could all use more Angsty Angela in our lives. Case in point:

On school:
"School is a battlefield, for your heart."

On parental strife:
"I cannot bring myself to eat a well-balanced meal in front of my mother. It just means too much to her. I mean, if you stop to think about, like, chewing -- what it really is? -- how people just do it, like, in public." (SO MUCH TRUTH HERE.)
"My dad and I used to be pretty tight. The sad truth is, my breasts have come between us."

On socially awkward situations:
"What I like, dread, is when people who know you in completely different ways end up in the same area. And you have to develop this, like, combination you on the spot."

On love and sex:
"I couldn't stop thinking about it. The, like, fact that -- that people -- had sex. That they just had it, that sex was this thing people, had, like a rash. Or a, a Rottweiler. Everything started to seem, like, pornographic or something. Like, Miss Krysanowski has sex. So does Mr. Katimsky. They both have sex. They could... have sex together. Like right now."

Or... an Angela/Jordan scene re-imagined with Carrie/Brody:
Brody: Why are you like this?
Carrie: Like what?
Brody: Like how you are.
Carrie: How am I? How am I?
#MySoCalledHomeland

Thanks for indulging my Claire Danes girl crush. Moving on...

(But first, this: "Finkelstein? Finkelstein!? FINKELSTEN!!!" Major points to you if you understand this.)

"Down in the Valley" by The Head and the Heart. True story: once had this song on repeat for a full weekend. Like, back to back to back this song, forever. It's a testament to this song that I'm still not sick of it, months later.

"Television" by You Won't, if only because it's the greatest band name in the history of band names ("Three Car Garage" is also wonderful).

"Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z, if only because I can recite (let's not kid ourselves, it's nowhere close to "rapping") most of the lyrics, word-for-word, which, I mean, instant street cred for this perennially nerdy girl.

"Maneater" by Hall & Oates, during which all aforementioned street cred is lost. (Note: insert any Billy Joel, Elton John, or Paul Simon song in here, and the effect is the same.)

"Minnesota, WI" by Bon Iver. Choosing my favorite Bon Iver song is like choosing a favorite child, if I actually had children. But Justin Vernon's mumbling-as-singing has never been in finer form. Listen to the song, and then check out the lyrics. I've given up on trying to learn the words, I just mumble incoherently in approximately the same harmony.

"Anything Could Happen" by Ellie Goulding. Another song I forgot existed until this magical gift of a trailer was released last Friday. I mean, come on:

"I know I said he's murder-y in a sexy way but what if he's murder-y in like a murder way."
or...
"Oh, hello..."
or...
"Adam?!" "CACACACACACA!"
or...
More Katie/Sara banter:

(Other side note: this trailer for Lena Dunham's movie Tiny Furniture absolutely slays me. The blurbs are magical.)

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Because I think of Susan Sarandon in Stepmom and no one, including my very own stone-faced father, can see that film and not bawl like a baby.  I like to sing this one in the car with the volume turned way up to drown out my awful singing voice.

"Fifteen" by Goldroom. This song is dreamy in trance-like way. It reminds me of 80's music, which is a good thing, in a way I can't describe. Like I feel like this would be at the end of a John Hughes movie but instead of Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson you had Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Which is basically my way of saying I just want another movie where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are together.

"Reason Why" by Rachael Yamagata. I know every word to this song more than 8 years after it was released, and it makes me feel feelings in a profound way. (Honorable mention to "Worn You Down" and everything else on Happenstance, which is a gem of an album.)

"Bastard" by Ben Folds. My love for him cannot be repressed. Also swallowing my pride and inserting Jason Mraz into this equation (#dontjudge and, also, #sorrynotsorry), which basically adds up to me equaling a big doofus, and sorry for the use of hashtags on a non-Twitter platform.

That's it, dear reader(s) (are there more than one of you out there? I kind of like the idea of addressing a singular person, like this is a journal, except I sort of think "journal implies, like, a thirteen-year-old girl who rides horses and is obsessed with her mom, and it's just not what I'm doing.") And on that note...