divine symmetry

The first quarter of 2021 in a nutshell. Winter roads, dark corners, and an end to isolation in sight.

I just left work for the last time. I now have no job and plan on staying home for the foreseeable future. I feel free.

I’m looking forward to no alarm and no commute and having coffee with Jess in the morning. Every morning. And playing blocks with her son and making meals for everyone and being someone who is present.

I’ve been making cocktails instead of drinking beer lately and I miss stopping at places and looking at their selection and choosing something new to try. I’m definitely having a beer tonight. It’s the weekend, after all.

We’ve been ordering dinner from the same place so often that they recognize me as soon as they hear my voice. I know where the best lattes come from and can rate them depending on time of day and who made them. I’m friendly with the friendly kid in the grocery store. It’s taken me a while, but I feel like I’m acclimated to this new place.

It’s my mother’s birthday. I should call her.

BEST OF 2020

I didn’t listen to enough new music this year, not like I have in the past. My life changed, my job changed, I had to change the way I listened to and found music, and I felt like I was always playing catch-up instead of being ahead of the curve. Which was weird and unusual for me, but it’s 2020, so anything goes.

So I’m going to try and do what I’ve done before and list the albums I listened to the most and tell you why. And then choose my favorite tracks and put them in a cohesive playlist (right here) because that’s what I always do, and there’s comfort in the routine.

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

While not quite as potent as Stranger in the Alps or even her holiday EP from this year (a favorite in our household this season) she still managed to deliver a powerful selection of heart-crushing songs that solidified her as a true talent to watch.

Set My Heart On Fire Immediately by Perfume Genius

An excellent album, probably my favorite of the year, and one introduced to me by the most important person in my life. The day it came out, we lay in the dark in the rain in separate houses and listened together. Now we can share it in the same place.

You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere by The Districts

I nearly missed out on this one and didn’t discover it until months after it came out, but I’m glad I stumbled across it. It has stayed constantly in my rotation ever since. I love every song and it’s better than their last album, which I also loved.

Making A Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest

Jess was able to guess almost every album that made my top ten this year, which means I either talk about music too much or she just really pays attention. Either way, when I mentioned that I had picked a top ten, she knew the latest from this artist would make the cut.

The Night Chancers by Baxter Dury

Another album that I just couldn’t put down, his dark dry lyrics and droll delivery combined with soul and synths made this a go to. One of my son’s favorite songs was on this album, I don’t know why, but he played it over and over again every day.

100% Yes by Melt Yourself Down

I’ve been a fan of this band’s entire output, a kinetic mix of funky rhythms, horns and made up language, and this album might be their most accessible yet. It’s a little more subdued, a little more refined, but still a hell of a lot of fun.

Candid by Whitney

This makes the list not only because I love this band but also on the merit of their cover of “Strange Overtones” from David Byrne and Brian Eno’s 2008 reunion album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Easily one of my favorite covers of the year, along with several of the tracks from the Whyte Horses album Hard Times, but it’s also one of my favorite songs of the year, period.

The True Story of Bananagun by Bananagun

Probably my most listened to album of the year, the kind of music I simply gravitate toward, the debut from this Australian band was all bongos and flutes and saxophone and mayhem. I found myself listening to it again and again, and when I stopped, I just started it all over.

Mordechai by Khruangbin

Another one in the same vein as above, lots of groove and vibe like nothing else, and another one Jess guessed would make the list right off the bat. But even though she doesn’t dig them like I do, she knew how much I appreciated this album, and I appreciate that she recognized that, even if I was crestfallen when I made a mix and put one of their songs on it and she didn’t like it at all.

England Is A Garden by Cornershop

I am a lifelong Cornershop fan, and this album is a complete and wonderful experience, beautiful and wise and elegant and wry, and I could not get enough. It’s similar but not exactly like everything else in their wheelhouse, and I celebrate it all. It’s nice that they are still around and they gave something special to a year that didn’t quite deserve it.

Guiding principles, basic beliefs. Accepted truth. Last mix of the year.

I stay up late. I get up early. I drive a lot. I survive on coffee, Pop-Tarts and leftover Halloween candy. So when a customer walked in the store and made small talk about what great music we were playing, and then proceeded to look around and whistle along with the radio, I was predisposed to a half-asleep chuckle. But when he really started to go for it, attempting to keep up his mad pursed-lipped imitation of “Baba O’Reilly” by The Who, matching the ever-growing intensity of the instrumentation in the song’s outro, his full committal pushed me over the edge.

I choked up as he really went for it, a hyperventilating in and out, bagpipe solo of a sonic display, eyes wide and glassy, clearly very proud of his sustained effort. And I lost it. I went full fire guffaw, bent over, hands on my knees, face red, tears popping out and over my mask, suffering the uncontrollable laughter like that of witnessing a fart in church. I looked at my fellow employees, and pointed at my ear, and they listened to the bold cacophony. Then they all joined me in laughter, each of us falling to the floor in the contagious throes of a full body giggle fit. We laughed like kids at a sleepover.

When the customer approached the front counter, we all managed to collect ourselves and act natural, until he said, “man, I love that song.” Then we lost it all over again.

The other day, I drove to work in a rainstorm which, as I ascended the mountainous elevation in the region where I reside, quickly became a snowstorm. The droplets of water grew fatter and fatter and flew at my windshield in the dark of early day. Then I realized that they were not all drops of water. They were mixed with snow, huge blobs of wet snow. The higher I drove up the mountain, the bigger, fatter and more intense the snow became. Soon I could see it accumulating all over the ground and there was no doubt about it; this was a snowstorm.

All day at work, acorns fall off the trees and smack on the metal roof. Then they roll into the corrugated channels and, depending on how windy it is, make a tremendous racket as they make their way to the ground. At first, I wasn’t sure what was making the sound, and one of my fellow employees told me it was the ghost of a woman who used to work there. Her name was Eleanor and she died in the building and now haunted the attic. I was afraid to go upstairs for a while until another employee explained the acorn situation to me. Now I hear them and laugh. There are fewer falling every day, and they sound huge, like apples hitting the roof, compared to the rapid fire ruckus of when they first started pelting the building and I thought it was Eleanor shuffling around upstairs.

All day every day, I ask people if they have an account with us, and wait for them to tell me their phone number so I can look them up in the system and identify them. They stand at the front counter and inevitably start humming along to whatever song is playing on the radio, regardless of their demographic, while I look them up. I hover over the 207 for Maine and the 603 for New Hampshire and occasionally get thrown off by a 978 from Massachusetts. I’ve made a game of it, trying to guess which number they’re going to give me before they start talking. Are you a 207 or a 603? It feels good when I get it right.

My girlfriend’s son calls me Bubba. He can’t quite say Ben but he can string together a bunch of B’s. I resisted at first. I did not leave Maine to get saddled with a good old boy redneck nickname. But it kind of stuck. Even my kids call me a Bubba when they’re visiting. I don’t mind now. I’ll answer to it.

I got an EZ Pass transponder to pay for my frequent tolls. I was getting tired of taking out cash every week and slowing down to pay a person every day. I did get to know some of the regulars, though. On one of my last cash stops I told the lady that I had signed up for the automatic service. She took my money and said, “Aw, then we’ll never see you again.” And I actually felt kind of sad.

I’ve been pulled over three times in three different towns for having a headlight out. I’ve been lucky and gotten off with a warning every time. I always give the same story; I just moved, I have a long commute and weird hours and I can’t get to the auto parts store when they’re open. But eventually the same officer is going to pull me over and I’ll be a repeat offender and out of excuses. I’ve taken time to get tires and an oil change during my lunch hours... which are actually lunch half hours so I can leave and get back to dinner at home with Jess at a decent hour. And I’ll have to do the same with the headlight situation, too. I have to stay on top of it so I can get through rainstorms and snowstorms and toll booths and whatever else life has in store for me.

We went to pick up a growler at our favorite brewery the other day. A man stood up from his spot and walked directly over to us. He apologized in advance for invading our space as he adjusted his mask over his face. He carried his glass of beer with him and put it down right in front of me.

“Can you read that?” he asked.

I struggled to make out the thinly engraved letters against the cloudy haze of the beer in the dim light of the bar room. I wondered if this was some kind of colorblindness test. The man didn’t know I was colorblind, though, so that couldn’t be it. I strained my eyes.

“Estimated?” I managed.

“Very good!” he said and I was relieved I passed whatever test that was. The man made a broad gesture of approval and started back to his seat.

“What was that all about?” Jess whispered

“I have no idea,” I said.

“That was 1977,“ the man bellowed from his seat. “Terrapin Station. Nice shirt, by the way.”

I looked down at my Grateful Dead shirt. I looked back at the man. He raised his glass.

“Forgive the interruption again,” he said.

“No problem,” I smiled. “That’s what the bar is for.”

“Amen!” the man said, taking a drink. We took our growler and left.

“What did the word ‘Estimated’ have to do with the Grateful Dead?” Jess asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I think that guy was drunk.”

“Come on, Howie,” Jess said, referencing the insufferable jazz fan in our favorite episode of Tim Robinson’s sketch comedy show. “You live for these moments, making a connection between life and music and experience.”

“He was just testing my eyes,” I said. “That glass was really hard to read.”

“That glass was deliberately engraved with a chosen specific phrase,” Jess said, “All mug club members get to choose their words, name or saying. It means something.”

I grabbed my phone and immediately started looking up The Dead and the word “estimated.” Sure enough, “Estimated Prophet” was a song on 1977’s Terrapin Station. I felt a wash of embarrassment redden my cheeks.

“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “ it wasn’t random at all. It was all connected.” I couldn’t believe I flubbed that interaction. It was a moment I could never relive again. I wanted a do-over. I walked around every day, hoping to have these sorts of conversations with fellow music fanatics, and I ran into someone who was literally me, who could’ve been me in the future, coming back to see myself standing there in my hometown bar in Grateful Dead shirt, like Bruce Willis going back in time and interacting with his younger self in 12 Monkeys, implanting an idea for the future in his head, and I completely whiffed it.

“It’s even the kind of thing you blog about,” Jess said as we walked away, and then I realized I could go back and relive it after all, and the moment, the interaction, the notion suddenly froze in time and space.

Just a few pictures over the last few months. First meetings, first dates, first adventures. We’ve been at this for some time. It’s still going and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

There were so many wonderful parts of the weekend I don’t know if I have a favorite.

We got up early and walked around downtown, taking in all the fall sights of bright foliage and early morning sun, and she looked so good in her hat with a Bernie pin, dark leggings, jacket and scarf. We went for a drive and she accompanied me to a little hole-in-the-wall barbershop that was really hard to find. It ended up being a pretty cool place with signed records on the wall and as soon as the barber and I started talking music, she was like, aaaaaand I’m out. She went and got us bánh mì sandwiches. We went shopping together, she found me some nice new shoes to go with my nice new pants, ones that actually fit me. We had Thai food, picked up growlers at the excellent local brewery, had dinner with her parents, went to our favorite taproom, watched horror movies together, decorated for Halloween, played cribbage (she whooped me) and we talked and just enjoyed each other‘s company.

We went to a barbecue at her parents’ house and we played basketball together (!) something that we’ve talked about and dreamt about doing for years. And she looked so good taking shots and making lay ups, and she didn’t make fun of me too much when I took my shots. We had a rematch of cornhole with her dad and her brother and she looked so good throwing those bean bags and we smoked them in the first game, and got beat in the second game, but it was still fun. And she looked so good while we played Bananagrams late into the evening (she and her mother both whooped my ass) while we did laundry for the week and during the stolen silent moments in between, we just looked at each other in shared, enamored domestic bliss. I think that was my favorite part.

I witnessed something last week that I can’t get out of my head. It keeps replaying in my mind and has left an indelible image in my brain. I was driving home from work and traffic suddenly came to a total standstill. I figured it could be anything; you see a lot on long drives, and you never know what people are going to do behind the wheel. Cars started splitting in opposite directions in front of me, some pulling over to the right, some to the left, and others continuing to move forward. I saw a large truck pulled off at a strange angle by the side of the road, and then people were running back and forth. I watched them cross the road, and followed them until I saw the reason for the standstill.

There was a mangled bike and a man lying limp and motionless on the ground. His eyes were closed and his face was entirely covered in blood. He was older, with gray hair, a mustache, and knobby knees. Some people were trying to help him and other people were directing traffic and there were no emergency vehicles on the scene. I didn’t see him get hit but I saw the moments that occurred directly after that event. And I just happened to look at him at the right time and now that image is stuck in my head.

Jess and I began looking online every day for information about the crash and to find out if the man was okay. After a few days, she found out that he was life-flighted to the hospital with serious injuries. I don’t know what happened after that, but I’ll never forget what I saw. I keep thinking of him and hope he’s okay.

Top 7 Albums

Tagged by @nordicshores to name my top 7 favorite albums.

Face to Face, The Kinks

Safe as Milk, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

Station to Station, David Bowie

Document, R. E. M.

Welcome To Wherever You Are, INXS

Feelings, David Byrne

No More Shall We Part, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Now that I don’t have a desk job, finding and listening to new music has proven more difficult. But the grace period is over, the transition has been made, and I’m putting you all on notice. The other day, I sat down and looked at all the new releases I missed, I went back over all the songs I had saved for the last month, and also added songs that Jess has introduced me to since we moved in together. Our lives have changed and merged and this was the soundtrack for me during that life event.

Since I’ve moved, the person I’ve interacted with the most aside from my girlfriend is my electrician. For some strange reason, the fire alarm system in our apartment has been acting completely wonky. So every day, I get in touch with the electrician, and he gives me a new set of instructions. The other day, I texted him to tell him the alarm went off yet again for no apparent reason and did it again 15 minutes later. We had been changing them out systematically and re-programming them and reinstalling them, but he was out of ideas. He just said dude, all I can say is poltergeist. Our conversations had become so commonplace that after he fixed it, I expected him to say, so, do you want to go grab a beer?

The work crew has also been fairly nice to me. But I haven’t made any friends there, either. They keep telling me hey, you’re going to love Dave. You and Dave are so much alike. Dave likes music trivia and communicates in puns all day. However, upon meeting Dave, there was no connection. In fact, the opposite occurred. Dave and I repelled each other. Maybe we were too much alike. It’s difficult to say since we never even made it to a discussion of music. I complained about him so much to Jess that she deemed him my nemesis. And now he works a different schedule and I’m relieved. No more Dave.

The assistant manager has been very nice and gave me a gift when she realized how long I’ve been with the company. It was a very thoughtful gift, consisting of several vessels from which one could drink. I got a Metallica Ride the Lightning pint glass because she knew how much I loved music, a coffee mug with a gas gauge on it, which is perfect considering my hour and a half commute one way, and a travel mug that I immediately gave to Jess. She was just about to buy a new one and now she doesn’t have to. I’ve been using one that my daughters hand painted when they were very small and it’s special to me.

My favorite interaction so far has been with a customer that I call Fastener Disaster. On my third day, this guy was walking around carrying boxes containing several different types of lock nuts. He dropped them on the floor and they all spilled and mixed together, including the ones that were the same size but had a different thread. So we sat on the floor together with two different screws and tested out and re-packaged every single one. It took about 45 minutes, and by the end of it, we knew each other‘s life story. It turns out he’s been sailing in the area I grew up, and the one port in which he stopped for the day was my hometown. He asked about the sardine factory where my grandparents used to work, and knew the harbor where my father went lobster fishing. By the end of it, I was like dude, we should go get a beer.

As much as everyone touted Dave, I’ve been much more friendly with Craig. He and I have had an easy rapport and everything about our conversations has been friendly and easy. We were talking the other day about our kids and our lives and he had questions and I had questions and by the end of it, Craig said dude, we should go grab a beer sometime. I decided that Craig would be my first Facebook friend addition (other than my girlfriend’s mom) since I moved. But I couldn’t find him on Facebook and even when I looked for the assistant manager, she was also unsearchable. Maybe I should give up on the idea of having work friends as my friends. I haven’t looked for my electrician on Facebook yet. I’m kind of hoping something goes wrong with the new alarm system so I’ll have a reason to text him again and say hey, wanna go out for a beer sometime?

Ten thousand paperclips. A bevy of pens. Sets of keys that go to nothing. Vendor catalogs from 2012. Pictures and “I Love You, Dad” notes from my kids. An old Rolodex no one uses anymore. The promotional materials we generated for a sales event that never happened, thanks to Covid. The calculator I was given on my first day, my name written in marker at the bottom, slowly fading into plastic nothingness. All things found while cleaning out my desk.

Today, they gave me cake and a t-shirt with a fake band name we made up emblazoned across it. I honestly wondered what they would do to commemorate my leaving, if anything. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. My 20th anniversary passed with no fanfare. Maybe this would be no different.

I’m finishing up the last of my projects. I’m really dragging it out. I feel like my time would better be suited maybe not working, but I’m taking two weeks off, so I have to put in due diligence. But my name is off the company directory. All my email is being forwarded to other people. I’m a blank space.

I’ll miss some things around here. I’ve been in the same spot so long, it all became like reflex and muscle memory. Walking the same paths. Going into the same spots for lunch. The smell of this town in each season; the salt air of the ocean enhancing the dank dirt of spring, the haze of summer, the crisp, pungent autumn leaves, the cold burn of winter.

It seems fitting that San Antonio missed the playoffs for the first time in 22 straight years. My run here was the exact same number. Things change, things will get better. The exit is bittersweet. I’m excited for what is coming.

I’m trying to pare down my CD collection since I’m moving in a couple weeks. I’ve tried this before; taking two boxes, one very small, one very large, and breaking my display racks into piles, one to keep, one to discard. This time, at least, I did it right… the small box was to keep, and the large box filled quickly. I was indiscriminate. If it was available online in any way to listen to or stream, I put the CD in the big box to return to the music store for credit.

I have some untouchables. The Weird Al Permanent Record Al In The Box set (complete up until 1994) and my three-disc special edition Bowie at the Beeb featuring a live album recorded during the 1999 “…hours” tour, and the INXS Shine Like It Does anthology, featuring songs I can’t find anywhere else, like “Let It Ride” which has Michael clearly lamenting his place in the musical archives with the line “this generation’s oversight is fucking up my overdrive.” Two Great Big Sea albums that aren’t on Spotify. And until recently, two Morphine albums, one from 1997, one from 1999, that just appeared there, much to my delight. I reluctantly moved them from the keep to the discard box.

There’s also my completist album runs featuring everything ever recorded by Captain Beefheart and R.E.M. and of course INXS. I just looked up the original Stop Making Sense live concert album by Talking Heads (which is one of the first ten albums I ever bought) and I found it’s going for $25. But I can’t go to the record store armed with information like this for every single compact disc I’m getting rid of. Not only would I be there for hours, I’d look completely nuts. “This is autographed by Bill Staines! Bill Staines! New Hampshire’s premier folk singer/songwriter. He wrote 1979’s ‘Place in the Choir’ for crying out loud! It’s also a popular children’s book, look it up!”

There are other things I cannot pass up, and most of them are movie soundtracks. Those compilations are like corporate mix tapes. They hook you with memories of where the song was in the film and keep you around with a proprietary mix of covers, a sprinkling of well-known pop hits, and songs recorded specifically for the movie. When they accompany a movie you love, especially if it comprehensively encompasses the film’s featured songs, it can be an addictive combination.

The CD racks are down and the boxes are packed, and the keep one is small and the big one is full of the stuff I will return. Next week, I’ll drag them to the music store and see what my haul will yield. As I was putting them away, I forgot that I had two more boxes in the closet. I almost don’t dare look in there. I’m sure I’ll find treasures I can’t relinquish. Now if only I had something that would actually play these old compact discs, other than my car.

There’s someone who I’ve been talking to for ten years, someone I’ve considered a friend, someone who has been a reliable confidant and who I have always desired. I once got the nerve to tell her that. I flat out told I loved her seven years ago (she reminded me of the date recently, March of 2013) and then we sort of stopped talking for a while. But we never stopped checking in with each other, keeping up with our lives. When she was pregnant, her due date was the day after my birthday. I messaged her a couple times; once to tell her I hoped the baby and I would share a birthday, once just to tell her how beautiful she looked pregnant. She was beautiful then, and she’s still beautiful. Even more so now that I’ve met her, looked into her dark eyes, held her face in my hands, kissed her wonderful lips. Today is her birthday, and I wanted to share what she means to me.

We have been talking pretty regularly for months. Okay, more than pretty regularly. Good morning texts, good night texts, messages to see in the middle of the night that told me she was thinking of me. We have not left each other’s thoughts in a long time. I’ve never been more attracted to someone in my life; I knew when I first saw her that she was it for me, and that’s only been solidified and cemented in the recent weeks. And the funniest thing did it. I was sitting in my son’s room one night while he slept, talking to her about the day, per usual, and she said, you know what? Sometimes I really just like to be fun and silly. I sat up in the dark. That’s what I wanted, too. We have been aligned on many things in the past; mutual attraction, similar mentality and dark demeanor, a love of art and writing, but when she told me she just loved to be goofy sometimes, I thought, wait, really? I get everything I want? The person I’ve longed to be with for years is gorgeous, incredibly intelligent, passionate, a terrific writer, and also a total goofball? Voted class clown? We were aligned in heaviness and lightness.

I had too much to drink and not enough to eat one night and told her I was in love with her. She said tell me that tomorrow. So I did. And I’ve said it every day since. My daughter calls me a poetic boyfriend with a gag, but she also said, dad, it’s easy, just tell the person you love every day that you love her and that she’s beautiful, that’s all you have to do. I laughed, but it’s not bad advice. I also tell her when certain clouds make me think of her. You know, poetic boyfriend stuff.

We share many inside jokes. We send each other beer selfies. We’ve met each other’s families. We talk about everything. We laugh and laugh and laugh. Sometimes we just sit and look at each other in that surreal, shocked kind of way. Just two people who enjoy talking to each other and can’t believe they get to spend time with the person they love most in this world.

She posted recently about sitting on the beach with her favorite person, eating breakfast and having a philosophical discussion about which is scarier; the dark depths of the ocean or the infinite blackness of space. I’m thrilled that her favorite person is me, and the feeling is mutual. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted and more. I love her and I always have, always will. Happy birthday, baby.

My eyes Open at last Blinded finally Free from my past Oh, freedom My, what a word Wear it proudly Never be heard Sadly Not everything grows

My love Blind as a bat Wear it proudly Never look back Tumble Grasp as you go In the darkness You are the glow Now I know Now I know Now I know That everything grows

Dear Lord Let me be anything but bored or in love I've been comfortably cursed Almost blessed to sleep But now I want to know what I don't know and what she sleeps in

Cargo on the jetty knocks me out of reverie It is only in my lover's arms That I can ever sleep In regeneration we will all persevere Sun across our bodies How long we been lying here?

Memory is what makes you older You hold on to memory Like a mother-hoarder And time gets quick as you administrate All the leavings of the passing years And I pull your arms around me I pull your arms around me