Every day for my first eight months out of college, I rode to work on the Long Island Rail Road with my dad. We would settle in adjoining seats on the 7:12 and Dad would open up the NY Times. He went straight for the obituaries. And he would always turn to me and say the same thing: "Just making sure I'm not in there."
Now I've become an obituary hawk as well. It's been a sad spell: we've lost Roy Drusky and Skeeter Davis, among others. I just found out in other pages that over the weekend a guy jumped in the Time Warner building and hit ground in front of Williams-Sonoma. We had walked through the building Monday night; the atrium was cool, hushed, and clean.
We go through life trying to make our mark. Roxy made her mark literally yesterday, peeing in the corner of the living room. I was glad I stayed home and played with her (and cleaned the litterbox).
I usually think that music is my contribution to the great river of life. Yet it's funny to hang one's hat on songs that are usually squeezed out of abject sadness and terror, and then delivered with fear, trepidation, and -- if I'm lucky -- an slow, dawning feeling of triumph, to a largely indifferent city/country/universe.
Am I being morose? I beg your pardon.
I feel a few songs rumbling in my underground. I'm singing them softly to myself and trying not to think too much about it. They always stay in the deep unconscious until something clicks. Then they come tumbling forth like jokester acrobats; and as soon as I sketch their image they pinch my cheeks and and scurry off, laughing to themselves.
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