pocketness
Mar. 12th, 2001 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verbminxI am trying to be happyfied by little things today. My abs and back really hurt, and I'm doped up and a little sleepy in the way that I'm sleepy when I am crampy, which I am. Right now I am happyfied that the new dryer dries clothes so quickly. I am happyfied that I have books to read and water to drink. I am happyfied that my yarn and wooden needles came from eKnitting and are exactly as ordered.
So I read the Blue Monday series, though I'm not done with the early comics in the back of the book. I love it so much! It very much reminds me of an idealized version of my inner teenage life - heck, one of the boys (I think it's Victor) even looks like the first guy I dated (the one who I just got in touch with last month who lives in Cambridge, MA).
In reality, when I was a teenager, I had a lot of preoccupations that precluded "normalcy" or even what passes for "normal" in a subculture. I was artfaggy, but I don't think there was any particular band I was "into". One of my best friends was into grunge stuff and local indie rock (she now likes Limp Bizkit and Korn), the other was into more of the same things I'm into but in an overt way, and was friends with most of the punks and skaters and goths and ska-kids and so on (she gave me my first Morrissey tape and made me listen to Sisters of Mercy for the first time). The former friend almost completely clashed, in terms of taste, with the latter friend, and would jeer and ridicule me if I was listening to "wussy" music; she also drove me a lot, and dictated what we listened to in the car. I liked a lot of things from the radio and had certain definite tastes (which are pretty much my current ones - 80s synthpop and alternative and new wave, 70s punk, early 90s hipster stuff, etc), but I didn't even know the names of most of the things I liked. All I did was sing, and I could sing you "Ach, ich fuhl's" from The Magic Flute, but I couldn't tell you that "True Faith", a song I loved, was by New Order (or any Depeche Mode song but what was on Violator, which I'd bought myself in 9th grade with weeks of hoarded allowance money and strangely the same night I saw Edward Scissorhands, or just about anything about The Cure, whose music I knew I liked but seemed inaccessible and intimidatingly "cool", more than I deserved). I wanted to be either an opera singer, or, as a fallback plan, a medieval studies major working in a museum or doing research.
I owned only a handful of pop cds until just after I graduated from high school. I listened to Peter Gabriel's So all the time, and Sarah McLachlan's 1st and 2nd cds (before she got popular, when she was more "art-music" oriented), and Sinead O'Connor, and REM, and Depeche Mode. I spent a sizeable portion of my graduation money - around $1000, the most I'd ever seen - on comics (mostly Sandman and related stuff) and cds (Tori Amos and NIN were early purchases). It's true. I was parentally sheltered in various ways but my interests at the time were so arcane that I managed to keep myself 90% out of The Current Youth Culture without my mother's help. So I can't say that Blue Monday reflects my youth, but I can say that it reflects what I'd be like if I were in high school right now and not ill. (Finally, I should add that although I have a ton of cds, I'm about the least-involved or fashionable "music fan" you will ever see. I tend to buy a cd when I can't get a song out of my head. I still feel like I'm catching up... for instance, I only own two Pixies cds, the Beastie Boys cd I got last night is my first of theirs, I only have Beck's Odelay because I got it from a record club a few years ago. Etc.)
Regardless, Blue Monday is great, very charming, and should be read by anyone who likes little punky/mod/new-wave arty girls and our bizarre obsessions with hairdye, safety pins, and Adam Ant or Duran Duran.
So I read the Blue Monday series, though I'm not done with the early comics in the back of the book. I love it so much! It very much reminds me of an idealized version of my inner teenage life - heck, one of the boys (I think it's Victor) even looks like the first guy I dated (the one who I just got in touch with last month who lives in Cambridge, MA).
In reality, when I was a teenager, I had a lot of preoccupations that precluded "normalcy" or even what passes for "normal" in a subculture. I was artfaggy, but I don't think there was any particular band I was "into". One of my best friends was into grunge stuff and local indie rock (she now likes Limp Bizkit and Korn), the other was into more of the same things I'm into but in an overt way, and was friends with most of the punks and skaters and goths and ska-kids and so on (she gave me my first Morrissey tape and made me listen to Sisters of Mercy for the first time). The former friend almost completely clashed, in terms of taste, with the latter friend, and would jeer and ridicule me if I was listening to "wussy" music; she also drove me a lot, and dictated what we listened to in the car. I liked a lot of things from the radio and had certain definite tastes (which are pretty much my current ones - 80s synthpop and alternative and new wave, 70s punk, early 90s hipster stuff, etc), but I didn't even know the names of most of the things I liked. All I did was sing, and I could sing you "Ach, ich fuhl's" from The Magic Flute, but I couldn't tell you that "True Faith", a song I loved, was by New Order (or any Depeche Mode song but what was on Violator, which I'd bought myself in 9th grade with weeks of hoarded allowance money and strangely the same night I saw Edward Scissorhands, or just about anything about The Cure, whose music I knew I liked but seemed inaccessible and intimidatingly "cool", more than I deserved). I wanted to be either an opera singer, or, as a fallback plan, a medieval studies major working in a museum or doing research.
I owned only a handful of pop cds until just after I graduated from high school. I listened to Peter Gabriel's So all the time, and Sarah McLachlan's 1st and 2nd cds (before she got popular, when she was more "art-music" oriented), and Sinead O'Connor, and REM, and Depeche Mode. I spent a sizeable portion of my graduation money - around $1000, the most I'd ever seen - on comics (mostly Sandman and related stuff) and cds (Tori Amos and NIN were early purchases). It's true. I was parentally sheltered in various ways but my interests at the time were so arcane that I managed to keep myself 90% out of The Current Youth Culture without my mother's help. So I can't say that Blue Monday reflects my youth, but I can say that it reflects what I'd be like if I were in high school right now and not ill. (Finally, I should add that although I have a ton of cds, I'm about the least-involved or fashionable "music fan" you will ever see. I tend to buy a cd when I can't get a song out of my head. I still feel like I'm catching up... for instance, I only own two Pixies cds, the Beastie Boys cd I got last night is my first of theirs, I only have Beck's Odelay because I got it from a record club a few years ago. Etc.)
Regardless, Blue Monday is great, very charming, and should be read by anyone who likes little punky/mod/new-wave arty girls and our bizarre obsessions with hairdye, safety pins, and Adam Ant or Duran Duran.
