As you may have figured out, I am a giant nerd.  I am also a songwriter.  My nerdiness certainly influences my songwriting.  This is especially evident in my choice of subjects to write about.  I write rock songs that reference the Pied Piper and the Bubonic Plague, the Russian space program, Super Mario Brothers, countless references to the Apocalypse, happiness and love from a prehistoric anthropological standpoint, and the role of feminism during the Prohibition Era.  However, though I am a scientist by trade, I have yet to really make blatant reference to scientific concepts in my songs.

A lot of this is because I don’t like to be obvious in my lyrics.  I can understand that back in the early days of rock (and the folk music that was around at the same time), it was revolutionary to say things just as they are.  Perhaps when Barry McGuire first sang “Eve of Destruction,” people were all like, “Far out! I didn’t believe that we were on the eve of destruction, but when your blood’s so mad it feels like coagulatin’ and the goverment ain’t legislatin’, how can it be denied?!?”  Sure, I poke fun at this, but there was a time when this was not an OK thing to do and cryptic lyrics went by the wayside so that teenagers could express their outrage more efficiently.

There’s still a place for that, and if it’s done well (meaning you write something because you have something original or powerful to say about the situation), I like it.  But most of the time obvious lyrics just seem boring to me and so I avoid it for my own writing.  I extend this to obvious scientific references too.  I’m not going to mention Schrodinger and his cat unless they provide the perfect picture for what I’m saying in a greater context.  In short, I’m never going to just write a song about Schrodinger’s cat.  It would be much more likely for me to say quickly in a description of a snapshot in time something like “Erwin and a lion enter the room with uncertainty”.

Perhaps I shouldn’t deconstruct my songwriting for you here.  Then you’ll know all my tricks.  Damn it!

It might have occurred to you that I am pretty critical of lyrics.  I am, in certain contexts.  Really, it’s that I am critical of lyrics written by singer songwriters.  I don’t expect brilliance when I turn on most popular radio stations.  Pop has all kinds of other stuff going for it, like catchy beats and melodies that get trapped in your head, and subjects and lyrics you don’t really have to think about.  But when I turn on NPR or WXPN and hear a whole slew of people singing about nothing and begging me to ask the question, “Why on Earth do I care what you have to say about this and why the fuck are you on the radio?!?”, I just get annoyed.

That said, I really love picking apart pop lyrics.  When driving home, I often turn on Q102 (our local Top 40 station) to see what the kids are listening to.  In addition, it’s because I honestly like some of it.  That’s where you can hear Lady Gaga, for instance, and since I will generally dance to anything that has a good beat (Peter described me the other day as “shameless” in this regard…I think it’s good to be shameless sometimes, ey?), I really can’t say “I hate pop music”.  It serves a purpose.  If the Bee Gees are fun, so is Ke$ha.  Also, there is a true talent to putting out pop hits.  I have often thought while listening to something I have deemed mindless on the radio, “Man, why aren’t I getting paid?”  Well, the answer is that I simply don’t write things that are accessible to the masses.  And I’m not saying this to say “Oh, I’m just so much smarter and more interesting than most people, that they just can’t understand my music”, like it’s some kind of personal compliment.  I mean that my stuff takes a few listens before it sinks in.  It doesn’t usually have immediate appeal…not in a way that would make me millions.  A song sounding simple doesn’t mean that anyone can write it or arrange it.  You have to understand something about mass appeal, and that is certainly an area of expertise that I lack.

Of course, very little of this has to do with the stars that are the face and supposed voice of the songs.  Most of the stars on the Top 40 station are pretty manufactured.  Peter and I were talking about the production process for people like Rihanna and it was impressive to hear him deconstruct what goes into it.  Basically, you can take anyone that you want to make a star and have them show up for a day and hack their way through some singing…and then run everything through several pieces of software and, Voila! A hit is born.  What I didn’t know is that they do this to every instrument, everything involved.  In the stadium sellout, ginormous production value world, you are paying for the computers, the hot bodies of the performers, and the set builders, lighting designers, and pyrotechnic people.

I don’t think I have a problem with that.  As I said, that all in and of itself is art and it creates a product that people want.  So what if you are less talented than someone else.  Do you put on a good show?  Well, good.  The internet makes it so there’s all kinds of music going on with various levels of production and “reality”.

As the stars tend to be pretty manufactured, they have their songs often written for them…I think.  I don’t have any really statistics about that, but I’m pretty sure most of these peoples’ jobs is to stay in shape and to be controversial and provocative. So I get really amused when I hear lyrics that I categorize as either completely brilliant or completely idiotic, depending on how you interpret them.

Take, for instance, Calvin Harris’ “I Feel So Close to You”.  This is pretty much a techno dance song kind of thing I guess, but still, they take the time to have someone say something that is supposed to be romantic…when you’re getting ground on in a dance club somewhere.  Behold the ongoing verse:

I feel so close to you right now,
It’s a force field.
I wear my heart upon my sleeve,
Like it’s a big deal.
Your love pours down on me,
Like a waterfall.
And there’s no stopping us right now.
I feel so close to you right now.

So, sure, pretty unimpressive and cliche.  But I want to direct you to the very first line in the song: I feel so close to you right now.  It’s a force field.

OK, so here’s the fucking brilliant interpretation of this concept:

The love the singer and the subject of his adoration have brings them so close that there is a repulsion between them that keeps them from truly being together.  This is a situation made more tragic by the fact that the singer is completely vulnerable about his feelings and yet, there’s a force field stopping it from mattering.  And yet, despite the invisible barrier between them, the world continues to turn and the barrier is only between them and any real connection…not between them and the rest of life.  A pair of star crossed companions moving forward in parallel path to a similar destination. Hence there is no stopping them right now.  Once they reach the destination, perhaps all this will come crashing down…but right now, the Angstrom of distance means little as long as the closeness is intact.

And…and…just disregard the line about the waterfall.  I, er, I don’t have anything brilliant to say about that.

This is kind of interesting, right?  I mean, people sing about unrequited love all the time, but this is a somewhat original way to talk about it!

What? You think I’m perhaps reading too much into this dumb song?  Ah, well no worries.  I have also developed the Make a Buck with Bad Songwriting interpretation:

By force field, the singer simply means “there’s an impressive force between us”.  Aaaaand the rest of it is just drivel.

There, are you happy now? How depressing is that?  Here I am trying to find some meaning in this life and you just have to nay say and…and…

*Cue catchy chord progression and dance beat*

“Yeah! This song is awesome!” She says as she climbs on the nearest sturdy table to “get down”.

Another example is a song that was more popular on 104.5 (our local…”alternative” station?  Is that still a thing?), Civil Twilight’s “Letters from the Sky”.  It has pretty arrangement.  There’s a string section and synthesizers and such (I think) and there’s this lyric:

One day soon, I’ll hold you like the sun holds the moon.
And we will hear those planes overhead.
And we won’t be afraid.

Brilliant interpretation: Much like the gravitational force that keeps celestial bodies safely in orbit around each other, the singer will keep his loved on safe and protected from destruction, but always at a great distance.  If they were to allow themselves to touch, it would mean that everything around them would crash and burn and everything that they know would be gone.  It would be an end of everything, resulting in the quiet before a new beginning.  Vigilant, the singer and the object of his love sit distanced apart watching the onslaught of man made destroyers.  They do not fear them because their distance holds the key to actual safety and the reality of what would happen if they were to break this distance is far more terrifying than anything that a modern military has.

Shaun also pointed out that this could be interpreted as a nod to polyamory, because you really have to involve the Earth in this, making one big celestial triad.  The relationship between the sun and moon is not exactly direct.  The moon is held in orbit around the Earth due to Earth’s gravitational force, and the sun holds them both in orbit for the same reason.  So, much like how we are not islands and our relationships affect each other, the influence of the various celestial bodies on each other can’t be denied, nor is it preferred for any of them not to be involved.

I think that’s what he was talking about.  I admit that I was on my second mojito by the time we were talking about this at dinner and I also had a mental breakdown at work that day (which resulted in a lot of me stomping around and laughing maniacally), so my comprehension should be held in question.  All I remember is saying, “Ah! YES!  That’s ALSO brilliant!”

And then Wes said, “You know, neither of those interpretations is particularly brilliant.”

To which I said something like, “BE THAT AS IT MAY! It is more brilliant than…”

This, more likely,  interpretation: The singer will hold onto the object of his love really tight and no one has to be scared when there’s an unwavering hug happening. Or something.

I am sure as I listen to more popular music I will find more instances of using science as metaphors and similes in dumb songs and will probably talk about them, because that’s fun for me.  Do you have examples of your own?

Today has been, to put it simply, a rather stupid day. I am choosing to write about it because I think often my particular brand of anxiety and other insanity can often be comical…at least when I think about it later.  It’s terrible when it’s happening, but I think I would be dead by now if I couldn’t laugh at myself.

I have recently become hyper aware of how often I get depressed or anxious for no particular reason.  In the past there has been little lag between “bad feeling in the pit of my chest” (somewhere behind my xiphoid process…Not to be mixed up with Zaphod Beeblebrox.  It’s the greatest term I ever learned in CPR training.  It’s the point at the end of your sternum! The thing that will stab the patient if you screw up! Which you totally will! If you are me! Most likely! Also, I wouldn’t really describe any other terms as great from training, so I’ll just say it’s a great term.  Not the greatest.  How do I always digress this fast?) to jumping to conclusions about what it is inherently depressing me.  When there’s no space between those two things, it becomes impossible to see the good things in your life.  You just either project on everyone and everything around you all the fears you have and see evidence of their validity or you remember shitty things from the past and get upset about them all over again.  This is a terrible habit to get into and part of my healing process lately has been to extend that gap and to try and accept more easily that I am feeling lousy for no real reason (although, I would venture to guess that it is purely physical, like a hormonal imbalance or dehydration or blood sugar levels).  My goal as of late has been to accept that sometimes I’m a mess.  It’s been worse lately.  Who knows why?  I stressed myself out a lot last month and maybe I’m still balancing out from that.  Anyway, I tell you all this because last night I really noticed it and I also noticed that my swings back to laughing a lot are also harder to predict.  Once I allow myself to just say, “You’re a mess right now, Gina”, it’s easier to laugh at stupid crap.

Scene One: This morning I did Jessie a favor by dropping something off for her at her doctor in the Northeast.  I figured this made a lot of sense.  Wes didn’t feel comfortable driving with his pirate patch worthy eye and my office is actually oddly close to that part of Philadelphia.  I gave myself an hour to get there and then to work.  This seemed completely reasonable, but I didn’t calculate for the oddness of Northeaster streets and the surprise attacks of the GPS. “Keep going…keep going…NOW TURN RIGHT! NOW NOW NOW! Oh…you missed it.  What a dumbass.  RECALCULATING.  RECALCULATING AGAIN. Dumbass.”  Perhaps I’m projecting how much my GPS berates me when I fail to follow it, but I figure this is how Skynet really prevails.  The machines won’t kill us with laser blasters.  They’ll just be passive aggressive and make us feel bad about ourselves.

Perhaps I just think that because I’m insecure and anything can make me feel that way.  Whatever.  STOP JUDGING ME, CELLPHONE.

Anyway, after taking yet another wrong turn, I lost it in the most functional way possible at the time.  I was fully capable of driving, but I could only do so for a second if I did a death metal drum solo on the steering wheel and screamed at the top of my lungs.  Nothing coherent, just the kind of primal scream that Tears for Fears is always going on about.  Then I had “Shout” stuck in my head and yelled, “Fuck you, Roosevelt Boulevard!”  Finally I managed my errand and was on the road to New Jersey.  And as I crossed the treacherous arch that is the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, Bruce Springsteen lulled me down from assuming that any minute my car would spiral off into the Delaware (not from a suicidal sense.  Don’t worry.  I just envisioned a scene where my car was plummeting towards the murky depths of the river and I would think, “Well, isn’t this just fucking great.  How am I supposed to get to work NOW? Fuck you, Bridge! Why won’t you send your water trolls to save me? Hmm???” or, more realistically, I would think, “SHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIiiiiiiitttttt…” kersplash!), and I was simply a little bit crazed.  OK, I was not actually listening to the Boss, but it’s just sort of in the air, OK?  For all I know, Nickelback was playing and I simply repressed the memory.

I get to work and find my email inbox full of bullshit and my voicemail in a similar state.  I started freaking out again.  I tried to extend that gap between the physical emotion and the justification.  It was hard.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was sobbing at my desk and talking to Wes and Shaun on gchat, saying that I really think there’ something wrong with me.  Then Shaun said, “otters”.  I decided that cute animal pictures were probably my best bet at achieving functionality again.  Wes agreed that this was a very good plan…and it was.  It was an instant fix! What the hell?  Why has no one written their dissertation on this?  And so, due to this photo, I was again able to work:

Scene Two: The other day I wrote an email asking for help from someone.  I spent a long time on the email.  I chose my words and punctuation very carefully, so as to avoid any misinterpretations of tone.  I did not use any emoticons.  Clearly this was my mistake.

I was then informed  that the person I wrote the email to is being vindictive because my email accused him of being inept.

This was so far from the truth that, if I were in a more stable state of mind, I would have had to laugh and say all kinds of snarky things.  But by then the great healing powers of otters had worn off and I was unable to keep calm about it.  There is a historic reason in this particular case.  Namely, the culture of my life before seemed to encourage people to not express their issues directly with the people causing the issues, but rather to gossip to others and allow it to trickle back to the “guilty” party.  By then, it has festered and doing anything about it probably means a big, stupid confrontation.

Upon hearing this, I hit my desk, stood up fiercely and yelled, “Fuck no! This is NOT how we do things, god damn it!”  I stormed out to find the person who had a passive aggressive beef with me, making sure to calm the hell down before talking to them, and then talked to them directly about the situation.

Yes, yes, that whole direct communication thing again.  Gets me in trouble every time…apparently.  Yeah, fuck you.

After having a polite (meaning not laden with curse words and personal insults) conversation with the person, I left and stormed back.  I wandered around aimlessly, unable to focus through my extreme aggravation.  Then someone asked me about it and oh how the curse words flew.

I then looked at otters again and all was eventually well.

Scene Three: I went to the snack machine and purchased a bag of Fritos and a pack of TastyKake Butterscotch Krimpets, convincing myself that this passes as a lunch.  I had some Excedrin as an appetizer.

Scene Four: By 3:30pm, it was clear that the day was a wash.  I decided to clean up my desk and figure out how I was going to be productive next week.  Sometimes you just have to throw in the towel.  After doing this, I was chatting with Kelly who sent me this amazing rant against an anti-gay politician from Minnesota Viking Chris Kluwe.  I was so entertained by it and Kelly said that she might have a crush on him based on the usage of the words “lustful cock-monster” alone.   We had the following conversation:

me:  This is pretty fabulous.  He wrote “holy fucking shitballs” to a politician!

Kelly:  I KNOW!  Amazeballs!  haha

me:  “the Russian judge gives you a 10 for ‘beautiful oppressionism”

Kelly:  I know!  He’s intelligent, brazen, pretty funny, and on the right side of this debate!  I’ve never even seen him, and I think I have a crush.  lol

me:  Hahahaha

Kelly:  Oh, he’s from Philly! And one day older than me.

me:  He’s pretty hot. I don’t know if I would think that without the impressive letter, but whatever

Kelly:  haha. I wouldn’t. I think he is rather average looking

me:  Ha, he reminds me of Christian Bale

So there’s that

Kelly:  But he certainly is hotter after the letter! He reminds me of someone I know, but I can’t put my finger on it

me:  He might be Christian Bale in this photo.

Kelly:  hahaha. If there is anything I NEVER thought would happen is you and I discussing the hotness of an NFL player.  Lol!

me:  Ha! Agreed. But it was because he wrote a sweet letter about an anti-gay fucktard.

Kelly:  which was overtly condescending and used an awesome array of curse word delicacies.

me:  Also, I like how much it talks about civil rights and is written by a privileged white guy.

Kelly:  Yes, absolutely.  The swearing wouldn’t have had any effect if there wasn’t intelligence behind it.

I should reiterate that the Christian Bale look alike aspect is powerful, but sure, it’s because of the letter.  And the Christian Bale part.

Christian Bale is Batman.

Shut up.

STOP JUDGING ME, CELLPHONE!

Anyway, there’s my nutso day in four acts.  I don’t really have a grand point to make here except to say that this is what most of my days are like.  I can’t imagine what it’s like for people with completely unmanageable problems.  There are days when I barely function at work.  My brain just craps out after too much stress and I have the ability to calm down on my own (most of the time).  How do other people do this?

My therapy appointment is about a week away and I keep oscillating between being terrified that this just won’t help me and thinking it’s the best decision I’ve made in a long time.  But most of my days are pretty sinusoidal, so this should come of no surprise to me.

Well, at least it’s Friday, ey?

My day at work started off fabulously, but as yet another rain storm billowed in, my energy level was zapped.  I went to an uninspiring meeting, came back and dealt with a bit of an emotional episode, ate a bunch of pretzel Goldfish and then…well, then I was spent.

I had a choice to make: Be unproductive or look at cute animal pictures on the internet.

No, no, no…this wasn’t just an exercise in not getting work done.  A while back I signed up for this goal achieving game thing that gave you points for doing little things everyday to make your life better.  As always, my goal was to be happier which for me means stressing a lot less.  One of the tips was to look at a picture of a cute animal everyday because you get a happiness boost from that.

Now, you all know that I cold, black heart, right?

OK, that might be a bit of a stretch.  By cold, black, heart I mean I have a sarcastic sense of humor and can get pretty cynical about certain things pretty easily.  That said, I didn’t think that looking at kittens would really help me.

But then I remembered that there are other animals out there other than kittens!  There are otters! And elephants! And ferrets! And, well, so many more.  Before I knew it, this became an actual useful trick for getting me out of a funk.  Take for instance this link to The Happiest Animals in the World.  How freaking effective is that in boosting your mood, hmm?  The second you see that smiling, strutting elephant, you can’t help but want to do the same.

I’m sure there are people out there more cynical than me who are saying, “Those animals aren’t smiling.  They have gas or…are having a seizure.”  Well, be that as it may…it’s the cutest case of gas and/or seizures I’ve ever seen.  And seriously, why do you want to steal this moment from me, hmm?  Why don’t you just click on the link and be happy for once.  JEEZ.

As you may recall, I talk a lot about otters and Shaun counters with talk of pygmy marmosets.  Today while I was searching for happiness boosting animal pictures on the internet (so difficult, I know), I found this:

This isn’t just an otter, but an otter nuzzling a goat.  I have asked Wes multiple times if we can have a goat in our backyard.  “It’ll mow the lawn…naturally!” I say.  “It will eat everything.” he says.  I make a case for making cheese or something, but it never ends with a definite, “Yes, Gina, you can get a goat.”  Plus, then I remember that we’d have to bring the goat inside in the winter and that indoor menagerie makes me laugh and cry at the same time.  Anyway, this picture is awesome and was the perfect “pill” for my shitty mood.

Then I found this:

OK, fine, Shaun.  I concede this point to you at the moment.  That’s a Pygmy Marmoset hanging out ON a banana.  It doesn’t get much cuter than that.

The entire point of this post was to put pictures of cute animals up on the internet.  I am continuing the cycle of destruction…or something.  Destructive cuteness!  I’ll take it.

I hope these brighten your day just a little bit too.

And so it was that I became the complete and utter fluff writer for Polyskeptic.com.

No, that does not make me the fluffer.

Right?

Right.

I just put up a long diatribe about Six Flags Great Adventure on my other blog and thought that y’all might be amused by it.  Here’s a little to “wet your whistle”:

On Thursday, Wes, Jessie, and I went to Six Flags Great Adventure.  It had been years since Wes and I had been there.  The previous time was about 9 years ago when Wes managed to steal me away from my boyfriend at the time by wowing me with his Whack-a-Mole prowess (that’s another hilarious story for another day).  I had remembered that Six Flags is kind of awful for various reasons. The only reasons I really remembered were things like “lousy food”.  But I thought it would be fun to go because I do, in fact, like roller coasters and Six Flags is certainly the place to go for roller coasters.  I am partial to the wooden ones and Nitro myself.

After spending the day at Six Flags I can say that if someone wanted proof of Satan’s existence, Six Flags Great Adventure is it.

I remember seeing the movie “Bedazzled” for the first time (the one from the 60’s starring Dudley Moore).  I thought that the depiction of Satan was the most realistic.  The concept was that Satan just ran around annoying people and slowly driving them mad by doing things like committing random acts of mischief and fulfilling gross misinterpretations of people’s wishes.  It was perfect.  He wasn’t evil really…just an asshole.  This is Six Flags in a nutshell.