The Feeding of My Obsession (With Tuneage)...

By Filthy cat (Own work) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

So, like; last post, I did a Goth/Emo morph and laid my heart bare (a bit), revealing that I regularly feel besieged by hostile, even evil, forces, seeking my ruination. Which was loads of fun. Today I'll peel back another layer, with a closer look at the heartache I've hinted at but not fully explained. But, you know, there's music coming with that, which should take the edge off...

Actually, I did sort of summarize the situation in the comment of a wholly unrelated post:

I've had a crush on a fella from work since I started there, in 2004 (say what you will about me, I know how to hold a torch). It was a fun crush, though, you know? We have direct dealings with one another for brief periods throughout the year, so I'd just enjoy whatever time I had with him and smile the rest of the day and forget about him. Till This April [2013]. Something changed and I crushed waaaaaay hard, and I thought he was feeling something too. ANYWAY, the momentum crashed and I think I won't be seeing him for a good long while and...well, after my last disaster in making myself vulnerable to a dude, I'm damned if I'll do it again. Besides, I don't need him to get all weird on me when we do have to work together. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe he's not the man for me.

For the record: I don't believe it was all in my head. I honestly think something changed for him, which my unconscious picked up on and, subsequently, made things change for me.

Anyway, it was around that April/May that I first heard of The Black Angels, psychedelic rockers out of Austin, TX. I picked up their album, Indigo Meadow (which I luuurve) and found myself connecting their tune, You're Mine, with my feelings for The Guy. Soon, I had a Pavlovian-dog-type-response every time I heard it. (Yes, I drooled.) (There, another layer of my heart uncovered; are you happy now, Poe? Sheesh.) It's a pretty peppy, fun, 60s-surf-pop-sounding song, but here and there the lyrics give me pause. I mean, sure, it's possible that nothing sinister is meant by lines like: "All the boys and all the girls/Wonder where you are/Day and night they look for you/Searching near and far/Never will they find a trace/Or have a single clue/Inside me you're safe and sound/I'll always be with you..." make me wonder if this is less a love song and more about cannibalism (and the video doesn't do anything to dispel that idea, at all). But, you know, you can decide for yourselves...

I went a few months without seeing The Guy, which is typical in our work cycle. I ached, constantly, thought about him all the time. But I was fixing to self-publish my book, and had stuff at the day job keeping me busy. And, in an attempt to do something healthy for myself, I signed up with an online dating service (for all the good that's done me). My point is, I exerted myself to get past the ache. That I still felt it, well...there's only so much a Goth Mom can do, OK? Over time, the pain did lessen, bit by little bit, though I can't say I fully healed. But I did feel a little better. A little.

Then my job's yearly cycle re-set itself, as it does every September. Even though the fall months typically see me traveling a lot, and I had my book coming out on 9/24/13, I dreaded how I might feel the first time I came across The Guy in the building. I mean, though I was feeling stronger, I'd no idea how my first glimpse of him in over three months would feel. I wanted to be comfortable with the idea of him, as I was just before the script flipped and I was under his (unwitting?) spell, knowhatImean?

Well. I wasn't.

Mid-October, I sat with a couple of colleagues in my department's conference room, which has glass walls and blinds that shield us from passersby, though we can see them clearly. We were having a good meeting, making plans for a business trip we were to take at the very end of the month, when The Guy came down the lane. Thank God I wasn't in the middle of saying anything, as my eyes were riveted to him and it was all I could do to not turn my head to keep him in my sights. My heart didn't simply pitter-pat; that motherfucker surged in my damn chest like it was about to push itself through my ribcage. It beat heavily, painfully fast, the blood pounded in my temples and ears. For a few seconds, I couldn't hear what my co-worker was saying. I felt faint.

God!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!

I mean, WTF? After all my hard work? Really? REALLY???!?!!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

::sighs::

I was to travel to Texas the following week. The night before, as I packed, I heard Big Data's song Dangerous on SiriusXM U, for the very first time. It grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I downloaded that shit and listened to it on repeat during my travels, can even visualize the day that I rotated it for over an hour on my MP3 player as I took a nice, long walk through the warm Indian summery streets of Houston's museum district. I played that song and thought of The Guy. Not that I planned to stalk him, like the narrator of the song stalks his love-object, of course. (Honest.) (I'm too lazy to stalk anybody.) (Though I'm not above doing that online.) (Just sayin'.) ANYWAY, it's a pretty freaking grooving tune; on their Facebook page, a fan says the local DJ describes it as "hipster porn music," which, I have to say, is as apt a description as any. (Fuckin' SLAMMIN' bass line!!!) (Ahem.) Seriously, it's pretty dang kewl; check it:



Right, so...

Dudes, I keep running into The Guy. I normally don't see so much of him, not till maybe late February, then we interact a bit in March, then a LOT in April, till our need to speak on work-related matters peters out. When a few days go by without my seeing him, I get all schmoopy and lovelorn, but then out of the blue WHAM!, there he is, my heart thunders, and I just about lose my mind. I never know when or how to expect him. He'll leave me a voicemail message and when I retrieve it I nearly fall out of my chair, because the rich timbre of his voice rocks my world so hard. I'm summoned to a meeting in which he and his department need my input, and I'm all a-tingle and praying that I'm lucidly answering their questions. I'm called in to help those same folks out with a problem, and he smiles at me and I'm transported...

Jesus, Lord!

I have this...this feeling, that something's building up to something. I don't know what. I'm almost afraid to find out...

That's a lie.

I'm terrified of finding out, especially if that something is bad news. This "he-digs-me/he-digs-me-not" thing is maddening, AND YET, it almost (almost!) seems to be better to have this bloody hope tearing up my heart than to have no hope at all. Which brings me to the last tune of this post, Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys. "Do I wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?" the song asks. That's what I ask myself, only I've yet to land on an answer...