First off, thank you so much for the holiday card
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saba1789. I wasn't expecting it at all, and it was such a pleasant surprise. I have it up on my fridge and every time I see it, I just smile. I wish I'd been more on the ball this year, and sent things out, myself.
I've been thinking a lot about my lack of participation in fandom lately, and it depresses me. It hasn't entirely been by choice--mostly I've been working my butt off and trying to spend time with friends and family, so that the time I finally do catch up with my flist, any contributions I might make would be pointless. Writing has been rough, too. Most of the time I'm so drained that I just want to sit on the couch when I get home, but I've tried a few different starts on different fics, and nothing worked well. I'm feeling more positive about it in the new year, though, and I have this coming week off work, so I'm going to try and knock out a fic, or at least get a good start on one.
Meanwhile, in an effort to post more, I'm going to start one of those 30-day memes, and I'm making a resolution to respond more to others' posts. I tend to worry that people don't want my input, and I'm seriously socially awkward, but I've got some really cool people who post really interesting shit on my flist, and I'm sick of talking myself out of making closer friends with them, so I'm at least going to try.
And one last thing before I kick off this meme...I've been getting Rolling Stones in the mail. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining (I'm especially excited because it seems like they're playing catch-up and sent me four at once, including a couple from November, including the one with the Killjoys article that I didn't buy at the grocery even though I really wanted to, and then I got the first issue in the mail and went "Oh, if only it had started a little bit earlier I would have got the Killjoy issue" [way to be grateful, I know] except then it came anyway and I was so fucking jazzed. There's also an Eminem issue! I love Eminem!!! And a Playlist issue that looks fun and promising! W00t!) but the point is, I have no idea who bought this for me. No one in my family has taken responsibility, even when asked, and Muse is clueless too. It has to be someone who knows my name irl, since that's how it's addressed...
Enough of the mystery (unless one of you is responsible, and then expect lots of hugs and fics of gratitude), on to the meme!
Day 01 → Your favourite songDay 02 → Your favourite movie
Day 03 → Your favourite television programme
Day 04 → Your favourite book
Day 05 → Your favourite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobbie of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy
My favourite song is "Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year" by Fall Out Boy. There are a lot of songs I love, and while a half dozen might vie for second place, there isn't a doubt in my mind when it comes to my favourite. The second I hear the opening note of Patrick's voice, I sort of stop whatever I'm doing--other songs I can listen to and sing along without thinking about, but this one hits me every freaking time.
I still remember very clearly the first time I actually listened to the lyrics. I was lying in bed in my dorm room in Japan, and I'd started the habit of listening to my headphones for about twenty minutes and doing nothing else before going to sleep, and it started playing and I can't really describe the sensation--I'd heard it before hundreds of times, I know, but this time I suddenly got it. I felt this swooping in my stomach and this tingling along my skin and I thought to myself "this is what it's like to know that someone out there, somewhere, understands all the fucked up shit swirling around in your head, all the stuff you thought made you an alien." Then I listened to it about twenty more times in a row, lol.
Every line in that song feels like a punch to the gut, but in a good way, I don't know. I especially love "we're the therapists pumping through your speakers" because for me, music *is* my therapy. I don't trust therapists or psychologists, and I don't really talk to people about the crazy stuff that goes on deep, deep down inside, but hearing Pete's (and William's, and Ryan's, and Billy Joel's, etc.) lyrics, well, that is therapy for me. It makes me feel less isolated, and I'm never happier than when I'm listening to and singing along with my favourite music. This is one of the first instances in the song that is echoed or echoes lyrics of their other songs--this one of course makes me think of "Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?", another of their songs that I love especially, when Patrick sings "we only want to sing you to sleep through your bedroom speakers".
Another instance of that sort of lyric echoing goes on in the line "I've got a sunset in my veins" which is an image later found in my perhaps second favourite FOB song, Lake Effect Kid, in the line "I've got the skyline in my veins." The way you can both love a place and feel as if it's a prison at the same time really resonates with me. I've never found a place that really feels like home to me, but when I look back on each of the cities in which I've lived, it's with bittersweet longing.
"We're the kids you used to love/But then we grew old" just, yes. Let's leave it at that.
"We're the lifers here till the bitter end" I *love* this line, especially considering that this song comes directly after "7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen). I've never be suicidal, but I've been around suicide, and just knowing that Pete's calling himself a lifer...IDK, it's such a powerful thing to hear, and something that I've always felt about myself, when I look at those with suicidal thoughts and just never understood it. I'm here for the long-run, no matter how shitty things are, no matter if I am condemned from the start. Again, a very bittersweet sort of feeling. Like, you're proudly proclaiming to live your whole life in one breath and acknowledging that maybe you don't really have anything live for in the next, and going on *anyway*. Which isn't to say that I don't have anything to live for. Jesus, I must sound emo, here...
And then these two are my favourite lines, and I tend to think of them in sort of the same way. "We're the chemists who've found the formula/To make your heart swell and burst" and "Ashamed of the way/The songs and the words own the beating of our hearts." This goes back to music being like my therapy. A lot of times I *have* been made to feel ashamed for the way I feel and also for the sort of music that does move me. But something about the way it's sung feels so liberating and exhilarating.
And it isn't just the lyrics, the music itself seems to get into my blood, make me feel like somethings pushing me forward from inside. And then William! He sings, IDK, it's like every bit of this song was engineered for the specific purpose of eliciting an emotional response from me. And I'm okay with that.
I really want my next tattoo to be "Ashamed of the way/The songs and the words own the beating of our hearts," but I'm still working on figuring out the font/size, since I want it around my wrist. Before, I considered getting "I know the world's a broken bone, but melt your headaches, call it home" done, and I'm glad I didn't, because even though I still love that song, I know I would have been sad every time I looked at it, because of the divorce. I'm really okay with the FOB hiatus/split/whatever we're calling it this week, though, and I want that tattoo.
I'd love to hear what your favourite songs are, or what you think about this one <3
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