Food stamp cuts and other things we don't like about poor people

            I’m not a big fan of voices in the wilderness, crying out for Lord only knows what. I understand that no manna from heaven will be falling any time soon. And yet, even though a scant few people read this blog, why the fu-k are we cutting food stamps? Why is it a viable or tenable opinion to have that we should further be disenfranchising poor people? Why do people have this opinion? I know that the Atlantic and any number of other outlets are probably writing up short stories that confirm why people develop the biases that they have, education, social class, birth order, whatever, but seriously, why is being an as-hole to poor people a tenable position for a party to take? Why is it plausible for the other party of “liberals” to accept any cuts?

            I’m the type of person who doesn’t want to get into the nitty gritty of monetary policy, which is a weakness, yes. However, I’m interested in the latent thoughts that are expressed when people do things like advocate for cutting funding to the less fortunate. Is it because they believe that everyone in the world is created equal, given the same chance, endowed by the creator or the natural order of things with the same brain and four limbs with which to hew their way through the jungle of the world. That has, for the majority of human history, been pretty much a bullshi- argument that blatantly ignores the long scope of history, which points to things like your parent’s social class, the availability of a good education, a social safety net, encouragement to pursue goals etc. To make the argument that we’re all born into the exact same situation, in less you’re making it from religious perspective and relying on C.S. Lewis to get you through some of the wonkier parts, is to be putting for an argument rooted in ignoring human history. We are not, economically, health wise, opportunity wise, created equal.

            Strangely, that idea seems to have taken root in small portions of Christianity where you’d think the proliferation of Biblical and Christ given commands to aid the poor and sick would have made it impossible to bear.  And yet, bringing up an idea of universal health care, or suggesting that poor people don’t only remain poor because they lack get up and go can get you in arguments with people. It turns out that your health and well-being are only partially in your control. Catastrophic accidents, or routine blood work that turns out to be cancer can actually turn your life upside down, and I think we owe it to other people to help bear that cost. We are 32^nd in quality of care and 1^st in expense. Why is that the case? Oh, because we’re all happy with our current health plans? Too damn bad. I’m sure the feudal lords were happy pouring pitch down on the poor that doesn’t make their position morally defensible. It just makes them selfish.

            And I suppose that’s where my real root irritation with cutting aid to very poor people lies: it’s selfish. We, and I say we, because I am absolutely including myself in the imperfect here, find it more convenient to worry about our own health and well-being and our close family members, (yay biologically adaptive) than those of other people in the world, who are, you know, other. My irritation is first, self-directed, but I suppose I’m irritated writ large as well. If you’re a secular humanist then you should care about everyone getting good access to services. If you’re a good Christian who honestly believes that people can be redeemed you should desire their health and nutritional needs are being met.

We are not good Christians, nor good secular humanists though. We are tribal sob’s who can’t see past the ends of our noses. I have a gd degree in creative writing for shi- sake. I’m guilty. But I think I just need to write down for once that it irritates me. It irritates the hell out of me. We, and I’m talking the United States here, still spends 10x more than the next nation in defense spending, and yet we’re unable to continue to offer aid to people who need it. Why? Well, capitalism. Because we somehow believe that if we all just work hard enough, have enough ideas and connections that everything will work out, or could work out, and so we’re willing to continue living in an increasingly stratified system in which, for the first time in our history, more than half the members of Congress are millionaires.

The point is, stop cutting food stamps or trying to pretend like universal health care is some communist system of government. Stop pretending like higher tax rates that start to even out some of the discrepancies in wages are geared towards ruining the world and hurting job creators. Stop pretending like having a functional minimum wage is a bad idea. Start trying to think of ways to enfranchise people, to fight back against systems like globalization that just keep shipping jobs to countries for lower prices won’t create a long term solution for our economy or be good for the world in general, maybe all content shouldn’t be free (Jared Lainer). Let’s be creative and transformative rather than reactionary. Rant ended. Conscience discharged. I’m going to write a poem about a snowflake now. 

Some things you already know about me

I keep telling you that I’m lonely; and you keep believing it, as if anything I’ve ever  said is true. In a month or so I plan on moving to Florence. I’ll live up in the hills near where Henry James did when he was doing his writing. I’m going to live alone, or maybe I’ll keep a cat, and I’ll learn to draw, and record his movements with a sketch pad, batting at a piece of light, or curling up in the base of a misshapen window. 

I intend to be alone, far, far away from everyone I’ve ever known. I’m going to read everything. I’m going to develop an encyclopedic knowledge of flaura and fauna of the late Jurassic period and then write a play about dinosaurs. I’m going to take up sailing, and turn my small house into a boat, and paddle through the clouds.

You can see that I’m not doing any of these things from your seat across the table, eyebrows raised just so What I’m really best at is lying to myself—stretching the truth until one day dissolves into another—capsules in water. I believe the essential difference between us is that you see life as a construction project, and I see it as a piece of art. In the mornings, I often feel that I am wrong about everything, and I slide across the bed and touch your cold feet. In the evenings, if I pay close enough attention, I can feel how fast the world is spinning and how still I am in comparison. I want to hurtle through space. I want to buy a cat and live in Florence, but you already knew that about me. Everyone knows that about me. 

If I had made the skies

If I had made the stars, laid out the moons, the planets, the suns, the galaxies, carved a niche from nothingness, I would have done it differently. If the firmaments were in my care, in the beginning, they would be brighter. How senseless it is, to have such glories obscured by the lights of a city. Certainly, were I given such a prestigious position, I’d have seen them coming. Although, to speak about time to IT that exists outside of time is to necessarily create confusion. How would time unfold to such a being?

For some reason, I keep conceiving of history from that distance as appearing on a kaleidoscope. A magical tube where the Creator can rest his, debatably, benevolent gaze and watch Brontosaurus lopping off whole tops of trees while above, spins  a Neanderthal, carving a picture of a man with a bison’s head into stone, and underneath that, spinning brightly, is our future whatever that might entail.

And when the Supreme Being sits back from the kaleidoscope, takes stock of the gin, and ponders what it means to live outside of time, if indeed, one who exists outside of time can be said to exist at all, I’d take a paint brush from It’s right pocket and make the red stars brighter, I’d change the orbits of planets and brighten stars that have been around for thousands of years. I’d change the orbits of things, send them smashing into one another, then collecting their bits and pieces and constructing a mosaic to hang on the dark side of the moon.

If I had been given license to lay out the stars, you would have known that I was here. You would not ever have had to walk out on a winter night, trees sheathed in ice, to ask the heavens why and wherefore, and if I existed. You’d know by how bright I mad the stars, how low I hung the moon.

                                                Such, Such will be the days

                Thinking ahead on being fifty-five, it’s strange to muse on the sorts of things that I’m doing. In the early evenings, I’ve noticed that I spend a lot of time in the garden. I kneel frequently, and prune half-heartedly at the branches of a blueberry bush and the knobby limbs of an orange tree, dusted by cobwebs. What I do, now that I’m fifty-five, is sit outside in the early evening gathering in the warmth and the light as if I’m photosynthesizing.

                It’s hard to remember sometimes, what I will be like when I’m fifty five. The memories are hazy, indistinct. It’s hard to recall the future, since it hasn’t happened yet. I appear to have moved somewhere warmer if the citrus is any sort of sign. A number of people that I know now have passed from this life into the next, or into the dirt, if you’re so inclined.

                That summer, I will turn fifty-five, there will be a party thrown in my honor. Many of the people will drink beer, and I’ll grill, though it looks like I still don’t like beer when I’m fifty-five and am drinking wine from a small plastic cup. It seems cavalier, or so I’ve been told, to write a memoir at such a young age, but what if I did this instead? What if I wrote a memoir of a fifty-five year old who didn’t yet exist, but had existed, following the garden of forking paths in a way that I could comprehend. Would that qualify as less hubristic?

When I am fifty-five I see that the dirt beneath my fingernails does not bother me as much. It appears that I am still shedding the cold that I’ve been wearing out here for years. In the dimming of the light, a nut hatch sings and a woodpecker hammers away in the distance. What a strange memory, this picture of the future makes. 

Before the world ends

The evening was structured like this after you left: picked up a bottle of wine and uncorked.
Drank.
Made up a story about the mice that are scratching along the floorboards.
Talked for a while with someone I used to know about the weather in Portland.
Drank.
Wrote a brief poem about a raven that I'd seen standing on a thin strip of telephone wire
Drank.
Contemplated the chances that an asteroid would one day strike the earth, ending it all.
Drank.
If it was my last night, and I had to go. I think I'd have supper early, and open all the blinds to gather in the last of the light.
Drank.
I'd want to catch the sunset--purple behind the dark shapes of trees.
Drank
In the evening, we'd play cards, and I'd cheat savagely because I love to win. I love to win at things like cards more than other people love their dogs. I get flushed in the cheeks, and I hide cards up my sleeve.
Drank.
Drank
After cards, I'd proffer sex, which is a way to pass time.
Drink.
In the darkness, I'd start to wish for light, and we'd see a small white blur, slipping across the horizon, eliding our dreams.
Drink.
Would we, who have spent our lives curled in front of screens step outside for these final moments? Or would we secretly wish that we could sit inside, watching it all unfold from a distance.
Drink.
This is the kind of time when you'll think about all of the people you loved, the cities you've visited, and you'll start to wonder why you spent so much of your life worrying about anything else.
Drink.
For a flicker, as it grows, monolithic and silver on the horizon, we'll wonder if this too shall pass.
Drink.
If we had to do it all over again, I'd spend the evening reading Ecclesiastes with you. Later, we'd stand out on the patches of snow, loving the people we've suddenly become. 

When I was a child I raced cars

                One of the most irritable things about being me, whatever me entails, is how easily distracted I can be. I am often doing something, or nothing depending on your perspective, some online quiz to see which character I am from the Little Mermaid, (the old witch), which irritates me as I’m doing it. How can this be? I wonder if someone has posted an interesting picture of their cat on Instagram? Scanning…nothing. I’ll check again in thirty seconds. I’ll check again in thirty seconds could be a mantra for my spare time.

                I read somewhere that mindfulness breathing is an excellent way of increasing your ability to pay attention. Just focus on the breath. Breathe in, breathe out. Nothing but the breath. (I wonder who Michigan is going to start at the four spot next year if Robinson goes pro? I wonder what she meant by that? Maybe something, maybe nothing? I really need to cut my fingernails, but I can never remember to do it after I get out of the shower, which is really when it’s optimal. Woops. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. (I wonder if its been two minutes yet? Man, two minutes is an eternity, or sometimes it can fly right by. I’m so tired right now….sleep). The problem with mindfulness breathing is that I either a) do it incorrectly, or b) fall asleep. Mind you, pun intended, I sleep like a babe.

                The problem, if problem indeed it is, is that I don’t know what I’m supposed to be focusing on? Art, religion, people, the Olympics, NBA basketball, the stock prices of Royal Dutch Shell, Syria, nation building in Iraq, China, climate change? I suppose the answer is everything, which is both a dilettante’s delight and an honest person’s frustration. I walk down streets, cobwebbed in light. I rap on doors with golden knockers, made in the shape of lions. Most people aren’t home. And when I am invited in to the warmth and the light, admiring the cedar beams that line the roof their small abode, the people have nothing to tell me. We sit in our chairs and trade stories about the weather. After coffee and cookies, the grandmother takes out a shawl and begins knitting. I take my cue, thank them for the meal and wander back into the night, looking for other doors, other rooms.

                When I was four, I used to sit at the top of my driveway and roll hot wheels down towards the gutter. Mind you, I did not push the Hot Wheels. Rather, I carefully placed them at the top of the driveway, holding them perfectly still and perfectly straight with my skilled fingers. When I removed my fingers from the two sides the cars rolled down the driveway entirely under their own power. Many of the cars were imperfect, never coming close to reaching the finish line, the gutter. In general, it didn’t matter what the car looked like, though vans were a bit top heavy and often toppled over. Race cars were often as useless as station wagons when it came to navigating the uneven terrain of our driveway, thin cracks, larger cracks designed to aid the flow of water from our drainpipe. I remember one car in particular: a sheriff’s car, janitorial blue, though faded on the hood and passenger sides from overuse. One of the wheels was slightly dented and had the habit of locking up when the car was released, causing it to travel a few feet before abruptly turning to the right, making a U-turn of destruction into the other cars, who I generally tried to avoid when I released a new one.  

                The difficulty with attaining the gutter was not only a matter of obstacles, but the design of the driveway, which sloped sharply at the top but who’s incline flattened out rather quickly after the cars crossed the halfway point, which involved hopping over one of the large concrete expansion joints without losing momentum or getting off track or heading west as opposed to south.  And, in order to reach the gutter, they’d have to have sufficient speed in order to coast across the hot, flat sidewalk stone that stood between them and glory. I had forty cars or so, and I’d spend hours sitting in the front yard, legs stretched in front of me, in the dappled light cast by a crab apple tree, putting the cars through the paces. The thing about the sheriff’s car is that sometimes it would get hung up as it was making its abrupt turn, and would wind up careening down the driveway in reverse, which it was much more effective at,  before its misaligned wheels would catch, sending it spinning in the opposite direction, sideswiping and rear ending the cars that had stalled out along the way.

                The summers in the valley were white hot. It was the sort of place where you could reasonably fry an egg. I don’t remember being lonely as a child. Do you? Does anyone? I don’t remember being bored or distracted. I suppose the key word in all of this is “remember.” I remember very little. But I do remember this: one day I brought home a small black car with orange flames streaking its driver and passenger doors. And every time, or damn near every time I lined that car up it shot, like a guided missile, like a precision piece of German manufacturing, down the driveway, making a beeline for the gutter. And, in so doing, making the other cars, many of which I’d had for years, loved and treasured for their inadequacies because it was shared by all my cars, now obsolete.

                I’m sure that my memory is wrong here, but I think I gave up sending cars down the driveway a month or two after I purchased the little black car with orange flames. Perhaps it was because the long, hot days of summer were over, and I went off to kindergarten. Or perhaps it’s that the small black car took the fun out of the game. The strange thing is, and maybe this is all I’ve been trying to say, that I don’t remember the black car that raced down the driveway as my favorite. No. I remember that blue sheriff’s car, trying gamely, forward, backward, sideways, smashing into other cars, trying like some wounded bird in a dream of flight, to make its way down the driveway, to its own version of heaven. That particular car never made it down to the gutter, but what fond memories, what warm, sweet afternoons I spent watching it try. 

I made you this mix tape for Valentine's Day

If all I had to tell you about who I am was a few songs from the 90s, these are the things I would share with you. Afterwards, we could be Valentine’s.

To Be With You by Mr. Big

I structured this like every mix tape in the history of the world, making my intentions clear right from the start. I want to be with you. In part because it’s Valentine’s Day, and in part because this song by Mr. Big makes anyone who hears it want to take up dating, even if they’ve sworn it off for the year or the decade, or the lifetime or whatever. Because, “Why be alone, when we can be together baby?” We’ll take a cruise to Alaska to see the northern lights and get drunk midday on fruity drinks and dance poorly to poorly played music.

Round Here by Counting Crows

Okay, now that we’ve to the preliminaries of the two of us being together, let’s “step out the front door like a ghost into a fog where no one notices a contrast to white on white.” Look, if all I have to express myself is the vehicle of music recorded in the 1990’s I’m using Round Here every time. I love jumping up and down and singing along to Mr. Jones in bars to this day, but this is the song that best captured things for me. Maybe it’s because teens often commit suicide, maybe it’s because Adam Duritz makes legitimate attempts at constructing artistically rendered lines, but this song has always made a part of my soul weep, or at least prod at the question of life.

What a Good Boy by Barenaked Ladies

I briefly got off the topic of the two of us being together. The beauty of this song is that it’s going to remind us of our birth. And, as any lover knows, the great strangeness is how long you usually go without ever knowing that you were meant for each other. How is it possible that two souls that were meant to be as intertwined as ivy upon a wall were ever unknown to one another? Anyway, “Be with me tonight.” I love the part of the song where he talks about chickening out and sitting down to write about it instead. It’s part of the impulse to write—a desire to withdraw from the world of experiences into the life of the mind.

How Do you Talk to an Angel by The Heights

Okay, nearly every other song on this list I would still turn up and “sing” along with and feel no shame. However, this may be the one exception. That said, all it takes is the first chords to be played, and I’m immediately remembering the girl I had an insane crush on when this song came out. Mind you, I never talked to her, but that’s what makes a crush so great. Imagine how great this person could be? No really, imagine, because that’s all you can do. Make sure the details you fill in make them worthy of it. This is pre-Facebook, back when crushes were innocent things that you spent hours in your room listening to “How Do you Talk to an Angel” and staring at the ceiling. They were purer days.

Glycerine

Oh, man. As soon as this song starts I’m immediately transported back to having long hair. But also, I’m transported back to watching him sing intently into the microphone during the video. And yeah, this song is awesome.

Lightning Crashes by Live

In case the world has forgotten, we all loved this song. And, if you’re listening to the first little bit of this song, you’ve probably already remembered why. Because it is fantastic! You can’t tell me you’re not going to sing along, “I can feel it coming back again!” Me too. Passion. Romance. Life. Death. This song. This song right here! Shi- yeah.  You can just skip straight to the 4:05 mark if you want to get after it!

Crash Into Me by Dave Mathews Band

You can’t have a playlist from the 90’s and not have a DMB song on it. I remember recording this video off television and watching it in the living room, on the pillow, as was normal I’m sure for most boys of that age, and my older brother came out and said that though he questioned the majority of my musical tastes he thought this song would still be getting played years from that date. He was right, but really, I was right for recording it off television It’s weird, yes, the things we remember? Also, enough of being loving this Valentine’s Day, DMB is going to get back to the basics: voyeurism. “I stare at you wear nothing, but you wear it so well.”

Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind

I just blogged about this song two days ago, so I’ll take the liberty of quoting one of the most intelligent people I know, me: file not found. Okay, most of the way through school I was this very quiet and shy person, and eventually everyone got used to me being this quiet and shy person and occasionally ignored the fact that I was talking to reassure themselves that I was quiet and shy. I am not, as it turns out, always quiet and shy. I just think too much sometimes. The fact that I loved this song and danced around to it was a pretty good indication of that other aspect of my personality, which loves late nights, travel, laughter and games… and you, Valentine.

Time Ago

I don’t remember this song being hugely popular, but I do remember it being about as good as a song could get that was written about Heathcliff and the English Moors. Is that what this song was about? Oh, I’m being told it’s not a song written about one of the Bronte sisters. Apparently it’s a really emotive song about losing your virginity and reflecting back on it years later. This changes everything…except its essential and undeniable greatness, and I love the turn to the singer being all by himself at the end. From dust we came and to dust we will return, my friend, all we’ve got are these little illuminations in between, flecks of light on water.

One Headlight by The Wallflowers

I remember really liking the Wallflowers before it became really cool to not like The Wallflowers. I also remember this girl I had a crazy crush on telling me that her class was studying this song as poetry and thinking that college was this really amazing place where you could sit outside and talk to girls that you had a crush on without feeling like everyone was judging you, and, oh yeah, the poetry thing too.

Near you Always by Jewel

My unabashed love of Jewel is most prevalent in this song. She melts my heart, which wasn’t even iced over. That’s how hot this song is. And yes, I did actually put it on multiple mix tapes for girls back then, but I’m sure everyone did that with their go to songs. “Your hands are in my hair, but my heart is in your teeth, baby. It makes me, want to make you near me, always.” The real point is that this mix tape was being derailed by rock songs, and we needed something to remind us that it is a Valentine’s Day playlist. If this song didn’t do that go back to complaining about how this is a Hallmark holiday designed to make us feel bad about ourselves instead of a celebration of Jewel’s music and the human capacity for idiocy and love that it really is.

Raining in Baltimore

This is the part of the mix tape, CD, playlist, where we break up. Maybe we’re from different socioeconomic ranges, or of different races, or our parents really don’t like each other. Every great love story needs some people who are actively trying to stop the great love story from happening, so that we can later kiss in the rain or run after each other at airports. Also, this song is f-ing spot on, and I now live almost exactly where it takes place and am from California. This song is aesthetically just a gorgeous piece of music and songwriting.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Deep Blue Something

As I noted a few days ago, the main thing I remember about this song is my sister driving us to school while playing it nearly every morning, and I remember that the car had a slight leak and smelled of mildew. I like that the memory of this song is in this really enclosed space that I don’t associate with anything else, just this hermetically sealed environment. We can handle this break up mix tape. We’ll work it out.

Stay by Lisa Loeb

This time I will just quote myself on why this song definitely belongs here:

The internet cat meme was nowhere near being birthed and what does this amazing video start with, a cat? Why? Because cats are an endless source of entertainment and curiosity and were worshiped, rightfully so, as gods in Egypt. Who knew that in 1994 more than anyone? Lisa Loeb. And before there was Sarah Pailin, and Tina Fey mocking Sarah Pailin, and Zooey Deschanel being quirky there was Lisa Loeb, wearing glasses and hip little dress, making them look sexy or intellectual or just downright cool in 1994.

And, oh yeah, besides that. In 1994 I was years and years still away from dating someone, and yet, somehow, some way, I understood that Lisa Loeb had already captured the complexities of what it meant to want someone and not really have them, or to not realize how it really takes letting something go to really understand what it meant to you. All she needed to do was get to that lengthy bridge to rip the heart from my chest. And by that, as usual, obviously I mean cry. Come back, Lisa Loeb! Okay, good, you're just hanging in the doorway for a minute. I was worried for a second there.

A Long December by Counting Crows

An alternative to this whole enterprise could have easily just been me posting the album, “August and Everything After,” which was unquestionably the best album released in the 90’s. And yes, I’m aware that A Long December appears on Recovering the Satellites. “And all at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl.” Yeah, I’ve been there, Adam Duritz. Whenever I’m listening to the Counting Crows I’m reminded of the essential loneliness of life, the mooring in our heads: the inescapability of being us, which is occasionally exhausting in its unrelentingness. Just once wouldn’t it be nice to see something from someone else’s mind, a sunset, a piazza, the ocean. Let’s all just go out to CA and make this work in a commune of some sort.

The Old Apartment by The Barenaked Ladies

Okay, now that we’re totally broken up mix tape, I’m going to do the honorable thing and break into your house and try and discover how you could have possibly moved on without me. Relatedly, I remember being at a concert a few weeks after I’d broken up with my girlfriend and hearing this song, and thinking how great of a concept the whole song is, and sneaking off with this girl I’d met with friends and enjoying the concert from closer and nothing but some polite flirting, I think she had a boyfriend, but realizing in that moment, “Oh, this is a thing you can do multiple times. I might actually be capable of dating someone again, but in fooling multiple people into thinking I am charming and laughing and having fun evenings with people who were stranger’s minutes before.”

No Need to Argue by The Cranberries

I loved this CD in the early 90s, and I loved this song the most. You love it too. This sad part of our relationship is lasting a long time mix tape. Apparently I’ve always been a bit morose, and it wasn’t an affectation I developed later in life to seem more intellectually competent.

The Freshmen by The Verve Pipe

 Sadly, I wasn’t in college yet when this epically sad song came out. However, I could imagine what it would be like. It would pretty much be just like this song--lots of sorrow and angst and slowly played guitars and emotions. Sad, sad emotions running amok. Why did we think we were so smart 1997? We were so young and fragile, like baby birds trying to fly that first time out of the nest. Wait, did the song just speed up? Did it just speed up? Are people taking drugs in college? Are we sad about it? Oh man, I can’t wait for all this angst to begin 1997. Man, I’ve never had a relationship, but I bet they are just like that, slipping through ice and then having to sing about it with gravel in our voice to get rid of the rage that we feel at ourselves for taking something so fragile and beautiful and turning it all into shi- like we always knew we would.

Nobody Knows by The Tony Rich Project

The album cover is light years ahead of its time in just being the quintessence of cool, which is a good start. And then the song starts and you can feel 1996’s heart breaking. In the early portions of the song it’s easy to think on all those foolish people who didn’t know how much you ached for them in your soul of souls. However, by the end of the song when he’s hitting a dusty road in search of love, you begin to realize that he’s not really looking for a real love but regretting all the things he didn’t say, the person that he couldn’t be. That dusty road isn’t leading to a person. It’s leading to a journey of self-discovery, which is hopefully filled with some beautiful people, some laughs, some late nights, and eventually, you know, death. 

I Believe by Blessed Union of Souls

Let’s remember, mix tape Valentine that there are things bigger than you and I. We’re about to head into the new Millenium where football players will be gay and people will still be nominally racist but will feel bad about it, and try to raise their kids to be different, so let’s have this song lead the way. Or, you know, we could listen to most major religions, Jesus and stuff, and go around  loving people who are poor and less fortunate and in need because it winds up being both a good thing to do, but a deep and powerful experience that is transformative internally and gives a rudderless life some purpose. Valentine’s Day is bigger than our love.

All I Want is You by U2

But honestly, we’re so brief, Valentine. We are but flecks of ash tapped from a cigarette sailing briefly against the vast outline of the night skies. And, of all the languages we could have spoken, and individuals we could have been if our parents had formed us but a moment sooner, we are here, right now, you and I, staring into one another’s eyes, and even if the best of things fade, my God, to have had such moments will keep me light for eternities to come.

Motorcyle Drive By by Third Eye Blind

My favorite song of the decade:

If ever a long period of time in your life passes and you start wondering about things like meaning, God, whether love can ever be truly selfless, if the oven is still on, whether the plants have been watered, if the Egyptians really built those pyramids or whether it was a crew of industrious aliens, if animals have souls and will be a part of any sort of afterlife, if the afterlife is anything that a human could conceive of, if you find yourself worrying about dark matter and a big hole being torn in the universe like a cheap sheet from Target, whether the people you love/like will live as long as you'd like, if it's been too long since you've stared into water or at an undiluted sky, if you look as good or as bad as you suspect you might in those jeans, if anyone notices or cares that you always iron your shirts, if you are in fact in sound mental health, if this is the year that winter never arrives, if you find yourself worrying about lead, leaks, monthly budgets, the future of humanity writ large in light of things like nuclear weapons and man's inherent evil, if humankind, because you're gender inclusive like that, will turn a corner and become something else, the Yellowstone volcano, asteroids, missing a movie just because Rotten Tomatoes gave it a low score, whether people of the opposite sex still notice you, the shape of your dog's kidneys after some strange stool samples, water quality, flight patterns of birds affected by the construction of cell phone towers, strip mining, stripping as it pertains to getting appointed in Poland, nearly extinct beetles, new varieties of beetles, overly long or slightly misshaped fingernails, explaining death to a child, whether you can continue to work at your job, at your relationships, if you worry about plaster and e-waste and parking attendants, it's probably time to sit down, shut up, and listen to some Motorcycle Drive By, and think, I think it might turn out all right, maybe not forever, but probably at least for the night. Happy Valentine's Day! 

Early Valentine's Day Writing

A Horse and Her Boy

                We were formed from the earth by the hands of some God, form made flesh, for the sole purpose of inhabiting one another. This, despite the fact that we are distinct, separate, she was born in the hills—lark songs, aspen and evergreens shedding needles like soft bits of rain, hillsides clothed in bluebells—splashes of color above the heather and the electric green. I grew up in the valley, in a small house made of thatch and mud. In the evenings we clapped the metatarsals of sheep together to pass the time beneath the stars.

My parents are against the match, as all parents throughout history have been against matches that are neither profitable nor useful for attaining land or nobility. In the evening, I sit before the fire and confess my love of her. My mother stares through a hole in the thatch to a sliver of sky, gilded by stars and sighs, “It would be fine,” she says, knitting her fingers together and looking skyward again, “If you were not a boy, and she was not a horse,” as if such things mattered between those who love.

Yesterday, the hills were veiled in fog, and I wandered up the muddy path to meet her. We wandered together, she nickering, and I listening intently, into a field littered with every color imaginable—avenas, cloudberry, campions, and gorse. To live in a world comprised of such beauty is a gift that we cannot repay.

My father was silent for a time, and then he spoke, gravely, “You know that she’ll die well before you,” he said, his eyes now wandering into the fire to make out shapes or nothing. I tell him that I know that it’s true, but that I’m ready for it, for to have lived, even a short time, with just such a love, is enough to keep me filled for a lifetime.

We are Composed of Water

Olive light

Sea grass floating

On the dunes

Laughter, as if from far away

A crossing of elbows,

navel, kissed intently

Sand, cold and wet

A division of clothes

Spoils of many a war

Waves keeping time

As they did in Troy and will do eternally

Sand, purpled in light

Sea gulls low on low horizons

An attempt at a joining,

 a gasp and a cry

all to understand the movement

Between bodies of water

A Love Affair

The young girl, being young, having once bestowed her love, attributed to the man on which she’d given her love, all the perfections, that she, without consciously knowing why, ascribed to love. She did not know yet, as many older people do, that love itself is flawed—a diamond cut through with imperfections.

Her lover was imperfect, though she suspected that this feeling of love that she carried within her, monstrous and all-consuming was incapable of faults. For his part, the beloved was a drunkard, who on certain nights preferred her to other women. Most nights, in fact I’m speaking of those nights when he drank deeply and intensely, which was quite often, he preferred other women, who laughed more frequently, or spoke more eloquently, or invited him to their bed more readily. Though really, to be quite honest, what he preferred to all of this was the idea of himself as an individual, a lost seafarer on the swift seas of life. This mystery figure was only really present when he was deep in drink and isolation.

One evening, made pleasant by a warm breeze brought inland that had a faint scent of jasmine, so rare in this city by the seas, he made an offhand remark about preferring the hair of a woman they’d had dinner with the night before, an opera singer, black haired and pale skinned. This remark, though fairly innocuous, for some unknown and unknowable reason, as I’m sure you’re familiar with as a living and breathing entity upon this strange earth, shattered the crystalline dream of love that she’d been carrying around—a fragile globe in her mind. And up in its place something new grew, stiffer and stronger, like the bark of an aged tree.

In two months he’d be in the hospital for his liver and she’d have sailed on to Ireland, where she’d become a nanny, a school teacher, a poet, and a politician before she settled back down for her declining years in that city by the sea. All the while recalling in memory when he said he’d preferred the hair of another lady, and everything changed. 

Remember that time that we were all alive and it was 1997

9. Invisible Man by 98 Degrees

Stop whining about being the invisible man 1997 version of me. Go out and talk to some girls instead of sitting in your room listening to music about being invisible in your room with the shades drawn, weeping on the floor and trying to figure out the exact difference between sympathy and empathy. Also, maybe you should stop wearing that invisibility cloak you bought off the internet. No, it’s a thing. Anyhow, blah, blah, blah, people don’t love me. My ambivalence about 1997 is that this was the year that pop music became popular and killed off Bush and Soundgarden and other, you know, bands from getting radio play. Thank God for Jewel, which, more later--

8. Mouth by Merrill Bainbridge

I liked this song way more than the “I’m a bitch I’m a lover etc.” song that was more popular. In 1997 all it took was Merrill Bainbridge singing about salty lips (were lips salty? I certainly didn’t know?) and slapping people’s mouths to pretty much have me wrapped around her finger. I remember talking about this song/maybe singing along to it with one of my friends in high school, who will remain nameless because I don’t want to make him look bad.  But seriously, I can’t believe Josh liked this song.

It’s 1997, Merrill Bainbridge, and I’m a teenager. It’s certainly not your fault that you turned me on though it’s not an amazing accomplishment as you’re in the illustrious company of an Environmental Science lecture about the need to turn off tap water while shaving. Illustrious company, to be sure.

7. All Cried out by 112

Oh man, my heart, and by heart, I mean the place where I store my ocean sized soul, does this thing where it skips when the guy says “woooo” during her tears causing an inferno line. Was that possible? Could tears cause a fire? I didn’t know that they could until I heard this song by 112 and Allure in which tears were set on fire by the passion. Do you hear that passion? Do you? Listen to that woo again and feel that passion! It’s 1997, and we’re almost ready to start falling in love.

Interlude: The top six songs are all amazing for one reason or another, which I didn’t remember until I looked at the list of the top 100 songs. I mean, I’m excited and I know what I put on the list. Ranking the top six is incredibly tough, and I want you to know that I struggled over it and took it very seriously. (Where did I put the wine and chocolate chips? One of the best things about being an adult is the ability to stay up as late as you want and do all those amazing things you couldn’t do as a kid like rank songs from 1997. Life is sweet).

6. Wannabe by The Spice Girls

In what world could this possibly only be the sixth best song in a year? Only in 1997, my friends, when time briefly stopped to put out some of the greatest music since the invention of music by a Neandrathal slamming two rocks together in 8,000 BC in what is present day Mongolia.  It was weird in 1997, which one of these girls was the most attractive? Are any of them attractive? Does that matter? Stop being sexist 1997. But, wait. You have to get with my friends? First off, that seems like a terrible proposition for fidelity, and, as far as I understand in 1997 the girl always winds up getting rid of all of her friends and becoming friends with all of her boyfriend’s guy friends. Oh, I see what you’re doing Spice Girls. You are turning narratives on their heads, and you’re doing it with awesome British accents. Watching this video is the 1997 equivalent of watching an entire season of Girls in terms of progress.

5. MMMbop by Hanson

It’s a little known fact that the word “catchy” wasn’t actually invented until people heard this song in 1997. Shortly after the first few bars were played somebody said, “I don’t know exactly what that was, but I need some new way to define it because it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.” Mind you, that was before they’d even gotten to the chorus with all of the MMMbopps, which made you want to find people you loved, or even just kind of liked, so that you could embrace them and maybe jump around in a dance circle appreciating life and music and youth and oxygen and dandelions looking like flowers instead of the weeds that they are. It was like The Beatles, only bigger. I’m tired of having history jammed down my throat by old timers. Hanson was the greatest band of the 20^th century.

4. You Were Meant for Me by Jewel

Recently, I was having a conversation with one my part-time workers at the library. An ex-college football playing, weight lifting, very cool guy and do you know what he let slip? He said, every night before I go to bed I listen to Jewel. Her music is so calming. I could just let that anecdote stand and kind of will. Whatever she was doing right in 1997, she is doing right now. I love the part where she says she went to see a movie and it just wasn’t the same because it was happy, or I was sad, and, it made me miss you, oh so bad. It pretty much lyrically manages to wrap the crazy and mixed up feelings you have when you are missing someone deeply and get yourself untangled from it and want to spend the evening looking out the window and thinking about calling them but not calling them. Oh, Jewel. I’d treat you right…nah, I probably wouldn’t.

3. Foolish Games by Jewel

 (Wait, did you just double down on Jewel? You’re damn right I did!)

The great thing about this song in 1997 was turning the narrative on its head. I wasn’t intellectually prepared for deconstructionist theories or anything, but the strange thing about this song was how suddenly you could picture yourself as the guy delivering the heartbreak to the girl instead of the one who’s heart is always broken. Maybe you were just vain, but you could see yourself standing in doorways, talking about the weather and pretending not to give a damn about the girl in front of you. Plus, you were smoking a cigarette and talking over coffee about philosophy and Mozart. Isn’t that what the cool guys that you always wanted to be spent their time doing? I mean sure, when she says, “Excuse me, guess I’m mistaking you for somebody else, somebody who gave a damn, somebody more like myself,” and you can kind of hear her weeping on the last line, you sang along, but it was different somehow. You knew that you’d broken her heart without ever intending to or doing anything beyond standing in the rain without a coat, which I always do.

2. The Freshmen by The Verve Pipe

I’m pretty sure if was a little bit older this song would have been number one. Sadly, I wasn’t in college yet when this epically sad song came out. However, I could imagine what it would be like. It would pretty much be just like this song--lots of sorrow and angst and slowly played guitars and emotions, sad, sad emotions running amok. Why did we think we were so smart 1997? We were so young and fragile, like baby birds trying to fly that first time out of the nest. Wait, did the song just speed up? Did it just speed up? Are people taking drugs in college? Are we sad about it. Oh man, I can’t wait for all this angst to begin 1997. Man, I’ve never had a relationship, but I bet they are just like that, slipping through ice and then having to sing about it with gravel in our voice to get rid of the rage that we feel at ourselves for taking something so fragile and beautiful and turning it all into shi- like we always knew we would.

1.       Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind

Enough sadness already, 1997: this song exists. And the first time I ever actually danced to a fast song was this one. And I’m usually a humble person but the only thing I’m going to apologize for is how good I looked dancing to this song. I had no right to look so comfortable for someone who had never moved to music at anything about a sway before in his life. Okay, so maybe the above part was mostly a lie and the tape would disagree, but we don’t have tape. All we have is this beautiful, beautiful song about drugs and sex and how great it was to be made of dust in 1997 even if that’s all we would one day return to.

Everything that was ever beautiful was more beautiful in 1996

10.  Til I hear it From You by The Gin Blossoms

                According to Billboard charts this was sung by the Gin Blossoms. However, obviously this song was done by the Lumineers. Okay, not exactly, but it’s basically the same thing where you kind of wonder how this lighter sounding band, not quite pop, not quite rock, winds up getting really popular. I don’t want to take advice from fools either, Gin Blossoms. Let’s just sit around and wait in 1996 for our girls to tell us that everything is fine. It’s probably going to take a while because we can’t just text to see what’s happening or even e-mail, because that’s not really a thing, and people, even back then, knew that calling was uncool, so we’ll just wait around and maybe strum on some guitars while we wait. I love 1996, Gin Blossoms, and I love you. 

9.  I Love you Always Forever by Donna Lewis

The best part about this song was attempting to sing along. It’s so fast. What is she saying? But I can kind of keep up, in the privacy of my own car or room, because I think this is a fast paced euro pop-ish song. But it’s also a great exercise in locution as she jam everywhere and everything so close together. It’s a real easy song to screw up when you’re singing along and equally easy to cover up because she slows it down at the end to allow you time to catch up. 

8. Insensitive by Jann Arden

Jann Arden was thirty four in 1996 when this masterpiece of American music and heartbreak was released. If other songs captured existential longing or the emptiness of life better, Jann Arden, who was a gd adult, was busy capturing adult sadness when a relationship, you know, actually ends. In 1996, I was more into the vague descriptions and connections of love that had been lost that had never really been had, but Jann Arden wasn’t about that. Jann Arden wanted to tell you what it was like to be in a shitt- adult relationship, so she wrote this beautiful song for you. And she’s so old that they won’t even look at her application for the upcoming season of The Bachelor. Life is tough.

7. One of us by Joan Osborne

This song reminds me of the Grand Inquisitor passage from Dostoevsky. We’ve all read that, correct? It's a seminal piece of world literature. I’m sure you have. Good. I’m glad we got that out of the way. I’m not sure I need to say anything else.

What if you took a seminal piece of Christian doctrine, Christ coming down to earth, and then you mused about it with a nose ring before nose rings were totally a mainstream thing? You’d probably blow all of our minds. 

6. Always be my Baby by Mariah Carey

Why are you so good, Mariah Carey? Why? I mean, my brother, who is a cool and quite type study person is busy buying up singles of Always Be My Baby. Probably because it’s a wonderful expression of what love is in 1996, not something that goes away after one night, or that one weekend in Vermont. No. Love is something that sticks around forever. Sure, we were wrong and love fades, but way back in 1996 love didn’t fade, it just hung around like a bad ex, reminding us of how good things used to be and preventing us from experiencing the future. 

5. Name

I don’t know what this song is about. However, I do know that it played on Z Rock at least ten times a day despite it not being, you know, a real rock song. Of course, that’s always the way these rock groups get famous, playing something a bit slower. #sellout. We didn’t hashtag things back then, but we still thought in hashtags, though we called them pound signs. They were complicated times. I think I’ve described what made this song so amazing about as well as anyone could have. 

4. Ironic by Alanis Morissette

The best thing about this song is getting people raging about the definition of ironic. “It’s not ironic that it rained on your wedding day.” I get it, you filthy elitist. You’d probably have me paying all my taxes to people who don’t want to work/weren’t born into privilege and were given totally bullshi- opportunities in comparison, but yeah, laziness.

Anyhow, I’m afraid of dying in a plane crash and so is the guy in the song. And yeah, Canadians. Amirite?

It doesn’t matter that she’s not using the term ironic correctly. What’s important in this song is the lesson that she’s teaching, which is that life won’t always work out exactly as we want it to and that was news in 1996, or at least a confirmation of what we’d slowly come to realize as we transitioned from naïve little selves into people filled with angst. 

3. It’s all coming back to me now by Celine Dion

                According to Billboard this song was somewhere in the sixties during 1996, which can’t possibly be true. I watched the video of Celine Dione at least 100 times when she was dramatically banishing the memories of all the time they’d ever had. But guess what? It’s all coming back. Stop melting my heart.

In my book, you either go epic or you go home. I want someone to mash this song up with that Metaloaf song from 1994 to make the greatest song in the history of the universe. I’ve never really heard much opera, but I’m guessing that if I heard opera I’d probably start crying and spend the rest of my life trying to build a time machine in order to travel back in time to hear the greatest opera sang by enuchs in Italy a few hundred years back. Luckily, I’ve not really heard opera. The point is, I think even pharoh’s heart would have been softened had he heard this song. Edit: I watched a large portion of this video. It’s really pretty epic with the lightning crash and the ghost and her trying to banish the memory.

All I’m saying is that, at the end of the day, this song may be the reason that human beings evolved to have emotions. 

2. Nobody Knows by Tony Rich Project 

The album cover is light years ahead of its time in just being the quintessence of cool, which is a good start. And then the song starts and you can feel 1996’s heart breaking. In the early portions of the song it’s easy to think on all those foolish people who didn’t know how much you ached for them in your soul of souls. However, by the end of the song when he’s hitting a dusty road in search of love, you begin to realize that he’s not really looking for a real love but regretting all the things he didn’t say, the person that he couldn’t be. That dusty road isn’t leading to a person. It’s leading to a journey of self-discovery, which is hopefully filled with some beautiful people, some laughs, some late nights, and eventually, you know, death. 

1. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Deep Blue Something

I may be overrating this song solely based on the fact that I heard it the other day on New Girl, and as Nick celebrated the nineties I got sucked into this vortex of nineties music. However, it’s still a good song. It ages well. It has a nice chorus, a nice sound. You can basically still listen to this song without feeling out of place.

Also, my sister drove me to school every day in 1996 and she had one tape playing on repeat, and I heard this song roughly 1,000 times, but it didn’t matter, I’d listen to it another 1,000 times and still be happy. Like the great part when the chorus slows down before one last triumphant rendition. Plus, as break up songs go it’s pretty upbeat. 

The best songs from 1995: the definitive list

Let me start out by being honest, 1995 was not as epic of a year in music. By 1995 we’d all already started to figure out that we shouldn’t spend all of our time watching music videos. We didn’t know what we wanted yet instead, but somewhere, deep inside of all of us, was someone who wanted to watch and star on an episode of the Real World. Despite this, and the fact that Meatloaf wasn’t riding motorcycles into our heart and Lisa Loeb wasn’t using the bridge to perfectly describe the emptiness that we felt was at the core of any human relationship, it was still a pretty good year.

And now, the definitive list of the best songs from 1995. As always, done in reverse order to build suspense. 

6. Strong Enough by Sheryl Crow

When Sheryl Crow released this album and everyone loved it we all went through a period confusion. Is it okay to like country music? Is this country music? Is she a female singer who isn’t part of a trio? Man, I miss En Vogue. And then we started listening to this song about a woman who was breaking down and just needed some support. Isn’t that what men were supposed to do? Break down and drink and need support. What is this notion of a man who needs to be strong enough to be with a woman? Sheryl Crow, I’m too young to assimilate all that you’re throwing at me right now, but I’m going to try. I’m going to try and be strong. What do you need?

5. On Bended Knee by Boyz II Men

In the mid-nineties you couldn’t turn on the radio or VH-1 or MTV without tripping over a Boyz II Men song. But they were always beautiful, and way back in the 1990’s a man would get down his knee and ask a woman to help him put things back together. They were simpler times, perhaps too narrowly defined by gender stereotypes but damn if you can’t hear the pleading in the voices of all those beautiful men. Please say yes, honey. I know they’ll make you happy.

4 Fantasy by Mariah Carey

This was way before we had to confusingly decide if Mariah Cary was hot, too old to be hot, or just someone’s mom who was dressing too young. This was just a pure explosion of music and dance. I mean, I wouldn’t have been caught dead dancing in 1995 and would have been happy to live in the city from Footloose, but it’s hard to resist Mariah, and that voice, oh that lovely voice. There is nothing more masculine in 1995 than singing at the top of your vocal range about being with your loving boyfriend. There just wasn’t. They were great times.

3 This is How Do it by Montell Jordan

Obviously if we’re re-ranking songs from 1995 this one would be at the top because every time they bang this in a club or bar that I’m dancing at I’m just really pumped and then later, when the music fades, slightly depressed at how old I am. However, this song will always be great. In 1995, it wasn’t cool to sing about getting rich and laid. It was cool to sing about tossing your keys to a designated driver. They were more innocent times. The past is always more innocent. Back then, people partied on Friday nights. People didn’t use it to rest up as the day you take it easy after going out on Thursday and looking forward to Saturday. No, Friday used to be the day and Montell Jordan is here to remind us that Friday night is still Friday night. The bills were only 100’s and everyone in your neighborhood was good to you and they all had flavor. Don’t worry, we’ll get the chance to dance at the bar to this one.

2. Run Around by Blues Traveler

A weird thing happened at some point in my life that I kind of missed out on. Apparently it was decided that Blues Traveler sucks. As far as I can tell it was the beginning of what would later come to be defined as hipsterism. Thank God I have this song on an LP or I’d be in real trouble. Because, guess what? In 1995 Blues Traveler was awesome and played the harmonica and other instruments that weren’t the guitar in a song that was popular and the lead singer didn’t look hip or cool or anything just obese, and he had lines like, “and there’s nothing I can rhyme,” and we loved it.

What I’m realizing in writing up 1995 is that it was a happy year. A year when we were done with the Cold War after we’d all seen reruns of Rocky 4 on TBS enough times to know that cheaters never prosper. We were full of ourselves as a nation and as young people listening to the radio and we had Blues Traveler to remind us that everything was always going to be upbeat and fun and like a speakeasy.

1.     Let Her Cry by Hootie and The Blowfish

In 1995 you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting Hootie, because he was omnipresent and enjoyed rocks. Now he’s a country singer because life is a strange and complex journey. However, back in 1995, still years before I’d even go on a date, Hootie was tearing out our hearts out with tales of addiction and sadness. Is this what it was like to be an adult? Did you run hands through dark hair and get extremely sad but, like deep down knowing that you really can’t do anything about it because life is a strange and complex journey that may lead you to being a country singer? I think so. “She went in the back to get high.” You deserve better, man. You do. What about that nice girl who sits next to you in O-chem? I feel like she’d treat you well. But, no, I get it. The crazy ones are always harder to leave behind. Let’s just sit down and have a beer and maybe cry together like a couple of very sad bros. There, now I feel better. Thanks for that cry. 

The best songs and beautiful things: 1994

If you weren't alive in 1994 and listening to popular music I feel very sorry for you. If you were busy listening to Zepplin and The Dead and lamenting the fact that they didn't make music like they used to, I also feel very sorry for you. This was a glorious year to be alive and recording songs off the radio onto a tape that you'd stolen from your sister's collection. It's really never been better than it was in 1994, except maybe 1995 through 1998 or so. Since then, all downhill.

Here is a definitive list of the most important songs of 1994 as determined by my much younger self. In reverse order to build tension.

#6 Wild Night by John Cougar Mellencamp



Is this song catchy? Absolutely. Is it a cool rock icon recording a classic with a bit of a funkier sound than we were used to? Sure. But let's be honest, the thing that made this song so amazing in 1994 was the video. We were all young and sexist back then, and we spent hours wondering if really cool girls like the girl from this video really existed. Like, were there girls out there who could look that good in a baseball hat and also be laughing at jokes and driving cabs around and shaking hands with real people? Was that an actual thing that happened in the real world? We hoped so. This is pre-IMDB, so you couldn't just hop on the internet and Google this girl and figure out that you recognized her from one episode of Saved by the Bell when she played A.C. Slater's girlfriend. No. You just had to imagine that there was a real flesh and blood person out there who drove a cab and put on her jeans just like that every morning. We were, without knowing it, all planning to move out to NYC as soon as we had enough money.

#5 Linger by the Cranberries



Was it okay to like bands with female lead singers? Yeah, it's 2014, and I'm dancing around the house to Euro-pop, but this was 1994. The times were different. They were harder, more confusing. But hey, look at the Cranberries capturing what we were all feeling that year. Why didn't someone, anyone, love us? The girl sat next to us in math class and sometimes called us by the wrong name? Why couldn't she love us? And what about that guy who is so good looking but is two years older and into our mature, read: whorish friends? Why does he have to be like that? Life was wildly unfair back then. I get that the song is about a lost love, but really, isn't it about that person who keeps stringing us along by occasionally getting our name right or accidentally grazing our hand when we get change from them at a local eatery? Why would they accidentally touch my finger if they weren't trying to keep me madly in love with them? Who knows? The Cranberries, that's who understood what it was like in 1994.

#4 I'll Make Love to You by Boyz II Men



Some people were making love in 1994. I was about as far from making love as the North Pole is from the South Pole or as beating a game of Dark Wizard was from hanging out with girls, which is to say, a bit. And yet, here I have this beautiful song to tell me what it was all about. Why does she throw her clothes on the floor while he says he's going to take his clothes off as well? Because love making is a gentle and beautiful thing in 1994. The sexual revolution is not in full force any longer. We still made love in 1994 and then people held onto each other, they snuggled. Even though their arm fell asleep after the first hour, and they were really uncomfortable and wanted to roll away and get a good night's sleep. No. They just concentrated on being a good cuddler. Damn. They were good times. He says, "I made plans to be with you." Do you think he texted her these plans? No. He called her up on the telephone and invited her over to his apartment when his roomates were going to be out of town for a night of intense love making because that is what a gentleman did in 1994. There was no question of sneaking off or walks of shame. Because there is only holding tight and happiness.

#3 Because the Night by 10,000 Maniacs



This is way back in 1994 when all MTV did was play music videos. And somehow, they got 10,000 maniacs to do this song unplugged, and it was the most beautiful and moving thing you'd ever heard. And you wanted to be too cool for it, but even MTV was like, look at this you young SOB, look at this aesthetic masterpiece. Are you not moved?
This is way back before you even knew words like aesthetics and beauty, but somewhere, in that still developing sense of self and of beauty you knew that this moving. Plus, I randomly put on this song the other day and everyone in the family was immediately dancing/moved, because: art.

#2 I'd Do Anything For Love, but I won't do that



It's totally unclear, as we all know, what the hell that is. But yeah, this song happened. You could feel the passion in his voice when he was wailing about the gods of sex and drums and rock and roll. The rise and fall in this song is so moving. Even though we'd all seen Reality Bites, people my age were still too young or naive, and we were just moved by this song. We had souls back then. We didn't understand irony. We did understand what it was like to stand in the mirror and feel hideous compared to that beautiful creature that was singing from atop a chandelier. We had hearts, beautiful, young, uncorrupted hearts. Yes, beautiful chandelier floating woman, we can take you out of this Godforsaken town. "We'll all turn to dust, and we'll all burn down." We didn't know about existentialism yet, but this song did. It road a motorcylce right through the center of our hearts. It was an external expression of what we all knew to be true: we were hideous, interior or exterior and elsewhere was beauty. Thank you for teaching us, Meatloaf.

#1 Stay by Lisa Loeb



Maybe controversial until you look at the facts. The internet cat meme was nowhere near being birthed and what does this amazing video start with, a cat? Why? Because cats are an endless source of entertainment and curiosity and were worshiped, rightfully so, as gods in Egypt. Who knew that in 1994 more than anyone? Lisa Loeb. And before there was Sarah Pailin, and Tina Fey mocking Sarah Pailin, and Zooey Deschanel being quirky there was Lisa Loeb, wearing glasses and hip little dress, making them look sexy or intellectual or just downright cool in 1994.

And, oh yeah, besides that. In 1994 I was years and years still away from dating someone, and yet, somehow, some way, I understood that Lisa Loeb had already captured the complexities of what it meant to want someone and not really have them, or to not realize how it really takes letting something go to really understand what it meant to you. All she needed to do was get to that lengthy bridge to rip the heart from my chest. And by that, as usual, obviously I mean cry. Come back, Lisa Loeb! Okay, good, you're just hanging in the doorway for a minute. I was worried for a second there.