Tag Archives: gay

Those Punches, Those Lines

14 Feb

Today I was listening to a Long Island radio station playing back-to-back love songs in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Ode to the lovers of the day, what a symbolic day to be a couple, to offer sweets to your sweet and perfumed red roses for the – hopefully – blazing passion you share with the object of your affection.

I can’t recall the last time I spent a Valentine’s Day with someone, but hey, I’m not without a romantic heart. And when in love – well, at least this is what I tell myself, I am pretty romantic. But this blog is about songs, well, lines from songs, meaningful lines that really leave a punch.

Remember “having a song,” one that you shared with your lover that was, “your song.” There was probably a song that came out when you started dating or a song that really seemed to amplify your experience as a couple in some way.

I’m listening to Sade’s, By Your Side remembering where I was when that song came out. I know it was winter. That February I had just broken up with a woman from Vermont (there’s a lot of breakups this time of the year. Seems like people hook up around October and then go through the holidays, and right after Valentine’s break up.)

Anyway, one of the line’s in By Your Side is, “Think I’d leave your side, baby, you know me better than that.” What a good line. How reassuring to tell someone to stop worrying, that I’m with you, that I’m loyal, that you’ll be there for them. We all once  said similar words.

If I can’t remember how a song starts, there’s always one line that sticks. Maybe that’s the idea. The “Hook.” I associate songs to events, or think of people who liked a particular song. My friend, Mike, always sings Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” at karaoke.

There’s the irony of love and the bittersweet. “I’ll Never Fall in Love” sung by Dionne Warwick, is still a kicker. Just kick someone’s heart to the curb. And, because of  its, “lies, and pain and sorrow,” she’s never falling in love again. I can’t blame her. But wait, and here’s the irony, she finishes with a defining inspiration, “So for at least until tomorrow I’ll never fall in love again.” Dionne may not have been lying about the hurt one feels when love fails, but she was definitely giving it one more try.

Remember “Crying” by Roy Orbison? I don’t remember how it starts, but I know the hook, “Cry I – I – I n –g…over you… Cry I – I – I n –g…over you.” It’s so sad a line. Given Orbison’s powerful voice and the complexity of his range, when he sings Crying, I simply melt. He IS crying in the song. I can’t imagine leaving someone so alone, so broken down, that they’re standing on a doorstep crying their eyes out. Who has the heart to do such a thing? Plenty of people, that’s who.

When Brook Benton’s song, “A Rainy Night in Georgia” came out in July of 1969, I was a teenager. I can still remember reeling from the pain and agony I heard in his voice as he sang the line, “I feel like it’s raining all over the world.” To be that distressed and troubled is no easy place to be. If you listen closely you can hear the rain.

By the same token, you can also hear the joy of cymbals and flutes in Oliver’s, “Good Morning Starshine,” such a happy, good-feeling song, with the unforgettable chorus, “The Earth Says Hello!” But I somehow feel like I should be sucking deeply on a bong somewhere in flowered pajamas when I hear it.

Off the top of my head I can’t recall how all songs start – who could – but the following one lines come to mind:

Roxanne! You don’t have to put out the red light

Welcome to the Hotel California!

A Whole Lotta Love

Sittin’ in the morning sun, I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ comes

Billie Jean’s not my lover

Rhiannon rings like a bell in the night and wouldn’t you love to love her

Little diddy about Jack and Diane…

Mrs. Jones….we got a thing…going on…..

You’re getting the idea right? I figured as much.

When Edie and I met, our song was, I’ve Had the Time of My Life by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. It was big and splashy and it exemplified the two of us in some meaningful way. I guess we were big and splashy. It went like this:

Now I’ve had the time of my life

No I never felt like this before

Yes I swear it’s the truth

And I owe it all to you

‘Cause I’ve had the time of my life And I owe it all to you!

We were young, exciting, in love, and we owned the streets we walked. What a team – her, blonde-haired, green-eyed, leggy, smart. An Anglo-Saxon, All-American with a “pirate smile” as Elton John wrote and sang in Tiny Dancer. And her counterpart, a dark-eyed, mysterious, wild, a double-dare persona – me, bordering on crazy with a mane of unruly black hair.

Later she gave me the breakup song by Bonnie Raitt, “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

Whenever I hear that song I still feel an ache somewhere in my heart. It’s true: I had the time of my life with Edie.

I know Justin Timberlake’s, “Mirror” saved this one lesbian couple who was on the verge of breaking up their marriage. That song brought them back together while the other woman – uh, that would be me, was left holding the proverbial “bag.”

Show me how to fight for now

And I’ll tell you baby,

it was easy Comin’ back into you once I figured it out

You were right here all along It’s like you’re my mirror

I’ve just thought of something. It’s a song by Don Henley of the Eagles where he talks about “Forgiveness.” It’s the “Heart of the Matter,” and it goes something like,

I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the heart of the matter

but my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter

but I think it’s about forgiveness, forgiveness even if, even if you don’t love me anymore.

Tonight on Valentine’s Day, there won’t be any chocolates or roses, no weekend getaway, no heart-shaped tub to jump into, and no special dinner planned.  There isn’t a lover, a date, or an Internet chat.

So why live now without love, when I once loved so deeply and so well? Why choose to be alone?

Oh, that’s easy, “Cause I couldn’t stand the pain, and I would be sad if our new love was in vain.”  

Come on, I know you know that line.

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But there’s…

15 Jul

There’s never been anything that’s ever been easy.

I just walk around, bike, try to talk to people, and try to make new friends. I bring my dog wherever I go, it’s just that this moving around isn’t easy. I miss certain things, I think I miss the friends I made – I know I miss the beach. I use to know the one pizza place I liked the most, but it’s certainly far away now. I tell people here, strangers that I do know a good pizzeria, but it’s not here in Reston, Virginia. Nope. No, it’s in New Jersey. Then I think about my home, the one in Raleigh. I wonder how long it will be before I move back there. Or will I ever? Really. Seriously. Why am I keeping this house? Will I ever move back to Raleigh, North Carolina? Oh, I don’t know. There’s so much…

I used to live in Colorado – don’t know a soul from there – a long time ago. I must’ve been 18 when I hitchhiked out there, lived there for a summer. I fell in love with a boy there, or I should say, he fell for me and I just went along. Never saw him when I returned to New York. In 2001, a visit to Vermont turned into a move to finish my last semester in college. I took away one friend from there who I still speak with – well, kind of – we ‘talk’ on Facebook. In 2007, Atlanta was a completely bad move – I moved there for a contract, thought it was going to be great. Boy, ha! What a joke that was. Get a load of this: in the course of six weeks I was robbed 3 times. Yeah, no kidding. But you know, I took away one friend from there who helped me out of a jam, and I still speak with her on occasion, not a lot, but that’s okay. Look at these towns: Brooklyn, Uniondale, Long Island, Albany, Schenectady, New Rochelle, New York, Stockton, New Jersey, and Trenton. Now I’m in Reston, Virginia. I’m going to tell you why I move so much, but first I want to tell you this:

I was watching this reality show about Long Islanders, how they can’t make it now, how they lost their jobs, how their homes are facing foreclosure. The show profiled these once all working people, how they use to pay their bills, how they use to have a lifestyle where they saw their goals for retirement and the foundation for getting there, and, unbelievably, all three couples were now lost financially on Long Island. Come to think of it, I think that was the name of the show. And Long Island’s not cheap, I mean you have to have money to live there – the taxes are crazy. People there have weird-ass accents.

I moved out of Long Island when I was twenty-nine. I knew the place was gonna’ get crazy. It was nice in the 1960s, 70s, even 80s, but then it got crowded, too crowded for me, so I moved 160 miles north of there and landed in Albany.

This friend of mine just passed away. She was 83. She lived in Albany in the same house since, I don’t know, I want to say at least 50 years. Fifty years! Fifty years in one house. Never had a foreclosure.

Now, personally, I would die. There is no way I could live in the same place that long. Granted, I don’t have kids, and, sure, children make you grounded because of school, friends and friends of theirs; you don’t want to upset the routine they’re in and so on. I get it. But I am a lesbian and I’m a single lesbian and because I am, I can move around and pretty much move, and that’s what I do.

And let me tell you why I love to move: there are so many places and people to see. There’s a completely different culture out here. Take the accents, take the Long Island accent – NO ONE speaks like that in any other part of New York. It’s strictly a Long Island Accent. Albany people don’t sound like Long Islanders and people from New Jersey sound nothing like New Yorkers. I could go on and on about the accents, but you’re getting the picture.

I love to move because, I have to work, and I’m older, and I don’t want to be without work while I’m still young enough to work, and not quite old enough to retire. I get bored easily. Yes, and this is a big one. Last winter I was sitting outside smoking a cigarette, it was right after the New Year, and all of a sudden, after glimpsing the white snow, cresting on a pine bough, I saw my stretched out dog through the pane glass, and said, “it’s time to go.” I guess those are the right words, well, they’re familiar, that’s for certain.

When I lost my last contract – and I did so damn well, I thought they would offer me a full-time gig but they didn’t. I was like, “Fuck it.” I’m moving again. It came as a surprise to everyone. I just got so sick of so much.  Being let go again. What the fuck? Talk about silent age discrimination. It sucks and it’s alive and well. But like I said, I get bored easily. But one thing I knew, one thing I had going for me was that, even through all my adventuring, I knew my word was good, that I was honorable. I knew that if the corporate sector didn’t appreciate my background, I’d pull out my ace in the sleeve – saving it for my older years, so to speak, and that was when I decided to apply for a Secret Clearance job with the government. The government liked that I never cheated on the government and didn’t have a rap sheet.

I’m there five months, right, and guess what I told my boss? I’m like sitting in his office, and he’s giving me my 3 month review (which I did very well; I got a 3% raise – hey it’s something), and I say to him, “You know, I’d be open for relocation.”

There are just no words, there’s only action for me. Because there’s so much more to do.

I think about those people from the reality show, those people on Long Island who are sinking – they don’t want to move. I think if they moved, opened up their mileage and scope for looking for a job – they could keep their house – rent it out, but move around in order to survive. In the olden days people moved all their shit in covered wagons, leaving the rocky roads of Maine, for example, forging into wild, unchartered land because they heard about the California Gold Rush. Americans have always been pioneering. I could go on about how the lazy counter of time can be a killer when you’re looking for work and not finding anything – I’ve been there, I know the trouble, but nothing’s ever been easy.

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