What Dumb Music Tattoo Am I Slapping Onto My Decaying Mortal Body Once All Of This Is Over?
If I make it out alive, best believe I’m getting some impulse-ink.
I wish I’d never called myself a homebody. I am so goddamn sick of being in my house all the time.
My county just closed all the parks I’ve been walking my dogs through. There goes that spark of joy and all the cool sunset pictures I got out of it.
Our washing machine just broke, with half my clothes inside. They now sit sopping wet, but still not clean, in the dryer.
My dad’s going to try fixing it, again, whenever he has time between teaching math online and scouring Costco for toilet paper.
Speaking of my dad, my family of five is absolutely sick of each other. We hardly talk when we walk or eat together. Nothing has happened. There’s nothing new to say.
And today, I gave myself a quarantine haircut.
I’ve been racking my brain for over a week for something to write and publish, to serve as a distraction from the global pandemic. I can’t. The pandemic has been the distraction which keeps me from writing.
Instead, I’m leaning into it.
Here are some songs that I’d already held close to my heart before I was locked away in my tower, and now are far too apart to not remind me of this dreadful chunk of my life.
26 by Paramore
“You’ve got me tied up / but I stay close to the window / and I talk to myself / about the places that I used to go”
This song is more about how depression or a loveless relationship can trap a person. It’s a different story when the outside world is the real trap, and staying in is protection.
This time last month, I was absorbing sunshine and culture on a Los Angeles vacation with my sister. Now, we’re holed up in our respective rooms. She’s plugging away at her accounting job, and I’m trying and failing to write anything to distract from our current reality. And I’m coming up short.
Had we known that Cali was our last trip out of New Jersey — much less out of our neighborhood, for who knows how long — we would’ve savored it. Maybe we wouldn’t have bickered, blown up, and ended things early. It’s impossible to say.
The refrain here tells us to “hold on to hope if you’ve got it”. I’m not sure if I’ve got hope or just a basic need for survival. But it hasn’t let me die yet, so that’s something.
A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley
“Sometimes in the morning, I am petrified and can’t move / awake, but cannot open my eyes.”
I tried so hard to make a morning routine.
I set an alarm for 6:30 AM. I took my medication. I tried not to check my phone before heading downstairs for breakfast. Sometimes I’d start writing on my phone at the kitchen table, then hop on the computer to write about music — my dream job since I was 13.
But I can’t type away if I’m pretending things are normal. I don’t know how my peers are reminiscing on musical memories without a lens to remind them of how inextricably different this now-magical past was from the current state of things.
All my mornings were soon photo copies of the morning before, each just a little crummier in quality. More inky, less clear. It’s hard to stay upbeat about a routine borne out of a dire situation.
Jenny Lewis’ lyrics are deeply resonant to anyone who’s experienced mood swings, self-sabotage, and an imploding personal life. Quarantine only amplified mine.
I’m so envious of anyone actively enjoying this extra time living with their family, and not just hoping that today is one of the better ones. We could all stand to be better sons/daughters right now.
Maps by the Front Bottoms
“There is a map in my room / on the wall of my room / and I’ve got big, big plans
But I can see them slipping through / almost feel them slipping through / the palms of my sweaty hands”
God, I miss live music.
Jersey kids who grew up on the Front Bottom’s N.J.-centric songs share an unspoken, unbreakable bond. Whether they’re buying fireworks in Pennsylvania or watching from home as someone else lives it up studying abroad, the home state specificity made us feel seen and heard — a rarity at that age.
Like any band, TFB sometimes skips over New Jersey in favor of New York City or Philly dates on tour. Out of some wack sense of pride, or maybe just out of convenience, I’ll only see them in Jersey. Nothing beats their annual Champagne Jam festival when it’s in Asbury Park. There, it’s more like a family reunion.
I hope that quarantine will light a fire under my ass, and force me to concretely plan for the glorious day when my map expands and finally I move out for good.
Absolute Lithops Effect by the Mountain Goats
“After one long season of waiting / after one long season of wanting / I am breaking open”
This one’s a cop-out: I already have this tattoo.
The lithops is a desert succulent, stone-like in appearance when not in bloom. Singer-songwriter John Darnielle’s narrator likens this unlikely, miraculous transformation from hard stone into soft flower to personal growth after hardship.
It’s astonishing how literal the meaning has grown since I inked a little lithops flower on my thigh this past November.
All those eons ago, I was frustrated with a stagnant life whose only changes were for the worse — a breakup, two deaths in the family, a short-staffed job leaning on me. I just wanted to focus on my last semester of college.
I popped into a tattoo shop when I was let out early one day. I couldn’t tell if the exhilaration was from post-tattoo adrenaline. Or what felt like the first positive choice I’d made only for myself in months.
Now, I’ve got no choice but to bloom here, in my room.
If I’m going to bitch and moan about the meaning these songs hold for me, maybe I should heed my own advice and let the ones I already have remind me why they’re here on my body in the first place.
I have no idea when tattoo shops are reopening their doors. I do know that day can’t come soon enough.
Little by little, things will re-normalize. We’ll sway together in crowds, share meals at restaurants, and talk within six feet of each other again.
And friends, we will be getting inked.
