muse

there's something hilarious about how small rear windshield wipers get on cars these days. i saw one on a hatchback toyota wagon this morning and i had this theme stuck in my head after. the little engine that could. ...i'm just sayin.

which made me think of my favorite band, muse.

ok...it didn't really make me think of muse, but there's no other way i could legitimately talk about windshield wipers and muse in the same post. here goes nothing...

so i'm sitting in SP drinking some banana hot chocolate (thanks again, jordan) and listening to some random pandora station on an ipod blasting through the PA. then the tom jones piece comes on and it's loud. "it's not unusual" and just blasting, LOUD. and we're all rocking out. really, it's just me rocking out and i'm doing it on the inside. i don't think anyone not named Tom Jones or Ray Grace has ever looked cool with that song and don't feel like testing the waters. then it's over and the next song comes on. "imagine" by lennon. i mean, the transition is just horrendous. but it works somehow. it. just. works.

i'm working on chapter revisions and the rewrite for the intro and i'm trying to concentrate and somehow am. but i'm not hearing the music playing anymore. i've got muse in my head. "map of the problematique" to be exact. and i'm thinking back to the earliest inspirations for the novel.

it's 2005. i'm up in the sf bay area for college and surrounded by people i knew growing up but experiencing the area in the completely different way. i'm old enough to drive. i'm old enough to drink (not legally, but morally) and i'm old enough to do my own thing. i'm working and then in class until ten or eleven at night. i'm going for solo hikes and long drives through the hills to santa cruz. i'm completely unfocused but ace everything i attempt. i'm living the life. then there's this night when i realize half of my childhood was infinitely more fucked than i'd ever accepted previously. i accept that i'm a product of a million other people with good intentions and bad, some with none at all. i'm a product of the world around me. i'm a victim.

the thoughts are enough to choke on and i do. i can barely breathe by the time i decide to just get outside. and i do. i pack my bags and just leave. by the time i stop running, i'm in the middle of nowhere in the woods and hiking up castle rock. i've got a knife, a water bottle, some protein bars, the clothes on my back and enough thoughts and feelings to keep me more than warm at night. i'm burning inside out.

i'll never remember exactly how long i was gone. hours. days. a week. it's somewhere in there. but i'll always remember the moment i got back. i'll always remember the first pair of eyes i looked into and with a completely different perspective. i would never again let myself become a victim in anything. i'd be strong in my morality and powerful in my stance. i'd fight everyone and everything and with a big fucking smile on my face. all because of a single realization.

intentions don't matter, only actions.

all we can ever do is what we choose to. our thoughts and feelings and motives simply don't matter. this world will end someday and all of our thoughts and feelings and motives won't go down in the books. we're all alone in this place and it's up to us to save each other.

how does muse come into play? they never left my ipod that week.

i just got away. and couldn't have asked for a more perfect soundtrack.

try it.