MOG

well, its official, i'm home for christmas. i drove the three hours east to land at my parents back door and realize i still have to put bows on half my christmas presents, but i'd like to thank ipod and volvo for making the trip a little more bearable.

the bitch about listening to just about anything with any kind of emotional tear in this season is that it can backfire at the drop of a hat, at the curve of a road, at the way the sunset colors itself across the horizon, and the fact that i've already done christmas with the man that i love makes it a little easier, but something hit hard and low when i dropped off the rest of christmas for him today and i couldn't put my finger on it.

so i got in the car and threw on the christmas mix, which i knew, immediately, was a bad call, but i listened to the ravonettes' christmas song and ron sexmith's maybe this christmas before i hit mary lou lord covering billy bragg's ontario, quebec and me and knew i wasn't going to make it through that song. oh billy bragg. even covered, you seem to choke me up these days. fucker.

so i went to the usual place, the 'mats, the westerberg, and i drove down the road and took corners too fast trying to figure out, how, exactly, paul westerberg went about accidentally shoving a screwdriver through his left hand last week and part of me feels like i should send a sympathy note, not because we hang out, we never have, though my best friend's brother once insulted him and puked on his boots, but if it weren't for paul, i'd have given up on this rock and roll that intoxicates my daily life a long time ago.

say what you want about stinson, westerberg is the 'mats for me, and more importantly, westerberg is westerberg. period.

so i plowed through suicaine gratification and worked my way through stereo, not sure where to turn next, and decided it'd be fun, as i sometimes, wisely or not, decide it might be, to see what my top 25 songs have been on my little red box of music, and it was a straight mix of marah, westerberg, mats, reigning sound, my morning jacket and a few warlocks songs.

its a pretty straight forward drive too fast put your windows down scream along and hope that cruise control talks your foot out of ninety miles an hour mix. its a damned good accidental mix, too, and starts off with the warlocks' come save us, which i'll listen to two or three times in a row because its that fuckoff good. its one of those songs people want to cover because it gives you goosebumps and makes your nipples hard, you want to play along on the drums as the bass beats up against your ear drum and you start to keep time with your feet. that's when the drummer in me comes out and i remember the ghost of a drum kit, the finesse of slamming a set of skins in a way that makes men grip their beer a little too hard and women roll their eyes. god i miss playing in front of people.

i coasted home on the first half of the doves' last broadcast, skipping the slower songs, pulling in the driveway to Pounding, with a smile on my face. the first time i heard that record was during a long drive from roanoke to philly playing a game of "have you heard" with a new boyfriend, and while the record rarely reminds me of him, it always reminds me of driving, of philly, of the comfort in the bite of a cold morning that promises to build into a warm day. i'd never tell him, but really, the record reminds me of the man i left behind to take that trip, the one i stood on south street and wondered why i hadn't brought him. the one i'll take to boston in just under a month.

it all works out in the end.

but nothing is worth it if the soundtrack is shit.