Dear Oprah,
I'm other.
Nice to meet you.
I don't know how to consider myself, but as I've just discovered on the wonderful site www.pandora.com, by putting in the artist Uffie, that that kind, her kind of music, my kind of music, right now is considered OTHER.
What does that mean exactly?
I liked her on the radio.
I thought she was quite pop with a super modern punk edge.
I'm thirty something and she isn't on Kroq so...she is 'other' and in turn, that makes me, other, until she becomes as popular as Kesha, who is my current 20'something wasted idol.
She is...
falling on the floor with beer stained sticky glass and super short American Apparel lycra shorts climbing up her privates. UTI inspired, tripping...on French speaking, perfume wearing tourists from Jordan, chain smoking, wearing second hand Prrada, Prrada and yelling something important to his expat friend from Japan. He is...strip club, Hollywood, flyers on my car, who did I kiss on the cheek, the mouth, the....
20's.
We know that. That is not other. That is....what it is, Pop.
And Pandora...opens a box of 'other' that only stimulates my fondness to reminisce and dismiss my current state of other. If you go to the site and put in your favorite song of now, they will support all the songs that align with that 'type' of song.
Apparently, I'm on a theme of 'other' celebration...M.I.A., CSS, Shiny Toy Guns, Peaches, Nadia Oh, The Blow, New Young Pony Club. Who are these others?
They are shut the f up and listen chic pop. They want 80's desperately but are too young to know what the 80's really were.
Just like me, I guess.
They haven't won awards. Some know them and some don't. Some are repelled by their springy nature and some are inspired.
I love the sh-t out of the music, without the valet, the velvet rope, vomit or the second hand smoke, cologne and foggy walk of shame cab home...I don't even need the remix or stiletto strip dub to make me like them more.
I remember fondly. I don't remember a damn thing.
The other.
As I reach my thirtysomething plus plus, I hear music that touches down to that place in the twenties.
And here are the thirties and I'm armed with anthems that no one knows, save a few perhaps as I prepare for date number two, three, four. Restraining order two, three and four from Nerve.com.match.eharmony.freekinscarymofos.com.
My friends breast feed kid number two as I apply Dior show to my lashes and air brush my cheeks aglow go.
It's pop shut the f-up punk in your face and I'm hot. I dress up and look pretty for you, listen to music that gives me a runway of confidence and preparation all to look towards and look back at the other....And then I'm out the door and second guess the bottom lining of my eye, wonder if there is something in my teeth and hope my breath smells like magic.
you...
then me and sigh.
When I meet someone sane and handsome near my age, I wonder, what the f brought you here?
I know what brought me here, but what about you?
I remember being in a safe relationship of eight years and feeling alone.
Hence the demise, not going forward but stagnant aaaand stop.
You should never be in a relationship and be alone.
So here I am. On sites, advertising myself like Neutrogena or Kellogs.
1/2 off on Fridays and if you mention a site, I'll give you a discount.
Amazon.com for people.
Free shipping.
No interest.
Option to buy.
Shop for the soul mate of my dreams because I will find my plus one here.
My Other.
Other.
The older you get, the more stories, the more you have to catch the other up and by goodness...that is exhausting. Tune in to...what you know. Other. This is what I know. Pandora.com. The box is open.
So, what's your deal?
Scares the crap out of me, personally.
I can go out there in the stream of cologne and bilingual nightmares that drink themselves into banal stories that take me from 10 to midnight or I can stay here at home, with more others and text a stranger for an hour, exchanging wit and circumstance while swigging seltzer and watching Lifetime Television in my Lululemon Yoga Pants and Lavendar face mask.
I can drive 45 miles to see you and your friends in a fit of camaraderie that makes me want to drink or do a handstand or scream at the top of my lungs and excuse myself into a my own personally drafted coma.
I see that each opportunity I have to meet someone new, I have an opportunity to share another part of myself. An- other- part.
I see you and I'm grateful, but a part of me feels...
other...
other.
Whilst I sit here solo, in happiness. Singularly alone. A box of music or makeup and I still end up home alone and happy to be.
I have met some scary a-s people on line, I have also met some seriously great individuals that, while I will never see again ever, have reflected back to me something that makes me want to live to to my highest self. So, I guess the box stays open.
In a few moments of interaction, selection of a song, I can understand where it is I'm coming from and what it is that I want. Very swiftly, upon meeting these new people, I can see what it is that I like and what it is that I don't.
I can say, quite firmly that after being only a few weeks 'online personally' that I no longer want to be on this path. I can plug in a song on pandora.com and skip, but with people, it's way too delicate.
Meeting people online has worked for many people. For that, I support. For me...
the internet seems much more apt at finding music to spur a riff of creativity that fits where I am in my life...
I'm an other.
The 'box' of the internet can't fill the void that music does so appropriately thus.
I would like to have someone to share my stories with. I would like to have someone to share my path. But for now, I think I am done. I think I am ok sharing what I can with the students I teach. I'm ok to see what happens outside of this little box, pandora and my mac, as another.
I'm ok as other.
Other wise known as,
Lady Yoga
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
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