2003-05-23 - 8:15 p.m.
I wrote this in a letter today:
"It is nice to be home home though, and I find myself in Portland, downtown, wandering around on the wet brick sidewalks to all the same places- I've spend my afternoon just like I did when I was 14, 17, 20 and now- looking through used CDs at Bullmoose Music, looking at the kids in the park (there was a girl with short bangs and a Jello Biafra shirt, I felt shy arond her and her aspiring punk rocker friends, walking quickly in my denim jacket with the New Order badge on it), and now, with a coffee in my favorite bookstore, writing. This bookstore is the only place that resembles what I always wanted Portland to be, the city it can't quite muster. It is small and independent, carrying local books, zines, artist books, critical theory, good kids books, plus a friendly staff and a cafe too. However, I have finally come to terms with the fact that Portland, Maine, is not the city I wish it was and that's ok. There are other places it gives me things those other places don't. But it's always weird the first few days back "home"- I feel like I am staring my past in the face and have come to a moment of reckoning."
To further this moment of reckoning I went through one of my big clean outs, finally kicking stuff that has hung on in my life (and maybe even moved with me) out. It's such a sign of the privilege that I grew up with- this excess of stuff already at age 22. Going through my closet I found a box of tapes. Hoping that it was recordings of my old band Influence of Atmosphere, which are sadly scarce, I stumbled upon something even better.
1. "Alternative" and "Grunge" mixed tapes that friends had made for me and that I had taped from the radio with collages of HORSES on the cover. This captures a very interesting time in my life- 6th and 7th grade, when I was still very much in the throes of equine obcession, but also an aspiring grunge rocker complete with flannel shirts, baggy jeans and airwalk shoes. These tapes provide a clue to me about a missing link in my life- how I managed to synthesize these two very odd, seemingly disparate interests. What a dork I was.
2. A tape from summer 1998 that was labled "some songs". These were songs I recorded on my boom box when I was just barely learning to play acoustic guitar and was in the thores of riot grrrldom. I sing in a language that I can't always understand (what the hell is a "VT Reject"?), but there is a choice lyric which I think I could relate to now and would explain a lot about my sexual frustration, sexuality and gender confusions, it went like this,
"I don't like boys or girls, I like me"
I guess I could learn something from myself when I was 17.
