Bravado

"It's in our nature."

-- José González

--

I didn't know José González was from Sweden. He's also got a PhD in the works, suspended on account of his music fame. Thus spake Wikipedia.

Last time I listened to the Argentinian Swede, I was on a friend's couch in Lexington, KY, listening to the acoustic passion and trying to figure out how many more days--at minimum--I had to stay in Cincinnati. I felt tethered to the city by a flimsy wire, a contract I'd signed halfway through my last semester because I was a little desperate to show off that I could get a real acting job right out of college. False bravado, an opening gambit of knights before pawns, of buying property before passing Go. The visit to Lexington was a brief reprieve, and I had to be back the next day, but there were eight or so Strongbows between the drive and sleep and me, and so, with little regard for musicians let alone geniuses, as I watched my friend flick and float her hands to the music, I simply nodded and pretended that I, too, had a direct pipeline to God.

The things we do. Now that I've found his CD anew, oddly wedged between "Popular" and "Alt. Rock" at the local library, and now that I've listened to it again, I genuinely dig it.

--

In a related case, another friend told me about this band, Eagles of Death Metal, and their awesomely-titled album, Death by Sexy. I nodded that time, too, maybe even winked at someone else at the table and shrugged. History repeats itself; humans make themselves creatures of habit; habits revisit unkempt haunts.

I listened to that album all day today and I like it, too. I've even recommended it to my sister. Borrowed suggestions are best, like referenced advice.

--

I once stood in front of a group of people and toasted the idea of being ourselves, and not preparing faces to meet the faces that we meet. This was after a girl toasted the same group, pretending to know all of us in some way. I was a little drunk. I thought I was being noble, devoted to this idea of honesty and rawness, like a painted masterpiece proud of its scar.

But here I am, importing songs into my library as if it were my idea. Passing on borrowed knowledge. The things we do.

After that toast, I bided time and treaded inside water for about ten minutes before I excused myself from that fancy feast and ran to rehearsal, around the corner and down a block. I was directing, and I had to pee before I got to the room. I was late. I sat on the couch with five friends and one stranger, all peeved, and tortured them with their own words for an hour before apologizing and sending everyone away. I sat there. There is a mirror in that green room, and I looked at myself in it. I was still wearing nice clothes and I smelled like alcohol and I wondered what the hell I was going to do after I left this covered hovel of a college.

--

Tomorrow, I go back to an office job. I get my own cubicle, as I've said before. And there is a fridge and a coffee pot with accustomed customers, and I will join their ranks and try to keep my head low, below the partitions that separate our stations. Rumors abound. Backs are bitten by unknown nouns, formless serpents, invisible jaws. Microcosmic conflicts, little patches of turf so ruggedly defended, all admist the whir of quiet machines and under the watchful eye of nonseeing puppets and dragons on posters. I go to the other side of the desk.

I become the desk, in fact.

The last office job I had afforded me many minutes for leisurely blogging and tremendous thumb-twiddling practice sessions. Sometimes a bathroom break to stave off the boredom, and while I sat on the toilet lid with my pants up I could stare out the marbled window and imagine sleeping in a park, or sinking my bare feet into cold lake water. I go back to that bathroom tomorrow.

I don't exactly know what I'll be doing tomorrow for five hours, other than nodding and pretending to love the bureaucracy, but the not-knowing almost suits me more than the need to know. Tell me tomorrow. For now, let me nod and sleep.