Hidden Pugmarks

Supposedly this song, according to most people, is about doing heroin or other drugs. Some people say that it's about sex.

I can see those references and and I can see reasoning behind those statements, but to me that isn't what it's about. It uses those thing as metaphors and avenues for explanation.

I see it as about being in a relationship. One of those relationships that people don't approve of, for whatever reason. It's that feeling of a double standard when you are with someone and your friends can't understand it, but it's perfectly fine for them to date whoever they want.

It's about the stress that a situation like that puts on the relationship. It's about that terrible discussion of where you try to get across that you want to keep working at the relationship and you hope that they do too. It's about looking at the person and being able to tell them from the heart that they are the only thing that's real in the world.

Tune in tomorrow for “Company”

So apparently I slacked yesterday and I didn't get my entry done. So that means today will be a double dose.

“It's so good, to believe…”

I have no idea what this song is really about. I know what it means to me though. That line quoted above is the one that really hits home. It is so good to believe.

I have a great appreciation for people who believe. I believe in my friends and my family. I believe in myself. I can't seem to believe in those big vaporous things that so many seem to be able to believe in though.

I tried believing in God. I wanted to. I wasn't able to though. I am drawn to people who are believers in things like that. People with faith. I think I'm drawn to them because I want to understand how to develop something like that. How can I gain this sense of being tied to something greater and all important?

How can I learn to pray away my sins?

I hope my children can find this type of faith. It seems like a wonderful source of personal strength.

When I failed to find God in my life and in my ways, I found faith in people. I believe in people. I believe that everyone I meet is a good person deep down inside until the prove me wrong.

I learned how to find the good in each person. I also learned how to find the good inside of every situation no matter how bad it may seem. Sometimes there isn't any saving grace for something that seems bad, but there usually is.

If you happen to find your faith in Palm Readers, so be it. I don't really believe in it, but my sister does. The palm readers/tea leave readers/psychics that she visits once a year are eerily accurate quite often though. Especially this year.

They knew that a younger man in her life had moved for a new job recently and had a health scare. That aptly describes my year. This person she saw also said that this younger man would find everything he was looking for where he was now. So hope against hope, dangerous weapon that it is, I want to believe in that.

I want to believe that I will find everything that I am looking for here in Montreal.

Alas, I'm not a believer in fortune telling or God. Just myself and those around me. So I will not let my hopes rise high enough to cut me down.

Tune in later today for “Self Righteous”.

This song is about remembering someone from your past who died before their time.

I don't know if everyone had one of their friends slip on to the place beyond life while they were in junior high or high school or not.

Some how I think that there tends to be at least one tragic story for every class that graduates from high school. Some kid who died working his after school job or overdosed on drugs or just passed on doing something stupid.

For my class, and for me, it was my friend Kenny. We were in grade 12 when he shot himself. Well, there is still some question as to whether he shot himself or it was an accident, but everyone knows better than to play around with loaded guns.

Plus, the things that had been happening in his life and the conversations he had been having with people seem to lean toward it having been something intentional, and it was ruled as such.

I remember his wake. It was hard for me. Very hard. In a strange turn of events my family and I had once upon a time lived beneath the funeral home that his wake was at. I know, how many funeral homes have apartments in the basement? I have no idea. It's odd, and kind of creepy in retrospect.

It put me in this strange situation though, where here I was in a place filled with great memories of growing up, all of the fun and games; while at the same time it had become this place of death and sorrow.

I went to the wake with the first girl I ever fell in love with. We are still really good friends to this day. I can honestly say I don't think I would have made it through that time without her. I will never forget the strength that our hug that night gave me.

I had always been a bit of a hard person. More like a rock than flesh and blood. Vacant of most emotion, at least on the outside. That night though, every step I took closer to the casket I felt all of those shields I had built up fall one by one. I remember very distinctly crying that night. I remember this, because I don't cry.

I know that his suicide in some ways saved my life. I know that it prevented my own. That, and the patient friendship of someone who is no longer in my life. Someone that I would move Heaven and Earth for just to be friends with again.

I can remember that some strange year book rule the school had kept him out of the book. He wasn't allowed to be in it because it was ruled a suicide. I can remember my friends on the year book committee, lying to me about it right up until the end. They told me he would be in it. I know they did it to protect me. I would have gotten into lots of trouble trying to get him into it.

I wish the last words I ever spoke to him before he left this life had been different.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment “Palm Reader”.

This is a song about the way the lead singer of 3eb felt after he and Charlize Theron broke up. It's about how he could never get away from her. She was everywhere. On magazines in stores, on tvs, everywhere. While this was a literal problem for him, I think we all feel this same thing after a relationship ends poorly.

It's the way that you can't get away from love. Again, I'll go back to they way I feel and understand love, it isn't physical or solid.

After a relationship ends that you aren't ready to let go of you see that other person everywhere. Every single thing will remind you of them. The scent of her shampoo lingering on the pillow case. The emptiness beside you on the bed. The volume of e-mail you don't receive any more. The loss of the candles and thoughtful letters. That soft smile greeting you when your eyes flutter open the days first light.

You walk out into the city. You see their favourite restaurant. Their favourite book store. Their favourite cake shop. You see their friends and hangouts. You see so many things that used to be amazing that now seem to be lacking because they aren't there with you.

The waking hours are longer. The sleeping hours are shorter. The dreams are stranger. You are sadder.

It just takes time. There is no quick fix. Even though they aren't there you just can't get away from them. Eventually most things will go back to normal. If the feelings were strong and pure though, certain things will always remind you of them. There is nothing you can do to get around those things.

There are still things years later that I miss about some women that have passed through my life. Things that will never fade. I think that's a good thing though. It means that those relationships were important and special.

I still love all of them in a different way.

Tune in tomorrow for “Wake for Young Souls.”

“My people are the misfits
The ones that don't fit in
With the smile I know it comes within
I can feel you in the corners laughing when the lightings low”
…
“Those are the ones for me
Those are the ones for me
The misfits, the freaks, the enemy, you and me”

Ever been a misfit? Felt like a misfit? Thought someone else was a misfit?

I've always been a misfit. I've never really found a place or a group where I was like everyone else. I've seen circles of people that you can look at and tell that they are obviously friends, because they are all the same.

I have always been me. Nothing else. Nothing less. How would I be anyone else?

From the way I dress to the foods I eat to the way I work to the things I find fun to, well, everything, I am an individual.

When I was in high school there was a very obvious division of the student body. One half were the “Preps”, the other half the “Grubs”. I straddled the line. One day I would hang out with one group and the next day I would hang out with the other. I just floated in limbo. I couldn't understand the source of the division. I still can't see what was so different among those groups. I guess that's because I didn't really fit in to either group.

I have certainly found great circles of friends. Great individuals. We get along and we have fun and we are what friends are supposed to be. We don't necessarily like all of the same things, but we all like enough of the same things. We are all quite independent. We are all quite dependant on each other.

I count myself lucky to be among my group of misfits. People who have gravitated toward each other over class, gender, religious, and even national boundaries. I think, like I'm sure everyone else does, that my friends are the greatest.

In a way, we are all misfits in the end. We find the people who are freaks from the consumer advertised definition of normal in the same ways that we are. In those people we find family and solace. Comfort and strength. Support and laughter. Even inspiration.

And when we find that perfect freak we fall in love

Tune in tomorrow for “Can't Get Away”.