Unreliable Narrator

In that I change my mind often and with a general disregard for what I've said before. I wish sometimes I could be someone whose decisions were final. Unflinching, like a boulder. Except boulder, I know not how to be. I live in a constant shift of ideas,

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

In this. Even before, when I was too young to intimate knowing myself, I recognized something familiar in this verse. Something mine. I felt somehow that I'd grow up to be someone who changed her mind frequently, obsessively. Or just plain obsessive. I take the stairs to the top floor sometimes, when the day looks long, and like to mull things over. Dangerous, silly, long past things. Things I'm better off letting go of.

Can't.

I can't let go. So I return. Frequently. Feverishly. In the hope that maybe today, I'll come up with a final answer to the riddle. I never do. To quote another favorite poet, I'm as constant as a northern star. Constantly in the darkness.

I've envied always those women who could just walk away, and I say women because I've known women to obsess in different ways from men. I'm obsessive in the way of passing things, in that no one matter ever gets to consume all of me. I give of myself only slivers, thin, avaricious slices that I believe I can afford to spare.

I always stand corrected. I never can. The price of me I lose is inevitably too steep, and find my soul entangled in something that should only concern my memory. I think and turn things around, and change my mind. I can be convincing, and God help me when I turn my focus on my own resolve. I'm able to convince myself of anything. I wish that were a good thing.

The thing about me is I'll tell everyone you're the best thing since sliced bread, then hate your guts in the morning. And mean both, sometimes at the same time. Often. I like and dislike, can't keep my mind or heart steady long enough to save my life, so end up drowning again and again. Repeating mistakes, forsaking things I should keep. And ever challenging my own judgment in the moment, even as it becomes the past and my judgment changes.

I meant it when I said I think you're scum. And I mean it now when I say I think you're a good man, after all. Can not trust it to be linear, though I wish I could. But knowing me, I'm gonna change my mind the next day. I'd be terrible in a war. There was a lord, an earl, I think the Earl of Derby but I could be wrong, who it's said had pledged both sides his aid in the deciding battle between Henry VII and Richard III (you know, the my horse, my horse one, Bosworth Field). And it's said the man delayed his arrival and sat on the margin so to speak, picking the side that was already winning to join in with. After all, why should you be seen backing the wrong side? Interesting man, and I think sometimes, if I were an earl or a duke with a force to speak of, I wouldn't sit on the side at all, but probably end up slain by my own men, confused and irritated at a lord who kept changing her mind about which side to take.

I realize myself to be unreliable with most choices and decisions in my life. I'm curious by nature. Sometimes, I make decisions just because I want to see where they lead. Big, important decisions. I want to see how the story unfolds if I choose X, then change my mind. Then mean nothing. I realize, much as I love this place, I'm living with a foot out the door. And half in, half out ain't no way to live. I treat life like a story that I'm writing. I want to see what happens, but I'm not sure where it leads. I'm not sure if the main character, or indeed the plot itself, wouldn't be better served by the opposite choice.

So I change. I could tell you with some moderate degree of clarity what my character thinks now, but there's no guarantee it's going to be the same if you ask me tomorrow. And it's tiring and feels shit sometimes, 'cause people think they know where they stand with me, but they really don't.

I might've meant it when I said it. I might not now. I might again tomorrow. And I wish I could keep steady, but the truth is I'm just playing it all by ear. And I'm afraid sometimes it's gonna be the end of me.

How far I've come
Still miles behind you
We're all headed down that road
At some point, I'll try to find you
And grow a soul for when my time comes close

Anyway. That's enough of that. We'll burn that bridge when we get there, but for now, music. And since I've already talked of both Alison and Joni before, and I have sincere misgivings about Eliot's qualifiers as a 21st century pop diva, let's see what else we got.

This song popped up in my recommendations last week, it's a stellar cover of an old Tim Buckley song and I think this lady's voice does it immense justice. Been listening to several of her othe songs, and she's really something.

Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks

This needs no words, just something I listen to late at night while I ramble. It's worth checking out, whether you want to ramble or not. Figure out your head.

And I wanted to put something else in number three. I felt, when I first heard that song "man that's just it". But then (you guessed it) I changed my mind. Now I'm not sure how I feel about the song. Or about what I thought it reminded me of. I'm still deciding. It'd be a lot easier deciding and undeciding if these tools of the trade didn't rely on visceral, heat-of-the-moment emotions. So instead.

A classic. Their chemistry is (still) unbelievable. And Jack is (still) one of the best live performers I've ever seen. He's so given to what he does that you can't not love him. Was listening to this the other night and I thought it smells just the same way it did when I first discovered White Stripes. Like fresh-cut grass.

Well. Enjoy. Your week. The Music. Your life. Your decisions. Hi @ablaze - thanks for making us talk about music. Again. You enjoy it a little more than the rest of 'em.