Me Against The Music: An Audio Retrospective

I love collecting things. I have a knack for it: comics, t-shirts, books and yarn just seem to accumulate around me. It's a gift (or a curse, depending on your perspective). And that's not even counting the seemingly endless digital copies of things I've acquired due to the wonders of technology. 

While some of my collections have come and gone (I still don't quite understand what the point of Pogs was, and precious few Beanie Babies have survived subsequent purges), a few have been steadfast companions. One of the oldest (and by far least organized) is my music collection.

Over the years I've collected music from countless sources: recommended lists, television soundtracks, random mixes, suggestions from friends, and free downloads were all my domain. I collected indiscriminately, first in cassettes, then CDs, and now in the form of MP3s. Over the years my collection has evolved to be mostly digital -- and it's still a mess. 

Whoever said that digital copies would cut down on clutter should have a chat with me. My music collection is baffling and somewhat frightening. I have no idea where a large chunk of my music came from, or what possessed me to add it to my listening rotation. Some are dubiously titled. A lot are damaged from the time I tried to save my collection from a dying laptop, and was only semi-successful.

And because of streaming music, I've neglected it for some time. It's easy, it's fun, and it's exposed me to tons of music I otherwise would never had heard. I've discovered new artists I love and can finally understand a lot of pop culture references that were baffling me (there are downsides to not listening to the radio for years on end). The only downside to this brave new musical world? My own music collection has been cruelly neglected.

My iTunes has grown dusty and decrepit from lack of use. If digital music could grow moldy, my collection would a science experiment. But no more; I'm going to tackle it head-on. I will listen to every track in my collection, and record the experience for your edification. 

The good, the bad, the one-hit wonders I still adore and the 'classic hits' I can't help but loathe -- all will be confessed to. I'll keep the ones I genuinely like, and let the rest go.  No matter how bad, shameful, or straight-up weird the songs may be. 

So gird your loins, kids: this could get ugly.

Dusting Off The Blog

Metaphorical dust, naturally. This is the future and the future has no dust. Unless it's space dust.

Just some general housekeeping. I'll be moving all the Charlie Black posts over to a new blog, creatively titled CharlieBlackBook.blogspot.com. Oh, and I'll try to post more. I can't guarantee that will happen on any sort of schedule, but it will.

Additionally, I'm going to try writing on this blog more regularly as well.

I said TRY.

Don't look at me like that.

Adventures In Sleeping (Or Not, As The Case May Be)

I have trouble sleeping. Like, a lot. You name the trouble, and I have it. I have troubles sleeping that should logically counter each other, and others that don't make any sense at all. Sleeping is very, very hard for me. I frankly wouldn't bother except for that whole pesky 'biological necessity' factor. 

You think I’m kidding? Here is a brief list of the troubles that plague me when I try to settle down for the night:

• It takes me, on average, at least an hour to fall asleep. At least. I lie in the dark and count sheep and focus on my breathing and get in touch with my goddamn chi or whatever the hell it is that’s supposed to make you relax, and it can still take me hours to fall asleep. It doesn’t matter if I drink warm milk, or read relaxing poetry, or whatever you probably want to suggest right now.
  
  The bottom line is that unless I am drunk, I’m not falling asleep for a while. No matter how tired I am. And even if I am drunk there’s a pretty good chance I will just sit up giggling at stupid pictures on the internet instead of trying to sleep.
  
•  I have nightmares. Some are standard, trauma-related nightmares that are actually scary to an outside observer. A lot are about the zombie apocalypse. Some are harder to explain. Why was it so horrifying to share a salad with Stanley Tucci while sitting on a grand piano? You tell me, Freud. Regardless of the variety, my nightmares suck. And I have them almost every night. So even when I am asleep, it’s not exactly restful or pleasant.
  
• I wake up a lot during the night. We’re talking 3 or 4 times a night. For no reason. It’s like my brain really hates me, or at least hates the parts of me that like sleep. SCREW YOU, ASSHOLE. YOU WANT TO SLEEP? YOU SHALL HAVE NONE OF THAT. NONE AT ALL. And of course, once I wake up I have to start the whole ‘falling asleep’ process from the beginning.
  
• It’s hard to wake me up once I fall asleep. That might seem counterintuitive to what I just said, but here’s the thing. I can wake myself up no problem. If a mote of dust is getting too big for its britches I will be up like a shot, ready to defend the homestead against all invaders. But if, say, another person or alarm clock attends to wake me, it’s nigh on impossible.
  
  This isn't a new development. As a kid my parents would stand over me yelling in the hopes of rousing me. Threats, tears, and bribery were all ineffective. But if my dog wandered down the hallway at any point during the night, I was awake in an instant.
  
• I can get up, turn off a complicated alarm clock on the other side of the room, and go back to sleep all without waking up.
  
• I talk in my sleep. All sorts of talking. Not just murmuring softly under my breath like a normal person would. I can have full-fledged conversations with people while being zonked out. I almost never remember these later, which can lead to hilarious arguments about ‘Why didn’t you pick me up at the train station?’ and ‘Why were you laughing when I told you I was getting sick?’ Sleep Me is also kind of a dick.
  That’s not the only type of talking I do, though. For a while I would recite movie lines in my sleep (I have witnesses, who continue to view this as a singularly awesome trick). More recently, I will pick up conversations I am dreaming and continue them OUT LOUD, which is genuinely terrifying to people in the vicinity. I have friends who will vouch for the fact that I have yelled ‘SHUT UP’ at 5 AM at people who are NOT IN THE ROOM WITH US. This can be hilarious or fucking scary as hell, depending on the hour, the people, and what exactly I’m shouting.

The thing is, I like sleep. A lot. It’s one of my most favorite activities. Sleep is the best. And I would like more sleep, preferably without dreams of sharing salad with celebrities or whatever other horrors my evil little brain can concoct. Look, sleep is a pretty basic function. Many, many living things can do it. Newborns can do it. My dog can do it, and he is afraid of pretty much everything.

So in the hopes of returning to the loving embrace of slumber, I’m going to try out some apps that promise to help me fall asleep. And stay asleep, hopefully. I’ll let you know if any of them are wildly successful or delightfully counterproductive.

I’m pretty sure sleep isn’t supposed to be such a challenge. On the upside, I’m very close to evolving immunity to caffeine.

Musings While Sending Out Job Applications

• HOW can you require 15 years of experience for an entry-level job? Does entry-level mean something other than what I think it means? 

• I should do a shot for every resume I send out. The last few cover letters will be HILARIOUS. 

• 'I want this job because TEENAGERS ARE FLICKING BOTTLE CAPS AT ME WHILE I TRY TO SEND OUT RESUMES AND FRANKLY I CANNOT HANDLE THIS EMOTIONALLY.'

• I could be an Avon sales associate. I've worked in sales before. I'm good at sales.

• Holy shit I would be the worst Avon sales associate ever, I would totally smear black eyeliner all over my eyes and be like WHAT BRAINWASHED SUPER SOLDIER AM I hey where is everyone going.

• I should be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Not a high-level agent, but you know, I could get coffee for the important people. Clean Captain America's shield. Schedule the Black Widow's hair appointments. Arrange for Clint Barton's therapy. 

• A quick Google search proves that if S.H.I.E.L.D. is hiring they are not interested in electronic applications.

• How many more years until Starfleet exists? I mean they gave Jim Kirk a spaceship, I just want employment.

• DISCLAIMER: Kids, do not search for fictional jobs online. You will be disappointed by reality and become a bitter shell of the human condition.

• I feel like I'm applying for a blind date. A terrible, terrible blind date I don't actually want to go on but need to for complicated personal reasons. Of course blind dates don't usually ask for salary requirements, in my experience.

• I love when cover letters start to feel desperate. 'I'm smart, pleasant, and hard-working! I am the life of the party! I will fill your life with dizzying joy and also file all your paperwork!' If I met the person I'm pretending to be while writing this, I would punch them in their stupid perky face.

• Sending out cover letters is the actual worst, and anyone who says otherwise is selling you a load of lies. Back away slowly.

Notes From The Abyss

So, this blog will be resurfacing soon. With new posts about life, the universe, and fandom.

Plus, I'm debating releasing my much-discussed novel on here in chapters.

This corner of the web has been dormant for too long. Time to dust it off and start anew.

Children Are Our Future

For a while, I was a substitute teacher. I was not very good at it. I like kids, and generally enjoy them. I have a sibling and babysat a lot when I was younger, so children are not frightening or mysterious to me. But being a substitute teacher - a good one - requires a person of uncommon qualities. I did not have these qualities.

Maybe if school started later, it wouldn't have been an issue. I am by nature a night owl. I despise morning. Waking up at the crack of dawn to deal with a herd of screaming children, all demanding your rapt attention, is one of the circles of hell. So whenever I was called in, a lucky class full of bright-eyed students got a cranky, semi-comatose substitute who wanted nothing more than to declare an eight-hour nap time and curl up under her desk.

Despite my groggy demeanor, the students overall liked me. I often started class by stating, 'Look, I am not your teacher. I'm just here for the day. Let's just get through your work and we can all relax. You guys still take naps, right?' I didn't pretend to have any real authority, and I didn't bully them. I liked to think of myself as a cool older relative whose primary goal was to make sure nobody ate paste or set anything on fire.

I think my failure as a teacher can be summed up in one day. I was subbing for the art teacher, which is only slightly less hilarious than the time I subbed for the gym teacher. If I had to run for my life, I would die. If I had to draw a map to save my life, I would die, after being ruthlessly mocked for my tragic stick figures. But the administration didn't care about my inherent artistic abilities, so I was the art teacher for the day.

Teachers are supposed to leave you a syllabus for each class. You follow the syllabus, and unless a kid tries to stab someone with a crayon, it's pretty uneventful. But as the first graders filed in, I found myself without an assignment for 30-odd hyperactive 7-year-olds. It was not an enviable position.

It was the day of President Obama's inauguration, and I knew the kids had all watched his swearing in. I had what I thought was a brilliant idea: I told the kids to draw something that made them think of America.

"It can be a picture of the White House, the flag, a bald eagle, whatever you think of when you think of America!" I enthused. I'd had a lot of coffee that day, and was pretty pleased with myself. The kids would color, I would read a book and not have an existential crisis when I discovered that small children had more expensive phones than I.

And it worked. For a few minutes. The kids colored industriously, with a modicum of talking. I oversaw their work, feeling like a Real Educator. Then one little boy approached me to show me his drawing.

LITTLE BOY: I drew the White House!

ME: That's great! And who is that outside it?

LITTLE BOY: John McCain.

ME: Um... OK.

LITTLE BOY: My parents like him. They say he should be President.

ME: A lot of people thought that. But that's what's so great about America - we can all have different opinions.

I'd like to mention that I was enormously proud of my diplomatic response. And then it all went to hell.

LITTLE BOY: I don't like Obama.

At this point I should have pat him on the head and distracted him with something shiny. 'Look, an iPod! Justin Bieber! A unicorn! Justin Bieber riding a unicorn while building an iPod!'

If you are thinking of being a teacher, my one piece of advice is this: do not engage in political debate with someone who just recently mastered eating solid food.

ME: Oh? Why is that?

LITTLE BOY: He wants to kill the penguins.

ME: ....What?

LITTLE BOY: The penguins. He wants to kill them.

ME: The penguins.

LITTLE BOY: Yes.

ME: Kill them?

LITTLE BOY: Yeah, he's going to kill them.

ME: I don't think the President wants to kill the penguins.

LITTLE BOY: Oh, he does.

ME: We don't have any penguins in America.

LITTLE BOY: Well, he's going to drive to the penguins and THEN kill them.

By now the boy was looking at me like I was either incredibly stupid, or part of the Penguin Killing Brigade. And I realized I was arguing with a 6-year-old about the leader of the free world hunting down and murdering flightless birds.

It was a surreal moment.

Luckily, the situation was defused by the arrival of snack time. Rather than alerting the principal that I was plotting the demise of penguins, the little boy scampered off to enjoy his juice box.

As I watched the kids dig into the Goldfish Crackers and wheat-free cookies, I glanced down at their drawings. If you recall, I'd asked them to draw what they thought of when they thought of America.

Almost all of them had drawn money.

An Internal Monologue I Have Far Too Often

Me: I'M DYING.

Common Sense: No, you're not.

Me: No, really, this time I am. Totally. Dying. Like, the dead kind. SO DEAD.

Common Sense: What is it this time?

Me: My nose is stuffy and I'm coughing and cold and achy and tired. 'Because I could not stop for Death-'

Common Sense: You have a cold.

Me: LIES. Lots of hideous diseases present as colds, and you think it's just a cold, then BOOM DEAD.

Common Sense: Stop it. You do this all the time. It's tiresome and exhausting. Hypochondria is not charming.

Me: Just wait until I am dead from EBOLA. Then you'll feel stupid.

Common Sense: You don't even know what that is. Anyway, remember when you had an ingrown toenail and decided you had toe cancer?

Me: I was kidding.

Common Sense: Yes, but you were also legitimately concerned that it meant something was really, really wrong with you.

Me: It COULD have been a sign of a degenerative disease.

Common Sense: This is JUST like when you accidentally cut off that other driver and were convinced he would hunt you down.

Me: Road rage is a legitimate concern. Anyway, you should be nice to me. I AM GRAVELY ILL.

Common Sense: OR you are just overtired and eat terrible food, and your body is rebelling.

Me: ....Dying.

Common Sense: You know, when you're actually, genuinely sick, people don't believe you. Like the time the doctor said it was just anxiety, and it turned out to be a double bronchial infection.

Me: He was a TERRIBLE doctor.

Common Sense: Very true. However, perhaps people would be more sympathetic if you weren't ALWAYS sick. Tired is not sick. Bored is not sick. Annoyed is not sick. And sick does not automatically equal HORRIBLE, EXPLODEY DEATH.

Me: I know, but if I expect the absolute worst, anything else will seem tolerable.

Common Sense: Could you at least do it quietly?

Me: Fine. I have a cold.

Common Sense: Thank you.

Me: Which is EXACTLY how things started in The Stand.

Note: While writing this, I Googled for rare diseases out of curiosity. And ended up reading about necrotizing fasciitis. And panicked over the idea of getting it. There's a lesson here, but I'm too busy buying stock in antibacterial soap to think about it.