Monday Mix Tapes: Autumn Leaves, Old Ideas

Leonard Cohen made it hard for me to work today.

This Monday started like many do in late September—sun pouring through the leaves, green but tinged with the hints of yellow, orange, and amber soon to come; a slight briskness in the air that hints at the cold soon to come; and me visiting NPR First Listen and squealing with glee at the albums soon to come.

At the top of the First Listen page, there's a black-and-white shot of Lucinda Williams, badass as ever in her leather jacket, heavy eyeliner, and a look in her eyes like she’s either just knocked out a man or put back a double shot of bourbon, maybe both. (Lucinda, I'll get to you soon!)

I scrolled down: Perfume Genius! Mapei! Sondre Lerche! And finally, LEONARD COHEN.

Because Mapei has one of the catchiest pop songs I’ve heard in quite some time (“Don’t Wait”), I listened to her album first. And while I think the reviewer got a bit heavy-handed with the whole theme of ear-candy/candy/pop music/sugar, “Don’t Wait” certainly has that “kick of cayenne” that makes a caramel go from merely tasty to memorably delicious. Which is to say, okay, I get it. Overall, it’s definitely a pop album I’ll return to, even though the second half starts to feel a bit flat, and I could really do without the majority of Mapei's rapping.

Back to Leonard. Prior to his 2012 album, Old Ideas, I was a scattered and halfhearted fan at best. I realize of course that this admission would make most Leonard Cohen fans snort, or pat me on the head and say, “Okay, dear.” That said, ask me how many fucks I give, now as well as then. I was too busy, at the time I was falling in love with Old Ideas, writing lyrics from “Different Sides” in my journal and committing them to heart (“Both of us say there are laws to obey/but frankly, I don’t like your tone/You want to change the way I make love/I want to leave it alone”).

I fell in love with the low growl of his voice, his lyrics (!), and his backup singers. I listened again and again. I revisited his old songs, the albums I’d once listened to halfheartedly, and marveled at my former self. Who was I, that I wasn’t enthralled by “Dance Me to the End of Love,” “In My Secret Life,” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”? I guess it’s no different, really, than how I now cringe at the memory of the Good Charlotte poster that hung in my college dorm room in 2002.

Our tastes change and adapt over time. Today the trees outside my Chicago window are full of yellow- and orange-tinted green leaves, but too soon, there will only be bare branches. Leonard Cohen’s voice sounds pretty much nothing at all on both Old Ideas and Popular Problems like it did in 1969 on Songs from a Room.

It feels fitting that the 80-year-old musician—yes, he turned 80 years old, yesterday, Wikipedia informs me—would release his latest album, Popular Problems, in the fall. A season, that for me at least, marks some of my happiest and saddest memories, and for those of us in Chicago, some of our last days of warmth as another winter looms. As I wrote several years ago, “the air has that crisp, cool feel once again. It's my favorite time of year, but it also makes me feel homesick as well. Not even homesick, exactly, but more like longing for something lost, a place that no longer really exists.”

Of course, Leonard puts it better, on one of my favorite tracks from the album, "Did I Ever Love You?":

Was it ever settled
Was it ever over
And is it still raining
Back in November
The lemon trees blossom
The almond trees wither
Its spring and its summer
And its winter forever


This album is packed with songs that tackle everything from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to torture, killing, and all “my bad reviews,” and even though it—tragically—is a mere 36 minutes long, Leonard’s clearly in no hurry. After all, he kicks off the album with “Slow,” a song that feels equal parts sexy and self-deprecating, and all parts fucking terrific.

The seasons will change, as will my tastes and probably yours, but I can guarantee that my still-recently acquired love of Leonard Cohen is here to stay.

“It’s almost like salvation; it’s almost like the blues.”



Popular Problems comes out tomorrow. 

Shameless Self-Promotion: 'It's Never Too Late' for HelloGiggles

[image by Marco Nelor]

I wrote about my love affair with yoga, and HelloGiggles was kind enough to publish it! I'd love it if you check out the entire post, but here's an excerpt:

A few years ago, I dated someone whose mother was a yoga instructor. He’d be a ball of energy after doing mysterious stretches in his living room, saying strange things about “sun salutations” and “downward dogs” — I’d think how weird the notion of a “down dog” was, then go back to reading my book and feeling annoyed by his energy. A couple of times, he tried in vain to get me to attend his mother’s yoga class (if I remember correctly, my stubborn refusal led to a rather embarrassing argument in Border’s). No way. I was not going to a yoga class. I was not going to sun salute in the effing living room.

But then, I would see lithe, calm-looking young women on the train, a yoga mat rolled up and nestled in their bag. I would scowl at them. Yet inside, I secretly wished that I could be the type of woman who commutes across the city with a yoga mat in her bag. Later, further evidence about the magical powers of yoga happened when one of my co-workers started strolling in the office with a grin and energy levels that seemed almost manic as she hopped on my desk where I sat slumped, drinking instant hot cocoa. Her face was glowing. It was actually glowing.

“I’ve been doing hot yoga!” she would squeal. “I’ve been getting up at 5…”

And then I tuned her out. Getting up at 5 in order to take a bus halfway across the city, only to enter a steaming, 98-degree-heated room packed with all those lithe, calm-looking young women I’m seeing on the train? No, thank you. I will stay in bed and sleep. So when I thought again this fall about how much I wanted to be active, I said nothing about it. I just decided to do it. [read more...]

Hope you like it, and thanks for reading!

A Settled or Regular Tendency or Practice, Esp. One That Is Hard to Give Up

habit |ˈhabit|
noun
1 a settled or regular tendency or practice, esp. one that is hard to give up: this can develop into a bad habit | we stayed together out of habit.

Although I hate to be cliché, sometimes there’s validity to certain clichés (Read: New Year’s Resolutions) if you’re really serious about something. I’ve been thinking a lot in the last week about my goals for this year, and the active steps I want and need to take to reach those goals. Doing so, in actuality, is something that’s been building up for several months, as I’ve been trying—and yes, it requires actively trying—to work on being a better me, if I may continue to sound like a total cliché.

Mostly, what I mean by that is actively working hard to achieve what I want out of my life. Taking work seriously. Thinking about where I want my career to lead. Writing. My health.

And so on. And so on. Insert the other standard clichés about how people hope to better themselves. Is it still a cliché when it is your reality?

There’s something about all this thinking and pondering and planning out this person you want to become. It’s inspiring, yes, and helps me stay motivated. But somewhere along the line, I tend to forget about the person I already am, and like. Or maybe more accurately, certain things in life I really enjoy. Little things, you know, little habits and behaviors. Like the way when I order an orange San Pellegrino at my favorite coffee shop, Café Mustache, I never take a glass of ice so I can pour it from the can, but instead, I grab a straw. Once I’m seated at my table, I peel the top foil off slowly, click on the top of the can with my nails, then pop it open and put the straw in, afterward taking only slow sips. At no other time in my life or in any situation does it occur to me to drink out of a can in this way, or to really enjoy a drink like this at all. I like how it looks, sitting next to my laptop as I write for work, and how it tastes perfectly clear and delicious as it comes up the straw and then down my throat, smooth and refreshing.

It’s silly, in a way—I don’t even order that every time I go to the coffee shop. Most of the time, I’m just drinking glass after glass of ice water and nursing the same large El Jalisco (seriously, go try it sometime) for the entire afternoon I sit there, writing. But for many months, dragging my laptop the few blocks to Café Mustache on Wednesdays was my habit, my thing, because I work from home on Wednesdays. Many weeks my girlfriends and I would all meet over there so we could work together, or just sit and talk. Or like the day after the big blizzard last year, Rachel and I trudged over there, knee deep in snow and basically walking down the middle of California Avenue because there was no other way to get through the heaps of snow. There have been plenty of solitude afternoons spent at the coffee shop, but there have also been the heart to hearts with Lauren, swapping music with Natalie, the Tarot readings at the big table, or just a group of us laughing and talking, maybe a little too loudly. It was a comfortable habit, one I looked forward to each week, and more so if I knew one or more of the girls were meeting me when I was finishing up with work for the day.

So today — in the midst of all this thinking about creating new habits and breaking old, bad ones —I decided instead to revisit this special one of mine. It had been months since I’d worked at the coffee shop on Wednesday, and months since all of us had met up there together, and both are for plenty of reasons, like changes in schedules, one or all of us being too busy, or for me, just needing a change of pace. I had somehow gotten sick of my routine, and as with other places in the neighborhood, I had started to avoid the coffee shop like it was haunted. But when I walked in today, right when there were plenty of open tables and Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” record was playing, I felt the same sort of happiness I feel every time I pull my car into my dad’s driveway. Like I was coming home.

I had my San Pellegrino, with the straw, of course, and a bowl of the veggie chili. It was everything I’d wanted it to be. That morning, I’d been struggling to write and focus, but once I was seated at the familiar big table, I just kept writing. After awhile, I took a little break and texted Lauren, and right then they started playing Radiohead’s “In Rainbows,” which for a lot of reasons makes me think of Lauren. (The year we had our joint birthday party, we’d sat at the bar together, feeling anxious before everyone showed up, and the only thing that seemed to calm us was the song “Videotape” for whatever reason.) It was an odd, but wonderful, moment of timing.

By 5:15, I was finishing up with my work and still feeling good, but a little uneasy. About what, I’m not sure exactly. I packed up to leave, and as I walked out the door and down the sidewalk, my left hand caught in my tangled ear buds in my pocket and my right hand hoisting up my bag, I almost turned my ankle by sort of tripping over my own boot, right after I passed someone I thought I knew, but maybe I didn't. Because I wasn't sure, and mostly because I'd almost tripped over nothing, I didn't turn around to double check.

Some things never change. Although I’d like to hope that one day I’ll stop tripping over my own feet, that’s probably something to add to that list. But just like new habits can make you feel accomplished, sometimes there really is nothing better than indulging in the comfort of an old, safe one.

My iPod was on shuffle as I headed home, feeling like I'd just seen a ghost. This wasn't necessarily a good or bad thing, just a feeling. And this is the song that came on:



If it had been "Thinking About You," I probably would have died, or at the very least, completely tripped. But even so:

I got something, I got something I don’t know…

A Change is Gonna Come

Winters in Chicago are long, and they’re rough. By the time spring finally starts to roll around, it’s like Chicago explodes. Where the hell did all these people come from, I ask myself each year. Were they hibernating for the last five months? Even if it’s just a tease, like today, when the sun is shining and bars start opening their patios—although really it’s only 54 degrees and not warm, exactly—I feel my spirits start to lift.

The sun is shining. Warm weather is coming! Longer days and music festivals and flip flops and sundresses and vodka lemonades!

These are the kind of wild ideas that torment and tease us all until it really warms up for good. You know, in June. But there’s something about that anticipation, that wait for spring and summer, that I think makes Chicago summers feel, well, just fucking magical. Believe me, I know. Last summer was during my brief stint back in Indiana, and having to stick out a winter in Chi without the gift of summer was akin to getting grounded the week before spring break, and sitting at your grandmother’s house while all your friends went to the beach and partied without you.

I was thinking about this as I sat in my favorite coffee shop working today. The door was propped open and the sun shone bright into the doorway, the breeze blowing in almost warmly, but not quite. It felt like spring. It almost looked like spring. But across the street, the trees and plants were still bare and brown.

Sometimes it feels like winter is never going to come to an end. Every year, I have to question: Okay, when exactly will there be green leaves on the trees again? When can I finally not be bundled up every time I step out of my apartment? But then, like magic, one day I walk outside and they’ve just appeared. And suddenly, it’s spring.

It’s hard to keep faith that change is coming sometimes. Last year at this time, I was about to start packing up my apartment to move back in with my dad. I’d been waiting tables, interning, and job searching for two years, and nothing had happened. I felt like I was driving repeatedly into a brick wall, then getting out of the car, and banging my head into the wall for good measure. I felt defeated. I was broke, and knew I had to go home. While I tried to put up a brave face, and I reminded myself over and over that not all people were fortunate enough to have a parent who would invite them to move back in, rent free, at the age of 26, I still felt like a big, fat, fucking failure. The first week back in my childhood bedroom, I laid awake in bed each night, my heart racing, wondering if I’d still be sleeping there in a year. In five years? IN TEN?