Slumming

The last time I thought I was in love was fun and fast and over pretty quick. It is good that it was over quick... within the first date I witnessed 3 negative marks from my own list of "relationship" criteria (on which there are a minor 10 items, so 3 is pretty bad). I knew these things, and still I marched onward with reckless abandoned.

The first time I met him he was dressed in an all-white, western-cut suit and white hat, and part of a bluegrass ensemble all dressed just like him... dreamy. He was the mandolin player in that band, and it was like meeting Elvis... he was the one, and I knew it immediately, and he was, the one, the only one, for two months.

He was also the bass guitarist in a honky tonk band... exclusively, by the time we began dating, the white suit and hat were a thing of the past. Bar rooms, whiskey shots and risky women abound, I loved it, for those two months. In retrospect, two months was probably just about the length of time I could convince myself I could live this way.

These boys had serious love affairs with very dangerous men, and although I have tremendous commonality with that, it wasn't such a good match. They wanted to be Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings... all nighters and beer hangovers were their idea of a good time, and it was, for... two months.

Tonight I happened across their recorded "Portland sessions", before their album came out, if their album came out... and realized that I don't even have the final mixes to these songs I soaked into my consciousness that one Summer. Timidly, I put the CD in, and was pleased to realize that, aside from my blind-love for a boy, deeply entrenched in a lifestyle I would never be able to embrace, I still like his music, silly as it is.

Songs like, "Either Way We're Fucked", and "Livin' on Pabst Blue Ribbon", not to mention, "Too Broke to Overdose" reminded me of the disparity factor... while, "Be My Crutch" made me misty with those memories of drunken whispers.

That boy, I understand, made his way to Tennessee, I hope that means Nashville.