No alarms and no surprises

E-word,

Thanks for sharing that story.  It's still amazing to me that you lived in a pre-gentrified Dupont Circle, the kind of semi-bohemian life you led back then seems virtually impossible nowadays.  You and your friend T*, the formerly skinniest man alive ever.  Heavy blankets, painted plastic covering windows, crumbling plaster walls, and a boombox(!).  Isn't it amazing how vivid our memories are of things like that?  

I had to give some thought to another song that brings back some horrendous memories, but one I love nonetheless.  I thought of a time that I've shared before, but I can think of this story from another angle.  About 11 years ago I was in Seoul with my family, and we were staying at the Holiday Inn.  We were there to celebrate the election of the president.  I managed to get pretty sick (a combination of borderline alcohol poisoning and a stomach virus), and was stuck in bed.  I had broken up with A**a at least 8 months previously, but she was deep in my feverish mind.  I remember time moving so slowly, and a kind of never-ending loneliness.  I honestly didn't think I could go on- I was puking constantly into a trashcan off the side of my bed (getting puke all over the edge of the mattress cover, oh, it was ugly), I was dehydrated, aching, and probably suffering from alcohol withdrawal as well.  I was sharing the room with my brothers, who I think were trying to take some care of me, or maybe they were just stuck in the room with nowhere to go.  There wasn't much to watch on tv- it was either American Forces tv or this international music video station, so we ended up watching a lot of music videos.  I don't know if my brothers were in the room at the time, but I remember hearing the song 'No Surprises' by Radiohead.  I didn't know the song at all, but it was very distinctive with the chiming guitars.  I remember watching the video, and seeing a skinny guy who appeared to be in a plastic vestibule that filled with water.  I may have only been aware of the song and the video for 30 seconds, but I remembered it vividly.  There was probably something I related to very strongly in that video, the claustrophobia and drowning of some skinny and kind of ugly dude.  

Needless to say, I survived.  I remember asking my brothers if they knew about this Radiohead video.  Back then my family was really detached from television, so none of them had any idea what I was talking about with regards to the video, and I never saw the video again until, coincidentally, quite recently.  Of course I had fallen in love with 'Ok Computer', and in the back of my mind I always remembered when I first heard 'No Surprises', but when I saw the video again, those times of feeling things so terribly floated back to the surface.

It's funny, being young.  I survived, of course I survived, but at the time I felt like I was drowning.  I want so much to be home, to be somewhere comfortable.  I was sick of being sick, I was sick of being so lonely, I felt so starved for touch, for love, god, I think back to prostitutes and how no amount of tenderness from them could ever make me less lonely, how getting laid was the last thing on my mind.

I don't know where I'm going with all of that.  I have one more song which I'll mention later, but it's definitely a sweeter nostalgic memory than this one, even though I still ended up losing.

Sorry for the lack of coherence.

Love,

Toe