I’ll get to obligatory Crush Girl talk in a bit. In an effort not to keep writing the same stuff all the time, I’m switching it up a little.
It was an interesting week and a half in new music. Taylor Swift’s new album was followed immediately by new music from Tool, Elvenking, Tarja Turunen, and Visions of Atlantis; then just two days ago a new album from Sonata Arctica, which I was totally not expecting.
I still haven’t given Tarja or VoA a spin. I was kind of stuck on Taylor during drives to (and at) work, which left Elvenking for drives home. I listened to Tool and Elvenking during walks until Friday, when I bumped Sonata Arctica to the top of the list.
I don’t think many readers of this space are fans of power metal, so I’ll (for now) spare everyone the details, but the Elvenking is better than the Sonata Arctica, but the best songs on Sonata Arctica are better than the best songs on Elvenking. There are a couple of slow songs on the Sonata Arctica that I suffer through but will probably be skips after I’ve given the whole album ten spins or so.
Also, I like Elvenking’s folk-flavored brand of the genre. Plus the album cover is better. I think I’m going to buy this one on CD.
Sometime in the next week or so (ha!) I’m going to post a song-by-song breakdown of the Taylor album. It would be a great ten-song album, but it’s mostly just an okay eighteen-song album, and boy is it overproduced. This is the most disappointing thing about it, the layers of production unnecessarily covering up the Taylorness.
The new Tool is so much better than indicated by commentors’ responses on metal blogs. I’m disappointed in these fans but happy that critical response seems pretty good. I’m not ready to discuss it yet — it’s going to need several more listens. Also this is the band’s album cover ever.
I’m not as miserable over Crush Girl as I’ve been. There’s an aching hollowness in a weird, annoying place that might have been there all along without my being aware of it, but now I feel it and think about it all the time, and it’s making life kind of disappointing.
Someone I know has guessed Crush Girl’s identity. Like, with no problem. This concerns me a little, as I’ve tried to be pretty opaque about this all. I’m definitely not nicer to Crush Girl than I am to others around me, at least as far as I can tell. Except for the dark clouds floating over my head all the time, I’m pretty much the same person I’ve been. Ugh. I don’t really need the world knowing about this.
In the absence of possible romance, I want to be Crush Girl’s friend. That’s going to be a little achey at first, and possibly forever, but I’m willing to bear it. This brings up all kinds of issues I’ve debated with the friend who figured it out. The friend seems to think Crush Girl’s accepting of normal acts of friendship are leading me on, giving me a feeling that there’s hope for something more.
My feeling is that it doesn’t matter. Hoping for something more is not the same thing as expecting something more. Feeling crappy but having a normal friendship is far, far preferable to me than feeling less crappy but not getting to do normal friend things.
My being shot down in flames is better for our friendship, right? Jocelyn (who endures pretty much all the anguished conversation of Crush Girl since this started six months ago) thinks Crush Girl’s friendzoning me makes it easier for Crush Girl to be friendly. I’m already in the friendzone; she can be extra friendly if she wants and have the F word to shield her from my masculine romantic aggression, such as it exists (and I am beginning to think it doesn’t). I’m okay with it. Friend who figured it out doesn’t think I should be.
These past two weeks haven’t been as lean as I intended, so of course I’m worse off for the next couple of weeks. I’m talking a lean couple of weeks coming up now. I’m thinking of going full-on poverty for the first week so I can try to have a normal week the next, but that never seems to work for some reason. It’s too bad, too, because I have a few car things I want to have taken care of soon, and they’re going to have to wait.
I’ve also had my eyes on a new guitar. Crush Girl feelings demand some kind of outlet, and is there a better musical muse than a new instrument? I’m thinking of cruising the pawn shops next weekend just to see if there’s a decent bargain out there, to tide me over until I can afford something new.
I was going to do Friday 5s from the past two weeks but this is too long already. I’ll do them later.