BOTB Results and SOML ~ Promised Land

If you followed the voting (at all) on my last battle, you'll know it wasn't even close. Dave and Vanessa chocked the first two votes and that was it. Those votes saved them from a Shut-Out, because The Strokes ran away with it after that. I found The Strokes video first and the duet second. I wanted something different, which is why I chose the duet, but I also wanted something competitive. Different: yes. Competitive: not so much. I really like Dave Stewart in that duo, but didn't care much for Vanessa Paradis. From your comments, many of you felt the same way. Ergo, The Strokes took it by a huge margin. Oh, and Lou Reed got one vote, despite the fact that he wasn't in the contest. He nearly tied Dave and Vanessa... sigh.

Let's move on from that disappointing bit of business.

I'm going to do something fairly unusual for me and "nutshell" a big chunk of my NYC story.

J1 joined the Army and requested placement in Germany, which he got. We went through the letter fiasco, the him not calling, and finally the me calling him, followed by a brief meet during his layover in NYC. I don't know what would've happened if Desert Storm hadn't happened. Had he just remained in Germany (likely not calling me), I think the relationship would've just died a fairly quiet death. The ole out with a whimper versus the bang.

Instead, Desert Storm did happen. That generated terror all the way around. I lived in a constant state of anxiety to the point that I developed enough severe gastro-ntestinal issues to seek medical help. I can say with certainty that an Upper GI is no fun. Fortunately, I didn't require the Lower GI for them to see the problem. I also discovered therapy. As for J1, I suspect being in that high stress situation caused him to hold on when he might otherwise have let go. (No, it never occurred to me at the time that if not for his facing death on a daily basis, he wouldn't have been so interested in connection with me. Or, to put it more plainly, if he was just living it up in Germany, he might've met some nice German girl!) However, he wasn't meeting nice German girls. He was in the desert concerned about his next breath.

So, in the irony of ironies, this actually brought us closer. He used what phone calls he had to call me or his parents. I ended up calling his parents and becoming very good friends with his mother. J1 and I didn't talk daily, but I did talk daily with his mother. It sounds strange on paper, but the reality was it felt very normal. We were both scared to death for his safety and loved him. The bond formed easily.

As for my daily reality: I liked my job. I made some good friends at work. Sag, Jennifer the Second, and I liked living together (in Queens). In 1991, Jennifer the Second and I moved to Manhattan and Sag moved in with her boyfriend. That was also good. We spent a good deal of our free time in that Queens apartment playing cards and listening to music. The song that sticks with me is this one. I always thought of J1 when it played. I realize (now) that it took me a really long time to allow myself to be angry with him for his choices (choosing the Army, choosing Germany, choosing not to call me, etc.). It took even longer for me to accept I was angry with myself. But, it must've been there all along, because when this song played it resonated with me.

My blood is running dry, my skin is
My skin is growing thin 

For every time you find yourself
You lose a little bit of me 

Honey, from within 

It's just a raging cycle
Why can't we bring it all to the end of the line (I'd like to bring it to the end of the line)
From inside this existence, oh sweetheart
Time is not on my side

I'm lonely tonight, I'm missing you now
I'm wanting your love and you're giving it out

I'm not your promised land

I'm not your promised one

I'm the not the land of Canaan

Waiting for you under the sun

I'm lonely tonight

If you're enjoying these posts, feel free to share your own Soundtrack. This isn't a hop. No requirements at all, but a suggestion to do it one song at a time. (If you participated in the hop several years ago, you can still do this. Just post them one song at a time, with the freedom to add more songs if you'd like.) I'll link to all participants at the bottom of each of these posts:

StMcC Presents BATTLE OF THE BANDS

Cherdo on the Flipside 

Holli's Hoots and Hollers 

THE DOGLADY'S DEN 

Mean Who You Are

Wrote By Rote