Soundtrack/Battle of the Bands ~ I'm In

Today is the 15th and my Soundtrack post is once again aligning (quite nicely) with my Battle of the Bands post.

First, the story.

Still my sophomore year of college, for those of you only loosely keeping up with my Soundtrack feature. And this one features a boy. A different boy than the last Battle. I still have to tell you the story of how that one turned out (this year). Next post. I promise.

We're gonna call this boy J2. Yep, another "J" name. I told you they were prevalent. Not the same "J" name for the curious.

Anyway, it's spring semester and I can't remember exactly how I met J2, though I'm almost positive it was at a party at his house. Yep, he lived in a "party" house. Not an every weekend party house, but an occasional party house. Anyway, I really liked him and vice versa.

Our first date was something of a disaster, though. It was in the middle of pledging. I know I was very caught up in sorority stuff. And everyone in my pledge class and sorority were planning on going to this annual party the night of our date (it was a Saturday) called The Wild Irish Rose (maybe it was around St. Patrick's Day... that would make sense). Anyway, I really wanted to go to this party.

Even though our date was the same day as the party, I thought "no problem," because the date began early in the afternoon. We were meeting up with some friends of his. Turns out it was to play volleyball. I suck at all sports, including volleyball. I always stove my thumb. So, after I stove my thumb I opted out in favor of drinking. Yeah, it was drinking and volleyball. I thought I was a pro at drinking. Not so much. As you might imagine, I was wasted by five o'clock. Or somewhere around there. I'm pretty sure a dinner was involved, but it's all rather hazy on account of the "being wasted" I mentioned earlier.

As it approached eight o'clock and we were still nowhere near campus, I started to worry about The Wild Irish Rose. I'm sure I expressed this anxiety repeatedly. I was drunk, remember? However, that didn't hurry things along. We arrived at The Wild Irish Rose around 1:30 AM. I can't tell you what we were doing all that time. We were drinking. I remember that much. At least I was drinking. I think he was fairly sober, which makes me feel a bit sorry for the guy as I type this... he was really a decent fellow. And getting more decent by the moment.

The party was nearly empty and everyone still there was as drunk as I, if not more so. They served punch with Everclear in it. I'd been looking forward to this day for weeks, if not months, so you know I had some.... on top of everything else in my system. Frankly, I'm thankful at this moment that I didn't die that night. (an injection of humor, there)

Around 2:00 we venture back to his place. Not sure what he had in mind, but that wasn't what happened. He went inside while I stood out on the porch to "get some air." The next thing I know I'm throwing up from the porch into his bushes. Yep. Projectile vomiting. That's when he comes out to find me killing his bushes, (poor sucker) and then he holds my hair. Yeah, I know... so sweet. As I retched for the umpteenth time I was thinking, "Well, this is going to be one and done."

Turns out, he liked me enough to overlook that horrifying incident and we actually dated. So, J2 turned out to be my first boyfriend. In spite of vomit (which is a definitive buzzkill), he was still in... and so was I.

These are pictures of us at an annual dance called Fantasia. It was at this fancy hotel. I think you can tell I really, really liked him. I was so scared of the "L" word at this point that I think a person would've had to rip my fingernails off to get me to say it, but just because you don't say something doesn't mean you don't feel it. I was so in.

scanned photo

photos of a photo in my scrapbook

The song for today is I'm In. It was first written and recorded by Radney Foster. I've been a big fan of his for a long time. He's an excellent songwriter (and under-rated, I think). His singing career never really got off the ground. I think he was not country enough to get play on country radio, and not pop enough to get play on any other radio station. He gets an assist from Abra Moore. 





The second version is by The Kinleys. Radney Foster was a producer for the album this song appeared on, which is quite possibly why they chose it.





We've got so many new Battle of the Bands players that I'm having difficulty keeping up. (We post a new battle on the 1st and 15th of each month.) For those who've been following this feature/blog for a while now, can you believe that once upon a time -- for a long time-- there were only five of us??? Well, now the list grows each battle. So, if your name is not on here and you're participating, please leave me a message in the comments. Thanks for your patience!

 Also, please vote for the version of this song you prefer. If you want to get into the Ins and Outs of why you like one better than the other... I LOVE long comments!

For more Battle of the Bands fun, check out the other BOTB bloggers to vote on their battles:

• Far Away Series 
• Stephen T. McCarthy's Battle of the Bands Blog
• Tossing it Out
• DiscConnected (temporarily disconnected from BoTB)
• This Belle Rocks
• Mike's Ramblings
• Curious as a Cathy 
• Book Lover
• The Sound of One Hand Typing
• dcrelief ~ Battle of the Bands 
• Cherdo on the Flipside 
• Angels Bark 
• THE DOGLADY'S DEN 
• Jingle Jangle Jungle 
• WOMEN: We Shall Overcome 
• NovelBrews
• J.A. Scott

The Soundtrack of My Life, Going Through The Big "D" (and I don't mean Dallas)

If you participated in Battle of the Bands (June 1 post... and still time to vote!) than you know that we've slipped into my sophomore year at college.

My parents decided to divorce my sophomore year. When I originally wrote this post, the way I remembered it was that my dad sent me a letter letting me know that he and mom were divorcing. Turns out I keep a lot of shizzle, and when I was making scrapbooks I taped all of that shizzle in there... including the letter from dad. After reading the letter (again), I realized the letter was a follow-up to a phone conversation in which they dropped the bomb. But, all of these years later all I remembered was the letter. The brain is a weird place. If you don't believe me on that, you need to read some of my older blog posts. They confirm it.

Here's the proof that I did get a phone call and then a letter:

Click to enlarge

Here's the bizarre thing about my parents divorcing: I was expecting it. I'd known it was going to happen since junior high school and I watched the movie Heaven Can Wait. If you've seen that movie, do you remember the scene when the Warren Beatty character takes the Julie Christie character out to dinner? At the end of the evening he drops her off at her hotel. As she's walking up the stairs he calls from the parking lot, "My wife and I are getting a divorce."

She replies, "But you're not even separated."

He says, "Sure we are. It's a big house."

Granted, in that movie said wife was desperately trying to kill the Warren Beatty character for his money. It wasn't like that in my house. No one was plotting murder, and the house wasn't all that big. BUT, my parents lived very separate lives. In fact, there was a distinct lack of conversation. My parents could go for weeks without saying anything other than, "Pass the salt."

So, they didn't divorce because they argued all the time. They didn't. They simply didn't connect any more on any level, and even I knew it.

So, what was shocking about this turn of events? They did it before I expected. I really thought they'd wait until my brother graduated high school (and me college). So, I thought I had a few more years to adjust myself to the idea. I also thought it wasn't going to be "that big a deal" when it finally happened.

Boy, was I wrong.

If I thought I was in a spin freshman year, I learned what spin really was my sophomore year. I even wrote a research paper on divorce and why it happens. The whole world felt upended and my faith in the "lastingness" of relationships was at all-time low. Honestly, I'm not sure that it ever really recovered, because I still am amazed when someone says they're happily married after a whole lotta years. How do they do that???? What I learned in my research was that they do stuff together, take an interest in the other person's interests, and genuinely like one another. (You can understand something intellectually and still not really grasp it, if you know what I mean.)

What I'm trying to say is that knowing on a theoretical level what keeps people together and what drives them apart didn't change a whole lot for me. I was still messed up.

Just when you think that you know it all
You'll never fall and that it's all good
And you're gonna win again, it's a sin, that's gonna mess you up

Just when you think that you can't be touched
You're on your way up you think you're too much
That's gonna mess you up, it's your ego, your mojo, out of control

That's gonna mess you up, life has a way
To put you in your place if it needs to
That's gonna mess you up, leave yourself behind

Look around you'll find, it ain't all about you
In the end it's who you loved and who loved you
If it ain't the heart and soul stuff, that's gonna mess you up

Just when you thought that the girl was yours
She stuck it to you with a note on the door
Sayin' all take and no give, boy that ain't no way to live

She left you high and dry in the middle of the night
'Cause you didn't treat her right, that's gonna mess you up
You neglected, she rejected, should've expected

That's gonna mess you up, life has a way
To put you in your place if it needs to
That's gonna mess you up, leave yourself behind

Look around you'll find, it ain't all about you
In the end it's who you loved and who loved you
If it ain't the heart and soul stuff, that's gonna mess you up

That's gonna mess you up, life has a way
To put you in your place if it needs to
That's gonna mess you up, leave yourself behind

Look around you'll find, it ain't all about you
In the end it's who you loved and who loved you
If it ain't the heart and soul stuff, that's gonna mess you up

Have you ever been through a divorce? Your parents? Your grandparents? How did you cope?