Siamese Dream

It is one of those periods of my life right now where nothing in the world sounds as good as the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. These periods of my life happen every so often when this is quite possibly the best record ever made and it is all I want to listen to, the layers of noise building and slowing, Billy's Corgan voice on the edge of a snarl, too knowledgeable about the world to try for more, and me blasting this album as I walk around the streets of New York or from the comfort or discomfort of my apartment, its rhythms mirroring a driving restlessness in its listener, a desire for more than what is before them, something other, the perfect soundtrack not only for suburban teenagers but also for men coming into adulthood and its attendant concerns with a career (there now being the distinction from a job, mind you), the soundtrack for people vaguely unhappy with their lot. Just as when I was fourteen, fifteen, this sound gives voice to a very particular form of dissatisfaction.

These Siamese Dream periods of my life are not the same as the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness periods of my life. They are similar, yes, and if you asked to explain how they are distinct, I would probably be at a loss, but just be aware that they are two distinct things. Right now, I am going through a Siamese Dream period.

It has been lasting a good week or so. It started the day before my second interview at this new hotel that I am trying to get a job at. It is what I listened to on my way to the interview to get me amped up for it. The interview went well and now I am in that painful period of limbo wherein I await judgement, wherein I await a phone call or an email from a person to tell me whether they liked me enough or not enough, whether I will get this job and can say good-bye to my current one that I want to leave so badly or whether I will feel that crush of disappointment knowing how close I was, how I did not get it, and how my quickest escape route from my current job has been closed off, how the quickness with which change, the big kind, can occur has been slowed dramatically.

I have been fantasizing about getting an offer from this place and have imagined countless times telling my boss I would be leaving, the joy with which I would turn in my two weeks notice. I mentally stage this throughout the course of my workday way too often, the day not being able to come soon enough.

I wish there was more to write, but there really isn't. My brain has been consumed with this since my second interview, wanting to know whether or not I got this job. I have been watching a fair number of things as well, making my way through the rest of the first season of Louie, through the first season of Downton Abbey, through The Descendents, through The Iron Lady, and partly through The Tree of Life (a movie which I slept through a large portion of due to the not very good idea of getting stoned for it).

I have also been fantasizing about going to Costa Rica, about running for City Council next year and what that would entail, about the hands of one of my straight co-workers and about how I want to go to a movie with him and hold these sexy hands throughout the film, about a new job, about swimming in the ocean and being on sand, and about what this life is and what it could be. I am not saying it's not great, not hardly. I sometimes complain a lot and reach for things just out of reach, but I am also incredibly happy and grateful for this life I am living and every thing and every human body in my life. The joy I get from walking around with my headphones in while "Disarm" plays is immense, is enough to tilt this world off its axis. I am so insanely lucky and I get chills of pure joy when this song plays, knowing that I am alive.