My Jam

I have been listening to this song on repeat for basically the last decade or so. Bonnie, my old roommate and best friend in college, used to have this album, Bachelor No. 2. It was through her that I first discovered this person, Aimee Mann. This is one of my writing albums, one of the albums that helps get really inspired to write and yet isn't too distracting that I can't both listen to and also lose myself in writing. The other big album that I used to write a lot to is Gillian Welch's Time (The Revealator). Now, there is also Kurt Vile's Walkin on a Pretty Daze added to this list.

The other day, I called out of work so I could work on this project for school that I became totally sucked into - a choose your own adventure work about a guy post-breakup guy done in InDesign (What flavor of ice cream will he choose from his freezer?) and presented as an interactive PDF. Who knew InDesign could be so fun?

I listened to this Aimee Mann album over and over all day long as I lost myself in writing this thing. The one song that I would occasionally play on repeat though as I cycled again and again through the album was this one, "Ghost World." So fucking good! It takes me some place, everywhere, to every place I have ever been as I have thought about being some place else, some time else.

I still can't get enough of the song, days after writing this project, a decade or so after first hearing it. The song does make mention of my birthday, which I think is why I first was really drawn to it, but since then, so many layers of emotion have been discovered in this song, and so many layers of emotion have as well been added to the song, the countless times I have listened to this in some emotional state each reconjured in some small way with each relisten.

I played it this morning on my way to work, found myself moshing around to it at seven in the morning at Union Square waiting for my connecting N or R train to arrive. It put me in the best mood. I just played it again and again this evening. Very similar effects.