music

January 9, 2026

The Soundtrack of My Life – 46 – A Minor Incident

Since spotify got off their bullshit to stop running ads for ICE, I have made a happy return to the streaming platform, even though it still uses AI for it’s suggestions and “wrap-ups.” And I thought “why not do another ‘soundtrack post’ with one of the most depressing fucking songs?” So, here it is.

Back when Charlie and I started dating, I got this album for myself from Best Buy (our favorite store at the time, since one had opened up in town) with a Christmas gift card. For whatever reason, this soundtrack makes me think of Christmas time. Maybe it’s because that was when I first saw it or because, of the two main characters, one of them lived on the wealth of their father’s Christmas song.

Also, I have this weird habit that when I fall into “depressive episodes” I will watch the same film on repeat. This was the film, at that time, that I had in a loop.

The story telling/writing in it is phenomenal and has some of my favorite actors in it: Rachel Weisz and Toni Collette. (Rachel Weisz is one of the 3 women who could make my forsake my homosexual life for a hetero one.) The musical score and the songs elevate all of this to another level for me. I had to have the soundtrack as my own.

As I do, I became hyper-fixated on 3 songs on the album. The one of above being one of them. It’s the song written for the scene when Marcus’s mom tries to end her life. The lyrics in it address the loss of words one experiences when faced with someone who attempted and, luckily, failed in their effort. So, what that had to do with Charlie potentially taking a job in Iraq at the time is beyond me.

The logic of teenagers is obtuse at best. They’re melodramatic and find resonance in things that don’t really pertain to certain scenarios. As like this one.

Charlie was an over the road trucker at the time, but he wasn’t making as much money as he wanted. He was always looking out for the next, better opportunity to further his ultimate goal: to be filthy rich like his dad.

As the made up war in Iraq/Afghanistan was killing innocent civilians and rebels fighting the imperial invaders over their oil, a job opportunity was presented to him by his father. His father worked for Oxy at the time. The salary for driving an oil tanker over there paid enormously, but it also was very high risk. (Obviously.)

He toyed with the idea because he wanted the money but terrified because he didn’t want this job to end his life before it even began. I wish I could remember how long he entertained the idea. From my memory it felt like weeks but I’m sure it was just A WEEK if not DAYS. Regardless, I told him, at the time, that I would wait for him when he came back. He told me that would be dumb, but I really wanted to live that “war wife” fantasy.

So in my obsession of the above song and him potentially going off to work in a war-torn country, I dedicated and played it for him, expecting some big “oh, wow, that meant so much” from him. Which shows how little I knew of my future husband at the time. I’m surprised I didn’t hear his eye-balls rolling from across town.

What I find odd about this song is it actually pertains eerily closer to how our relationship ended than it ever did at the start. Even as I listen to it now it was almost like I was casting some magical spell over our relationship and cursing us to the fates we found.

“There’s nothing I can say to try to make you feel okay. And nothing you could do, to stop me feeling the way I do… And if the chance should happen that I never see you again, just remember that I’ll always love you.”

I feel that in my soul, as trite as it sounds. The song echoes of the helplessness one feels watching someone struggle with something you cannot change. Then there is an undercurrent of understanding, that it is out of your hands but regardless the singer will be there. Through all of it.

As it pertains to us, it almost feels like each of us takes a turn singing one verse to the other. And in those verses that I feel Charlie would sing, they bring me comfort, even though the song breaks my heart. It also highly improbable that he would have ever openly admitted those words to me, even if he meant them.

October 27, 2025

“You and I”

One of my favorite time of years is coming up, NaNoWriMo. If you’ve been reading this trash blog for some time you will know I have done this event a few times in the past. The first time I participated, I wrote my first ever novel length work of fiction. The one I subsequently have edited the last 12 years of my life.

For this years assignment I decided that since it starts on Charlie’s and my wedding anniversary (as it does every year) I wanted to write about our life together. It was something I had come up with back in April when I had a TikTok go viral. It was a brief cut of our “Not There Yet…” video blogs along to the song “I love you, I’m sorry” by Gracie Abrams. (I’ll post it below.) It exploded more than I had ever thought possible. And it showed me that people cared. The comments are where it really thrived because I had people tell me their own sad stories or give their condolences. Of the hundreds of messages 98% of them were the beauty and kindness humanity is capable of offering.

This lit a fire in me.

I decided that I was going to write a book about our life together. I began brainstorming and came up with web outlines that really shaped the narrative of our life together. It gave me the perspective that there is something there TO share. It wouldn’t just be a random collection of events strung together with only the narrative thread that I would one day lose him. There was advice for polyamory, infidelity, growth, marriage, family, and eventual loss. And not to forget it would give my husband’s death even more meaning.

But like most of my good ideas, my enthusiasm fizzled out and I was consumed once again by the shroud of my depression. Which is fine. I’m grieving. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

To keep my idea alive I kicked it down the road and told myself to do it in November, when I have the chance to participate in the month long writing event. Also, around the same time period of when we started dating in 2003.

I had debated with myself if I wanted to keep it private or post each entry onto my webpage. What I have come to is: for the sake of uninhibited emotions I will write it for myself. Of course, with the intention that I will get it published because why would I write something if not for a reader to read it?

This morning, to get myself in the headspace to begin this month long journey, I put on an album Charlie had given me when we first dated, Jason Mraz’s “Waiting for my Rocket to Come.” It makes me think of him every time I listen to it, and of those early days. This little exercise sent me into a downpour of tears.

The first song on the album is “You and I.” In the past it never really stuck out, but today it did for the simple fact that out of all of the songs on the album (within my “genesis” playlist) this had it’s own album art. Every other track has the actual cover, where he’s sitting on a curb talking to a rooster.

As the song played on the lyrics popped. For the first time I really listened to the song, but within the context of doing this project. It felt like Charlie was talking to me, and that’s what brought about the tears.

(I would post the song for you to listen, but I am no longer using Spotify as they support ICE. And I am nothing if not a bleeding heart hippy liberal douche.)

As a result, where I had been unsure if I was really going to follow through, this gifted me the resolve to actually do it and not just say so. It was my husband prodding me from beyond the grave. Well… beyond the wood box that currently rests on my dresser, in which he resides. (I am cackling at my own joke. I hope you did too.)

@opinionatedandcrazy

My husband was diagnosed with ALS during 2020 and passed 4 years later. Even with a pandemic that didn’t stop us from doing road trips. #als #grief #loss

♬ som original – ᴀᴛʟᴀs
February 25, 2025

The Soundtrack of My Life – 45 – Fade Into You

If there ever was a song that encapsulated an explicit emotion, it is “Fade Into You.” For me it’s this listless yearning for another moment long ago, while ignoring the impending “end.” The lyrics for me are immaterial. I have resigned myself to the fact that while they tell a story of something else entirely, the song itself is a “mood” (as the kids say.) Listening to it brings memories rushing to mind and they play out like a highlight reel within the movie trailer of my life. The moments are surreal and short, comprised primarily of instances where there is just “peace.”

I started leaning into the song when I was waiting for Charlie’s end. While the tune was soothing it would press tiny cracks into my heart while it played. Inevitably it would make me sob because, like I said, the music is living in the moment right before it and everything around it is over. I would relive all of the minuscule moments between him and I, wanting nothing more than to return to them. Back when none of which I was living was even a remote possibility.

Today is one of those where I don’t want to be here. I don’t have any purpose in my life. The want that I had, being a writer, seems utterly ridiculous as the world I exist in hurtles toward fascism. I write about my queer life and gay shit. That’s not really welcomed in the Christo-fascist agenda. My very existence will be outlawed at some point. They’ve already begun the gears turning toward that inevitable conclusion. Gay marriage has been made illegal in Idaho with the express purpose of making it to the Supreme Court so they can reverse the prior ruling.

It was nice while we were a progressive society but here we are… Same shit, different day. Which is why I’d rather not endure this RIDICULOUS song and dance. Just kill me already. Jesus! Watching the world crumble around me is exhausting. Primarily because no matter what I do, it will do nothing. It will stop nothing. I am insignificant in the big scheme of things. Which, for the record, is an observation and not a complaint.

The one “good” thing my husband’s passing did was free me of the “fear of death.” It’s a dark thought, yes. However I welcome it with open arms. Only then can I be reunited with Charlie, wherever he may have gone. He will tell me how over dramatic I was and that I was using him as a prop to garner pity. Or he’d just say “dear…” and tilting his forehead down, look at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

Last night I concocted this story where a man becomes roommates with death. At first he’s scared of him, avoids him at all costs for fear that his new roomy might claim him at any moment. Predictably, as time marches on the two build an unbreakable comradery where when the main character least expects it, his life is taken away. But there would be no ill will between them. He would just look back at the times they had shared together.

I must reassure you that these are not thoughts alluding to a solo “attempt.” While I recognize that they are concerning to the normal mind, however it is me just accepting that which I cannot change. I merely exist here for the moment before I’m distracted by further doom.

Just know these two irrefutable facts: 1) I am conceited and would not deprive my presence to the few who know me and 2) I would not purely for the possibility that one day my mere gay presence may make someone’s day miserable.

November 8, 2024

Were I With You…

Today my phone actually connected to my car without me having to take any extra steps. It turned on my ipod and put all my entire library on shuffle. For the most part the songs were skippable with clips of stand-up comedy sprinkled in between. But when this song came on I stopped and started to ugly cry.

My husband loved Chris Stapleton in the last few years of his life. When his newest album at the time came out, he sent me this song as a “message” from him to me. It was the best way he could express his emotions because he was not someone who could say what he felt. Instead, he did it through songs. Which is why, when he would forget the songs he “dedicated” to me it broke my heart a little. I know he meant nothing by it, it was just his bad memory. Plus, I have a tendency to remember the most innocuous bullshit.

I like to pretend that this isn’t just some random happenstance, but that its my husband speaking to me from the beyond. Most who have lost someone do this. It’s so hard to let go to the people who were so impactful on your existence. Even when you had 4 years to get used to the idea.

After the election I could really, really use my husband’s voice to talk me through it and let me know that everything will be okay. I wish I could snuggle up next to him, rest my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. He’d put an arm around my back and hook it onto my shoulder. He wasn’t one for physical intimacy, so I had to grab it when and where I could.

His heart was so loud in my ear. I liked to think it was because he had a larger than normal one, in the cutesy way and not in the “this is a medical condition” kind. It would be slightly tarnished because after he passed, that was how I knew he was gone. I placed my ear to his chest and I couldn’t hear it anymore. He was gone. He had left after I began to panic that he was in pain and rushed to the kitchen, with Tony, to get the medication to keep him relaxed.

I was so worried during the first Trump disaster than gay marriage would be repealed and I would lose our marriage. Luckily it didn’t happen. Instead he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and he was physically taken from me. Maybe having our marriage nullified would have been better… But he would have been diagnosed regardless. So I guess I should take the “win.”

It’s weird, how this song absolutely applies to me now. I’m entering into my 40th year of life. And there isn’t any pot of gold. Just a lake of shit and death.

The night of the election I genuinely thought about taking an entire bottle of pills. It was quickly dismissed by two things. One, was the promise I made to my husband before he died. He wanted me to keep living and have lots of adventures. With my word given… I would be more devastated by breaking it than dying. Two, I won’t give these fuckers the satisfaction. I’d rather stick around and annoy them. Kick them in the nuts if I get the chance. Maybe punch a couple of the nazis if I get the chance.

Only time will tell.

I just wish I had my best friend with me. The “Josh Whisperer.” He knew what to say and do to soothe the unruly beast that lives within my thoughts.