Upright and Breathing

Six years ago, as part of the overflowing package of vaguely university-related paraphernalia I received upon moving into the freshman dorms, I received a compilation CD – a dozen or so artists of that particular period (Moby, etc.) all contributing a song in the name of some social cause (I think it was ending world hunger). The first cut on this album was a remix of a G Love and Special Sauce song which, while not the greatest four minutes ever burned into silicon, was good enough to last to this day on various hard drives and iPods.

So this weekend, the editor of a magazine I freelance for on a semi-regular basis decided to leave me with two tickets to G Love at the 9:30, as a means of apology for paying me six months late for two articles. They were for Sunday night, which ordinarily means time for Netflix and reheated pizza, so I was glad at the chance to head out. The opening band came and went. The lights went down. Little strips of yellow paper kept fluttering from the ceiling. Then G Love came on, and burst into song, and in a minute of confusion dawning on vague wonder, I realized that the song I had been carrying around for the last fourth of my life wasn’t actually by G Love at all – either the initial CD had been mislabeled; or somehow along the way I had mistakenly named the song something else, and my Loki of a brain, my occasionally treacherous mind, had gone back and re-etched my memory to make me think it was G Love. Anyway, I’m standing there under the bright lights open-mouthed, experiencing an epiphany about the nature of memory and time, two random girls in front of me engaged in some sort of lipstick lesbian routine for the benefit of the practically slavering frat boys in front of them, and I say, in what would be the most random comment of the evening if anyone could hear me over the roar of guitars and drums: “Wait! You’re not a Hispanic rap group!”

I am a quarter-century old now. There was a brief existential crisis at around midnight last Thursday, but that passed after a brief phone call to the ever-reliable Ben:

Ben [sleepy]: Hello?
Me [sitting in front of laptop, working on the book, sipping Zinfadel and listening to Pachabel]: I’m floating in the existential black.
Ben: What the fuck time is it?
Me: It’s too late, man.
Ben: You’re the editor of a major magazine. So what if you haven’t published the Great American novel yet. Go back to bed.
Me: (beat) Okay.

And I realized, despite my continual bitching, that I really do have a lot to be thankful for:

1. I am upright and breathing.
2. Ronald Reagan is still dead.
3. Salmon roe.
4. E. (The person, not the drug)
5. I have the ability, despite the flimsiness of building a career on words, to put a decent roof over my head.
6. ‘24’ was renewed for a fifth season.
7. Angelina Jolie
8. The freedom to make snarky comments without being tossed in a ditch and shot.
9. That I don't live in a red state.

So that’s that, for now. I am thinking about doing one of those DNA tests that National Geographic offers, to trace my ancestry back to the first human.