Ghostly trails

Finals blew, I barely knew
my graduation speech
and with college out of reach
if I can't find a job it's down to Dad
and Myrtle Beach

So, I'm bailing this town-or
tearing it down-or
probably more like
hanging around,
hanging around

Everyone I know is acting weird
or way too cool
they hang out by the pool
so I just read a lot and ride my bike
around the school
Aimee Mann -- Ghost world

This post on the wonderful UV's blog made me think of Aimee Mann's Ghost world, a sublime hymn to the directionless teen, of which I was (and in many ways still am) one, although I didn't fail to graduate.

Aimee Mann is a tremendous observer of the little human things (which are, in their way, the match in importance of the big things). If you don't like her, you are either:

Deaf
Stupid
A teen.

If you're deaf, you have my commiseration. If you're a teen, at least you might grow out of it.

I didn't quite end up in Myrtle Beach (although I get the feeling the places Mann was singing about are not a million miles from suburban Brisbane) but I certainly wanted to get out of the small town I lived in as a teen. I wonder what Mann would have made of rural Gloucestershire, which is where I finished high school. It's pretty but what good is pretty to a 17yo kid who is all cock and spite? I thought uni would put me right.

More fool me. My disaffection ran far deeper and I was never able to overcome it. I'm not whining about it. I think it's one of my best qualities; it's the same thing that drives me to want to know about the world and the things in it, the thing that makes me jealous of others' knowledge, determined to make my head an encyclopaedia.

Or is that a best quality? Perhaps not. There have been more than a few times in my life when I've wished I were more able to be contented with less.

Of course you think a lot about these things when you have kids, particularly when you have new ones (because they are a fresh start, and you haven't yet fucked them up even a little). I think I would rather mine did not grow up directionless.

Aimee Mann goes on to sing:

And all that I need now
is someone with the brains
and the know-how
to tell me what I want...
anyhow

I used to think it was a bad thing to want things for your kids, you know, to want them to be doctors, lawyers, what have you. But I've grown to learn that it's worse not to want anything for them. You help condemn them to becoming, like you, ghosts of the people they could be.

posted by Dr Zen @ 4:16 pm