it's november. my least favorite month of the year. two years ago i went through a pretty damn tricky emotional rollercoaster the last week of october/month of november through, well, damn. i guess june of the next year? but 2008 winter was particularly cold. 'the coldest winter' i guess you could say. there's a song called that, you know. by a one and only mr. kanye west.
now before you start with the involuntary eye rolling, this post isnt about how awesome/amazing ye is and how he's my hero with his bravado and ego antics and sneaker collection. i don't care what kinda dude he is, and even though i'll step up and speak on his behalf (at the chirp hip hop primer/education night last week they mentioned ye, called him a 'horrible rapper' to which i spoke up, 'dudes he rapped with his jaw WIRED SHUT,' to which someone said, 'no that was fiddy,' 'HIS BREAKOUT SINGLE WAS CALLED THROUGH THE WIRE, ABOUT HIS CAR ACCIDENT AND HOW HIS JAW WAS WIRED SHUT,' 'well, whatever, his album with autotune was obnoxious, his crying about getting dumped' 'HIS MAMA DIED.', the subject quickly changed and i'm pretty sure i lost all musical credibility with everyone in that room.) but whatever. you know? i hold a special spot in me for some yeezy. tangent aside, he was kind of non-ironically speaking, my savior of sorts.
sure, i enjoyed college dropout. late registration was a cool enough record. (now days ill retract both statements and say AMAZING albums, but at the time, i was ambivalent with slight interest). graduation i enjoyed, but was re-emphasized to me by a certain pal who meant more to me than they'll ever realize, with really poor timing.
2008 was a life changing year for me. i fell in and out of love. with different people. but i was in a relationship. a serious relationship. so the falling out of love part, well, that sucked. and anyone who knows me knows i'm no longer in said relationship. to this day, we're pals and i'm ever so grateful for that, truly. and i'm good and over the dissolution of the romance, but at the time it was like getting hit by a car and only realizing you'd never walk again months after the fact. at the time, just like any breakup, i knew it was for the best and i was anxious to get away. but then when it inevitably happened, well, anyone who's experienced a breakup from a serious relationship knows what i'm getting at.
this was right before the coldest winter. i had no friends in the city. even though i lived here two years, i realized i could count my friendly acquaintences on one hand. one, being my roommate, who conveniently enough, had her heart smashed to smithereens the same time as me. and we were both pretty fucking miserable. in our case, misery did not in fact, love company. well a certain somebody (mr. west!) had just gotten dumped by his fiance and lost his mama. so yeah, his least credible record to date, 808's and heartbreaks, was the ending result. autotune overload. hardly his masterpiece, i can't really argue with critics who trash it. but do i want to jump up on my soapbox and defend it to pieces? fuck yeah. just like the smelly kid in gradeschool, you KNOW homeboy smells, and chances are 9.5/10 that you (and me, cuz i was that kid), didn't defend the kid at the time - but looking back on it now, don't you feel like a shithead? well, i will admit proudly that i still enjoy 808 and heartbrakes, but tangent aside, the reason this record means shit to me isn't because of 'robocop.'
anyway. fuck. this ramble is going longer than i projected. something about 808's matched my mood at the time. i think 'heartless' is still my number one most played song on my laptop's itunes 2 years later. i couldn't stop. i just kept listening. as lame as it is, there was something with that album that reached out to me and kanye helped fuel my depression, empathize with my broken heart, yet encourage my desire to move on simultaneously. and like the winter of 2008, as soon as it blossomed into spring/summer that next year and my feelings finally returned to that of a normal, hopeful - even, human being, i shelved that record into my dusty cd rack to be forgotten about.
2 years. man, that's a long time. a year later, i met somebody else and couldn't believe my luck. how happy i was! i met so many new friends. i was in a good place. emotionally/physically/professionally. then shit fell apart. lost my job. went through another kinda/sorta/notreally/butyes,really breakup. drifted apart from friends. had some fallouts with my family. which brings me to now. i'm starting to rescrap from the ground up. the dark period is behind me. it's time to stand up proud, and say fuck all ya'll haterz (or douchebags, jerkoffs, scumbags, assholes - as ye puts it). and you know what? dude is kinda retarded. the video/film he made for 'runaway' is laughable to put it lightly. dude falls in love with a bird. they try to feed the bird a bird and she freaks out. some ballerinas come out. bird hangs out with deer and shit in kanye's yard. then the bird bursts into flames and kanye's sad. but you know what? i get where he's coming from with this song. it's his 'fuck you guys, i said i'm sorry and i tried to do right. if you still can't be down with me, i ain't gonna let you drag me down anymore. good bye deadweight.'
i like that philosophy. hence, tonite was my toast to the douchebags. i locked myself up in my bedroom and went through some much needed personal self-therapy. watched bad movies i've secretly been jonesin' to see for months but was too embarassed to admit. enjoyed a glass of wine. cuddled with my kitty and meowed at her like i was in heat. ate a steak dinner for one. listened to kanye's 'runaway' on repeat on my new headphones. and took a 90 minute steaming bath where i treated myself to every miniscule beauty treatment i possibly could endure in the convenience of my own bathroom. fuck, gave myself a foot scrub/massage. haven't done that shit since, well, 2008 i guess.
moral of the story is: everyone's got that one trigger. maybe it's not music for everybody. maybe it's a location. time of year. food. scent. person. for me, i guess everything that sort of narrates or relates to my emotional struggles and triumphs comes down to music. and kanye is hardly the maestro to my life; the soundtrack of my life is much more expansive, i assure you. but you better well goddamn believe that he's at least a chapter. and to say i have high hopes for this new record is putting it lightly - but expectations? non-existant. i'll either love it or not love it. there's always going to be november 2008.
so i think it's time for us to have a toast.
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