I know it’s not reciprocated, at least not equally. Sure, there’s
people out there who are wondering about me, but really, all it takes
is a Google search on "Aubrey" for them to find out that yes, I’m still
alive and kicking, to their delight or dismay. They can find out much
more than that, of course, but that’s best saved for another time and
place.

I wonder about you – many of yous – wonder where you are
and how you’re doing. Losing touch is something akin to a tragedy in my
eyes, especially since we parted on good terms. I don’t miss you, per
se – couldn’t remember what about you I could be missing if I were to
do that – but yes, I wonder.

I know some of you are out there,
some pieces of my past, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
I know that sometime, somehow, you ended up here to look around out of
sheer curiousity and for some reason you stayed. You came back. You
COME back. And maybe it’s you I’m wondering about, perhaps just knowing
that you’re there and you’re ok would make me feel a little more
connected to the girl I was. Because right now, I need a reminder of
where I came from, some small token to hold on to so I don’t forget all
over again.

"When I was a child, I thought like a child
… but as an adult, I put away childish things." The Apostle Paul

We all know that with age comes wisdom, which is very different than intelligence, though people often confuse the two. Wisdom is gained through experiences, through your failures more than your successes, through your tears more than through your laughter. To me, a life well-lived is one in which you’ve lost your disillusionment and see things as how they really are, not just how you want them to be. I’m trying to live a life well-lived.

I’ve always found meaning in song lyrics, found a special message just for me in them, and my friend once remarked that she could pick any mix tape that I had and know exactly where I was in my life, in my relationships with boyfriends or crushes or exes judging solely from the songs upon them. She was right – now and again a song will come on the radio and I’ll instantly know who I was loving (or hating or avoiding or stalking) at that point in time.  Pretty amazing, come to think of it, given just how MANY people fell into one of those buckets over the years (not to mention how many songs I’ve claimed as my own.) I would argue my interpretation of the lyrics with friends, convinced in my naive 20-something wisdom that I WAS RIGHT and THEY WERE WRONG. One of these songs was "Say Goodbye" by Dave Matthews.

You’ve all heard it; the lyrics are found here, but at one point in the song he sings:

See me this way
I’m turning and turning for you
Oh Girl, oh just tonight
Run away here with me
On an evening oh just wait and see
But tomorrow go back to your man
I’m back to my world
And we’re back to being friends

In the infinite wisdom of my not-yet-20-year-old self, I was convinced that the man in the song was deeply, truly in love with the woman and, knowing that he couldn’t have her (after all, she had a ‘man’, as referenced in the song), he realized that having her for one night is better than not at all. Sort of a twist on the "Better to have loved than lost then never loved at all" adage. Or something like that.

My friends fought with me, trying to shake the blinders from my eyes. "He’s USING her!", they would exclaim. "He just wants to have sex with her!"

Pshaw, I thought. Now why would he want to do that?

I think a bit of context would help my case here, because even I (now) can see the folly of my ways. At the time, I was the epitome of naive virgin Ohio-flock in a passionate unrequited crush-relationship with the boy next door. I kid you not. So you can see where I was coming from – the song, to me, was more than just words; it was the role-reversal depiction of my own situation. He (and note that I’m capitalizing that ‘He’ not just because it starts the sentence, but because I really did see Him as some sort of demi-God) was in a relationship, yet I was convinced that somewhere, sometime, He would see the light and come running to me with arms open. Fate and all that. (It’s clear at this point that I had read one too many chick-lit novels and watched far too many romantic comedies even in my early youth.)

So yes, Dave Matthews was in love with the girl, and his passion was so great that he would sacrifice his true desires – to date, love, marry her – to spend JUST ONE NIGHT with her. Sigh. How romantic.

Fast forward ten years, nearly to the date. I’m sitting here listening to iTunes on shuffle and along comes an acoustic version of "Say Goodbye" and for the first time in forever, I listened to the words…REALLY listened to them.

WHAT WAS I THINKING? The dude is HORNY! Dave Matthews WANTS A PIECE! He wants to GET LAID! Come on, to think I once was that naive is just ridiculous…I may have been a virgin, but I sure as hell wasn’t raised in a convent. How embarrassing to be that naive!

Then again, how sad that I’ve come so far that I can’t even remember being that person whose ideals were so strong and whose hope was so endless.  Perhaps a small part of me isn’t really ready yet to put away "childish things," or at least give up all hope. That is, if it’s not too late.

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Ok, well I never really LOST my groove per se, but I liked the title of that. It works, ya know?

Anyhoo, check out the above video: as promised, you’ll see that I kicked some serious ass.

Want more? See the snaps below, or check out the entire group o’ Flickr photos from Coachella – more to come once I get some more ‘borrowed’ pics or perhaps if/when I ever get my camera un-misplaced.

I never thought I was that influenceable. I mocked it in others; I had a friend once whose personality changed with whomever she was dating. I’d inwardly roll my eyes with each new beau, knowing that our studious, church-going pal was about to become quite the socialite now that she was dating the partying football player. And yet I sit here listening to this music I’m trying to like, trying to claim as my own because I know he likes it. To find some kinship with someone in something they love even when I think it may just be a costume disguising my true identity as a fraud.

How do we choose what is ours and ours alone? What part of us is authentic, original, uninfluenced by the preferences and choices of another?

When people meet and start dating, there’s a natural give and take, a normal, almost subconscious merging of predilections, likes and dislikes. He hates sushi; you find yourself avoiding Japanese restaurants. Your CD takes center stage on road trips; for me, it’s imperative that they understand what moves me, especially in music, and it’s only natural that I look for reciprocation. The give and take, this blending of people, is what adds life to the relationship; yours becomes his becomes ours.

And so I sit and breathe in these lyrics, trying to understand him more, through the distance and the many miles that separate us, trying to identify with his joy and pain and see what is at the very crux of who he is without having to ask. Because I need to know him, need to know this, need to know what could become mine, and if that’s even something I want.

Hey you.

Yeah, you. You know I’m talking to you.

Yeah. You.

Guess
what – you’re too late. I’d say "sorry" but really, I’m not. The
vindictive side of me isn’t allowing me to feel any sympathy for you,
similar to the way back then when you had none for me.

Yeah,
YOU. NOW you know it’s you I’m talking about. (Though I’m keeping your
anonymity as I always said I would. Unlike others – read: you – I keep
my promises.)

I wondered if this day would come…my friends
assured me it would. Even common idoms agreed, and hell, if you can’t
trust an idiom, what CAN you trust? It’s been too long, too many things
have changed, and honestly, it wouldn’t work anyway. So it’s not
without a little slight tinge of victory that I say, "No, you can’t
have your cake, and you SURE as hell can’t eat it too."

Picture the scene: hot, Hot, HOT sunny day in the middle of the desert. Polo fields all around – with the exception of the palm trees, the parched grass is the only lush green foliage you see. You’re wearing flip flops; the dust and dirt have already coated your feet with a permanent brown tinge that will later be hard to remove. People around you are selling water for a dollar; you really just want a beer, but have quite a ways to walk before getting one. It’s not  yet noon and the shower you just took was rendered pointless the second you stepped outside.

You can tell there was a breeze at some point during the evening; the cars parked around you are covered in a brown coating of sand and dirt. Young n’er-do-wells (read: people just like my friends and I) have personalized many of these vehicles with various takes on phallic symbols. They’ve creatively inserted an "H" in the spelling of a common vulgarity, and you laugh at the juvenility of it all.

And then you see it – to your right, the culmination of all car-dirt poetry now and ever. The words so precisely chosen, the message so very clear even amongst the dust. It nearly brings a tear to your eye with its very perfection…on the back window of one of these dusty, road-wearied vehicles, you see:

"I wish my girlfriend was as dirty as this car."

Sigh. So prolific. You do, after all, don’t you?

There are moments when I feel like I know exactly who I am. I think I’m secure in my being, my beliefs, and the knowledge of this is comforting. Even knowing that this "me" will soon change, that "future me" will be very different than "present me", I’m still soothed in the knowledge that right here, right now, I know myself.

I then spend the following days trying to figure out who I am all over again.

I am always and never the same.

I try to envision looking at myself today from some future vantage point and judging what I’ve done; in fact, judge what I’m doing. Will I be ashamed of this or proud of this?

I told a friend that I try and live my life with no regrets, but I’ve realized that’s a lie – not an intentional one, it’s just a worldly impossibility. I have regrets, both for the things I didn’t do (because the guilt would  far surpass the regret), and for the things I have, knowing the guilt I was about to feel was going to have to be bearable. I entered into both of these decisions willingly and I wonder how I chose just what amount of guilt I could tolerate or if it really was an arbitrary choice, the id’s way of flipping a coin. I regret both action and inaction and hold my guilt and regret as my own.

There’s a song entitled "Who I am Hates Who I’ve Been". There are days that I’d argue that who I am hates who I am, and I wonder how I got here. Every day I say and do and even consider things I never thought I would, and even disassociating myself causes me to look back and not recognize the person I am. And yet life is the culmination of all of our experiences, the combination of various mini-realities, of many incarnations of who we are. So with that I wonder if this "present me" needs to be doing (or not doing) what I am, if I’m required to live this incarnation to compete the puzzle of who I’ll be tomorrow. Or perhaps that’s a feeble justification to appease myself.

Beautiful Willo said it better than I can with her kickass rundown of the shows (who we saw, what we did!) but thought I’d add a few notes…

• The shows were amazing…Sigar Ros, Youth Group, Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah!, The Go Team, and Wolf Mother were amongst the best. I took some awesome photos and even a video or two but alas, in the fun and frolic, my camera misplaced itself. (Once I have a link to the Victorious Beer Chugging Contest of 2006™ defeating not just Samir but also Jason with gusto, I will happily post it. It’s classic.)
• I had a total blast with Willo and Glen and Ali and Jem and Samir and Jason – Saturday was rocktastically sober, while Sunday – yeah, let’s just say it wasn’t. And yet this is the first vacation where I’ve come back tan and SOMEHOW well-rested. Must have been the dry heat.
• Had a great time getting to know Willo better and Ali (my neighbor!) and Jem – can’t wait to party with those lovely ladies again (y’all are welcome to come visit me & the menagerie for some close-quartered fun and good wine ANY time!) That said, partying w/the boys is a habit I haven’t spent enough time refining here in San Francisco. Need to get right on that…
• Something about the heat, great live music, sitting under the sun and being with great pals made me a bit more introspective than usual, and a bit more motivated. I feel like something big is around the corner; that is, if I make it be so.

So it’s Monday night and I’ve got a full week ahead of me…I’d be looking forward to Cinco de Drinko (aka, Cinco de Mayo; aka, Friday) but alas, I think it’s time for me to get in a routine – one that doesn’t involve a ton of booze (Yes, you heard me correctly.)  So alas, I went to the gym this evening for the first time in a while (walking Lila Belle twice a day for at least 30 mins. each time is well and good, but I think I could up my aerobic activity a bit, not to mention some weight training is clearly in order) in an attempt to get myself into the daily working out habit before I head abroad again late next week. (Yes, that’s right – I’m hitting the road again, this time I’m off to Seoul, Korea and Beijing, China for 9 days – kind of daunted to go to places where I don’t speak ONE WORD of the language, but I’ll survive!) Think good thoughts that the misplaced camera will return itself to its rightful owner (if you found a camera at Coachella and see pictures of me kicking some serious beer-chugging contest ass, lemme know!) – I’ll be here trying to get back into shape, trying to convince Gorilla Fitness to let me use their punching bags, and trying to get through a full week relatively unscathed. Wish me luck.

While I loved Biology and all its wonderous idiosyncrasies, Chemistry was a much different matter entirely. All those inert gases and confusing rules…it just didn’t make any sense to me, and I couldn’t visualize the interactions. In a word, chemistry was a massive clusterfuck to me.

As it is in relationships.

There are people out there who I find to be visually attractive, yet I’m not particularly attracted TO them. Then there’s another whole set who might not initially catch my eye yet the chemistry is undeniable. If faced with the choice between each of these options, I’m always going to go for who’s behind Door Number Two, Mr. Chemistry.

Unfortunately, there are often circumstances that make selecting this choice impossible; he or I could be attached to someone else, distance can (and does!) play a factor, or perhaps chemistry is all there is and the other stuff, the “real stuff” that makes it not only work, but last, is missing. And yet there’s nothing quite like standing next to someone with whom you share this instant comfortability and intense chemistry, even if the “long run” is not only a long way out, but probably impossible. Sometimes, that flutter in your stomach goes a long way and, even for a minute, makes the dream seem not so impossible after all.

Two words: Bikram Yoga

Seriously, its so friekin’ hot I feel like I should be practicing my Warrior position or getting into Downward Dog. Granted, I wouldn’t normally be wearing a bathing suit top or rocking out to Youth Group at yoga, but otherwise, yep, same thing.

I was quite premonitionally astute in my prediction that it would be a long day – oh, it was, and there was not a drop of alcohol involved. (No, really! I promise!) We saw some fan-fucking-tastic sets: Kanye West rocked it with a little 80’s throwback “Take On Me” action, Franz Ferdinand gave a typically contageously energetic show, I Sigar Ros gave me chills and nearly brought me to tears with their last song (the strings were phenomenal) and my pal rocked Depeche Mode so hard I thought he was going to wet his pants in pure glee. All in all, despite the aching ankle and majorly f-d up lower back, it was unprecedented.

Today’s just begun but already I’m hotter, tanner, and less clothed then I was all of yesterday. That clearly means one thing: time for a beer.