Those Who Can't Do, Blog

Having intimate relations with someone for the first time, intentionally or otherwise, can be uncomfortable and a little nerve wracking. Too often the scene is set by a girl restlessly fiddling away on her MacBook, searching for the least offensive sound to fill the bedroom, hoping to create a certain 'ambience' for the upcoming, romantic experience. This loosely translates to Ani Difranco.

Despite years of practice, I'm still not good at faking - anything. My father started preparing me for all the ' bloody scammers' this life has to offer, when at the tender age of 7 he started honing my ability to deceive others. First on that father-daughter bonding agenda was learning how to play and win at poker. However, in all of our training sessions, we never did get around to mastering the quintessential 'poker face', which is actually a transferable skill away from a deck of cards and some folding chairs. Unfortunately, to this day, if I'm truly disgusted with you, I can't hide it. Instead, you'll see it written all over my face and in my body language. And if you happen to inform me of some 'shocking news', such as, it was actually your live-in ex-boyfriend who made the cinnamon buns we shared on our first 'date', or that this ex-boyfriend, is Ojibwe and used to sport a pink mohawk, based on experience, it's near impossible for me to fumble the appropriate face for the situation.

In one such instance, I was sitting on the edge of a different girl's tiny, childhood bed, regretting being in her presence. Her iTunes was set to shuffle and a Nathan Larson song began playing, which would be the first and last thing to impress me all evening.

Feeling queasy from her advances coming from the other side of the bed, and with an unmistakable snarl forming on my face, I did the only confirmed thing to turn a girl off. I cocked my head away from her and made a comment about her music selection.

I don't remember exactly what I said, feeling suffocated at this point, but it did involve mentioning Larson's old band, Shudder To Think.

She squealed.

"How do you know Shudder To Think?!?!", she asked.

'Um, Who Doesn't?' was the more appropriate response.

I was starting to think maybe we could potentially have - something, until she opened her mouth again and said "but, but... they're not a real band. They were created for Velvet Goldmine."

I may be gay, but I'm not a faggot, so that means I've never actually watched that definitive film about glam rock, but, I was truly insulted by her flagrant disregard for 90s music trivia in that moment. So insulted that my vagina actually went into a state of atrophy.

Shudder To Think, who for the record, did exist prior to their cameo in Velvet Goldmine were on the top of my Suicide Compilation List 2003 edition, specifically the song 'No Rm. 9, Kentucky'. Instead of going to school that year, I used to spend my days lying face first into a pillow in my parents bedroom, while my stereo in the adjacent room would play Pony Express Record, among other choice albums, on repeat, at high decibels. I preferred this set-up instead of the more straightforward approach, listening to music in the same room as the audio equipment. Doing it my way, things sounded further away and muddled, kind of like listening to music underwater and often I would fantasize I was drowning, tangled up not in faded, flowered bedroom sheets, but waves.