Musical Selections for a Sunny Afternoon

Top 3.5 Songs to Listen to When You’re Pissed Off

1. I Do Not Want This
2. Terrible Lie
3. The Hand That Feeds
3.5 Gone Daddy Gone

The first three are Nine Inch Nails songs because there’s nothing like listening to Trent Reznor when you’re pissed off. He expresses all your rage far more effectively than you ever could and by “you,” I mean, “I.” Trent does this thing I call “scringing,” a combination of screaming and singing. I tried it once when I was in the shower and dude, it hurt my head. I don’t know how he does it but it’s the best scringing in rock.

Lucie hates NIN. She says there’s too much profanity, everything is F this and F that which is like, such a joke coming from her foul mouth. The music she listens to is all mellow, easygoing, alterna-rock (no offense, Aaron). She says it’s poetry but I think poetry can be just about anything. It doesn’t have to be soft and simple (again, no offense, Aaron).

Number 3.5 is a Gnarls Barkley song which I love LOVE these days. It’s upbeat and fun because when you’re done with all your rage, you have to have something to lift your spirits.

And don’t confuse being pissed off with being profoundly sad. You need Depeche Mode sort of music when you’re sad. That’s when you want empathy, when you want angst and vulnerability, when you want your music to hurt for you so you don’t have to.

Normally, I’m a White Stripes-Killers-Green Day sort of person. I like music that’s meaningful without being depressing and fun without being too pop. Like, I can do Nirvana if I’m in the right mood but never Jessica Simpson. But once in a while, I have a week like I had last week and it sucks and it was just a bunch of little things that got me all pissed off. It was a NIN week from start-to-finish.

Monday: grades in from my French and Geometry mid-terms. Um, what’s French for “mediocre”? And what’s the hypotenuse of C+? I couldn’t believe it! I actually studied hard for those tests. Vraiment! Which means “truly” in French. See? Not C!

Tuesday: forgot my gym bag and had to wear my pink-flowered flippy skirt playing basketball. Stupid gym teacher wouldn’t let me sit on the sidelines and keep score with Rayna, who’s in a wheelchair for her palsy. And did I mention gym class is second period of the day? Yeah. And did I mention no deodorant? Nice.

Wednesday: Roger, this jerk in my homeroom who has like, a negative IQ, threw a fat, wet spitball into my hair right at my neck where I couldn’t feel it and it stuck there and no one told me about it until hours later when I went to the girls’ room and saw it. I was mortified! And this stupid girl, Dana (who pronounces her name “Danna” like she’s something special), was there and she said, Oh yeah, Roger threw that at you in homeroom and I was like, well, why didn’t you say something, you idiot? And she said, we thought it was pretty amazing that it stuck there as long as it did.

Thursday: Lucie offered to do the laundry because I had mounds of homework and she shrank my favorite long-sleeved t-shirt. Argh. It was a really nice light pink one that had an M on the left front. It was really soft and I never put it in the dryer so the color would stay pretty and – AND! – so it wouldn’t shrink!

Friday: everyone was invited to a party for Saturday night except me. Yes, every single person I have ever met in RC. Who was throwing it? Dana, the one I called an idiot in the girls’ room. Sigh. Now, who’s the idiot? This was probably the low point of my week. Reggie said she wouldn’t go so we could hang out instead which made me feel a little better.

So far, I’ve listened to “Terrible Lie” three times. I expect to move on to “Hand That Feeds” soon and by the end of the weekend, maybe I’ll get to Gnarls Barkley. I don’t know, though. It was a pretty sucky week.