Back To Shore

Just imagine the Mamas & Papas sing these words. At least that’s how it goes in my mind. I had / am having a super laid back lazy weekend. The work week was busy and stressful for a self-doubting overthinker as me, so sleep and rest was called for. I still added quite a few things to my to-do-list for this weekend. I only did a few of the few, did some that weren’t on the list and I have to let myself be fine with that for now. I still need to work on my to-do-list / get-things-done routine though. Obviously.

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The Olympics in Paris are part of why I didn’t get that much done. I like watching it. Random sports I usually wouldn’t know or care about. But give me a German participant going for a medal or a personal best or a participant with an interesting / moving story and I’m all in and will cheer for them. I’m easily impressed, I admit it. Taking part in competitive sport on that level is impressive either way. So far I’ve watched field hockey, swimming, basketball, canoe / kayak slalom, judo and probably some more.

Watching some of the judo competition brought back vague memories of having done judo for a bit when I was a child. Not for very long and I have no idea why I even started with it. Looking back I guess friends of mine were trying it out and I just tagged along. Which also could be said for the other two sports I played “competitively” as in being on a proper team in a league when I was younger: badminton in my early teens and volleyball in my later teens. Both were definitely more of a tag along with my friends than my own decision to try it out. I did enjoy it, I think, but I have no idea if I was any good. I don’t think I really was a sportsperson back then and even now I’m very elective of how I want to exercise. But seeing those people compete on TV got me thinking. Remembering. Remembering also made me feel quite old.

I can’t recall I’ve ever watched canoe / kayak sport before. That looks challenging and impressive. At least I’m impressed, even though it didn’t work out for the German participant in the picture this time.

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In other regards I’ve also been reminiscing quite a bit this week. About music and fandoms. Not related, though the fandom was my music fandom (Frank Turner) which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Earlier this week I was listening to the radio in my car and the opening chords of “Uptown Girl” came up. The Westlife version from 2001 not the original Billy Joel version from 1983. This put me on a weird train of thought about cover versions as such and how they sometimes / often get a life of their own, because the generation of music fans who learn of this song through the cover version might not even know that it’s a cover. They might never check out the original version. I know I didn’t for all the late 80/ early 90s hits (cover version) of my generation. It took me quite a while to learn that those songs are cover versions. To me

“Knocking on Heaven’s Door” belongs to Guns’N’Roses (1990) (originally Bob Dylan, 1973)

“I Will Always Love You” belongs to Whitney Houston (1992) (originally Dolly Parton, 1974)

“I Drove All Night” will always be a Cindy Lauper song (1989) even though it was originally written for Roy Orbinson. His version was only released after the Lauper one, so it’s not really a cover version. I’m a bit on the fence about the song anyway, after “Eating before Swimming” (Frank Turners quite weird but interesting side project) made me aware that the “crept in your room, woke you from your sleep to make love to you” lyrics are a bit… strange. At least they manage to give these words a  new vibe with their version.

Back to “Uptown Girl”. Do we think that there are people who actually believe that this song is a Westlife song? How can that be? How long were Westlife around anyway? Or are they still? (Quick check on the internet: they are… again) And how can it be over 20 years that they had their big success?

For over a decade now my memory of when a song was released or when a song was in the charts seems to be quite skewed and often leads to the biggest “OMG you are so old” moments. I always think that it hasn’t been THAT long ago and it always turns out it’s been over two decades or longer. I’m going to be 50 next year, so of course my personal music journey started almost 40 years ago. I stopped keeping up with what’s in the charts about 25 – 30 years ago. I’ve been a travelling Frank Turner fangirl for 11 years now! Old as fuck!

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Which is a nice segue to my last “remember the good old days” moment from this week. Yes, I know this makes me sound like a grandma, who sees the past through rose-tinted glasses. I’m not on Twitter all that much anymore (and try to limit my time on Instagram) As much as I sort of defended Twitter for a long time when others already had realized that ship had sunk, by now even I am just so fed up by the trolls and bots and right-wing nutcases. You all know what it’s like.

But back in the day of my early Frank Turner fandom Twitter was one of the two places for me. Remember: self-doubting overthinker and thus not social and outgoing in real life. “Meeting” people online and staying in touch online was always easier for me than offline at gigs or such so especially in fandoms the internet was quite helpful for me. From time to time I mourn that version of Twitter from the mid-2010s. When I pondered that I started to remember the 2nd place:  the forum on frank-turner.com and mourned that as well.

Because I also met / made some gig-buddies through there. I know times have changed and message boards / forums are a thing of the past. Let’s not dwell on how something from only a decade ago can be a thing of the past. When does “the past” start? And no, Discord servers might be similar to message boards, but they are not the same and also they give me an awful headache! Which – to bring this back full circle . makes me feel so very old. I am! I’ll be 50 next year. It’s safe to assume that half my life has been over. And I’m usually fine with that looking forward, but it sometimes feels weird, because I DO NOT feel like almost 50. Does anyone ever though?

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I hadn’t planned to bring up another “old” theme now, but it sort of fit. Originally I didn’t want to go out today, even though I knew I probably would enjoy it and activity is a good thing. Being old and all. Until noon today my desire to be a sloth won but then I decided to go for a walk after all. Combine it with checking out an outdoor concert venue I’ll be at in August and get an idea where to best park the car the day before to be able to get back home quickly at night after the gig. The venue is located in an innercity park about 20 minutes drive away (probably 1 hour with public transport / walking during daytime hours). I had a stroll around the park, which was much bigger than I thought. And quite overgrown in some areas, which gave it a bit of a derelict vibe.

The outdoor venue as such seemed much smaller than I thought, but that will be fine. I also got a good idea of where to best leave my car and even went for another walk closer to my home, because I still had some podcast left to catch up with. So a successful outing all in all.

Back home I kept ignoring my to-do-list some more and was watching more Olympics instead. Which might be what I do for the next few weeks. We’ll see….

The title is a bad attempt to get some kind of routine to this possibly routine of Sunday posts. Throughout the week I’ve jotted down up to ten potential topics I thought I might elaborate on here when I find the time (aka today). Knowing me this post will include two of those topics at the most and a lot of random rambling.

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On Friday evening I took Twitter and Instagram off my phone – just for the day yesterday, both apps back on again – but I felt like I needed a tiny digital detox. And because I lack impulse control a digital detox was easiest achieved by not having the apps available. I was still on my phone more than I had planned. A bit on the Frank Turner Army Facebook group and a lot of WhatsApp, but the latter was at least with people I know.

When the weather forecast earlier in the week predicted a heatwave (or a super hot day anyway) for Saturday I knew I had or rather wanted to get away from it. This year so far I also didn’t spent as much time by the sea this year as I had liked. So I made plans and preparations and yesterday morning got in my car rather early and drove about 3 hours to the coast in the Netherlands.

All in all everything went fine, even though I’ll be glad that my next trip to the sea in early September will be to a then hopefully less busy place.

For the sea to properly work it’s calming soothing magic on me, the beach needs to have less people on it or at least give me enough space to be on my own with my own thoughts. Or no thoughts at all. But I’m still glad that I went and enjoyed the sun and the view and sound of the sea for a few hours.

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On the drive there and back I listened to a variety of podcasts episodes on among other things the war in Gaza/Israel, a few on mindfulness / mental health topics, an interview with Grace Petrie and two more podcasts interviewing Frank Turner. I think I might be all “frank-ed out” for a while, because it’s been similar / same questions over and over and of course he answers those with the same answers and anecdotes. I feel by now I could do that part of the job for him 🙂

In regards to podcasts I’m still looking for more podcasts to catch my interest and which I might listen to on a regular basis. Women’s voices please, because men have been given the podium without question for thousands of years already and I’m honestly not all that interested in what they have to say anymore. Yes, #notallmen, but in podcasting still too many for my taste.

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My list of the ten topics include the current debate on cancel culture in Germany. My changed perspective on the peace movement and arms manufacturers. Getting caught in the rain / drizzle way too many time this week. I can’t really be bothered to elaborate on either now to be honest.

Let’s end this with talking about books. I gave up on reading “Huckleberry Finn” about one third in after all. I just couldn’t take more of the meandering narrator’s voice and language. I know, it’s considered a masterpiece of literature for the use of the latter alone, but it’s been getting on my nerves. For a while I thought I’d try to live through the discomfort of it, because reading isn’t always supposed to be comfortable and easy and all. But I had to called it quits. I still will read “James” though I think, but possibly not any time soon. I also aborted another novel which I had high hopes for – “The Hundred Loves of Juliet” – but I didn’t like the writing and the plot was not what I had expected and again: I tried it for a while, but in the end decided against it. The novel I picked up instead seems to live up to my high expectations, though the plot also is a bit different than I had expected, but in a good way. I’ve read about one third of the book so far: “Cassandra in Reverse”.

I’ve sold another batch of my “never to read (again)” books and what did I do with the meagre proceeds? I used the 20% bonus on the sum to buy new (used) books again, of course. I did mention my lack of impulse control at the start of this post, right? It’s not just the lack of impulse control, I guess, but also the dopamine rush I get from ordering new books and the anticipation of the wonderful stories and/or insight I will get from reading them. There are worse “bad” habits to have, right?

After I last week finally managed to publish some of my thoughts on Frank Turner’s stunning song “Somewhere Inbetween” I had hoped that I would have cleared up some capacity in my mind to write about other stuff. I’m sorry to say that this isn’t quite the case. I still do have many many thoughts, most of them introspective though – many still brought on by the aforementioned song – and thus of no interest to a wider audience. I also do have ideas for longer posts or comments on various political / social issues. But right though I’m still shying away from putting those down on paper (so to speak), because I’m afraid that I still don’t know enough and haven’t considered all aspects and haven’t read all the information I need to form an opinion.

Often I also think that spending my time reading – weekly newspaper with more indepth analysis, articles on news sites, nonfiction on current issues – is more useful to me than sharing my thoughts online. So I don’t know. 

I don’t have a lot of distinct thoughts yet on what happened at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa last night. I admit I feel a bit detached and void of any empathy for him, which scares me a little. Because yes, Trump is a dangerous and evil man and was and would be a horrible president. But he’s still a human being and I should feel some empathy for someone who survived an assassination attempt, right? This also calls for more introspection.

I’m worried though – of course – what this all will mean for the election campaigns and the future of the USA, but I don’t know enough about it all and thus won’t go into that here either.

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The fun fair had been in my town recently and it’s a big deal for a lot of folks in my town. It’s part of the town’s tradition and rites and folklore and all that. People who have moved away come back for the weekend to visit the fair. Imagine all the people who ever graduated from highschool coming back together for one big reunion. But also running into and chatting and having a drink with all sorts of acquaintances from all parts of your life in a small town. People are very social and gregarious on that fair and the older I get the more I feel out of place when I’m there. I’ve never been that social or gregarious. And I’ve reached the point where I’m not sure I want to turn into a gregarious person for this occasion, because everybody else does. Stuck somewhere inbetween, eh? 

Some other thing that turns me off from the fair more and more year after year is the consumerism aspect of it all. The super cheap plush toys or other (plastic) prizes at the lottery or the games or merchandise at the stalls: probably imported from Asia, thrown away after one use or a few days, because they fall apart or just quickly aren’t interesting / useful anymore.

I’ve been thinking  / talking about the whole (societal / global) waste problem a bit more recently. The way we – as western society – these days so easily buy and throw away so much. How the round-the-clock availability of internet shops and the often free delivery has killed the high streets. The problems our waste causes in other parts of the world. I don’t have any solution. I try to be mindful of my own behaviour and live and shop more responsibly, but I’m only human and still experience the common human impulse of e.g. wanting to replace a broken gadget right away, because I need it. But do I really? More food for thought, I guess. My current particular “oh let’s replace the broken thing right away” impulse and the shame about acting on that, at least lead me to finally sell the Switch console I had bought during the first lockdown and hardly ever used in 2020 and not ever again after. Tiny steps.

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This all sounds a bit bleak, right? There have been happy moments in my past few weeks as well. Yes, I might have had some introspective – “Do I really fit in here? Have I ever?” – Somewhere Inbetween – thoughts during the first one. This song will play a part in my life for a while, deal with it. But it’s been a lovely day regardless.

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There’s also been a trip to the zoo, which is always fun,…

…and I still enjoy winding down by creating colourful random pieces of art? Is it art? What is art? I like doing it so what does it matter?

Another happy moment today: I made myself go for a run for the first time in about 6 weeks? And because I do have a problem with moderation I didn’t just go for the short 3K, but the 5K, which I haven’t done in a while.

The run went fine. Better than expected and that was marvellous.

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And now I’m going to watch England bring “it” home. Fingers crossed at least.