About An Hour
About An Hour summarizing January 2023.
Good riddance, January.
About An Hour October 2022. Oh boy, where do we begin with this month?
It will be known as to me and a few others in my life as the first time that I truly prioritized my health above all else in my life, and to be able to do that is incredibly humbling because it requires the existence and privilege of 360° support. Personally, professionally, all of it!
So It’s pretty handy to have a long time About An Hour project on Spotify (started in 2015!) to speak for me at a time like this because I just don’t have anything to say but “thank you” — which the internet and the capitalist holiday celebration industrial machine, eager to get me to buy things, are triggered right now because gratitude is actually next month’s key word.
Anyway, I don’t talk about all of my playlists but this month I have some time on my hands and feel like sharing into the void like I used to. So first I press play and make sure nothing is in shuffle mode. I like to start out the October playlist with the songs that really get right to the heart of my issues, but not in a heavy way, you know? This month is about introspection not goth pursuits. Which is why I like the pretty pondering on the subject due jure by Natalie Bergman and what is really the affirmation of a lifetime with Bob Marley & The Wailers’ “Three Little Birds.” It’s the musical equivalent of the prescription chill pill I need right now with the cheery reminder that I shouldn’t worry about a thing because every little thing is going to be alright. Nice. I like that. I will subscribe to this daily moving forward. Consider that Like button smashed.
This is followed by the very “Gloria”-sounding “Glory Me” by FRANKIE to really cut to the chase and ask loudly what it would be like to die, and then talk about a couple options, presumably because some are more noble ways to handle the whole affair of dying than others.
From there we make a pivot to some feel-good synth tunes and drift into the 1980s with Surfing and original Sexy Baby, Madonna in her peak sexy baby sounding era with “Into the Groove”. I hear this song and instantly remember being a sleepy kid at one of the few house parties I’ve ever been to with my parents. It’s night time and I’m laying on a couch somewhere in one home of my dad’s only rich friends. I’m with my mom buried in her arms, waiting for my dad to stop schmoozing so we can leave. It’s also a certified O.G. bop, and a great intro to Tove Lo, who is adamant to be the dance queen of 2022. The rest of the playlist is honestly just nice melodies that mesh well to my ears. Easy listening for when you’re about 40 minutes in and wondering how much closer to an hour this playlist really is — hint, over by three minutes. We take a pivot to mellow town until we arrive to my standout (by my queen of life Fiona Apple) where she does the angry/pretty singing, lyrically beautiful thing with “Heavy Balloon”.
So there you have it. If you have about an hour (and three minutes) to burn, then I hope you first enjoyed this TED talk and then the playlist itself.
Happy Halloween.
I’m running just about every day these days. I get up, I put on my stretch clothes, strap on my Epipen and emergency packet of Benadryl (you know, just in case we decide to analphylaxize*), pop in my earbuds, and go outside.
I can’t tell myself I’m running though. No way. Telling myself I’m running is entirely too much pressure to put on myself as soon as I get up. Instead I tell myself sweet lies; Hey there champ, good morning. Why don’t we get up now and go out. It’s just a walk. And hey, if we end up running, well then just run, alright? Something like that.
How funny that my high-bar, reach for the stars, no less than perfect perfectionism and obsessive compulsiveness that brought my life this far would manifest in my mid-thirties private life as mediocre low-bar-motivational white lies.
Anyway, here’s the About An Hour playlist for August. Nick says the first song belongs in a European dance club. He’s not wrong, but that comment ain’t right either. The song is by some artist I’ve never heard of with a prominent featuring of Swedish singer/bop-songwriter Tove Lo. It’s the one song that makes me run a little faster when my walk-run lies turn into a full once-a-week workout where I basically sprint up a hill at the base of Mount Diablo. Anything that pushes my cardio into peak zone for that long and makes it feel that fun deserves to be #1 on my hourly monthly playlist project.
So, which side are you on, internet strangers? Nick’s or mine? Put another way, doesn’t Tove Lo deserve some praise for how much damn fun her music makes me feel?
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*Not a word. Do not care.
Still going strong.