Second Night OR The Night that Wasn't

I'm the youngest of two children, spaced ten years apart; Amy is a middle child of a considerably lesser gap. Prior to this arrangement I hadn't shared a bed with anyone since I was 8, not including hotel beds and even those were scarce. I rarely even shared a room (and opted into single dorm rooms when I could). Since it is more familiar to me to be in my own bed, I thought my trip home for the holidays would provide a welcome break from sharing.

But no. I seem to have Stockholm Syndrome'd her. A week and a half now I've had difficulty falling asleep--or simply not rested well. For all her nocturnal annoyances, I can barely sleep without her. Amy has mentioned that she has also had sleeping problems, but that hers are, conversely, morning related. Amy's job sometimes requires her to wake up at four or five in the morning and she has been sleeping through her alarm (which almost never happens under normal circumstances)!

It is high time I went to bed. I will be so glad when this vacation is over; I will sleep so well!

Why do the best conversations happen at the worst times?

Ages and ages ago Amy and I had a discussion whose genesis I can't quite remember. I often stop the flow of a conversation to point out things I find to be odd or funny and, in this particular conversation, it was a phrase. Which phrase it was similarly escapes me, but it was a fleeting and unimportant moment. It seems that after months of me pointing out what, to me, was an amusing bit of linguistic...metaphor? A phrase which by any logical examination could not mean what it means, yet no one cares or notices. Anyway, it turns out that such things don't interest Amy in the slightest. I was surprised, to say the least, I mean how could anyone not be interested in that? I love it; what people say versus what they mean?

Rather than look at words--what they mean alone, what they mean linked together, and so on--she likes to look at sociolinguistics, what language means in context for the people who spoke it. Until recently I'd forgotten this conversation. I write this post separated from both of my best friends; Naomi is in Indiana with her boyfriend and I am in Texas, with my family. The conversation which pulled back this memory from the ether happened when I was frantically preparing to cross the ocean. We couldn't even discuss the new revelation...and I hate that. All we had time for was to note it, then literally take down a note. (Apparently I become verbose when I require sleep...)

When the two of us were getting ready to go out, we fell into a conversation about musical genres. I made a comment about the strange shift in usage of the term 'emo.' I didn't realize that Amy was unaware of the term's origins; she made a very strange comment. I thought that if I started explaining, I even cited examples, that she'd remember it but she didn't. Not that there was any real reason for her to know it, I'm not expecting a person to know innately how and why a form of music is called what it is, but we are the same age. The 'new' emo emerged around the same time we graduated high school. I thought that it was common knowledge.

After going through a partial history, I likened emo to punk since both had roots which are drastically different from the reinvention that developed long after the original movement died. Amy said she was only ever interested in genre as a way to find the music she likes on her itunes. I would much rather look at what movement spawned the genre, what it meant to the people, what were the ripple effects? Essentially, the sociocultural aspects. Amy brought up our past conversation as an interesting comparison. Interesting, indeed.

Could you turn that music up? I can still hear myself think!

As I'm certain each of you has experienced more than once in your lives, the best things always seem to come up at the most inopportune time. The secret to paper-training that new puppy pops up while making your office's Starbucks run, that award winning novel plot forms while using the toilet in the movie theater, you figure out that calculus problem in the middle of writing your Art History thesis, or you have a blog worthy conversation in bed—when your roommate has work in the morning.

This debate actually became heated, or "Why I will never be a fangirl"

I assure you that is not the norm with these discussions. I don't know if it's my natural levelheadedness or just our general curiosity about how we can be so different. Two days ago I was ranting about one of my favorite Alice Cooper character's history and Amy interjected with a comment about how I was essentially doing the same thing fandom does in speculating about it. I don't care for fandom, the whole thing weirds me out, but I didn't see it that way at all. Maybe two weeks ago I read the wiki page to learn what songs and albums featured this character and in order to do that I had to read an overview of the role each song and album played in defining the character, only to find that the fan speculation didn't sit well with me. They didn't make logical sense. 


However, now I had an open case in my mind that would not allow me to let it go until I'd figured out the most likely explanation. Normally I wouldn't give it a second thought, but it was brought to my attention and that was the start of it. I don't like to not have the answer to something. These holes became an itch in my brain that I didn't want to scratch but couldn't leave it alone! In the end it turned out that, though we don't exactly understand each other on this front, the debate had more to do with my misinterpretation of fandom as she meant it. Regardless, many interesting distinctions came up as a result.