Such Great Heights – The Postal Service

“I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles
In our eyes are mirror images and when
We kiss they’re perfectly aligned.“

Do you believe in fate? In signs from the universe? in a God or gods? I’m not sure what I believe in, but I’m fairly sure that I don’t agree with organized religion. Fate, well that one is a little harder to ignore. 

Maybe I should blame my parents for naming me Brooke. A brook is a small stream, a body of water that is perpetually in motion, but it takes its own time and its own way through things. It’s not as fast as a river, but it’s not as gentle as pond. Like the water for which I’m named sometimes it take me a little while to make up my mind where my wanderings will take me. Moving to Calgary was big and sudden, and since then I’ve been meandering through my career, never loving it but never hating it either. You might say I’ve stagnated. 

“True, it may seem like a stretch, but
Its thoughts like this that catch my troubled
Head when you’re away when I am missing you to death.”

It’s strange how everything can suddenly be thrown into such perspective when something unexpected happens. At 27 people rarely ask me what I want to be when I grow up. Yesterday, someone did. What do I want to be when I grow up? I thought I had it figured out, but I’ve thought that a dozen times throughout my life, only to change my mind later. I know who I want to be, but not what.

I want to be the centre of attention, a friend, a confident, a devil’s advocate. Someone who listens, someone who offers advice, someone who can brighten a morning, create a laugh and generally just be a reason to smile. I don’t get to be any of those things in my current job. Not even close.

“They will see us waving from such great
Heights, ‘come down now,’ they’ll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
‘come down now,’ but we’ll stay…”

I went to university and got my Bachelor of Journalism because I thought that it was in journalism that I could be all of those things. I was wrong. The world of hard news, of chasing stories, of stabbing others in the back for scoops and of having to act like sad and bad things didn’t affect you was not the world for me. I moved on to public relations and never really looked back. Lately I’ve been looking back more and more. I got a part time job, just in case I felt the need to make a big change, a sudden change, and needed something to fall back on.

Imagine my surprise when an opportunity dropped into my lap. An opportunity that the more I think about it, the more I can’t imagine not doing it. Have I ever felt like this about a job before? I don’t think so, I don’t even think I’ve ever felt this way about a man before. It’s terrifying, exhilarating and maybe a sign that fate has a plan for me after all. Every small stream eventually runs into a river, which runs into a sea or an ocean. Maybe it’s time this little stream threw caution to the wind and got bigger.

Nothing can hold back the force of water. Cross your fingers for me.

“I tried my best to leave this all on your
Machine but the persistent beat it sounded
Thin upon listening
That frankly will not fly. you will hear
The shrillest highs and lowest lows with
The windows down when this is guiding you home”

The Postal Service is an American Indie-electronic band that borrowed vocalist Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie after he contributed vocals for Dntel and producer Jimmy Tamborello took an interest in his sound. The band name came from the way they made music, with Tamborello writing and performing a song, mailing it to Gibbard who would add editing and vocals, and mail it back.

In 2003 they released their first album  which featured the song Such Great Heights. The song went on to be covered by Iron & Wine and to be featured in the soundtrack for Garden State.The group enjoyed other successes with We Will Become Silhouettesfeatured in the trailer for the movie Funny People, and the song The District Sleeps Alone Tonight was featured in the soundtrack for the film D.E.B.S. As of yet the duo have been too busy with their main projects, Dntel and Deathcab for Cutie, to work on the release of a second album.

Playing Favorites – The Starting Line

“Here’s another song for you,
So this one this one makes two.
Still don’t know where to begin,
I’ll just leave it at this.”

People often think that women and men can’t be friends without it eventually being ruined by one or other of the party falling in love with the other, or both of them screwing it up after a drunken night together. While I can definitely see that being a possibility, some of my dearest friendships are with men. One friend in particular I cherish. We don’t often get to see each other because he lives in a different province, but through Facebook, texts and emails we manage to talk several times a week.

I can’t speak for him, but there have been many times when I have wished so much that he could live closer. Sometimes it’s because I need a shoulder to cry on, sometimes because I need a wingman at the bar, and sometimes because I know that no matter how shitty my life has been lately, that if I could only give him a hug I would feel so much better. I think, and hope, that he thinks the same of me. I know that I am one of the few people he stays in contact with no matter what.

“Wait for me to move out west.
It’s ok if you don’t.
I hope you know,
You’re my favorite thing,
About the west coast.
I wish I stayed,
I hope you wait.”

I was in his city to visit him recently, and whether it was my recent long streak without any guy who interested me, or just genuine feelings finally bubbling to the service, we ended up kissing. Kissing turned into rolling around on a bed until he put a stop to it, explaining how much he cared about me and thought I was amazing. He was worried about ruining our friendship for the sake of something we both knew wouldn’t work when we lived in different cities. I was taken aback.

We are friends, we talk about literally everything, I was hurt that he thought I would let things get awkward or weird, or trust him any less. I convinced him to forget about it and just stay the night anyways. He was a great big spoon, we cuddled, we slept, we made fun of each other and talked like normal. Sure there were brief awkward moments, but they were quickly resolved. If it was that easy after the awkwardness of having to stop and explain why, would it really have been that different if we had just given in?

“I’ll say it but I’m sure you knew,
You’re what I look most forward to.
Coming back to where I’ve been,
I’ll just leave it at this.”

Since I’ve returned home we’ve spoken once or twice on Facebook, and it seems to be mostly like it was before. I really hope that it will continue to be. I won’t lie and say a part of me doesn’t wish we lived in the same city. I could really use a friend, and I also am so tired of being single, of sleeping alone. Maybe he would be a perfect solution to both of those problems. We obviously have chemistry, we have been friends for years and know a lot about each other already…

Then again, the chances of us ever living in the same city are fairly slim. Being happy with what we have, a strong friendship, is probably the best plan of action.

“I’m sure you always feel my eyes on you
but I hope that you will never feel unwanted.”

I became a fan of The Starting Line in first year of university, “Playing Favorites” is an old song, but a good one. The band started out when the members were just teenagers, like most great punk bands. Voclaist Kenny Vasoli was only 15 when the band, then known as Sunday Drive, started touring. After signing with Drive-Thru Records in 2001 they changed their name to The Starting Line since Sunday Drive was already taken by a Christian rock band.

Three albums and two EPs later, the band has seen much success from headlining Vans Warped Tour, to having their music featured in movies like “She’s the Man”. The band now records on the Virgin record label, and has returned to touring after a brief hiatus.

Broken – Lifehouse

“The broken clock is a comfort, it help me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow, from stealing all my time.
I am here still waiting, though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you’ve already figured out.”

Have you ever noticed, that the people who are the most broken, are the ones who are more likely to act like they have it all together? As if by admitting that they were hurt, scared, or damaged in some way it would suddenly become so much harder to bear. The girls that get sneered at for wanting the attention of too many guys, the boys who are labeled “players”, the people who are content to move to a different city or job every other month because they hate being tied down. We all have our walls around us, but sometimes the worst walls are the ones we try to pretend aren’t there.

I met a guy whom I thought would be perfect for my current frame of mind regarding relationships. He wanted no strings, no romantic entanglements just someone to have fun with, to have intelligent conversation with and to scratch an itch so to speak. It seemed perfect, but of course there is no such thing right? We were seen talking and immediately I was flooded with comments about what a player he was, how he would break my heart and general warnings to avoid him and run as fast as I could. I chose to ignore them, I wasn’t interested in dating him anyways so why did any of that matter?

“The broken locks were a warning, you got inside my head
I tried my best to guarded, I’m an open book instead.
I still see your reflection, inside of my eyes
That are looking for purpose, they’re still looking for life.”

A few late night conversations later and I had a bad feeling. I had joked about being the one that might break his heart and not the other way around, but now I worried that it might actually be true. Things came to light, a series of bad relationships, some self doubt and an equal dose of guilt and shame for past behaviour. Little comments made here and there that made me realize that the player image was a very big act. I tried to call him on it, and although he was embarassed by the things he had told me while he had been drinking or half asleep, he refused to admit that they played any factor.

Christmas break came. I didn’t speak to him for several days as we were both home visiting our families. When he did start messaging me again on Christmas Eve there were many jokes about how I probably missed him, and that his mother had asked if I was a nice girl. Immediate panic set in, he had told his mother about me?! What was going on? I played along and pretended like I knew we were both still joking but part of me had a sinking feeling that I was about to lose my playmate. He got weird, I got weird in return and after several conversations with friends I decided that I didn’t have the time to someone’s mother. That his issues needed to be dealt with before he could even be a friend, let along anything else.

“The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone
I may have lost my way now, haven’t forgotten my way home.”

We’ve spoken a couple of times since, we are thrown into situations sometimes where we can’t avoid each other. I have no dislike of him, but I feel sorry for him and a little mad that he hides behind a wall and won’t even admit to it. I think I used to be like him, hurt so much and broken to the point where I went out of my way to appear like I wasn’t. I wish him luck, I think underneath it all he is probably a really great guy… he just needs some time.

The song Broken was featured in the recent movie “Time Traveller’s Wife”. Recorded by the Christian-rock group Lifehouse, there is lots of debate about whether or not the song is about god or simply about losing someone you love. I prefer to think the latter but I understand that everyone will see in it what they will. No matter the way you view it, it is an amazing song.

Lifehouse is from Los Angeles. Their first hit was in 2001 “Hanging by a Moment” from their debut studio album, No Name Face. In 2002, they released their follow up album Stanley Climbfall. They have released three more albums: the self-titled Lifehouse in 2005, Who We Are on June 19, 2007 and Smoke and Mirrors on March 2, 2010

Pretend – Lights

“Once in a while I act like a child to feel like a kid again
It gets like a prison in the body I’m living in
Cause everyone’s watching and quick to start talking, I’m losing my innocence
Wish I were a little girl without the weight of the world.”

Sometimes it seems like two people are ships passing in the night. Missed connections, misunderstandings and general bad timing have stopped more relationships before they have even got started. Sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot, often making bad decisions based on our own insecurities and fear, or giving in to peer pressure when it comes to deciding how we feel about someone. If you think about it, how many times have your friends or family affected how you see someone and whether or not a relationship is pursued?

With our increasingly small world, in a large part thanks to the internet and social media, we meet people outside of our circle more often. This double edged sword also insures that we also learn much more about a person in a short time than we normally would. You can fall in like/lust/love with someone online before you’ve ever seen if that chemistry translates in person. In some ways I miss highschool where you only had to contend with the hall and locker room gossip.

It should come as no surprise that I fell victim to a case of serious twit-crush, and just as awkwardly, massive falling out of said crush due to the same social medium.

“Remember the times we had soda for wine,
and we got by on gratitude?
The worst they could do to you was check your attitude
Yeah when fights were for fun, we had water in guns,
and a place we could call our own
How we lost hold of home I guess I’ll never know.”

He was one of those guys that I would never have gone for in a million years. Short, indie, a smoker and dozens of other things that I usually find unattractive. However it’s a funny and heady thing when you have the popularity contest that is Twitter some days. Someone gets built up for generally just being an engaging and nice person online, and we think that they must be the same way offline.

After seeing him “around” the social media hallway for awhile and interacting enough to find out we had many shared interests and several shared friends I began to give in to the fact that he might be a cool guy. We went on a date in the fall, and it went well. He was more interested than I was at the time, partly because I had met someone else the same week that was more my regular type. I told a mutual friend that, and she pushed me to give him more of a chance, that he was a great guy etc etc. After months of hearing his cheer team encourage me, and harmless online flirting I ended up developing a crush for him. It all came to a head on my birthday, there was some making out and some sleeping over but nothing crazy. Lots of words were said about making promises to live the life you deserved, going out on a limb and following some dreams that had been put aside for awhile and general comments about how I was “kinda perfect” for him.

Maybe it was the alcohol or the simple need to feel wanted on an important birthday, but I fell for it. I’m never the girl that buys in to that so it took me by surprise. Then I got blown off… a lot. Finally I broke down and sent an email to the tune of “I had fun, thought you did too what’s up?” and got a reply that at least gave closure. “I’m not into dating right now”. Fine. Not a problem at all, but why the pursuing simply for the sake of doing so? Why make it complicated for no reason?

“It’s not going to be long before we’re all gone with nothing to show for them
Stop taking lives, come on let’s all grow up again.”

The best part of the whole situation was that I felt like I had lost a friend. The nail in the coffin was a DM that said “I’m sorry I let you down, but it doesn’t change our friendship.” But it did, it was precisely as a friend he let me down. Initially that’s all I saw him as, but between the people we had in common pushing for me to see how wonderful he was, and his own attempts to show me the same it irrevocably changed our friendship and it became as a friend that he let me down. That was the day I unfollowed him. The day that I withdraw from the #yyc meetups and vowed never to give in to the silly and casual flirting on social media.

At the end of the day maybe it’s best to keep your online friends simply that, or maybe we just have to suck up the disappointments and hope that next time things are better.

Pretend is a song off of Canadian singer Lights’ first full length album “The Listening” . Born in Timmins, Ontario, she calls her music intergalactic-electro music. She produces, writes and styles herself. She plays guitar and keyboard as well as being a fantastic artist. She describes her inspiration as a science fiction nerd. She even made an appearance on MTV’s “The City” where she wore a piece of clothing from Whitney Port’s fashion line Whitney Eve. Lights also has an amazing Acoustic EP that is worth listening to as well.

Bloodstream – Stateless

“Wake up, look me in the eyes again
I need to feel your hand upon my face
Words can be like knives,
They can cut you open.
And the silence surrounds you
and haunts you.”

A psychic told me at Hallowe’en that the person I was with wasn’t the person for me. I already knew he was wrong for me, but kept trying to see if I could find that spark since everyone around me thought he was perfect. After she told me that she said that there was someone for me, someone I already knew but had never really seen. Someone who knew I wasn’t ready for him, but who was waiting for me.

I don’t hold much stock in psychics, I think they speak very generally and we interrupt what they say as it applies to our own life. It’s not that they don;t give good advice, they do, if you are introspective enough to interrupt what they say in a way that makes you change your life. In this instance I was confused, there were so many people who could have been the one she talked about. I briefly thought it might be the Irish boy whom I still thought of often, but at the same time knew that it was an impossibility.

“The spaces in between
Two minds and all the places they have been
The spaces in between
I tried to put my finger on it.”

It wasn’t until about a month ago that I finally saw the person she claimed I didn’t see. She was right though, I had never seen him truly. Now it seems everyone I meet doesn’t stack up to the promise I see with him. Too bad he doesn’t live in the same city as I do.

I met him almost two years ago today. He was the friend of someone I was involved with, briefly visiting during my birthday and went out to supper with me and his friend. I had been chatting with him on Facebook before his trip here and already knew we had much in common. I flirted with him throughout the night when his friend, who is another entry in this blog, was a douche.

For some reason we’ve kept in touch ever since. We exchange favourite songs, banter about philosophy and the news of the day, and genuinely just talk about anything. I even jokingly made him a PoF profile and tried to find him a date. Now I find myself in the position of being a month away from going to his home for a work conference. He has invited me dozens of times to visit him, and now I finally will be. Not only that but I am staying the weekend, in his spare room.

“I think I might’ve inhaled you
I could feel you behind my eyes
You’ve gotten into my bloodstream
I could feel you floating in me”

I swore long ago that I would never find myself in a long distance relationship. Especially if it was long distance from the start, but something about him, about how easy it is to talk to him, to see myself with him, keeps pulling me back in. I guess we’ll see if we want the same things, and then, maybe I’ll prove myself wrong.

Bloodstream came to my attention because it was played on the season finale of a TV show that is my guilty pleasure, The Vampire Diaries. Stateless is a UK electronica band that was formed in 2003 by singer/songwriter Chris James. Still building a following here in North America, they currently have two albums “Stateless” and “Matilda” which will be released this February.

Bloodstream is from their first album and was a single originally released in the UK in October of 2007. Before being featured in Vampire Diaries, it was also used in an episode of CSI: Miami.

Belle of the Boulevard – Dashboard Confessional

“Back like you never broke
You tell a dirty joke
He touches your leg
And thinks He’s getting close
For now you let him
Just this once
Just for now
And just like that
It’s over.“

It’s amazing the things we will do to try and convince ourselves that we are truly happy. Of all the generations I think mine is the most prone to lying to themselves, whether it is about being happy in our job, with the person we are with, with how we look, just in general. It’s meeting someone and convincing yourself to overlook the fact that you have nothing in common, that he lives to far away, that you’re not as attracted to him as you should be, that he annoys you, that it will never work, etc. just so you don’t have to be alone for however long you can make it last.

It’s not just relationships of course, we lie to ourselves about almost everything in order to feel like we are truly happy and to justify why we don’t take a risk, make a change and try to step outside of our safe little bubbles. I make a practice of stepping out of my bubble, perhaps too often which could be why I feel like I constantly have my heart bruised. I wouldn’t change that about myself, but I wish I could give a bit of my courage to the people around me.

 “In all your silver rings
In all your silken things
That song you softly sing
Is keeping you from breaking
It’s a long way down, it’s a long way”

I recently started seeing someone and last weekend we had a day that was very bad. As I drove home after taking him back to his place I realized that I had let my roommate influence my opinion of him. In the past, when I lived alone, it was much easier to decide how I felt about someone and deal with it. Now, I find that when she is overwhelmingly cheering for someone, I find it harder to walk away.

It’s not that he’s not a great guy, he is, but we just don’t fit. There are no butterflies when I think of getting to see him, I barely notice when we go a whole day without talking, and I really dislike having to share my bed with him. Although to be fair, I rarely like to share my bed when it comes to sleeping. We watch a lot of movies, probably because although we share the same careers, we don’t actually have that much in common. I can’t put my finger on exactly why it doesn’t work, but it doesn’t.

The unfortunate part about me is, that once I make up my mind about something, it is very hard to make me see it a different way. Stubborn to the core, and determined. So while my roommate pleads with me that he is a great guy, that he is handsome and intelligent, all I can focus on is how much he annoys me 80% of the time, and how bad last weekend was. Maybe he really is a great guy for me and I am just too hung up on one bad day, but I am more inclined to think that I have held on longer than I normally would have just because so many other people tell me he is great.

For right now, I’m doing what I do best, avoiding the situation and hoping to gain a little clarity through some of my favourite music.

“Don’t turn away
Dry your eyes, dry your eyes
Don’t be afraid
But keep it all inside, all inside
When you fall apart
Dry your eyes, dry your eyes
Life is always hard
For the Belle of the Boulevard.”

 Dashboard Confessional started as the side project of Chris Carrabba from his band Further Seems Forever. After the release of Further Seems Forever’s debut album, Chris left the band to focus solely on Dashboard, later being joined by one of his former bandmates Jerry Castellanos. The band enjoyed success, especially when they were ask to record the song Vindicated for the “Spider Man 2″ soundtrack which garnered the band a lot of attention.

Belle of the Boulevard is the first single off of the fifth and newest Dashboard Confessional album “Alter the Ending” which was released in 2009.  

Alien – Cary Brothers

“Breaking your heart was never my intention
Playing with parts too fragile in the ending”

My friend used to think she had so many bad dating experiences because she had bad dating karma. She hypothosized that she went through a really bad dating period because she had done something in her dating history to deserve it. She would discuss specific guys in her life, whom she felt she had treated poorly, and used it as an example of the karma in her life when she would tell me about when a guy treated her like she had previously treated someone else.

Perhaps that is why my dating karma has been so crappy lately. It’s not really that anyone had treated me badly, more that nothing has gone anywhere at all. I go out on dates, with guys that I think I like, that I click with, that I feel a spark for. Then it all follows the same pattern, they text me to say they had a good time, they mention that they want to see me again, and then bam! Never to be seen or heard from again. It gets a bit disheartening after awhile.

“Stop and we start, asking all the questions
Raising alarm, a symptom of the tension
Though we’re unarmed, we fumble through the trenches
Taking apart all that we invented”

Obviously when you’re dating, unless you’re very brave and very blunt, everyone has stopped seeing someone by just avoiding them, dropping off the face of the planet or whatever. Not saying that it’s right, but it does happen. It’s not what I would consider bad dating karma. I can think of some things that would fit in that category though.

You know how sometimes you fall for someone simply because they are so nice and so different from anyone you have ever dated before? I did that last summer. The bad part about that is that eventually the differences become a problem. You end up realizing that the intriguing differences are actually just something that drives you a part since you spend so much time persuing your own interests that you don’t spend enough time together.

“We played the part til comfort’s gone
Now the only language is loss
The language of loss”

I’m a bit of a chicken, so I did what I do best and avoided, and avoided and avoided some more. Until it was obvious to both of us that there really was no us anymore and we parted ways. I still feel badly about that sometimes. It was nothing he did wrong, he was great and deserved so much better than the way I avoided and blew him off until he had no choice but to accept something that I had already decided without his input.

Maybe that’s why I get blown off by guys so much lately, or maybe not.

“We have become alien
We have become alien
Give me a song that weighs a ton
We have become alien”

The song “Alien” by Cary Brothers was recently featured on the popular ABC Family show “Make It Or Break It” and is off his album “Under Control”. His songs have also been featured on “Garden State”, Scrubs, Bones, Smallville and many others. He has released six albums, and aside from his success on iTunes, Myspace and getting his music on television shows and Indie films, has little to know Billboard success.