Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Staying Even Keel

We just got back from vacation.  A week away in Myrtle Beach.  It was largely successful.  Everyone seemed to have fun, the weather cooperated, and the long drive home was mostly uneventful. 

The problem with being on vacation for a week is that you come home and still have to do all the stuff you didn't get to do because you were vacationing:  Laundry, grocery shopping, lawn mowing.  So the return from vacation was a long and tedious drive punctuated by a return to a warm house with no food or clean clothes in it. 

The other "problem" with being on vacation is that you fall out of routine.  It's my routine to listen to audiobooks on my drive to work.  I finished the last one just before we left for vacation, and it's sort of a pain in the ass to search the online library for the next one, so I sometimes forget until right before my commute that I'm bookless. 

This morning, right before I left for work, I remembered that I was bookless, but I'd downloaded a couple songs the night before and decided instead to listen to them.  After I played them, I started browsing through my playlist as I drove, clicking a title here or artist there that struck my fancy.  And...apparently...my fancy was angry angry music, because once I started, I began looking for specific artists from that "genre" (I know "angry" isn't a genre).  It was nice to have high energy and fast beat to break the bubblegum pop routine that I'm forced into when the kids and Leslie are in the car.  BUT...

Holy shit, I'm an angry driver when I listen to it.  I drive faster.  I drive more aggressively.  I am less tolerant of people driving aggressively around me.  At one point I resisted the urge to glance into the rear view to see what I looked like...I knew I had resting bitch face, my eyebrows pinched into an angry glower.  It just...happened.  And I wasn't angry.  Or at least I don't THINK I was angry.  I actually felt pretty "good" submerging myself in the phlegm-loosening, pulse-quickening bass, sharp staccato snare, and throat rending lyrics.  But man was I aggressive! 

I should have probably gotten a couple tickets.  One would really have done the trick, I think.  On my lunch break I need to find a new audiobook. 

This morning's angry commute brought to you by:

System of a Down:  Mr. Jack
Volbeat:  Halleluja Goat
Juicehead:  Death of Democracy
Circa Survive:  Get Out
Skindred:  Nobody
Fair to Midland:  Whiskey and Ritalin
Static-X:  Destroyer
Deftones:  My Own Summer

And they're very sorry.