Me as a teenager, probably attempting a physics problem.
When I was a teenager I was completely obsessed with the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was published by MTV press and featured its own early ’90s mix-tape. As a matter of fact, I was so obsessed that in the early days of Napster, before it occurred to me that what I was doing might be illegal, I went ahead and made my own version of Charlie’s mix-cd.
All of the songs on that mix-cd hold a special place in my heart, a place they share with angst-ridden poems about open windows and dustbins and heartbreak, things I understood much better then than I do now. One song in particular has always been able to lift my spirits. It’s U2’s MLK, and it goes:
Sleep, sleep tonight, and let your dreams be realized
If the thundercloud passes rain, so let it rain, rain on him.
Of course, in my teenage mind I changed that line to “rain on me,” and during The Summer of the Perks of being a Wallflower Mix CD I would listen to that song every time it rained. To this day, warm, rainy weather like the kind we’re having right now reminds me of lazy teenage summers in my hometown, listening to U2 on my discman and walking in the rain. And it reminds me of the vague hopes that accompanied being in high school, when my dreams were far too ephemeral to ever be realized.
Or if U2’s not for you, you can always listen to Bob Dylan instead.
[we’ve come a long way since Napster. you’ll have to follow the link to hear the song.]
Weather:
60 degrees and misty.
Moods:
Hannah: 6 out of 10 on the “can’t get out of bed” to “jumping for joy” scale. Excited to go running in the rain later.
Anna: In Utah! Where it’s 45 degrees with a chance of snow later in the day. [Edit: Anna says she’s a 7 – beautiful mountain views.]
Ditch the Umbrella 