I have a huge playlist of music on my iPod that is entitled “awww… yeah.”  Basically, it’s all my more mellow music, and there is a lot of old stuff on there that is largely feel-good tunes.  So I put that on, sank into the hot water, and tried my best not to contemplate anything other than the feeling of hot water on yoga-tired muscles.

But, well, then I got a-thinking.  About, of all things, astrology.  And horoscopes.  There’s a part of me that is tempted to put even just the tiniest stock in such things, because wouldn’t that be fun?  Wouldn’t it be at least a little fun if there were such a thing as fate and destiny?  But I’m just a little too practical, and the game I like to play (all in my own head) is to read horoscopes and if the slightest bit of truth emerges, I read it again but turn everything around- basically make it a most opposite horoscope- to see if there is still a little truth.  And there invariably is.  So that is one easy, quick, and available way to debunk such silliness.  And then my mind leapt- for whatever reason- to a show I helped my college boyfriend write during my senior year.  It was just too clever by half: every line in the show was a famous movie quote.  As in, every line of dialogue that any character uttered was a famous line from a movie.  

Which meant that the writing team (made up of me, my boyfriend, and his best friend) spent hours upon hours brainstorming famous movie quotes, and then trying to arrange them into a plot.  (I’m pretty sure I only contributed lines from Animal House and Goonies.)  I can’t remember how we arrived at this particular plot twist, but, at the end of the show, vampires dropped down off the ceiling and killed everyone.  It was pretty crappy, and silly, but a hell of a lot of fun.  I was the person in the show who got killed last, and since the whole vampire thing was (of course) very sexualized, it was like being gang-raped and gang-killed, death by rough, bloody kissing (with fake fangs), and naturally, since this was college, my character (as written by my boyfriend) sort of liked it.

Anyway.

I was thinking about that experience- of taking a hundred or so famous quotes and forcing them into a black-box short play.  And about horoscopes.  And about, at the moment, feeling a little hog-tied about some things.  And about how it’s probably good for me to see, quite clearly, that I have no control over most things in the world.  And about how it would almost be a relief to me, at this point, if I could know that my life was ruled by fate or destiny as opposed to random chance.  

Instead, I’m in the bath, and I’m thinking about how all of the songs on my iPod could be telling a story; and if I plucked out a line from each song I heard during my bath, what would the story say?

“I look around but it’s you I can’t replace.  There’s hours of time on the telephone line, to talk about things to come.  I think, last night (you were in my dreams), you were driving circles around me.  Your love is better than chocolate, better than anything else that I’ve tried.  I think it’s time to make this something that is more than only fair, so if you call, I will answer.  My poor heart, it’s been so dark since you been gone.  I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet.  If you’d come home, I’d let you know that all you want is right here in this room.  I wish you out of the woods, and into the picture with me.  Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been clear.  I’m not sure all these people understand.  And I know I’m right, for the first time in my life; that’s why I tell you, you better be home soon.”

Hmm.  It almost tells a story.  Better than that wretched play did, anyway.