Summer Hates Routines; Loves Fabricoh

I don’t know when I downloaded “Fabricoh” to my phone, but I do know that whenever I throw on the Bluetooth in my car, the song starts. The eighth song on the Archers of Loaf record I never listen to, “Fabricoh” isn’t a favorite. It’s not even one of the best songs on the album. It’s just the one I hear every time I get into the car.

August 2018: Summer Hates Routines; Loves Fabricoh

  • “Fabricoh” — Archers of Loaf
  • “Ghetto Soundwave” — Fishbone
  • “Private Idaho (Party Mix)” — The B-52’s
  • “INS Greencard A-19 191 500” — The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
  • “9th vs. Thought” — Black Thought
  • “(Your Love Is Like) Nuclear Waste” — Tuff Darts
  • “Wasted” — Camper Van Beethoven
  • “Booze” — Dorothy Ashby
  • “It’s A Hit” — Rilo Kiley
  • “Guns Are Drawn” — The Roots f/ Son Little
  • “Do That There” — Lyrics Born f/ Cut Chemist
  • “Taco Wagon” — The Young Fresh Fellows
  • “Deus” — The Sugarcubes
  • “Your Dog” — Soccer Mommy
  • “Dramamine” — Sun Kil Moon
  • “Spark” — Tori Amos
  • “Drive” — Aimee Mann
  • “Maiden’s Milk” — Meat Puppets
  • “I’m One Hell of a Dude” — The Sloppy Boys

The past month has been defined by things like that: letting things settle into a rhythm that we 1) don’t necessarily like or care about or 2) even really have the energy to change, all because outside forces are making it difficult to do so. In my car, the Bluetooth — how do you say this politely — eats turds. It takes forever to connect, and usually goes directly to iTunes, an app I never use. But to fix this, I’d need to:

  1. Remove all songs from iTunes?
  2. Remove iTunes itself, maybe?
  3. Buy a new car, burn the old one, burn my Archers of Loaf records, and hide in a bunker.

I think we always expected to roll into summer free from routine, but in doing so we fell into new routines. Routines of inconvenience, really: we end up at nightly swimming lessons that cause us to rush dinner, and we travel nearly every weekend so laundry becomes a frantic scramble, and we see bad habits turn into toothpick structures, bowing under our weight as they give the false impression of stability.

It’s been hard to break those routines. Maybe I’m faking positivity when I say that I think we’re finally getting there — we have a cat now, which is weirdly more stabilizing than I expected it would be — but I actually think we’re finally getting there. I think there’s an edge to things; there’s an understanding that, while summer punishes our expectations, we’re still going to cobble together a normal routine. As always, we’ll figure it out just in time for school to start again. Just in time to re-learn how to go to bed on time.

I didn’t bother with subtlety in the playlist this month. I go to Idaho and struggle over a blog post for two months: The B–52’s “Private Idaho” and Amie Mann’s “Drive.” I peek at the news through my hands: The Dispoable Heroes of Hiphoprisy’s “INS Greencards A–19 191 500.” I have a pile of things to push through: Lyrics Born’s “Do That There.”

I have a playlist to make. I have to make it interesting and fun and stuff, so I push for altered states (“Dramamine,” “Wasted,” “Booze,” none of which were chosen on purpose, just that sometimes the songs we listen to betray our emotions) and try to stay positive (“I’m One Hell of a Dude”).

And “Fabricoh,” too. Because if I’m not going to bother figuring out my damned Bluetooth, I might as well own it.

This was lovingly handwritten on August 6th, 2018