diarydiary051722_A few weeks ago, I booked a plane ticket to Iceland. I've never been out of the country before, and a plane only once a year ago. Despite this, something compelled me to take the plunge. I now feel incapable of following through for some reason. It's unlike me to contract cold feet after a large amount of research like I had done. Perhaps the universe is telling me not to go, or maybe I'm just a coward. Hostels are filling up fast, and I must get over my reservations about the trip to make some reservations now.
Earlier this year, I travelled alone cross-country by train. Why am I having such a hangup now? If I can wander the streets of Portland by myself and spend four days fending off thirsty old geezers in a steel tube that rarely goes over the speed of a car, surely I can handle a trip to one of the most touristy destinations by way of the safest mode of transportation possible? I know I don't have my contact info up on the site yet, but it sure would be reassuring to hear from some fellow solo travellers right about now.
042622_I visited my favorite record store in the whole wide world for the last time today. I expected to feel a little bit of sorrow, but not to bawl during the entire drive home like I did. Flipping through CDs in those massive black wooden tray shelves typically felt like a treasure hunt. In place of jewels, the prize was jewel cases, their sleek plastic clicking and clacking around the store. In the wake of this liquidation, the hunt now felt more like picking through a dead corpse with irreverence. My fellow shoppers in this gruesome exhibition were there for the spectacle, it seemed. A lady across the aisle was giving serious consideration to an as-seen-on-TV Santana collection. I can't really blame her though, since the store had been pretty well picked over by this point after their announcement of closure a few weeks ago. It was a bare shell of the place I had spent the last few years, going every week to scour the aisles during lunch breaks and any trip to town I took. The walls were now chillingly bare, once alive with floor-to-ceiling T-shirts and records. The audio section had been locked up and boarded over. I used to gaze at the equipment and imagine myself a DJ.
Far worse than saying goodbye to the store was saying it to the three clerks who had been there all the while. I was greeted with hugs and shouts of my name. Admittedly, it had been an unusually long time since I was last there. To have my name and face still be remembered by them was something beyond special, and heartbreaking to leave behind. I remembered all the singalongs, reccomendations, and confessions that had happened while I was there, just hanging out in the building sometimes and not even shopping. My first breakup left me in the sort of wake that was hard for even music to fill. Yet, I spent it there, confiding often in the clerks and picking music that wouldn't remind me of her.
It is of course stupid to be so fond of a business. And yet, I spent my teenage years there. It was my favorite place to be for so long that it almost started to be like a friend to me (and obviously the people too). It didn't even close for the "streaming age kills brick and mortar blah blah" type reason, it was much stranger than that. It was a well-frequented place in all the time that I had known it, loved by the community for many different reasons. From OG vinyl collectors, those who just liked any form of music like me, clueless edgelords looking for Billie Eilish CDs, or new vinyl-hunters of my generation, it was the place to be. As I said my final goodbyes and walked out the door, I paused in the foyer between sets of doors. It was once covered head to toe in posters dating back 50 years. Most had now been ripped off the wall, leaving tufts of paper trapped in stray staples. The feeling in my stomach got wider as I realized the death had already occurred. I pushed on one door, but it was locked. The half-dead feeling only furthered. Trying the other one, it swung open for what would be my last time of hundreds. I glanced furtively back at the neon-yellow closing signs only to feel as though I had moved from an empty space to one that was even emptier without it.