by Jeni Birr
Maybe if my teeth were just a little whiter
Or maybe if I were less a lover more a fighter
Maybe if I was just a little better writer
Or maybe if my ass was just a little tighter
Then maybe baby, maybe baby
Maybe baby
Would you want me then?
Then maybe baby, maybe baby
Maybe baby
Would you want me then?
Maybe if I picked up your shirts from the dry cleaners
Or maybe if I could keep your house a little neater
Maybe if my lips were just a little sweeter
If I could erase my past so I had never been a cheater
But then again…..
Maybe if you would ever let me out the kitchen
Maybe if when I’m speakin you were actually listenin
Maybe if you could bring home even half the bacon
Or maybe if every night I didn’t need be fakin…
Then maybe baby, maybe baby
Maybe baby
I might want you then
Maybe baby, maybe baby
Maybe baby
I might want you then…
~*~
One summer we took a road trip out to New York for what was supposed to be this amazing two-day, thirty five artist line-up music festival called Field Day Fest. We didn’t find out until the week of, however, that they didn’t secure the permits for the field in time, and didn’t think they were going to have enough security. It was moved to the Meadowlands stadium in New Jersey, cut down to only one day, the list of artists was cut to only sixteen, but most of the bands we wanted to see were still playing; like Beck, The Beastie Boys and Radiohead, so we still w)ent. The day of the concert was chilly, it rained all day, everything was wet, and Beck was knocked down a flight of stairs and rushed to the hospital just before his set, so he didn’t perform. Then the Beastie Boys had horrible sound issues and by the time Radiohead came on to close out the night, the whole thing was such a bummer, but they still put on an amazing show.
We still stayed the extra day in New York and walked around Manhattan. That night we decided we wanted to drink in our hotel room, but were all underage and just decided to try buying beer from a drugstore that shall remain nameless, and because I was the oldest, I brought the case up to the counter, showed the cashier my ID when asked, paid the man and left. We just assumed he didn’t really care but knew he was on camera and had to ask and may or may not have even looked at my birthday, because honestly, who hands over their ID if they know they’re underage? Yup. This girl. We went back to our crappy hotel room at a rather large discount hotel chain that will also remain nameless because we were promised two beds and then given only one double that all three of us were trying to cram into, and proceeded to get slightly inebriated. All in all, this was a very fun trip.
It went on like this a few more years, constant open-mics and shows of friends and their bands. My dad let me transfer to Wayne State for my sophomore year, but my dumb ass got into a pretty bad car accident on my way to auditioning for a musical and totaled my tracker. Damn, I miss that car. So, instead of being able to live downtown, my dad said he would buy me a new car, (and by “new” I mean a thousand dollar piece of junk with major transmission issues, but I still appreciated the gesture) but I had to live at home. This was probably better because if I didn’t have someone around to tell me to go to class, I probably wouldn’t have. I think I had more credits in one semester at State than I ended up with my entire sophomore year at Wayne.
In early November, Leah and I went to a party at Blair’s, where we met Ross. Ross was not unattractive, and he had a fancy red BMW and gauges in his ears, but Leah got to him first. No biggie. She and I were headed up to Starbucks, where he worked, a few weeks later for a visit, where we met Eric, one of Ross’s friends who was also waiting for him to get off. I know it’s very romantic to be all like “I knew right then and there that this was the man I was going to marry,” but it would be a complete lie if I said that here, and I’m sure he would agree. I knew as soon as I met him that I was going to go home with him because he had the sexiest voice I’d ever heard, but I was only nineteen when we met and I was still convinced I was never going to get married in those days.
A few days later we all met up at The Music Menu in Greektown where another great local band had a Thursday night residency, The Brothers Groove. We did a bunch of Lemon Drops and danced, and Leah made up some story about some people they ran into or something so that I would go home with Eric, but that was already my plan, so I’m still a little unclear what happened there, but long story short, Eric and I started dating, and shortly thereafter, even moved in together.
He was a House DJ by night, a really good one that had learned a lot from Chicago greats during his stay out there and he was putting together a demo, trying to book parties and we had talked about moving back out there when I was done with school. My big mouth had to ask him one day “if you were offered a house gig out in Chicago, today, would you take it?” knowing full well that would mean I wouldn’t be coming along because I had to finish school and couldn’t afford out of state tuition. He initially said no, but I guess he thought about it some more and a few days later he came home and said “we need to talk.” I wrote many songs in the months that followed that break-up. This was also the last time I asked a question without thinking about if I really wanted the answer.
We Need to Talk*2003
You’ll sit me on the bed
And hold my hands in yours
Look me in the eye
And pretend you’re hurting too
And when you’re feeling guilty
You’ll hold me when I cry
And that’s when you’ll convince me
That it’s not me, It’s you
You’ll spoon-feed me the bullshit
That I swallow every time
As I savor the taste
Of defeat in my mouth
Stumble and you’ll stutter
Trying to find the perfect words
But they all mean the same damned thing
When they finally come out
We need to talk
We need to talk
We need to talk
We need……..
Don’t tell me it’s not working
Don’t tell me it’s not my fault
Don’t tell me you’ve got dreams
Goddamnit, don’t we all
I guess yours are more important
Though my heart is on the line
But I’m the idiot who put it there
So I guess the fault’s all mine
We need to talk
We need to talk
We need to talk
We need…
If you loved me in the beginning
You’d still love me ‘til the end
Don’t try to tell me differently
Now all you want’s a “friend”
Spare me your fucking pity
Go waste someone else’s time
Find another heart to break
I’m tired of fixing mine
No, we don’t need to talk
No, we don’t need to talk
No, we don’t need to talk
No, we don’t need….
~*~
A Bird May Love a Fish*2003
Doctor, please help me
I need to be flying up there
But in place of my wings
Are these funny webbed things
And I can’t seem to breathe the air
And Oh, my love’s going to leave me
Because we can’t find a common ground
She nests in the trees
And I’m stuck in the seas
I’m so sick of swimming around
So drop me a postcard
When you get to Belize
I’ll save you some sand
From each of the seas
And if I had
any of my own
I would fall on my knees
And beg God, to give me some wings
Oh, please God, won’t you give me
Some wings
Doctor, please hurry
I think I’m running out of time
She’s bored with my love
It’s no longer enough
I think she’s going to leave me behind
Doctor, I’m so worried
I really think I’m losing my girl
Why didn’t I listen
When they said we’re from two different worlds
So drop me a postcard
When you get to Belize
I’ll save you some sand
From each of the seas
And if I had any of my own
I would fall on my knees
And beg God, to give me some wings
Oh, please God, won’t you give me
Some wings
Doctor, No thank you
Please take these little pills back
I’ve realized I don’t need a disguise
I’d rather just be who I am
It’s not meant to be
If she can’t love me for me
And we can’t find a compromise
But let truth be told
Need I be so bold
I shouldn’t have to change my life
When you perch on the Eiffel
And you look to the blue
When you see my waters
You’ll know I’m missing you
I’m sorry I’m not the thing
That you needed me to be
But I’m not sorry for being me
So drop me a postcard
When you get to Belize
I’ll save you some sand
From each of the seas
And if I had any of my own
I would fall on my knees
And thank God for not giving me wings
Oh, thank God, for not giving
Me wings…
~*~
Dreamer's Lullaby*2003
When the weight of the world
Is crushing you down
There’s no use in removing
Your head from those clouds
When you’ll always regret
Taking the easy way out
And giving up on the jeweled life
You’d otherwise have found
The road to the emerald city
Isn’t always paved in gold
The path may be dark and winding
And heavy will be your load
But look how far you’ve come by now
To give up and turn around
When you’ve already lost so much
There’s so much you haven’t yet found
There’s door number one
Or door number two
A choice to be made
And neither’s wrong or right
When one makes you happy
And the other’s just easy
If you turn from your dreams
Can you sleep through the night?
How can you sleep without your dreams
How can you sleep without your dreams
How can you sleep…
How can you sleep…
~*~
The following May I threw a birthday show for what was really my twentieth birthday, but I told the bar where I was throwing it that it was my twenty-first birthday, and no one ever asked me for ID. I was in there all the time for their Tuesday open-mics, also hosted by Blair, so they knew me anyway. I played a short set, as did Dale, Dan Minard, and Ian Lee Lamb. Everyone that I wanted to be there that night was there, and it was another highlight of my life. All of my favorite people and music for my birthday, it was lovely.
The next day I got a call from a boy in one of my classes that I had seen around at open-mics and was friends with Blair, and “in the scene” if you will. I was at work, but he left me a message I saved for a long time saying what a wonderful party I’d thrown and he would want his exactly the same way. I had a mini crush on this boy, but he had a girlfriend, so I just assumed he was off limits. Another long story short: they were having problems, they broke up, we got together, in that order. I was not a home-wrecker. Yet.
His name was Matt and we dated almost three years. I don’t know if I ever told him this, but I attribute my graduating Wayne State to him. He took a few classes with me that he had no business taking as a Public Relations major, including Design 2: Color Theory, the most difficult class I took. He would stay up all night with me while we worked on these poster sized journals and painting exercises trying to mix the exact right shade, or hue, or tint, or whatever the hell it was supposed to be that was never right! That professor definitely made me cry a few times. I needed this class for my art major but I feel like I may have dropped it and changed majors all together if it weren’t for Matt.
Coward*2003
It feels just like I’ve been sleeping
But I can’t seem to wake
And I know my body must be screaming
But no one comes to my aid
And I know the morning is coming
To wake me up with a kiss
But Oh how I wish she’d hurry
I can’t go on like this
Fear of those nights
Fear of those mornings
Fear of the aching that never subsides
Fear of those days
Feeling like nothing
The fear of losing my will
To survive
And you just might be perfect
The dream that I let slip away
But I’ll never know all I lost to the wind
Because I was too afraid
If only I could close my eyes
To all that I have seen
Then maybe I could finally learn
To just let a dream be a dream
They’re all nightmares to me
All nightmares to me
Afraid of those nights
Afraid of those mornings
Afraid of the aching that never subsides
Afraid of those days
Feeling like nothing
Afraid of losing my will too survive
Afraid of the dark
Afraid of the lonely
Afraid of love lost as it trickles to the floor
Afraid of the razor making love to my skin
Because I can’t love
Anymore
Can’t love anymore…
Love me, teach me to be unafraid
Love me, and frighten my fears away
Love me, and say you’ll understand
Love me for the coward that I am
Fear of those nights
Fear of those mornings
Fear of the aching that never subsides
Fear of those days
Feeling like nothing
The fear of losing my will
To survive
~*~
I heard a statistic when I was first starting school that the average college student has seven different majors before they graduate, which I thought was absurd; until I had eight. I was undecided for the first semester at Michigan State, then I decided to be theatre, then it was fashion design, then interior design, then graphic design, video arts, studio art with a concentration in drawing and painting and ultimately: printmaking. Funny thing is, I honestly didn’t even know what printmaking was until I was invited (as a graphic design major) to a meeting to review the new Wayne State website before it launched. I just happened to sit down next to Stanley, the head of the Printmaking department, who looked as much like Santa Claus as one could without a red suit and reindeer. He commented that I had very nice handwriting and that I should take his etching class. So the next semester, I did, and I liked it. And I liked Stanley. I thought I could definitely take more classes from this man, and I didn’t particularly care for drawing and painting all that much the way it was being taught. It’s
unfortunate I wasn’t able to get into a screen printing class until my senior year because this turned out to be my true love. As long as it was flat, or could be flexed to be flat, you could print on it, and I just started printing on everything! The stool at my desk in the communal studio, t-shirts, bandannas, CD cases and even toilet seats. These became my signature piece as I found a local hardware store where I could buy them for five dollars, disassemble them, paint them, print them, and then giftwrap them back up and sell them for thirty dollars at art fairs. Detroit was great for this sort of thing because there were always art fairs, always artists looking to split booth rental, and always people interested in buying cheap, kitschy, art.
I actually hated being a studio art major, but it was already my senior year by the time I made this decision, and I wasn’t about to stay in school forever, at that time anyway. All the professors wanted me to talk about my work like “what I’m trying to say with this piece is…” or “this piece says to the world that…” and blah blah blah, bullshit. I didn’t have a statement to make. I just wanted to make things pretty. I loved bright swirling colors, and glitter, and generally felt driven to make the world a prettier place, but I had no “statement”. I did a whole series of prints for my senior project about not being an artist. Bright, beautiful prints (in my opinion anyway) with bold wording saying “this is not art” and “I am not an artist” or one of my personal favorites, the sarcastic “I have a statement!” Stanley said I would make more money than anyone else, and perhaps I would have if I’d stuck with it, but unfortunately, real life took over. I know everyone says do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life or some crap, but rent doesn’t pay itself and once I graduated, Daddy stopped paying it, so I went back to Cosi.
I applied for a tattoo apprenticeship at one point, and was offered the position after an extensive interview and portfolio review; but they wanted me to work in their shop for about thirty hours a week, unpaid, in exchange for my training and equipment costs, and I was already working forty hours or thereabouts at Cosi, so I turned it down. This is one of the decisions I feel like probably had a great impact on which direction my life took. I think next time around I’ll take it.
The other thing I don’t know how I would have gotten through without Matt, was my dad moving to Jacksonville, Florida. As I mentioned earlier, he had quit Compuware some years ago and was working from home and living off of stock market winnings. As soon as my brother graduated high school though, in 2003, he sold our house and we moved to Ferndale, a nice enough, highly rentable city right on the northern border of Detroit. It was also only a few blocks from Woodward Avenue which ran straight through the center of Ferndale, and all the way down through the center of Detroit, where Wayne State was, so that my brother could take the bus home on the weekends if he so chose, but I think he usually just hitched a ride with me.