Maximum Heartbreak Rock

I don't want to sound like an uppity douche or anything but I really hate riding public transit.  It's an assault on my sense organs.  The sordid spectacle of morbidly obese, indeterminately gendered monstrosities sprawled out over the courtesy seats, sweating, and panting, and dribbling purple slurpee all over themselves like a pack of track-suited Jabba the Huts is a constant reminder that my cherished belief in the universal brotherhood of man is a full-on fallacy.  On more than one occasion, I've sat down in a seat and felt the horrifying sensation of its previous occupant's urine seeping through my dress slacks.  I'm also not a big fan of the smell of farts.  A few years back, I had to ride the Main Street bus everyday to and from work and calculated, over a six month period, that I smelled 1.68 farts per ride on the Mainer.

Perhaps worst of all, though, is having to listen to the inane chit chat of the urban underclass.  What follows is a transcript of an actual conversation I heard the other day:

Hoochie No. 1: Then I called him and he was all like, "shit!"

Hoochie No. 2: No way!

Hoochie No. 1: No, totally!  He was like, "shit!"  Then I was like, "whoah!"

Hoochie No. 2: Oh my god! You were like, "whoah!"?

Hoochie No. 1: No, I know, right?  I was totally like, "whoah!"

Hoochie No. 2: Oh, shit!

I guess she should have known
by the way he parked his car
sideways that it wouldn't last.

For the more fortunate among you who've never had to use public transit as your main means of transportation, I assure you: this is by no means an atypical exchange.  Let's just say that, over the years, I've pretty much abandoned all hope of overhearing the answer to any of life's great mysteries while riding public transit.

But then about a week back, I kind of got my mind blown.  It started out predictably, which is to say, unpleasantly enough.  I boarded the eastbound Broadway bus, fought my way through the fart cloud, and sat down at the back across from a pair of mall-rattish tweens who were squeaking at one another in that shrill, smoke-detector-like vocal frequency that immediately made me wince, and clench my asshole, and regret my choice of seating.  From what I could gather, one of them was blubbering about some dude who'd just dumped her and the other was trying to console her.  My fight or flight instinct now activated, I was just about to bolt and go try and squeeze myself into the Jabba pack at the front when something altogether surprising happened.

Weepy Tween: I'm like, so sick of getting hurt like this all the time.  It's like, why can't it just ever work out, you know?

Wise Tween: Yeah, but that's like, the whole thing about love, right?  I mean, it only ever works out once.

When I heard this, I was totally, like, "whoah!"

Love.  Like the wise tween says, it only ever works out once.  And let's face it, that's only if you're lucky.  For most people, it never does.  Sure, they eventually find someone to bitch at and squabble with over whose turn it is to play the hand-held poker machine on the tour bus to Reno, but this seems less like love to me than it does a kind of detente based on the threat of mutually assured destruction.

Teen: I was like, totally high on crystal
when I met Uncle Jesse.

But why, though?  Why, when the truth is found to be lies and all the joy within you dies is it so fucking hard to find somebody to love?  I mean, everyone wants it.  Everyone's looking for it, but then, when we think we've finally found it, it usually ends up not being reciprocated, or fizzling out after a month or so, or they cheat on you, or give you the clap, or get all drunk and coked-out and throw you down the stairs, or kill themselves, or whatever.  And even when those rare and oh-so-precious occasions of overlap occur, when you gaze into your lover's eyes and are pretty fucking sure that the mystical sense of connectedness you feel is not just your own love reflected back at you, that something miraculous has happened, that somehow, someway, you've crossed over into one another's soul-space and fused the flaming tonguetips of your beings...

you end up fucking it all up somehow.  Usually over something stupid that, when you're laying on your deathbed, alone, thinking about it, you're gonna be all like, "shit."

Things like:

Yeah, I love him, but he doesn't make enough money... and he always pisses on the toilet seat.

Yeah, I love her, but she's always blowing all my money... and she always freaks when I piss on the toilet seat.

Yeah, I love him, but he won't talk to me.

Yeah, I love her, but I wish she'd just shut the fuck up sometimes.

Yeah, I love her, but she won't dress up like Raggedy Ann and let me fuck her in the ass with her head in the toilet.

Yeah, I love him, but he won't dress up like Raggedy Ann and let me fuck him with a strap-on with his head in the toilet... oh, and he always pisses on the toilet seat.

And so forth...

Anyways, here's a bit of sonic sadness for the heartbroken, past and present.  The lonely.  The wounded.  And especially, those of you out there still searching for that power that could destroy you, but never would.

Stage One: Denial.

The Avalanches: "Since I Left You."

You know that false sense of freedom and endless possibility you feel right after you walk away?  That fleeting period of deluded bliss that typically ends after a day or two with a drunken, weepy, pleading late-night voicemail message that almost always goes unanswered?  Here it is, and you can dance to it.

Stage Two: Anger.

The Descendents: "Jean Is Dead"

Okay, granted, this song is about your lover committing suicide, but it captures perfectly the fucked-up, heartbroken rage of being ruthlessly abandoned by that special someone.

Stage Three: Bargaining.

Marvin Gaye: "Please Stay (Don't Go Away)

R&B's greatest love machine summons every kilowatt of sexual potency he possesses to lure his ladyfriend back into his arms.  Guess what, kids?  If Marvin can't pull it off, neither can you.

Stage Four: Depression

Sinead O'Connor: "Nothing Compares 2 U"

Obvious and well, kind of cheesy, I admit, but before you groan, I challenge you to listen to this song during the early stages of a painful breakup and not start blubbering inconsolably like a five-year old whose turtle just died.  This soft rock favourite came on the radio at McDonalds one time approximately seven hours and fifteen days after I'd gotten dumped and I started gasping and McSobbing all over my quarter pounder.  McHumiliating.




Stage Five: Acceptance.

Frank Sinatra: "For A While"

The saddest of all the stages.  There's nothing more heartbreaking than the pain of not even feeling the pain anymore.  But with the onset of numbness comes a new if empty resolve.  Time to pick the kleenex up off the floor, throw out the empty Hagen Dasz cartons and bottles of cheap red wine, stop leaving the phone off the hook except when you call in sick to work, and proceed with the bleak business of getting your shit together and moving on... alone.  Here, old blue eyes sings like it's over with a capital "Oh."