guilty pleasure....

I had been coming off of a messy breakup – you know the type where it's just so bad but the sex is oh so good, and the person in question is so f'ing hot – that letting go, although the best thing for you, remains the last possible solution you're willing to pursue because it entails the end of the kind of super hot celebrity sex/paparazzi lifestyle that most people (except for celebrities) rarely get to experience in their lifetime. Despite the lies, the escalating drug use, and the unpaid gas bills (big problem in Chicago during the winter), you try to focus on the quality fragments of the relationship (the sex, the parties, the free drugs, the warm body beside you at night) until you realize that the 'best parts' of the relationship are just the mirror image of the worst, and your perception (tolerance?) of the person all depends on whether or not you're looking in the mirror at a given moment or at the person directly.

In any case, like any early 20-something, drama=love, and I didn't know any better, and I was hurting, and driving in my car for no particular reason other than to clear my head, and then a friend of mine called – I picked up the cell phone -- blew right through a red light -- because the friend was calling to inform me of a party that night which would contain, amongst things like Xboxes 360s and Turbo (Flippee) Cups, my Ex, fashionably fresh and flourishing once again in my hometown.

I pulled down a side street, parked my car, and sparked a bowl. The obvious question being: was I going to go to this party – and if I did, was it going to result in something destructive, again? More importantly, wasn't I over all this Jr. High nonsense? Hadn't I already rubbed enough salt into my wounds?

Lately I had been driving without the radio because the noise it emitted would only augment my lovesick headache, but right now I needed some auditory distraction.

And that's when my guilty pleasure found me! Since my Paris Hilton wannabe cousin had changed all my radio presets to dance stations when she borrowed my car the previous week, Chicago's Killer Bee hijacked my speakers when I turned the radio on, right at the start of a yearning Janet Jackson from the early 90s singing, 'Again.'

And everything about the song -- from images of a youthful Janet, to the gentle melody and sing-song nature of the words, to the apropos scenario of the song-- washed over my exhausted body and adulterated mind like a saccharine tsunami. The next thing I realized -- probably ten minutes had passed and Janet had given way to Avril --and I was bawling like a seven-year old school girl who had skinned her knee on the playground.

I wiped my eyes as best as I could and immediately drove home and downloaded all versions of the song from Rhapsody. I had the speakers on full blast, just lying on my bed, thinking in my head You tell' em, Janet! You know better – don't fall for that poison again, indulging in pure, emotional cathartic release, when my roommate who most people would think was gay unless they knew him, entered my room, professed his affection for this song as well, then informed me of a little film called Poetic Justice, and we must have watched the film at least twice that night while drinking whiskey and hitting bongs. Even though I must have cried myself through a box of Kleenex, I avoided my ex, and the party.

In spite of my best intentions, because of that phone call, ‘the memories came back to me in my mind’ full force, so thankfully my wounded heart and jaded soul managed to find recluse in the amniotic comfort of booze, drugs, the arms of my roommate, and a Jackson.

Although I fell asleep listening to that song on repeat that night on the couch, the next morning I woke up feeling refreshed. To avoid checking my cell phone for missed calls from my ex, I focused on cleaning my room, at which point I found my Beck: Sea Change, album, and despite its pinkish decor, I popped it into my CD player and finally parted ways with Miss Janet and Mr. Beam in favor of the manly break-up album I should have been listening to weeks ago.