its 2:34 in the afternoon of this january 12th, and i'm just getting settled back into this completely gorgeous apartment my fabulous roommate and i are lucky enough to call our home. it really is a beautiful place, too, with high ceilings and gleaming wooden floors. not shabby, really. we have nooks for our records and perfect hipster nesting bedrooms, where we both seem to think in terms of, "now, if i could just get more stuff in here". but its home. its our home. so driving down the interstate at 1:30 this morning toward a hotel room wasn't my idea of the greatest time, though, at that moment, it was the best bliss i've had in a while. i won't get into it, but i will say there was a one sided domestic disturbance at my house last night, a crazy snap. yeah. anyway. so. after enduring bullshit no one should have to endure, we ran away. not because we didn't want to stand our ground, and not because we believed we were in the wrong (impossible in an unprovoked situation) but because we can't take it anymore. its like when someone hits you in the face. its not really that they hit you in the face so much as its the fact that you never see that coming. its always the surprise of the act, not the act itself. anyway. as we caravaned out to the edges of the city, where insanity wouldn't know to follow us, i threw my cell phone in my bag to let it rest and reached for my ipod, plugged it in, and go where i always go when i feel like, maybe, just maybe, life fucked me over on this new had of shit. Social D. I took one, count them, one cd with me the day of the aneurysm, and it was a social distortion disc. this was preipod and the last thing on my mind, for the first time in a long time, was the play list. when i woke up the next day leaning against the edge of the hospital bed, i could still feel the severe tension that wracked my forearms and wrists from holding onto the steering wheel so long, so hard, pitch shifting on the fly from eighty to ninety miles an hour, never looking back. i'd already decided if they wanted to pull me over, the could do it in the goddamned MCV hallway. And every other time shit's gone uncontrollably sour, when i moved away because, well, because, and when i was there. when i feel like maybe he fell out of love with me or that i deserved a little more for a piece, social d comes kicking on. its a simple organism, mike ness' punk rock, three chords, sometimes four, nothing complicated, soaring guitars that slam the fillings in your teeth and rocking, lulling melodies, but the simplicity, of course, is where the beauty lies. because when nothing's right, the last thing you need is some complicated solo infused warbling scronk, no, you need old school, i can scream along to this because i've always known the words and 4/4 timing is as familar as your lover's heartbeat, you need ball and chain, another state of mind, ring of fuckin' fire and even, maybe, yeah, some of the newer shit. because it just coats your brain with an ability to cope, to reboot, and doesn't ask much more than a tapped foot, a hoarse throat or a smile around a cigarette. sometimes, simple is best.