You are somebody that I don’t know
But you’re takin’ shots at me like it’s Patrón
And I’m just like, damn, it’s 7 AM
Say it in the street, that’s a knock-out
But you say it in a Tweet, that’s a cop-out
And I’m just like, “Hey, are you okay?”And I ain’t tryna mess with your self-expression
But I’ve learned a lesson that stressin’ and obsessin’ ’bout somebody else is no fun
And snakes and stones never broke my bones
(From Taylor Swift’s You Need to Calm Down from her new album Lover)
I know that a lot of people don’t take Taylor Swift too seriously, but I love her. Here is a quote that she spoke about when talking about the process of writing her new album:
“Writing songs is strange because it never happens the same way,” she explained. “But sometimes it happens in a way that feels like this weird haunting that you can’t really explain. You don’t know where the ideas came from and you didn’t work at all to write it.”
I think that most of us creative types can totally relate to that quote, don’t you? And it is my belief, that almost all of us are creative types, even if we don’t realize it.
The You Need to Calm Down song reminds me of a tip that my daughter shared with me on the way to school this morning. She said that she got this tidbit of practical knowledge, off of Instagram. If someone is yelling at you and you want to diffuse the situation, tell the screamer that they have something in their teeth. It makes the yelling person instantly self conscious and interrupts the flow of negativity. I hope that you don’t have to use this tip today, particularly on a Monday morning, or anytime soon for that matter (no one should be yelling at you). Still, it’s a good little suggestion to keep tucked into your back pocket for when you are approached by the toxic types.
So, besides downloading songs this weekend, I also watched a few episodes of Amazon Prime’s Modern Love, despite being warned that it was a “hate watch.” I didn’t hate it. The episodes that I watched were admittedly sugary and light in a Hallmark special kind of a way, but why is light and sweet and sentimental necessarily a “bad thing”? Remember, I am a Taylor Swift fan. (Warning: spoiler alert!)
My favorite episode of Modern Love was about a very protective New York City doorman, who had originally come from a small, war-torn village in Albania, where he had been a sharp shooter. The narrator, named Maggie, who tells the story, is petrified for her protective doorman to meet any of her various dates and boyfriends because he judges them harshly and always negatively, with the piercing eyes of a never-miss sharp shooter. I actually wrote down some of his quotes. The doorman was so filled with that perfect, simple, “to the point” wisdom. And he said all of his statements so firmly, and knowingly, in a thick Albanian accent, that you didn’t even dare question whether he was right or wrong about what he said.
When the narrator was crying her eyes out to her doorman about another romantic disappointment in her life, he said this:
“Tomorrow is a brand new day. It has never been touched.”
When Maggie showed her doorman, a sonogram picture of her baby (he had never seen a sonogram picture before), he said this:
“It’s like the whole Universe is in here.”
When Maggie was debating whether it was even possible to make a move across the country for her dream job, her doorman said this:
“Anything is possible.”
But, the best door man quote came at the end of the show, when the narrator introduces her doorman, to her one true love. Maggie is very stressed and nervous, prepping her true love with how to act and what to say, because the doorman had always been so critical and judgmental and disapproving of all of her previous relationships. She (and her lover) are shocked and amazed when the doorman gives this particular man, his instant approval. The doorman says this:
“I was never looking at the man, Maggie. I was looking at your eyes.”
That is the point, in the show, when MY eyes started misting up. I live in the suburbs, but man oh man, I want a doorman. Hey, anything is possible. The doorman knows what he is talking about.
