“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 4 of 12

Kate Sloan

Song 14/52: “I’m Choosing Me”

Lyrics:

Always leaving me on read
Makes me wish that I was dead
That isn’t love, or so I hear
Love should not be everything you fear

I’m a moth and you’re the flame
Mixing signals, that’s your game
Why do you make me feel so sad?
It’s scary that your love can hurt this bad

Chorus:
I’ve had enough, so I guess I’ll go
Thought this was love, but I didn’t know
That you’re not who I thought you’d be
There’s a lot I could not foresee
And I’m choosing me

I gotta put my feelings first
You never do, ’cause you’re the worst
Figured out why I’ve been so blue
Here’s a little clue: it’s ’cause of you

(repeat chorus)

Here’s to all the ladies dating dudes who make them feel like shit
Here’s to anybody who decides they’ve had enough of it
Here’s to grit and guts and hearts that hustle
Self-esteem is just a muscle
You can get stronger if you try
But first, you gotta dump the fucking guy

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

If you’re a songwriter, it’s really smart and helpful to use some kind of voice memo app that’s specifically for song drafts, bits and pieces of melody, etc. The one I use is called Voice Record Pro and was recommended to us in journalism school because you have a lot of granular control over the recording settings. I use it to store any and all musical ideas, and I also usually record each section of every song as I’m writing it, so that (for example) I don’t forget the verse melody by the time I get to the bridge.

I had one day left in the week to write a song, and set aside an evening in which to do it. Nothing new was coming to me after a while of trying, so I pulled up some of my old recordings to see if there was anything I could salvage. I came across a tiny fragment that ended up becoming the first half of the first verse of this song (“always leaving me on read… love should not be everything you fear”). I think I had originally envisioned those lines as being part of a sad, mopey song about dating fuckboys who disrespect you, but I was in a bit more of a cheerful, triumphant mood on the day that I wrote the rest of the song, so it ended up being much more positive in tone and style.

“Choosing oneself” was an idea I’d been pondering since seeing it come up in the show Love is Blind (which I wrote a song about the previous week). When I reached the bridge, I realized I wanted it to provide comfort and advice to people who are dating jerks. I wrote the advice I wish I’d gotten back when I was in that situation.

Song 15/52: “At the Wedding”

Lyrics:

Really need to wash my filthy bedding
Clearly I’m depressed and something’s missing
Today I’m seeing April at her best friend’s wedding
It’s always weird to see her just existing

It’s not that we’re not on good terms
I think we’ve both lived and we learned
But still, I’m just a little bit concerned

When I dug this suit out from my closet
It’s ’cause I knew the grey one was her fave
I wanted her to blush and I wanted to cause it
I know that that’s a creepy thing to crave

She always looked perfect in pink
I think I’ve had too much to drink
I’m tired of feeling; I don’t wanna think

I guess that’s her new boyfriend
Cemented by her side
I hope he knows he’s lucky
I hope he’s filled with pride

And if she catches the bouquet
I know she’ll make a beautiful bride one day

When I saw them twirling by the band
I wished that it was me holding her hand
But I had my chance
So I watched them dance
I should’ve kept her happy like I’d planned
I wish I’d kept her happy like I’d planned

 

Songwriting diary:

This song was heavily inspired by the Andy Shauf song “Jeremy’s Wedding,” which I listened to obsessively on loop when it first came out. It’s a song about seeing your ex at the wedding of a mutual friend, and how sad and awkward that can be. (I also once briefly dated a guy who was, at the time, about to attend a wedding that his very recent ex was going to be at. He bought a very expensive suit and sent me photos of it, which was weird because he had clearly bought it moreso to impress her than to impress me. But I digress.) Andy Shauf’s version is a bit more hopeful – the protagonist and the ex are friendly, smoke a joint together, and have some fun on the dance floor – and originally I had written my song to have some more interaction with the ex in it (e.g. the protagonist was seated at her table at the reception) but I ended up deciding to make it more of a tragic story where he probably never even talks to her all night.

I wrote this song on my baritone ukulele, but the rhythm was really odd for the uke and I kept hearing the song in my head as having more of an ’80s-’90s high school prom type of sound. (This was, in itself, probably inspired by another Andy Shauf song, “Martha Sways,” which always has the vibe to me of something you’d slowdance to if you and your sweetie were the last people on the dance floor at 2 a.m. at a sad prom.) I had been watching all these videos on YouTube of songwriters making music with midi keyboards and laptops, and realized how much I’d missed doing music production and incorporating multiple “instruments,” the way I did on my self-produced album Know It All in 2015. So I bought myself a Novation Launchkey Mini (it is sooooo cute and small!!) and spent several hours piecing together an arrangement for this song in GarageBand that included synths, bass, drums, clapping, electric piano, vibraphone, flute, and hammered wood. It really elevated the song to a different level, to the point that I had sort of disliked the song before I arranged it, but after finishing the arrangement, I felt like it was really fun and sad and a pretty solid song.

Song 16/52: “Call Me Back”

Lyrics:

Ignoring me goes poorly when I’m lonely in the morning
I pour a coffee, pore over my phone
Your phoniness is surely just a sore and sour warning
Your hollowness has left me all alone

Chorus:
Will you call me back?
I’m bending over backwards
When you call me back
I swear that I will answer
Wish you’d call me back, but
Maybe you’ve been hacked, or
Did you never really care at all?
God, I really wish that you would call

I’m reading all these books, and I think you might be avoidant
Not trying to point fingers or lay blame
But honestly, it’s hard for me; I don’t think I enjoy it
It always ends up more-or-less the same

(repeat chorus)

Should I turn my phone off?
Should I block your number?
You’ve already flown off
Wish I wouldn’t wonder:

How hard is it to punch in digits?
I know it’s sad, but I’m counting down the minutes

(repeat chorus)

Why’d I ever think that you would call?
It would be so nice if you would call
God, I really wish that you would call

 

Songwriting diary:

I actually wrote this song on the same day as last week’s. It’s funny going back into my voice memos from days when I was hopping around wildly between multiple different songs, but it also makes sense to me – sometimes you just take a song as far as it can go that day, and you have to give your brain some time to work on the puzzle of the song in the background.

I built this whole song from one line that popped into my head, “Ignoring me goes poorly when I’m lonely in the morning.” I was walking around one morning making instant coffee and feeling kind of lonely, and I liked the sonic weirdness of all those internal rhymes packed close together. It had the vibe of an anxious person who’s been rehearsing her argument all night long and is now faced with the task of explaining to her avoidantly attached partner why the avoidant behavior is stressing her out. I continued to include a lot of internal rhymes throughout the rest of the song too, as well as overwrought alliteration, trying to follow the “clues” laid out for me in that first line that inspiration struck me with (this is what Dar Williams calls “listening for the Voice of the song” in her book How to Write a Song That Matters).

I set this song aside for a while after it was finished because I really didn’t like the second verse I’d written for it originally (“I’m reading all these books and I think you might be avoidant/ Also I am anxious but we knew that/ Insecure attachment always pours in like a poison/ I guess I never knew that it could do that“). But in the days that followed, I found myself humming the chorus of this song a lot, so I decided it was good enough to be worth salvaging, and rewrote the second verse. I also made some tweaks to the chorus so that there would be 3 “W” words at the starts of prominent lines (“will/ when/ wish“) because I thought that’d give it a more powerfully plaintive sound.

Song 17/52: “Dreamgirl”

Lyrics:

It’s lonely to be in love
When even your best friend doesn’t know
It’s lonely to be alone
But that’s the way it goes

You say you’re missing your ex from Texas
You say he just understood you
I can’t help wondering how good the sex was
Wish I could show you what I could do

But I can’t begin to rock your world
When I’m not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl

When you say that you’re looking for love
Why am I not a contender?
I guess it’d be awkward as hell
And a forever friendship-ender

You say on Monday, you had a fun date
But by Tuesday, he’d blocked your number
I think that clown is clearly insane
I say, “Wow, damn – that’s a bummer”

I can’t protect you from the world
When I’m not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl

Don’t you know I adore you
More than you could ever know?
I think there’s more to explore here
No fear
Let’s give it a go
We’ll take it slow

I can’t admit that you’re my world
I’m still not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl

 

Songwriting diary:

I had already written a whole other song that day (which eventually turned into the following week’s song) but decided to continue. I was messing around on my midi keyboard and started improvising over top, and sang, “It’s lonely to be in love/ When nobody knows/ It’s lonely to be alone/ But that’s the way it goes.” I liked it and immediately connected it to an unrequited love plotline in the TV show I’m watching a lot these days, Superstore. So this song ended up being a mix of the perspective of a character who’s in love with his already-married friend, and my own perspective when, several years ago, I was in love with someone who only saw me as a friend and would often confuse me by using me as a sounding board for his romantic problems.

The chorus (“I can’t protect you from the world…”) also came to me while I was improvising, and I liked the idea of making it slightly different every time (“I can’t begin to rock your world,” “I can’t admit that you’re my world”) to emphasize all the different facets of unrequited love. It can bring up feelings of romantic longing, sure, but also sexual desire, competitiveness, shame, judgment (including self-judgment), and more, and I wanted to get that all in there.

Originally I had the idea that I wanted all the verses to alternate between lines that started with “I think…” and “I say…” to tell a story of unrequited love through the ways we censor our true thoughts and feelings when we know they aren’t mutual. It’s a cool concept and I might use it somewhere else, but in this song, it only ended up surviving as the part in the second verse where the love interest tells the protagonist about getting ghosted and his outward reaction is different from his internal one.

As occasionally happens, the bridge (“Don’t you know I adore you…”) popped into my head pretty much fully-formed, and I had to scramble to get it recorded before I forgot it. After finishing the song, I did a lot of lyric editing, moving stuff around so the story would progress in a way that was easier to follow. Considered changing the “Texas/ sex was” rhyme because I’ve somehow already used that in a song before, but by that time I had grown to love the lilty weirdness of the phrase “your ex from Texas” so it felt too settled to change it.

Song 18/52: “Does He Know?”

Lyrics:

You’re not in love; I see it in your eyes
You say you are – you say it, but it’s all just lies
It’s not a rough patch; it’s not the eye of the storm
I wish you had a better love to keep you warm

But it’s not my place to foster doubt
So I’ll give you space to work it all out

Chorus:
Does he know you don’t love him? Is that even true?
Or have I been misreading the hell out of you?
Are you dropping hints, or are you happy at home?
‘Cause if I am wrong, I’ll leave you alone
Yes, if I am wrong, I’ll leave you alone

They say that marriage vows are meant for life
But what if then a husband isn’t nice to his wife?
They say it’s not my business, and I know that
But I’d be so much better for you – I just wanna show that

I can see close-up the pain you’re in
And if you broke up, it’d be a win-win-win

(repeat chorus)

If this is how I make my move, so be it
I know that we’d be good together, even if you don’t see it
I’ve loved you for a long, long, really long time
I’ve loved you knowing you might never ever be mine

(repeat chorus)

I don’t think I’m wrong, but what do I know?

 

Songwriting diary:

This was a weird one. The melody of the first few lines was the first thing that came to me, and I made a recording of myself just la-la-la-ing it. Later that day, I sat down and fleshed it out into a song based on Jonah’s perspective in the early seasons of Superstore (yes, another one – look, there’s a pandemic going on, not a lot is happening in my actual life to inspire me 😂). When I listened to the demo recording in the days after writing it, I realized that I liked the verses and bridge but the chorus wasn’t working. It had a totally different rhythm and feel than the rest of the song, and it hit my ear weird every time I heard it.

The prechorus of this song (“but it’s not my place to foster doubt…”) kept getting stuck in my head, though, so I thought the song would be worth updating with a completely new chorus. I wanted something catchy that really summed up what this character was thinking and feeling. I was tidying my room while mulling it over, and suddenly started improvising, “Does he know you don’t love him? Is that even true? Or have I been misreading the hell out of you?” It sounded like country music to me, but (as I’ve been learning from the various songwriting books I’m reading) it’s best not to judge or analyze a song you’re writing while you’re writing it, but rather to take an approach of “let’s just see what happens.” If I wasn’t doing a weekly songwriting challenge, I might have stopped at this point, because I’m not a country singer and don’t even really like that genre, but I knew I had to get a song written so I pushed on through.

I liked the alliteration of “Are you dropping hints, or are you happy at home?” so I kept that line exactly the way it came out when I first improvised it. I could hear a twangy E7 chord in my head while I was writing the latter half of the chorus, which worked well because the verses already had an E7 chord in them. It was surprisingly easy to stitch together these disparate bits of music and make them into a cohesive song.

The Lelo Sila is My Favorite Clit Pulsator Toy; the Lelo Sila Cruise is Not

Kate Sloan

I’m enamored with the Lelo Sila. It bears the label of “my favorite clit pulsator toy,” which is a tough label to earn. It’s also earned a spot in the top drawer of my nightstand. I mentioned it in an interview just today, actually, when someone asked me what toys I’ve been loving lately. This luxe stimulator is top-tier, as far as I’m concerned.

But Lelo is a company known for their terrible, gimmicky “innovations,” and in keeping with that, they recently introduced a new version of the Sila called the Sila Cruise. I dislike it so much that I’m not even gonna link to it. Buy the original Sila instead.

What’s so great about the Lelo Sila?

Most clit pulsators – think Womanizers and Satisfyers – focus predominantly on the tip of the clit. The Sila is the only one I’ve found that stimulates my entire external clit: the tip, the shaft, and the hood. This makes it an especially good pick for folks with larger clits and/or transmasculine folks with bottom growth, or just folks who like a roomier fit.

The Sila’s wide, flat “lips” help create a better seal around the clit than almost any other pressure-wave stimulator I’ve tried. They also conduct the Sila’s sensations through the skin and into the buried “legs” of the internal clit.

As a result of all this, the Sila provides more full-bodied clitoral sensations than any other toy I’ve tried of this type. It is a toy that puts all of its focus – and it has a lot of focus – on the clit. So, as a big fan of clitoral stimulation – especially the kinds that go past just the sensitive tip of my clit – I love this toy.

It also has a “rumblier” feel than many other pressure-wave toys, meaning each little airwave feels lower-pitched and more impactful. This significantly reduces any numbness or desensitization I might experience from using a clitoral toy for a while. Its stimulation is so rumbly, and yet so indirect, that I can have multiple orgasms with this toy – not something I’m usually capable of, at least not this easily.

The quality of the orgasms is much improved for me as well, because this toy stimulates much more of my clit than any other pressure-wave toy. Other toys of this type have sometimes given me ruined half-orgasms, or have stimulated me so intensely during orgasm that the experience was more painful than pleasurable; not so with this toy. The Lelo Sila gives me deep, intense, long-lasting, and often quite sudden orgasms that leave me speechless and panting.

What’s the difference between the Sila and the Sila Cruise?

So far as I can tell, the only addition to the Cruise is a “feature” known as Cruise Control. Lelo says that Cruise Control “reserves 20% of SILA™ Cruise’s full power during normal use, so that when SILA™ Cruise is pressed hard against the body and the motor begins to drop power, that extra 20% is unleashed so that there’s no reduction of intensity” before and during your orgasm.

There are… multiple issues with this. One is that I have never personally experienced my Sila slowing down or fading in power from the amount of pressure I’ve applied to it. It’s just not an issue I’ve encountered. So it’s kind of confusing that Lelo went to the trouble of launching a new version of their own toy, to solve a problem that (in my experience, anyway) the toy doesn’t even have.

Another issue is that not everyone wants maximal power right before or during their orgasm, and it’s weird to assume that they would. One of the beautiful things about Lelo toys is that they always have at least 8 different speeds, so they can satisfy a broad range of users, from super-sensitive folks to those who need more stimulation to get them off. The freedom to adjust sex toys to my own preferred intensity at any given moment is key to my pleasure. In fact, I would say it’s a mandatory feature of any vibe I’ll enjoy, and certainly a standard feature to expect on any toy that costs more than $15. Lelo has taken that freedom away from me with the Cruise – as they say, “it’s not a setting, it’s completely automatic,” so I can’t even turn it off and use the Sila Cruise normally without Cruise Control.

The third and most pressing issue I have with Cruise Control is that it doesn’t even do what it’s supposed to do. The boost in intensity doesn’t kick in when I press the toy harder against my body. No, instead it kicks in… whenever the hell it wants to. Often at a moment in my arousal process when I really, really wish my clit stimulator would stay at the exact same intensity so that I can, y’know, continue to feel good and build toward an orgasm, rather than having said orgasm be thwarted by an inconsistent toy.

It’s really a boner-killer when this happens, because the intensity that Cruise Control brings to the table is aggressive, especially if you’re accustomed to a lower speed – so my clit can get overstimulated to the point that a bruisey, ouchy sensation will linger for several minutes afterward. This is antithetical to the gentle, slow build that I appreciated about the original Sila.

The Sila Cruise is $189, whereas the original Lelo Sila is $169. They’re both definitely in the “luxury sex toy” price range, but the Sila Cruise is absolutely not worth that amount of money, because you can’t even control the damn intensity of it. It just jumps around randomly. It might as well be a poorly-wired $6.99 body massager from the Walmart bargain bin for how unreliable it is. I truly have no idea what on earth made Lelo think it was a good idea to not only make this toy but also to charge twenty extra dollars for it.

Final words

If you want full-bodied clitoral sensations that encompass your entire external clit and even stimulate some of the inner portions, you want the Lelo Sila. But you do not want the Lelo Sila Cruise, because you, presumably, do not want your orgasms ruined or your clit pummelled.

The Sila Cruise is not a “new and improved” version of the Sila. If anything, it is a “new and worsened” version of the Sila. It is “new and useless.” It is “new and painful.” It is “new and what the actual fuck.” But it is certainly not “new and improved.”

 

Thanks to Lelo for sending me these products to try! I really do mean it when I say that I love the original Sila and highly recommend it. But don’t get the Cruise. Just don’t.

Busting 5 Common Myths About the G-Spot

Kate Sloan

The G-spot is one of the most misunderstood parts of sexual anatomy, so let’s dive into some of the most common G-spot myths and why they’re total garbage!

 

Myth #1: G-spot stimulation is always pleasurable for everybody who has a G-spot.

Here’s a pro tip when it comes to sex: literally any sentence that begins with “everyone likes…” or “no one likes…” is false. So, although the G-spot is often framed as this holy grail of pleasure for many people with vulvas, it’s important to know that it’s not a magic button that you can just press and expect fireworks.

Many people – including me, at one point – find G-spot stimulation uncomfortable, annoying, or even painful. This doesn’t automatically mean they won’t find penetration pleasurable at all, though; there are other internal erogenous zones worth exploring, such as the A-spot and the posterior fornix.

 

Myth #2: It’ll feel good from the get-go.

I especially need cis men to understand this: please do not start poking ‘n’ stroking the G-spot of someone who is not already turned on, unless you know for a fact that they want you to do so.

Like many other erogenous zones, the G-spot typically responds best to stimulation that happens once you’re already aroused, both physically and mentally. For me personally, it really is the difference between “ow ow ow stop that right now” and “oh my god please never stop.”

Get turned on (or get your partner turned on) using whatever methods reliably work for you. For most vulva-owners, this will involve some amount of clitoral stimulation – and in many cases it can feel good to continue stimulating the clit while you start to touch the G-spot. I would also suggest using a lot of lube and starting slowly, like with just one finger and minimal pressure against the spot, until you’re ready for more.

 

Myth #3: G-spot orgasms are superior to clitoral orgasms.

Remember that time a cis male neurologist from 19th-century Austria theorized that clitoral orgasms were “immature” and that becoming an adult meant getting off from vaginal penetration alone? And remember how this crackpot theory has continued to shape present-day sexual discourse, leading millions of women to feel like they’re broken because their bodies work in completely normal ways? Cool cool cool. Thanks, Freud, that’s super helpful of you. 😬

What we know now, based on modern science (including the practice of, y’know, actually listening to the stories and experiences of people with vulvas, rather than making up psychoanalytic lore about how their genitals are wrong), that the clitoris is the anatomical equivalent of the penis. The two structures literally develop from the same tissues in utero, and share some commonalities, namely: they both provide the majority of sexual pleasure for the majority of people who have them.

While we’re on the subject, let’s clear up a few more misconceptions about G-spot stimulation vs. clitoral stimulation. First of all, you can combine the two, and many people have their best G-spot experiences when the two are paired. Secondly, not everyone can have G-spot orgasms, and there is nothing wrong with you if you can’t. And thirdly, researchers have yet to firmly conclude whether the G-spot is its own structure or is in fact part of the internal clitoral network, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter because it’s still a spot that feels good for many people to touch. Let’s focus less on pedantic semantics and more on pleasure, mmkay?

 

Myth #4: G-spot stimulation always results in squirting, or squirting only happens from G-spot stimulation.

Nope and nope. Not everyone can squirt, either because they just haven’t stumbled upon the right technique to make it happen for them yet, or because they’re simply not set up for it anatomically. (For example, I once heard the porn star Nina Hartley, who used to be a nurse, saying that she believes the reason she can’t squirt is that her urethra is located too close to her vagina, so whatever’s stimulating her G-spot gets in the way of the spray and stops it from coming out.)

If you want to squirt, or to help somebody else squirt, typically the best thing to do is to build a lot of arousal beforehand and then stimulate the G-spot really hard and fast for long enough to induce squirting. The ejaculation itself does not automatically coincide with orgasm; I tend to squirt the most after I’ve orgasmed, for instance.

Some people are able to squirt without G-spot stimulation being involved at all – such as from touching their clit, A-spot, or perineum. This may have something to do with the G-spot’s aforementioned integration in the internal clitoral network.

 

Myth #5: You have to have a big dick to hit the G-spot.

This one really depends on anatomy. I’m not going to lie to you and say that nobody will require a dick to be big in order for it to hit their spot the way they like.

That said, the G-spot is only about 2-3 inches inside the vagina, so you don’t have to have a long dick to hit it – and in fact, I’ve often found that short-to-average-length dicks hit mine the best, because the head of their cock strokes over that spot without much effort on every thrust, whereas longer dicks tend to hit my A-spot instead.

A penis also does not necessarily need to be thick to stimulate the G-spot. Angles that tilt your dick toward the front wall of the vagina can achieve a lot. Not to mention – say it with me now – fingers and sex toys exist! If you’re thinking of your cock as the only sexual tool you have at your disposal, you’re limiting your partner’s pleasure, and your own, a great deal.

 

What G-spot myths have you heard?

 

This post was sponsored by the folks at Honey Play Box, who are offering Girly Juice readers 20% off all products right now with the coupon code JUICE20. As always, all writing and opinions here are my own.

What a Trip to Italy Taught Me About Pleasure, Purpose, & Power

Kate Sloan

It has been more than five years since my first (and, so far, only) trip to Italy, and I still think about it pretty often.

It was a glorious few days that my mum generously tacked onto the end of a trip we were taking to Malta for a cousin’s wedding. We figured, “when in Rome” (or, more accurately, “when in the Mediterranean”), might as well splurge on ourselves as a fun, once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. We stayed in the gorgeously ornate Bernini Bristol hotel. Our room overlooked the Piazza Barberini, which contains the famous Fontana del Tritone (Triton Fountain). At night, after luxuriant dinners of rich pasta and fine wine, we’d visit the fountain, throw coins in, and make wishes.

Once, I wished for romance, but it was already all around me; the city itself was romance. Earlier that evening, we’d been winked at by a waiter, who’d asked us after our meals if we wanted “dessert, or anything else.” We’d strolled down the street to a gelateria and had a wine-flirty conversation with the nervous employee behind the counter as he scooped up our treats. And now, at the fountain, as I breathed in the cool night air and contemplated my wish for romance, a dark-haired man approached us and handed me two red roses. He said something in Italian that I didn’t understand, but I think I heard bella somewhere in there. I said Grazie, grazie! and wished I knew more words to thank him as he walked away.

Everything in Rome seemed sensual and quasi-sexual to me in a way I rarely felt at home. Maybe it was just the excesses of vacation, but it felt woven into the fabric of the city, too. The resplendent meals. The ambient chatter of people passing you in a piazza. The click of cobblestones against your heels.

There was a slick salesman at a leather goods shop who sweet-talked us into buying leather jackets. I know his flirtation was a sales technique, but it felt more like seduction or sex giochi (that’s Italian for “sex games,” mio caro!). Our interaction lasted at least an hour, and was far longer and more relaxed than any sales transaction I’d ever experienced – he made us feel like we were visiting his home. He pulled jackets and skirts and boots in our sizes from the racks all around us, and implored us in his elegant accent, “Just try it on.” And every time we emerged from the dressing room, he’d make us feel like runway models, with the intensity of his gaze and the specificity of his compliments.

We wore those leather jackets the day we sprinted to catch up with our tour group so we could traverse the Roman Forum, explore the Colosseum. The chill in the air wasn’t depressing, like on dark Toronto nights that portended cold Toronto winters; the crisp breeze in Rome actually felt flirtatious, caressing our skin, reminding us we were lucky to be able to feel such things, lucky just to be alive in this world.

Our lunches and dinners were so obscenely pleasurable that I still think about them five years later, like the indelible look in a long-lost lover’s eyes that you still recall fondly after they’ve gone. The endless embrace of butter and cheese. The free-flowing wine, encouraging us to laugh, light up, and look around with gratitude at our lovely lives. The waitstaff, who acted as though any kind of restraint or self-flagellation related to food would be not only misguided but in fact not worth talking about at all.

I remember the day we planned to go to the Vatican; I realized in horror that the clothes I’d packed were deeply ill-suited for the hallowed institution’s conservative dress code. Pants and long sleeves were required, but these were rare in my relaxed hyper-femme aesthetic, so instead I wore a prim cardigan buttoned up to the top, and loud floral-print leggings under my black dress.

Perusing the statues, paintings, and altars, I felt bowled over by all that history – like time itself was topping me in a hardcore kink scene and the only thing to do was surrender.

When we filed into the Sistine Chapel and gazed up at the ceiling, I felt a peacefulness and rapture I’d previously only ever experienced after taking a lot of pain in a scene. The stillness and reverence in the room were overwhelming. I barely dared to move or even breathe. The art had a message for me: that I should appreciate the present moment, drink in beauty wherever it shows up, savor every second of precious life. I felt humbled by the holiness of the chapel, rendered more whole by its wholeness.

Sometimes I watch media set in Italy and feel, once again, that creepy and comforting feeling of being in a place so old and well-worn that it takes on a godly quality. I look at the red lipstick adorning so many Italian women’s faces and think of the Armani lipstick I bought in the Sephora opposite the Spanish Steps, and the way applying it felt like casting a magic spell. I flip through my photos of lush countrysides and ornate architecture, longing to live that life again.

Someday I’ll go to Italy with my spouse, I suspect, and we’ll make new memories every bit as juicy and jubilant as these. But until then, I’ll keep visiting Rome in my daydreams, learning its lessons again and again: to enjoy the here and now, to revel in pleasure without guilt, and to view myself always as a powerful temptress capable of anything, even summoning red roses with the toss of a coin and the whisper of a wish.

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 3 of 12

Kate Sloan

Song 10/52: “Hey Ex-Boyfriend”

Lyrics:

Hey, ex-boyfriend – I forgive you
Everyone is trying to do their best
Thought I saw a future with you
That’s why, when you left, I got depressed

I only knew the knowledge that I knew
I only had what little sense I had
I only did the best that I could do
It turns out that my best still made me sad

Hey, ex-boyfriend – yeah, you hurt me
Barely ate or slept for like a month
You left me weak, depressed and dirty
But I can forgive you for that stuff

You only knew the knowledge that you knew
You only had the little sense you had
You only did the best that you could do
It turns out that your best still made me sad

Human beings have a habit
Of fucking up the frailest things
Love is hard – it hurts, but damn
It’s worth it for the joy it brings

We’re breaking hearts left and right
We’re crying face-down in our pillows at night
We’re loving no matter how horribly it stings

We only knew the knowledge that we knew
We only had the little sense we had
We only did the best that we could do
And sometimes our best still makes us sad

 

Songwriting diary:

I had a writing session where I was hopping around between a few different songs and none of them were really working. One was about fuckboys and one was about people who constantly ignore you in favor of their phone while you’re together (needless to say, there is some overlap between those two topics). But they just felt messy and chaotic, and I was running out of time in the week to get a song written, so I decided to table everything for the time being and just write something really simple.

I think I had the vague thought that I should just write about an ex-boyfriend because those memories have always worked well as songwriting inspiration in the past. So I started improvising by singing, “Hey, ex-boyfriend” (which, in retrospect, makes the whole song feel like a bit of a nod to “Hey There Delilah,” especially paired with the musical style). Something I’ve been talking about a lot in therapy over the past year is the idea that most people really are trying their best, most of the time; it’s just that we’re all constrained by our knowledge levels and life circumstances, so unfortunately “our best” isn’t always good enough to keep the people around us from getting hurt. This is a super calming concept for me to contemplate and I wanted to put it into a song. I knew right away that I wanted all three choruses to be the same but vary who they were speaking about (I, you, we) to emphasize the universality of this idea.

The second line of the chorus was originally “[I/you/we] only had the wisdom that [I/you/we] had,” but my spouse thought that this line landed weird and I kind of agreed. I brainstormed and tried out a bunch of other alternate phrases for that spot, including “silly heart” and “human heart.” But then, oddly enough, we did a phone sex scene involving hypnosis, intoxication, and impregnation (not that that has anything to do with the song, because it really does not), and almost immediately after my orgasm, this line popped into my head: “I only had what little sense I had.” I hadn’t even consciously been thinking about the song, but I guess my brain was sort of running it as a background task. I scrambled to my notes app and wrote down the line, and thus the song was completed.

Song 11/52: “I Know You Don’t”

Lyrics:

Walking out in the snow, where nobody knows me
I’ve got no place to go, ’cause nobody chose me
Tried to leave you alone; I feel like you owe me
So I’m out in the cold – damn, you expose me

The truth is I’m ready, I know that I’m ready to go
I know you don’t love me; I know you don’t want me to know

Tried to stop and say hey, but you’re not here yet
No clue what I would say – the way isn’t clear yet
Thought you’d love me someday; you haven’t come near yet
I feel you backing away – please don’t disappear yet

The truth is I’m ready, I think that I’m ready to grow
I know you don’t love me; I know you don’t want me to know

So let me go
I wanna be free
I wanna come back
I wanna be me
I wanna be everything loving you wouldn’t let me be

The truth is I’m ready, I know that I’m ready to go
I know you don’t love me; there’s no way that I couldn’t know
The truth is I’m ready, I’m ready to live and explore
I know you don’t love me; I know I don’t care anymore

 

Songwriting diary:

This was one of the most intuitive and easy songwriting processes I’ve had this year so far. I set aside a different song I’d been working on and just said to myself, “I’m gonna write a new song,” looked out at the snow falling outside my window, and immediately improvised the first couple lines of this one. I liked where it was going so I made a recording and built from there.

It’s interesting how a lot of the songwriting books and articles I’ve been reading have mentioned that “the song tells/shows you what it wants to be about.” I don’t always find that to be the case – sometimes I consciously choose a topic for the as-yet-unwritten lyrics of an already-devised musical component – but I do think that the best songs are the ones that announce their subject matter to me early on in the form of conjuring certain emotions or thoughts. Seeing the snow reminded me of this one night in my early twenties when I walked home from the train station, which took an hour, instead of taking the subway or streetcar, solely because that route would let me walk past the house of the person I was in love with at the time, and I was desperately hoping we might run into each other. For the entire duration of that walk, I was listening to the John Mayer song “In Your Atmosphere” on repeat, because it reflected a lot of what I was feeling, so I’m sure that the influence of that song is in this one somewhere.

I did some very minimal lyric editing the day after writing this (e.g. changing “your apathy froze me” to “I feel like you owe me“) but otherwise kept it pretty much the same. I wrote it on a Friday and only had until Sunday to record it so there wasn’t time for perfectionism. The night that I wrote it, I felt discouraged, thinking it wasn’t a good song, but fixing up the lyrics made me realize it’s actually pretty lovely. It just had to be polished, like a gem.

Song 12/52: “Vitamin D”

Lyrics:

Such a nice day – well, it would be nice for somebody
But I’ll just stay, stay inside and take my vitamin D
‘Cause any place I go can start to scare me
And nobody can know about the load I carry

Chorus:
Take a pill, take a sunshine pill
Never works, but I hope it will
Drink it down, take your vitamin D
It’s hard to swallow; it had better be

I remember feeling safe, feeling flirty and free
But I never saw this coming, this anxiety
It’s always in my bones and in my belly
And I don’t wanna know what it’s trying to tell me

(repeat chorus)

And oh, I’m tired
Of putting up walls
Of taking the fall
And oh, I’m tired
Of treating a symptom
Instead of the system

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

There have been so many weeks lately when I’ve gotten annoyed with whatever fragment-o’-song I was working on, put it down, and just decided to write a new/different one. This was one of those. I literally glanced around my room, spotted my bottle of vitamin D pills, and started improvising the first lines.

Gadd9 has been an evocative chord for me lately so it ended up being a prominent one in this song. Sometimes the mood of specific chords is what inspires me in a particular direction.

Been working on myself a lot in therapy lately and this song is kind of just an amalgamation of thoughts I’ve been having during that process – mostly, realizing how a lot of the stuff I’ve done for my mental health previously was just a band-aid on the real problem, which is trauma (“treating a symptom/ instead of the system“).

Song 13/52: “Love is Blind”

Lyrics:

We met in a pod
Thank God
Couldn’t have met any other way
‘Cause we got nothin’ in common, and that’s okay

Between us: just blue walls
They’re giving us blue balls

Love is blind
Love is patient and kind
Love is on camera
Love is unable to slam ya
Love is frustration
Love is subtextual masturbation
Love is not exactly what I had in mind
Love is blind

I think we have bigger problems
Do we even wanna solve ’em?
Don’t you hate how we spend our days?
Don’t you feel like rats in a maze?

Love is blind
Love’s whatever you can find
Love’s an “I guess so”
Guess I’m never saying “fuck yes,” so…
Love is whatever
Love is stress more than it’s pleasure
Love is fucking with my sanity, my mind
Love is blind

Don’t want any drama
But did you vote for Obama?
I hope you don’t hate me for this
But honey, are you an atheist?

Is this shit fundamental or inconsequential?
Should I be more gentle?
Am I going mental?
Can I marry my opposite?
Or should I reconsider it?

Love is blind
Love’s the tie that always binds
Love is devalued
Love is a way to corral you
Love is narcotic
Love is raking in the profit
Love is just another resource to be mined
Love is blind

 

Songwriting diary:

I was feeling really burned out on writing personal songs this week – or, as my spouse put it, I “need[ed] to give [my] psyche a break from being plumbed” – and had been pondering the psychology of dating reality shows like Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle, so this song happened.

Like most of the songs I’ve written for this challenge, I started out just improvising whatever came to mind and built from there. The “blue walls/ blue balls” joke popped into my head unprompted (surprised I didn’t think of it while actually watching the show tbh) and that’s the moment when I laughed out loud and decided to buckle down and write the rest of the song instead of just pivoting to something more “respectable” or normal for me.

On a deeper level, this song feels like an expression of how I thought I knew what love was “supposed” to feel like prior to meeting my current partner, but in retrospect, some of my past romances were far more problematic, manipulative, and/or shallow than I actually realized at the time. Watching Love is Blind as someone who is nerdy about sex and dating, it’s hard not to think about the different “faces” of love and how some experiences that feel like love are actually not, or at least not in the way you thought they were.