Uncomfortably Numb

It would seem that Breena and I have spent a lot of time in the car this past year or so. Physically it's extremely tough on our wimpy backs. Nonetheless, we pass the time very well, and much of it is spent listening to music. In many ways we have contrasting tastes when in comes to musical preferences (not many people within a decade of my age have the same musical taste that I do). Nonetheless, she has come to enjoy and appreciate bands such as The Who and Pink Floyd, and likewise, I have come to like bands such as Muse and Coldplay. I have to admit though that listening to Muse for too long is totally exhausting. Plus, the intensity of their lead singer makes the veins in my forehead stick out. As many of you know, Coldplay is probably Breena’s favorite band. I always know when one of their songs comes on because Breena gives what I like to call the “Coldplay sigh” as soon as she recognizes the music… ahhhewohhh. I can’t even get that kind of sigh out of her anymore.

To keep things fresh, we put the ipod on random and just listen to whatever comes on. Sometimes we have to lay down some regulations though… For example, it’s not really fair that many of the bands I listen to have songs that exceed 20 minutes, so we generally skip those. On the other hand, I have to limit how many Cranberries’ songs we listen to in a day. Don’t get me wrong, I love Irish chic singers, but I can only handle the falsetto craziness for so long. Plus Breena knows that if we listen to them too much, I’ll start trying to sing falsetto myself (which comes out more like a sick Irish peacock). Then, when “Hey Jude” by the Beatles comes on, Breena will begin singing her Aunt Lorrie’s version of the lyrics, which goes something like this:

Hey Jude, I saw you nude
Don’t try to fake it, I saw you naked
Remember to never cover your skin
Then you’ll begin to make things better
So let it out and... (Okay, I'd better stop now)

It’s great time. Sometimes when I get really tired in the car, I tend to make weird voices and do strange things. When we were driving home from Utah a couple of weeks ago, we were passing through Parowan, about 20 miles north of Cedar City, when I busted out some Eddie Money and sang “I’ve got, two tickets to Parowan won’t you pack your bags we’ll leave tonight.”

Breena responded with one of her favorite songs of all time by Guns & Roses: “Take me down to the Parowan city where the grass is green and the girls are… pretty? TAKE ME HOME, yeah yeah.”

Undaunted, I pulled out my .38 Special: “…it’s up to you to make it real, so take me, take me back to Parowan…”

Then Breena killed it with that 80’s song from the movie Footloose: “Almost Parowan, we’re knocking on heaven’s door…. I swear that I can see forever in your eyes PAROWAN….”

I just sat there with my mouth open and couldn’t respond. It’s okay though. I got her back this last trip by doing an interpretive dance to the song “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd. It was really quite good, and it was completely improvised. Ask me sometime and I’ll perform it for you.

Anyway, moral of the story is that all of this driving has very literally been rough on our backsides, and these are the kinds of things that we do to pass the time. I guess you could say that the bottom line is... well, that we have uncomfortably numb bums.