(this is annie)

Learning how to play the guitar is going well, except I can't figure out how to make it gently weep. Most of the chords I'm learning are major chords, and it's difficult to write brooding songs in peppy keys. Instead of writing sad-bastard music about feeling increasingly alienated in a dingy metropolis, I wind up sounding like the indie version of the Pointer Sisters.

I don't want to write simple sad songs, because unless you treat them gently like meringue, they wind up sounding maudlin. Or worse, like bad mall emo. I want to write songs (and stories) that capture people's unspoken melancholy, the quiet beauty in loneliness, and the ever-hoping heart that seeks another.

Here is a not-so-shocking secret for readers of my internet website, which is probably everyone who has ever shown even mild interest in knowing anything about me, because Google gives up my secrets like a tabloid informant: I am a little lonely. Maybe that is why I write so often, or play the guitar in my pajamas, or ride my bicycle while singing around deserted city streets. For the most part, solitude is a comfortable enough partner, but sometimes and today I wish that my feelings fit the bouncy chords my fingers make.