Loser by Beck |
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Debbie Lee
Warrnambool, Victoria, January 1994
The wait. For a uni offer. Seems interminable. Music, the only thing which helps.
Even if my favourite song is Loser and I don't even know that it is only going to reach #45 in Triple J's Hottest 100.
It is an anthem, even if it's got Spanish (Soy un perdedor) and gun references (Double barrel buckshot). Things pretty detached from the western district of Victoria. Even before the John Howard gun asylum, grandpas on farms don't regularly get the rifles out for the girls.
Still, I get Loser. It's made for the small-town mindset and the harm of a misguided parent holding forth with 'It's okay, love, no-one thought you would get a first-round offer'.
What the ...?
In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.
I just want that greener pasture. Some calm. I don't want to work at Target, ffs!
And the weird part, I know Dad means well. Deb was 'the bright one'. I'm the middle child, who is going to get by on looks, apparently.
Someone came in sayin' I'm insane to complain.
But not Deb. She just takes charge in that bossy, but loving way only she can.
'Here's what we are going to do. You've got five minutes to cry, get all that out of your system. Then we plan. You'll be a great nurse. They will be lucky to have you. Don't think for a second that you're stuck here, a place you don't want to be. You're coming to Ballarat. I know it is going to be FINE.'
Or something along those lines. I'm still feeling numb, exhausted. How can the months after VCE, after finishing school, feel like this?
I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?/Know what I'm sayin'?
It helps; being bossed into a plan of attack. I start writing why I want to be a nurse. Deb makes the calls to the uni's Health Sciences department, so we can arrange a face-to-face meeting.
I struggle at times to explain myself - You can't write if you can't relate. But even so, I figure it’s a start. Deb can improve it after it has some of me in there.
And my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite/that's chokin' on the splinters.
Disintegration and formless angst. As my numbness shield slips, I grip the bathroom ledge. Cold and hard. I'll be nothing if I can't get out of here.
And yet ...
Things are gonna change, I can feel it.
Yeah, change is good. It's cool. Persistence and determination: far preferable to passivity and destruction. And not too long later, the second-round offer! Woohoo!
All the weird Loser lines I love; back to being cool. Time to dance like no-one is watching!
More on Debbie Lee
Debbie Lee is a writer based in Brisbane. Lately, Debbie has been listening to Silversun Pickups, Bernard Fanning and The Clouds - always eager to appreciate old loves and more recent musos. Her sister Barb, the narrator of this story, started a Bachelor of Nursing in 1994, switched studies to child care and has ultimately forged an accomplished career in a senior telecommunications position. These sisters concur that there's no telling where you will end up from school or uni activities.
Warrnambool, Victoria, January 1994
The wait. For a uni offer. Seems interminable. Music, the only thing which helps.
Even if my favourite song is Loser and I don't even know that it is only going to reach #45 in Triple J's Hottest 100.
It is an anthem, even if it's got Spanish (Soy un perdedor) and gun references (Double barrel buckshot). Things pretty detached from the western district of Victoria. Even before the John Howard gun asylum, grandpas on farms don't regularly get the rifles out for the girls.
Still, I get Loser. It's made for the small-town mindset and the harm of a misguided parent holding forth with 'It's okay, love, no-one thought you would get a first-round offer'.
What the ...?
In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.
I just want that greener pasture. Some calm. I don't want to work at Target, ffs!
And the weird part, I know Dad means well. Deb was 'the bright one'. I'm the middle child, who is going to get by on looks, apparently.
Someone came in sayin' I'm insane to complain.
But not Deb. She just takes charge in that bossy, but loving way only she can.
'Here's what we are going to do. You've got five minutes to cry, get all that out of your system. Then we plan. You'll be a great nurse. They will be lucky to have you. Don't think for a second that you're stuck here, a place you don't want to be. You're coming to Ballarat. I know it is going to be FINE.'
Or something along those lines. I'm still feeling numb, exhausted. How can the months after VCE, after finishing school, feel like this?
I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?/Know what I'm sayin'?
It helps; being bossed into a plan of attack. I start writing why I want to be a nurse. Deb makes the calls to the uni's Health Sciences department, so we can arrange a face-to-face meeting.
I struggle at times to explain myself - You can't write if you can't relate. But even so, I figure it’s a start. Deb can improve it after it has some of me in there.
And my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite/that's chokin' on the splinters.
Disintegration and formless angst. As my numbness shield slips, I grip the bathroom ledge. Cold and hard. I'll be nothing if I can't get out of here.
And yet ...
Things are gonna change, I can feel it.
Yeah, change is good. It's cool. Persistence and determination: far preferable to passivity and destruction. And not too long later, the second-round offer! Woohoo!
All the weird Loser lines I love; back to being cool. Time to dance like no-one is watching!
More on Debbie Lee
Debbie Lee is a writer based in Brisbane. Lately, Debbie has been listening to Silversun Pickups, Bernard Fanning and The Clouds - always eager to appreciate old loves and more recent musos. Her sister Barb, the narrator of this story, started a Bachelor of Nursing in 1994, switched studies to child care and has ultimately forged an accomplished career in a senior telecommunications position. These sisters concur that there's no telling where you will end up from school or uni activities.