So while driving to work this morning I landed on the song by Paul Simon, “You can call me Al.” I pumped up the volume and busted out a tune while Jasmine Jetta and I watched the sun come up along 93 North and I sipped my coffee.
I remember this song from when I was little, and for some reason I have a vivid memory of watching the music video with Chevy Chase and Paul Simon in our family room with my two sisters. It involved saxophones , sport coats, and a very sterile backdrop. Maybe it was because my Mom loved Paul Simon and I feel like I was born knowing this, and My Dad had just introduced my sisters and me to “The Three Amigos” (starring good ole Chevy), but I remember feeling SO cool watching this music video. This was also the era of The Wonder Years, of my obsession with Pot Pies, and the summer my hair turn tinted chlorine green from taking my “pool rat” status to the infinite degree. It’s funny how our minds lump stuff together, associate things so irrelevant into one place in time.
Until today, from whatever age that was, 9 or maybe 10, I thought the lyric says, “I can call you Eddie, and Eddie when you call me, you can call me Al.” I learned this morning, it’s actually Betty. I went onto lyrics.com first thing after arriving to work at 7:00AM and verified this… and its Betty.
You’re probably thinking this shouldn’t be a big deal. Eddie vs. Betty. Ok, so what. Well, for a funny reason, it was. How was I wrong? How was this song I thought about two best friends was actually about two lovers… a man who is questioning his identity, who feels so lost and doesn’t know how he ended up the way he did. Funny when you’re little and things seem big, but you don’t see them as they are…but it doesn’t matter, because to you it can still be something. In my not totally simple (because even then I think I was complex) mind back then, Chevy Chase and Paul Simon were best friends who will always be there for each other.
I’ve had the song opened on myspace and it certainly is Betty. It got me thinking about how we can be so certain about something, and then find out things aren’t really as they seem. And then, you wonder how you ever heard Eddie in the first place, because it’s clearly, so, so clearly, Betty…..
It’s one of the weirdest, most humbling feelings to have say, “wow, I was wrong.”
Sometimes we can be wrong about little things, like a song lyric, where we left our keys, what exit to take off the highway, or what movie you recognize a certain actress from. What’s fascinating to me is our mind’s ability to try to convince ourselves we’re so right about something that we’re so positive of can only be right. And then maybe…maybe we’re just wrong. Even stranger, being self-aware to the point where you don’t know if you’re right or you’re wrong about something, or maybe even somebody… and I guess all you can do is wait, without interrupting your life too much, to see what it ends up being. And then you deal.
Things I’ve been wrong about:
- Wrong: The Golden Showers menu item at the Thai restaurant my family used to dine at is actually Golden Tofu… and is listed above the menu item of Vegetable Showers. My eyes tricked my mind when reading it, and I was grossly appalled for no reason.
- Wrong: What is indeed Poison Ivy. After the summer of 2001 I’ll never make this mistake, ever, ever again, but as a result have the loving nickname of “poison” (pois or posie) from many friends in the sporting goods industry after my fateful story circulated, (reenacted with animation and facial expressions of course).
- Wrong: How much mileage I should run to actually be a good runner. This is something I’ll probably continue to be wrong about. Thanks Coach Rinker, let’s hope I eventually grow out of this.
- Wrong: The expression “All the Sudden”. I learned from my twin sister, at age 27, it is actually “All of a Sudden,” and the expression I use does not exist. I’m still in shock how my phrase isn’t right. It makes way better sense.
- Wrong: That my first boss/gigantic mentor resigning at Brooks was the worst thing that could ever happen to my career. Wrong: when my second boss/humongous mentor resigned too. Everything leads to everything and everywhere I’ve learned. *And am still learning.
- Wrong: Highlighting my hair blonde in my early 20’s. I look so much more natural as the brunette that I am, and what a waste of money!
- Wrong: I can eat cashews and almonds. I was never allergic to them, those hives post graduation were merely anxiety as to wtf I was going to do with my life. (this makes me laugh every time I eat a cashew).
- Wrong: Holding the door for that unknown man with the creepy backpack and letting him into my secured entrance apartment building. Despite ever being embarrassed or feeling stupid if they actually do live there and you’ve just never seen him, this is something a girl should never, ever, do.
- Wrong: Watching “People Under the Stairs” at Anna Nicolaisen’s house in the 4th grade. Ever since, I have to make a mad dash up any basement stairs at night, while certain my heart is literally IN my throat and will explode out my ears. What a waste of adrenaline.
- Wrong: To have a 2nd gigantic bowl of cereal after the 1st. our bodies aren’t made to tolerate such copious amounts of crunchy grains covered in lactose.
- Wrong: To buy a jetta. It’s cute. But they are hit or miss. And of course, the universe would have it that I choose one with horrible electrical problems.
- Wrong: Postponing four impacted wisdom teeth removal, four years later than I should have. So wrong I had cysts the size of small grapes buried below each one. But at least I talked to my dad about Janet Jackson exposing her nipple at the Super Bowl as I came out of anesthesia in the car. So that’s cool.
So I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. I guess I’ll continue to be… we all will, because being wrong is part of this whole life thing. It’s the little things I’m wrong about that sometimes make me think about the big things I could be wrong about. It’s an awesome feeling when you realize you’re right though. For me, despite change and the challenges and scariness that come with it, in the last few months, more than ever, I know it was right to leave Seattle. I knew then it was right. Just because it’s hard, sad, and turns on the mega-tears, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I am so, so happy to be in Boston, even despite the imminent approach of my first real New England winter… it is so right to be in Boston for the work part and the life part. I’ll be here for a while…. That, I don’t think I’m wrong about.
Here’s to the rights. The wrongs, and learning from them all.
Song to try out: Not Ready – Sanders Bohlke
CW
