I Love Taylor Swift

I know, I know, I know. Teenie/Country/Pop/Girlie Taylor Swift. Thats right, I love her. And, instead of studying for my Biology midterm which I absolutely should be doing right now at 9pm the night before, I am going to pull a classic 'Jones' move and spend my time writing this blog. In my world, this is how I do better on tests anyway.

A couple of months ago, I was not a Taylor Swift fan. In fact, I systematically avoided becoming a fan, on principle. Even though I kind of liked what I knew of her songs, I totally resisted my inclination to like her more and refused to buy her CD's (I actually don't even have a good reason.) That is, until one night this summer, I heard a song for the first time while driving home, and it changed my mind about Taylor Swift. Perhaps it was just the context of the moment. To set the scene, it was about the time that Nate was going to come home from Boot Camp, and I was simotaniously experiencing the entire spectrum between excited anticipation and total exhaustion. Five months of waiting, working, and hoping and planning a real future had somehow caught me up in a world that was rushing past the real me.

For the record, I was listening to Kyxy "love songs" and radio show host Delilah (another classic Jones thing to do), and she was talking to a little girl who really loved this guy named "Drew." So then, Delilah said, while I was exiting the freeway, "I have the perfect song for you" and she proceeded to play Taylor Swift's "Teardrops on my guitar" which starts with the line:

"Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't see that I want, and I'm needing, everything that we should be."

That night, by some twist of fate, that song was transposed onto all of the neuronal circuits in my brain. For the next few weeks I turned on the radio just in the hopes I'd hear it again. At that point, I resolved that the only solution would become a true fan.

Within the coming weeks and months, the things I had hoped would materialize in my personal life vaporized, leaving plenty of room for the music of an 18 year old girl to resonate and find the 18 year old girl in me. It was really really something else to remember myself back then, in some cases daily (in another life) writing lyrics that basked in and captured the joys of infatuation and that poetically called out the injustices of failure in romance. Somewhere along the way, I lost ownership of all the greatness in what I used to enjoy so much...

...Alas, this leads me to my absolute favorite part about Miss Swift. Not only that the girl is deep, she completely OWNS the sharing and expression of her thoughts, feelings, and talents with the world for the mutual profit of everyone that chooses to be a fan.

Honestly, if there were ever some alternate universe where what I have to share with the world by way of artistic expression/thoughts/feeelings was so cherished, and I became a superstar, I'd find Taylor Swift and make her my friend. That's a promise (that is, if she doesn't sell out and become a hoebag). But until then, I'll settle for fan-hood.