New stereo equipment. The speakers hung on the wall. My first “component system” starter set since Ex-1 assured me that Harmon Kardon used diamond grit in its electronics, and I put my face in a book to hide the eyeroll. I cue up backwards through my day, missing whom I’ve rooted out to meet me at the music. I’m listening to tunes, missing backwards from most recent goodbyes and losses, to a living room near Detroit I wish I were in right now, to a back porch sagging off the building with the guac and chips, to the baby who first danced with me swaying to the beat before she learned not to crap her pants, to the one safest place of a kitchen where Grandpa fried the pork chops with black pepper and poured the Coke after school. That’s the thing about music, and why I couldn’t afford it for a while, the soundtrack for the life thing. Nowadays it’s become just part of breathing to go from fine one minute to breaking left and right the next, no and yes one word like catdog (which end is the ass?) . . . I think I’m so smart, but I must be nearly the last person on earth to realize that happy is sad waiting to happen, like a happy childhood harboring within itself its own inevitable end. The reverse is true too, though, right? I know that one. Happy Waiting to Happen is the cover version.

From “Happy is Sad in Reverse” playlist

Nicole Atkins and the Sea - Skywriters
Cowboy Junkies- So Lonesome
Ron Sexsmith – Secret Heart
Emmylou Harris – Prayer in Open D
Indigo Girls – Power of Two
The Sundays – Here is Where the Story Ends
Dean Martin – Memories are Made of This