Jess Thoughts

Today felt softer than the last few days — not easier, just gentler around the edges. Work was steady but not frantic, the kind of day where time moves in measured steps instead of rushing past you. I am starting to learn the rhythm of the place, when the deliveries surge, when the hallways go quiet, when people drift in with hopeful looks asking if something arrived. There is a strange satisfaction in being useful in small ways.

After work I came home craving something calm, something that didn’t buzz or blink or demand attention. I changed into comfortable clothes, opened the windows just enough to let in the evening air, and put on music — the kind that makes the room feel warmer without changing the temperature.

I was listening to some classical old music. Spiral Tap triple bass effect of Big Bottom is great, Donovan mello Yellow, The Flaming Libs Vaseline, James “Iron Head” Baker with the iconic Black Betty to name a few. I enjoy older music like this. My friends do not understand why I do not swing with the music of today. My ear seems to be tuned to a different note, a different time, even generational times. Frank Sinatra Fly Me To The Moon, Dean Martin Everybody Loves Somebody, Evelyn Knight & The Stardusters A Little Bird Told. The melodies, the vocals, are all so refreshing to me. When I go out to the nightclubs I tap and dance but it’s not to music I really like, no matter how popular.

One of my favorite songs has always been Amapola — the version sung by Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberly. Their voices feel like conversation rather than performance, gentle and unhurried. They recorded it with Jimmy Dorsey’s orchestra in 1941, and it became one of the defining big-band duets of that era. There is something about that call-and-response style — his warm baritone followed by her brighter reply — that feels like watching two people fall in love in real time.

At some point I switched to Artie Shaw’s Frenesi, and without thinking I started dancing around the apartment. Not proper dancing — just turning, stepping, laughing at myself when I nearly bumped into the coffee table. The song was originally written by Mexican composer Alberto Domínguez and Shaw’s 1940 recording became a massive hit, topping charts and staying there for weeks. It has this swirling energy, almost like the music itself is smiling.

I like imagining the world it came from — crowded dance halls, polished shoes on wood floors, people actually holding each other instead of staring at screens. No filters, no staging, just music and movement.

By the time the song ended, I was breathless and grinning like I had done something slightly rebellious, even though no one was there to see it. Maybe that is why I love these old songs. They make ordinary rooms feel alive. They make being alone feel less like loneliness and more like privacy.

Sometimes I think my friends are right — that I am out of step with the present. But if this is what being out of step sounds like, I don’t mind at all.

Tonight I am going to leave the playlist running a little longer, let the apartment fill with voices from another era, and pretend the world moves at that slower tempo too — at least until morning.