Slow Tuesday. Barry's arguing that HEALTH is just Nine Inch Nails for people who vape. Dick's explaining the Dais Records lineage like anyone asked. I'm pretending to reorganize the import section while actually wondering if I should text Laura. I don't text Laura. Instead, I go running.
Someone left this playlist on a forum. "THE GRIPPER" – all caps, mostly Pixel Grip, Chicago industrial for people who need their running music to sound like the anxiety feels. I downloaded it because I'm from Chicago and I should probably know Pixel Grip better than I do. That's a lie. I downloaded it because the title felt aggressive and I've been feeling aggressive about being forty-something and still living like I'm waiting for my real life to start.
Five minutes into the run, "Golden Moses" locks into my stride and I realize what I'm actually running to: the soundtrack of every relationship I've had. Not the memories – the structure. Mechanical. Repetitive. Precise. Cold wave synth patterns that repeat until they end, then the next song starts and it's the same pattern with different sounds. That's what I do. I meet someone. I perform the relationship. I wait for it to end. I act surprised when it does.
Pixel Grip is from here – Wicker Park, probably recorded within a mile of the store. Rita Lukea's vocals shift between deadpan and screaming, and I realize that's also me: emotionally flat until I'm suddenly not, until I'm arguing about something that doesn't matter because I can't argue about things that do. Barry does that too, but Barry doesn't run. Barry doesn't need to.
The playlist peaks early – "Pursuit" is 124 BPM and my stride locks in at 186 steps per minute without me trying. That's the problem, right? I'm always in sync with things that weren't made for me. I'm running to someone else's workout playlist, obsessing over someone else's ex, living in someone else's idea of what my life should look like. The Black Queen's "Apocalypse Morning" closes everything out and Greg Puciato's singing about endings like they're beginnings, and I think: that's the lie I tell myself every time. That the next one will be different. That I've learned something.
Here's what the playlist actually revealed: I like mechanical things because they can't leave. Records don't break up with you. BPM doesn't change its mind. A synth sequence from a 1981 Clan of Xymox track remixed by Matte Blvck in 2021 will do exactly what it's supposed to do every single time. It will never wake up one morning and realize it wants something you can't give it.
The run ends at the Fullerton Avenue cutoff. Fifty-six minutes. My watch says I held 8:52 pace. The playlist worked. I learned nothing I'll actually use. Tomorrow I'll come into the store and Barry will be wrong about something and Dick will be right in a way that makes you wish he wasn't, and I'll reorganize something that doesn't need it. And if someone asks me about Pixel Grip, I'll know exactly what to say now. I'll say everything except this.
