To know one’s deepest joys, to some attachment of the real world, helps the obsessed to call on a glee that sustains- while also building a foundation for one’s personality or, persona, how one navigates their place in the world. Obsession is a passionate expression of livelihood, finding a way to stamp down into one’s existence by making sure the heart beats in a certain pattern every now and then. In a way, these fixations lead the obsessed closer to a kind of Nirvana, closer to what delights the body and puts it in proximity to a version of momentary and controlled happiness, that otherwise is fleeting. The true trigger of all this obsession was, most likely, my attempt to find joy. I sang along to the burnt CDs of all the Broadway hits, locked in my room, spinning like a 42nd street DJ from my 6 disc changer stereo. I downloaded bootleg recordings of Broadway musicals.
I was a frequent reader of the Broadway World and AllThatChat message boards. My second phase was strictly Broadway musicals. On a 16-hour road trip to Disney World, I listened to the entire discography of My Chemical Romance on repeat until every sound was pitched into my memory bank, locked inside for all eternity.
I wanted to know everything all the band members’ names, the chord progressions, their influences. Yes, I went through the phase of trying to know really obscure musical acts that the other weirdos in my high school hadn’t heard of yet. And as one would say now, I started “stanning” pop punk music. My obsessive nature started in high school. My time to have watched Breaking Bad has passed because I spent that time making a fantasy bracket of who would win Legally Blonde: The Musical- The Search For Elle Woods. One must create a finsta to follow every interior designer on the planet, one must learn the history of the chair. I’ve seen like four movies- one of them includes The Fifth Element. It requires that one makes themselves a cultural pariah. Moving every detail of these subjects into my knowledge banks is not an easy task. If I got on Jeopardy and the categories were Broadway and gay porn stars, I would 100% win all the money. My list of my niche obsessions goes on and on. Give me an actress and I’ll give you all her theatre credits. I’ve watched every season of Rupaul’s Drag Race multiple times. Instead of shutting down these intrusive thoughts, I encourage them. Who’s next?!” The bell tolls, reverberating through my mind, vibrating through my self, into my language and actions. And other mornings, it’s the ringing of a pop culture intruder: TS Madison reciting Nicki Minaj lyrics in a poetic manner, a video of Jennifer Coolidge saying hi, a musical from 1934 or “ Go, go, go, go. Some mornings, it’s the light slipping through the blinds, a melody of sunlight darting towards the dark parts under the eye, to make that what is salted in darkness, visible. Sometimes, in the morning, when my body is starting to achieve consciousness, my mind picks something familiar, in attempts to remind my being that it is alive.