TUNES // Gabriella Cohen – I Don't Feel So Alive

Toothpaste

I’ve run out of toothpaste three times since August 9th.
If you’re not already depressed, the CVS on Hollywood and Orange is a great place to start. You can ignore the jumpy, recently sober greeter, like an asshole. Cry numbly in the cereal aisle. Enjoy how uncomfortable this makes the German tourist family deciding between Cap’n Crunch and Frosted Flakes.
Enjoy how completely pointless everything is.
How the signage here actually makes finding things more difficult. How the Hallmark section smells appropriately like stale farts.
Snake through every aisle at random until you happen upon a Sensodyne label or realize that you don’t care whether you die today in a checkout lane so who gives a fuck about dental health.
Buy the Economy Double Pack so as to maximize the amount of time before having to do this again.
I’ve been brushing my teeth two, sometimes even three times per day. I floss every night. I tell myself this is because I’m becoming an adult, but mostly it’s just that I have nothing better to do now than take care of myself.
You used a stupid amount of toothpaste. Not the recommended pea-sized amount.
I remember brushing our teeth naked in your bathroom, wondering how a person with 25 years of brushing experience had not learned how to keep more of the toothpaste inside his mouth. I remember how it got on my belly when you got on your knees to kiss me. I remember how you left your toothbrush on the counter with the bristles down in the gross beard clippings and soapy sink water. I always put it away in the cabinet and I wondered if that annoyed you, or if you noticed
Me, I go through a decent chunk of life with a tube of toothpaste. Long enough that when I buy a new one there’s this thought like, “whew, ok. not gonna have to deal with that toothpaste thing again now for a while.” Like possibly this is the last tube of toothpaste I’ll have to buy, ever.
But today as I check out I’m already dreading the part where I have to make the very end of the tube last. Where I use less and less with every brushing and roll and then re-roll from the bottom. Where I get a pair of pliers from the junk drawer to mechanically avoid defeat. I hate the weird little breathy pop the last squeeze makes, announcing that there’s nothing left but air.
I don’t remember the color of your toothbrush.
How many months in a tube of toothpaste? How many things have you forgotten? How many tubes of toothpaste until I stop counting?

Gabriella Cohen, the Australian rocker who is also the frontwoman for The Furrs, is the newest addition to the Captured Tracks roster. Her debut album, Full Closure And No Details, has just been reissued by the indie label and “I Don’t Feel So Alive” immediately caught my ear. There’s a tension in the BPM that reminds me of trying to run in a dream. The song’s tune is our own maddening inability to move at the same pace as time. 
Cohen embarks on a US tour this spring. Find tickets here. If you’re in LA, check out her April 8th date at The Fonda. Buy music here.