NOSTALGIA IS A WEAPON

Someone get me out of here. Please. I want to go home.

Only two days left… here’s hoping I last.

So I’m sitting here awake, wishing that I had a creative talent that I could employ right now. I feel somewhat inspired. Inspired to do what, I have no idea. But inspired nonetheless. I really wish that I’d found some way to continue my musical education through high school. I’m really regretting the fact that I feel like I can’t play any of the three instruments that I used to play. I’ve been trying to pick up piano again, but since I have no piano here, there’s little I can actively do at the moment. I wish I still thought I could write. I never really could, but I had this perception that I could in high school, dreams of being a novelist and all that. At least I would have something to do right now. Seems like everything that I used to be good at was given up a while ago. Not really sure how that happened. True, passions can change from moment to moment, but you’d think I would have had a bit of foresight with something like this. Silly youthful decisions. Sadly, seeing as how I am still part of the current “youth generation”, I’d wager that there will be more silly decisions to come.

Had my first paid gig as an audio engineer Saturday, and I didn’t even have to go after it; THEY called ME! It was just a small festival a couple minutes down the road from here, but it was still a lot of work. Stage assembly, lighting, PA setup, patching, switching out bands, setting up instument mics, and then the whole messy teardown. I enjoyed it to a certain extent, but I know I would have had a much better time if the man they had me working with wasn’t an asshole. He’s one of those fuckers that I shouldn’t let get to me. Even so, he managed to plant some doubts about my ability as an engineer. Yes, I’m trying to ignore it. No, it’s not really working. Now I just need to haggle with the boss over the money issue (I know, the rates should have been taken care of beforehand, but it wasn’t possible in this case). Hell, any money is good at this point.

List of things to do tomorrow:
1. Call Mike about paying me.
2. See about getting out of this apartment (my lease is up!).
3. Go apartment hunting.
4. Something I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

Not going to bed yet, my mind is still too wired.
I really need to get a new book. I’ve read all of mine.

I have a hole in my forehead. Not really a hole, more of a gash. But why would I be having open flesh wounds at 4:52 in the morning? Damn cabinet. It obviously hasn’t yet realized that it is supposed to move when it sees my head coming in it’s direction. Oh well. I’ll forgive the cabinet tonight. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.

I swear, I need a fucking seeing-eye dog sometimes. I think I’ll now go find a bandage, an ice pack, and then I’m off to bed. Woo! for sleep.

Politics has infected everything. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a very politically-minded person. But sometimes, just sometimes, I want to shut all that bullshit out and explore something else. However, due to the recent comment made on live tv by Kanye West (which I don’t necessarily blame him for, I’m just not sure it was the right time; maybe it was, I don’t know), one of my favorite music-related message boards has turned into a flaming political pissing contest. It just infuriates me that I can’t go to one of the places where I find relief from such things without being sucked back into it. I certainly want people to express their opinions freely; anyone can tell you I most definitely do. But… fuck, I don’t know. My anger is likely based in this helpless feeling I have regarding the political system. There’s so much going on, and so much I have an opinion on, and it seems like that doesn’t matter to anybody. It’s also very likely a symptom of our culture at the moment: EVERYTHING is drenched in politics. There is no getting away. I just can’t tell whether I’m being selfish or protecting myself when I want to hide from it all.

Fucking Bush. It’s probably not fair to blame everything on him (though there is LOTS he should answer for… okay EVERYTHING), but he’s my easiest target at the moment. So take that, scapegoat. Kiss my ass.

To quote a certain well-known cartoon skunk:
“Le sigh”.

Having a fidgety night, felt compelled to do a little cleaning/streamlining on my computer, apparently this urge included a need to change my blog format. It’s true, I’m a fickle lover (or blog owner, at least). I just get tired of seeing the same thing day after day. Besides, this place needed some color.

Happy arrival in the mail yesterday: the Official Tori Amos Bootlegs. The first two, anyway, the others aren’t released yet. But they are beautiful. I’ve been a live Tori trader for a long time now, but it’s wonderful to finally have the amazing quality that her sound team manages to achieve. Absolutely stunning. My ears are happy.

Yep, after 5 am again. Methinks it might be bed time.

I am unable to cry. I have cried once in the past eight years. In the time since then I’ve lost friends, had many an upsetting situation occur, and yet no tears. I look at everything that has happened with Hurricane Katrina, and I feel this deep shock and sadness, this profound sense of empathy, and the realization that there is very little I can do to help. It hurts. But I can’t cry. Tonight I’m sitting at home, having one of my restless evenings, feeling unsettled and irritated by everything. I have that familiar tightening in my chest that can sometimes signal an oncoming panic attack, and I wish I could just scream in the hopes that it would expel all my invisible demons. I feel a strong need to call someone, to connect with someone. Yet when I look in my phone book, no one seems appealing. I have less “in-person” contact with others every day. I’ve determined that I really only have two friends in Nashville that are worth spending my time with. I think everyone else has fallen into the “friend of convenience” category: I went to school with them, therefore I spent time with them. I still talk to all my other friends on the phone daily. I have long-distance love affairs with these people; I know they’ll always be there for me, and I’ll always be here for them. But that doesn’t make them any less far away. There’s a huge amount of loneliness, but also a desire to be away from people. This coupled with my unending frustration at the extent of self-destructive behavior that I’ve fallen prey to, as well as the consequences resulting from said behavior, have put me into a deep hole I’m finding it hard to dig myself out of. I hate to say I’m hoping for a total breakdown, but something needs to crack. I need to cry. I need a catalyst, though I’m sure that is just tempting fate or whatever to cause something to go wrong.

Someone needs to smack me for being melodramatic.

Still awake, it’s 5:47 am. This is becoming normal routine, and I don’t know what I can do about it. I had the realization a little while ago that part of the reason I stay up this late is because I am constantly searching for inspiration these days. When I finally force myself out of bed late in the afternoon, I shower, maybe eat something, and then go to my computer. I’ve spent most of the waking hours of my recent days glued to this goddamned thing. I feel like I’ve exhausted the internet, in all it’s vastness. I go and read other peoples’ blogs, trying desperately to discover something, then I link to their friends’ blogs. There is a large amount of these people that I don’t know; I don’t care. I just need to see if that have something to say, something to enlighten me.

I drink massive quantities of tea, and I think about just where that tea came from. What did that flower look like before it was dried and crumbled? What old tribes drank this as part of their daily enrichment? What did they get from it?

I listen to incredible quantities of music, thousands of songs, end-to-end. There have been a few nuggets from that. Vienna’s music seems to ground me a little bit. Something about her songwriting…. maybe it’s the contextual details. Her songs cause me to visualize. I can see the painted sky in Feather Moon. I can hear the Christian woman calling out in Shasta. I can feel the courduroy jacket in Recessional. These things help pull be back for a moment. I’ve also been drowning myself in Tori. The more I listen to Tori, the more I realize she’s in touch with what I’m looking for. Something primal. I don’t want to write songs, don’t want to be a performer. But I want to shift my perception, look at everything from the other angle. I’m so locked inside my stupid fucking bubble, and I’m bouncing against the walls, floor, ceiling, fucking everywhere. I can’t get out.

In the insanely early hours of the morning, after I’ve been up clawing at this computer screen, I’ll retire with a book. Some other perspective before bed, some other way to break through, just a little bit. Sometimes it helps. Recently, I found great power in Tori Amos’s autobiography, Piece By Piece. It reinforced my previous statement about being IN TOUCH, how she is, and how I want it. The Kite Runner, one that I expected to dislike, was pretty damn good too. Not inspiring, per se, but a different perspective. But it’s never enough. I can barely hold onto these pieces that I get long enough to fall asleep, let alone make it through the next day.

I used to feel so VIVIDLY. Where did that go? Is this a side-effect of being in my 20s, a member of this “restless youth” generation? Is this caused by my medication? If so, why was I this numb before? How can my perspective, the way I intake, change from extreme to total emptiness?

I think it may be time to try the hallucingenics again.

I don’t know whether I am naturally lazy, or whether some outside influence has made me lazy (technology, for instance), but picture this: I’m sitting on my couch, laptop in my lap, headphones on my head, and I need a piece of information. That piece of information could be found in a book sitting about 10 feet away on my bookshelf. I can see it from here. However, rather than get up and go retrieve the book in question, I instead google the material and find a suitable answer. I do not know how I feel about this.

After one nasty attempt at trying another medication that left me feeling 85 yrs old in terms of the things that were going physically wrong, I seem to be back on a fairly normal level. I’m still tired and apathetic, which is unusual for me, and which I know is a side-effect of the other crap I’m taking. I could easily become an alcoholic at this point. It seems now that only when I drink do I feel happy. That and when I’m driving late at night on a lack-of-sleep binge. Otherwise I’m at a rather numb place. Hence the apathy. If you feel nothing, then why care about anything?

Duncan Sheik is a genius.
End post.