With Our Hairdryers Aimed Heavenwards

Oop

2010-05-07T23:51:00.001-07:00

Hey there. I forgot to tell anyone who is still reading this blog that I've migrated over to Wordpress. Tally ho!

Last-Minute Announcement

2010-02-18T09:46:00.001-08:00

For those of you just joining us, my radio show The Dude Is from Circumstances is scheduled to move from Friday nights to Thursdays at the same time of 8-10pm PST. However, rather than wait a whole week to make the switch as originally planned, I'm putting the change into effect immediately, so we will be going forward TONIGHT. As always, you can tune in by clicking on the 'Live 128k' there on the left menubar, or just following this link.

Hope to see you there!

Boldly Going, and About Damn Time

2010-01-30T00:59:00.000-08:00

I need help.
But first, a little backstory.
After having the TV unceremoniously unplugged in my early teens, I never got back into the habit of watching television. It was strictly movies for me: no commercials, definite ending point. It wasn't til around the time of Six Feet Under that I finally considered that there might be some television actually worth watching; Babylon 5 followed, and then the Whedon dam broke with Firefly/Serenity. This led to the Buffy/Angel marathon of 2008, and the coda of Battlestar Galactica more recently.
With all these shows under my belt, I've come to a point where I lack any obvious contender for what to watch next. Dexter? House? I'm reaching.
But in the back of my mind I know what I have to do, and why I've resisted doing it until now.
The influence of Star Trek is hard for me to measure or understand. I enjoy Wil Wheaton's twitter musings and writing, yet have no perspective on where he comes from. I've seen only one or two of the films over the years (none of the big ones at any rate). The recent update renewed my interest, but I sensed something missing when I watched it with die-hard fans of the show; there was no way I could know what they were experiencing. I never used to mind this massive gap in my understanding of the cultural landscape, but as they say, to everything there is a proper time.
Here's where I need help.
I was always reluctant to dive into Star Trek largely because there was so damn much of it, counting all the different series'. But which ones do I watch?
My gut tells me that the original series and TNG are required viewing, but those two alone leave with ten-odd seasons to get through. I don't know if all of it is necessary, and if not, what I should watch and what I can skip over. I could just wing it, but in the interest of doing things properly (as I imagine anyone would want them done), I'm throwing this plea into the void.

Thank you in advance.

Warts and All

2010-01-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year.
I know it probably seems as if I've gone radio silence once again - even my Twitter feed has been particularly quiet lately - and that I've again fallen off the proverbial wagon. The truth is, I've been writing almost every day since the amnesty; it's primarily involved timed writing practices and exercises in telling the truth, getting at the heart of things, etc. Basic stuff. It has naturally yielded a lot of terrible, scrawled pages in various notebooks; so while I've been producing a good amount, none of it has added up to much of anything worth sharing. So it goes.
The theme so far has been that of trying to replace old habits (ID tags: perfectionism, fear) with new ones (ID tags: truth, comfort with making terrible things as an inevitable part of the natural process). It is not an easy thing to do, but - lucky us - life offers constant opportunities to practice it. In the realm of writing, I've held to this by accepting the fact that what I have to say is much less polished (and definitely less insightful) than I'd like. No more blogs about resolve and revelation from me - I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, like everyone else - and I'm not gonna say otherwise anymore, as it would Not Be True.
Until I muster up the guts to share my terrible, unfinished writings with the big scary internet, consider this as a surrogate offering: For the past two weeks I have been recording my Friday night radio show and uploading it via Soundcloud for all to hear. It is live and unedited; if I am nervous or fuck up a transition, it is there on tape. The first portion of last night's show was lost due to an Audacity crash, and in a moment of doubt I considered re-creating the lost half with iTunes (as I'd done to make the pre-New Years show), but it felt wrong and contrary to the spirit of things. So there it stands, warts and all.

While I'm on the subject: I have officially begun my 2nd radio show, which is gearing towards nothing other than getting writing done. Consider yourself invited.

You Took the Words

2009-12-24T16:49:00.000-08:00

I am home for Christmas.
Being back among the old streets of my youth after years away gives me the happy opportunity to experience them as relatively new, with just the mildest trace of familiarity to sweeten the deal. I wind through downtown and up 8th Street, past apartment complexes I don't recognize, yet at the same time feel certain I've set foot in before. Maybe I lived in them once.
I walk, slower than I'm used to, to the town cemetery where one of my high school friends lies buried. It's a place I've seen mostly in dreams in years past, but I still intuitively sense just where to find him when I enter. I sit with a book and let the bulk of the tombstone block the sun from my eyes.
I don't worry about anything when I'm here, because being home is like stepping out of time.
It's a reprieve from the world, and it's one I've needed.
I need it because I want to prepare.
I entered 2009 full of good intentions and plans, and absolutely no warmup at all. And if I've learned anything this year, it's that new years' resolutions don't succeed by the strength of the initial burst, but through slow perseverance and unsung toil. Think of it as a race and you're already done for. (Forgive me if I wax a bit poetic here, the holidays just do that to me).
If every moment paves the way for the next, and all we've been through shapes, to some degree, what comes next, then the themes for 2010 have already been well developed by now. The mistakes of 2009, if recognized, dictate the work still to be done. And while it's important to recognize the problems and mistakes we've made, it's just as important to take this particular moment to discard the things that might carry over into the new year and cause us to make these same mistakes again and again. Therefore, 2010 will begin with a declaration of amnesty for all offenses, real and imagined. We don't have to be what we have been.
The past can do a hell of a job of repeating itself if we're not careful. And old habits die hard. If we keep telling ourselves that things are a certain way, they'll invariably be that way. If we open to the possibility of change, maybe we stand a chance of getting better.
So as I sit here by the warmth of an electric fireplace, I'm thankful to have the time to think a little on where I want next year to go, and where I want to go with it. About the importance of forgiving myself for the things I've done wrong, and letting go of the wrongs that might have been done me. And I'm feeling grateful to be able to spend time with the people I care about, even if they might occasionally drive me crazy. I'm grateful to have the friends I have, and for the patience they show in putting up with me.
If you're reading this, that means you.
In the spirit of the season, here's a little video that I hope will bring a smile to your face, as you prepare for what's to come.

End of Year Show/Huzzah!

2009-12-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

Unless you're one of the few who track me on other forms of easy internet stalking, you probably didn't know that my planned final radio show of 2009 (did you know I have a radio show? As I write this I realize I never really said anything about it) - had to be canceled due to issues with the station's streaming computer. I was annoyed at the time; I'd picked a nice batch of songs to play for folks that were very specifically for wrapping up the year/decade, closing things out on a good note, etc etc. To prepare it all and be unable to share it left me frustrated, to say the least. It wouldn't be any good in the new year...
Anyway, I had given up on the thought of doing a make-up show another day; time was too tight and I had work and then was leaving for California on Wednesday. It just wouldn't work. And even if I did, the chance of anyone tuning in at a random time slot just so I could get some satisfaction was slim. At best.
However.
Though the magic of computers, I've found a solution that I might not have even sought had the show gone as planned. I took the songs I had set to play, and mixed them together live (in that I arranged them on the fly and manually handled the crossfades) into one long, continuous track. And through the power of the internet, that file is here for you all to hear and enjoy at your leisure, without having to tune in at that rather difficult time slot I currently occupy.
Unlike past mixes, my hope is that by making this one long track (as well as not providing the playlist), you'll be able to listen to it with the deliciousness of the unknown that makes music so better. In an age of cataloging and tagging everything we hear (guilty), it's nice just to listen to music without knowing what we're hearing sometimes.
You know, kind of like listening to the radio.

Enjoy!

Well, Frak Me

2009-12-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

It'd be pretty hypocritical to come back for what feels like the hundredth time and give you guys some line about how I have a good bead on things now, and know just what I'm doing this time. If you've been a reader of this blog for any amount of time you know how often I like to do that, and how the bursts of resolve are usually the only thing you hear from me between the long stretches of fearful quivering. I just can't do it anymore.
I've been made aware recently just how capable I am of deceiving myself about who I am. You all know (or you can take my word for it) that I'm generally too hard on myself, and that my life is ruled by standards unrealistic in their expectation and borderline psychotic in their approach to how things should be done (see previous sentence for clues), but it's another thing when someone else is affected. Long story short, I've got a few things to face.
A main aspect of my programming has always been to gauge my own value by how much I could produce creatively. Behind this is the perverse certainty that I must not only Do, but Do In A Certain Way and Up To A Certain Standard (again, see bulk of prior entries). I got problems. But who doesn't?
Here's what I do know: My capacity for self-deception is as strong as it is because I've made practically no effort to change. I've coasted, and I've smiled, and I am none the wiser. Nothing's gonna change for me unless I swallow a healthy dose of Shut The Fuck Up And Get On With It, Already. You don't have to remind me.
For the time being, this means a few things.
First: The Mighty Bu is over.
While I used to enjoy making it, by and large the history of my comic has been a struggle with trying to make things that I thought other people wanted to see (this is because I'm crazy, not because you fine folk made me this way). I went into hiatus, and came back still in the thrall of a backwards approach. And while part of me still loves making comics, I'm much too close to it to be able to simply start doing with a healthy perspective. Even if I return to comics again in the future, there's just too much memory and negativity tied to that title for me to continue. It's my hope that starting whatever I do next with a fresh slate will make it easier to establish new patterns.
So.
Where do we go from here?
The short answer is I really don't know. I'm on a brief self-imposed vacation from making anything at all, just to see how it feels, and to examine what it is that I actually want to do vs. the nefarious urges that drive me to make things lest I be revealed as a useless piece of shit. Forgive the dramatics - did I mention I was crazy?
In place of any regular comic output, one thing I know already is that I'd like to start writing more, if only to clear up some of the space in my brain. I'd like to start using this blog as a place to submit more general writing exercises, rather than a place to poke my head up every few months and make the same old excuses.
I feel myself slipping into the same old territory here, so I'm gonna cut myself off now.
See you soon.

Coming Back / The 1,000 Comics

2009-10-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, I've finally decided to stop putting off the relaunch of my old webcomic, The Mighty Bu, any longer. The 6 or so months it's been on hiatus were becoming more and more a period for me to build up expectancies of just how great and thought out I wanted it to be when it finally came back; pressure built, expectations soared. Naturally none of it went anywhere productive.
Perhaps the key addition to my already sizeable surplus of theoretical 'wisdom' about creating (most of which has kept me back) was a pair of interviews I listened to recently (you can listen to them here and here). The gist of these interviews is the same stuff I already knew: that you have to start, and not worry about where you're going. That you have to accept the idea of sucking at it, etc etc ad nauseum.
But there was one thing that struck a new chord.
In the middle of the interview with KC Green, he referenced the old saying that everyone has 1,000 shitty drawings in them (or songs, or poems, etc., depending on your medium), and the best thing to do is to get them out as quickly as possible. I'd heard this sentiment echoed elsewhere but had pretty much forgotten about it in my quest for Impossible Precognitive Perfection. Thinking it over, it seemed obvious: much like the shock therapy of NaNoWriMo or 24 Hour Comics, it was an exercise perfect for my current overly precious predicament.
Having done NaNoWriMo a few times, I'm aware that even the most well-intentioned exercises can be perverted into masochistic, fruitless acts if you go about them the wrong way. I'd done it with the novel writing, and I could just as easily see myself doing it with the comics.
The theory is this: it's perfectly easy to gain nothing from an exercise like this if you do it with the wrong perspective. I know very well that I could barrel through the thousand comics, consumed with knowing my trajectory, highly susceptible to tracing the steps of Gunshow or The Perry Bible Fellowship instead of trusting my intuition and doing comics that I want to see. I could rush through it, more concerned with getting to the end than with actually learning what it's meant to teach me. I've done it before (most recently with my old Mighty Bu strips - the more I drew the more I realized I was pushing myself towards some imagined destination without enjoying any part of the process). I tricked my brain into disconnecting so I could crank out empty, yet serviceable, product, thinking that this was the point.
To actually operate in the spirit of these exercises is to understand that there is no finish line; no point you can reach when you're Done.
The point is to free yourself from worry about quality and direction. You create an expanse of space in which quality doesn't matter - these are Shitty Comics. With that in place, you can focus instead on making whatever you want to, piece by piece. Comic by comic. The theory suggests that by deemphasizing destination, you free yourself up to be present with each step, knowing that it doesn't matter if it's any good, 'cause there are always going to be more.
For my perfectionist brain, this is naturally threatening and quite counterintuitive.
Enter the 1,000 Shitty Comics Exercise.

In keeping with my belief that process is an invaluable thing to be able to observe, I'm going to be using this experiment to rebuild my original comic, no matter how ugly or immature the places it takes me may be. It's what I have to do to get where I need to be - understanding that I have no idea where that is - but also, it's there for you to see, if you want to.

So far I've got 5 done, 995 to go. Come on over.

Finding a Way

2009-09-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

It has never been a problem of knowing what to do, or how to go about doing it.
Regardless of field, the common wisdom concerning getting any sort of work (especially creative work) done is easily found, echoed in a million books on writing/drawing/what-have-you. I won't go into them in depth here, but it always comes down to a simple idea:

Shut up and get to work.

Maybe it's the direct simplicity that scares people; no room for misinterpretation there. No, the only recourse for someone desperate (is it fear? I think it is fear) to put off getting started on (insert any project here) is to hop from book to book, soaking up ever more wisdom and instruction on how they might best proceed.
As one who's read more than his fill of these books, I assure you: eventually you know all too well what you must do.
The question then becomes: what particular devices do we each employ to prevent ourselves from doing this relatively simple thing?
Just as the best way to work is unique to each person, so are the specific designs by which they keep themselves from it. I can only name a few of mine by way of example; you have to identify your own. But perhaps this will help.

Obstacle One: The Implied Expectations of the Vessel

Be it a Moleskine notebook (like the one I'm writing this in right now), or a sleek and fancible Sketchbook, it is the experience of procuring a book specifically to work in, and promptly feeling petrified to sully its pristine pages with anything but the most quality work (itself a dubious, amorphous notion). Fine journals are a fine thing, but when they work psychologically to make us overly precious about what we fill them with, their purpose is corrupted. More on this later.
My second obstacle is the notion that I must know precisely what I want to say and where I want to end up (and must identify all of the in-between steps) before I begin.
This flies in the face of all that ubiquitous, obvious wisdom: nearly all works, of every stripe (pick any specific book/comic/tv show especially dear to you as example) were almost certainly conceived as they went along, rather than extensively mapped out and executed in a linear fashion. All were begun and all change in the making. The growth and progress we so easily recognize (and assume to be both intentional and inevitable) most likely happened entirely by accident. That is to say, naturally.
Yet still the delusion holds sway. If you don't believe me, trust that I have several unfinished drafts of blogs which remain untouched simply because I have yet to figure out exactly what I want to say with each.

The third obstacle sounds a bit silly when said aloud.

Whatever we make must not, at any point in its existence, suck.

And so on.

Your obstacles may have some things in common with mine; no doubt you could make your own list of things that stand in your way. Never a bad idea.
But what then? If you're like me, the one thing you know just as well as what you should be doing is why you aren't doing it. Your knowledge on this subject will be thorough, specific, and vast.
The question of what to do with all this information is what interests me the most. Here's what I've come up with:
It's no good to abandon your notebooks or any other tools just because of the mindset they may induce in you; at least, not altogether. Sometimes having something shabby or handmade (point: not store-bought) helps. But this is often impractical. Mass-produced notebooks are made to be written in. Moleskines' paper feels wonderful against the hand. There must be a compromise.
To put it another way: you have to figure out how to make the things you have work for you. If that means trading in the fancy sketchbook for its DIY cousin, so be it. But only if that's what you really need.
Before I started writing this, I surveyed all the previous entries in the journal. Each page was crammed with tiny, near-illegible lines; none of it invited review. Even as I wrote them, I knew I'd likely never go back and read what I'd written. It seemed beside the point.
But if these things are to become useful, they have to be easy and inviting, at least at first.
I turned to a blank page, and began writing sentences in letters 3 or 4 times larger than usual. Barely a paragraph's worth fit on a page.
And immediately I felt the difference. By loosening up my grip and taking a little more space to stretch out, I found a way to make the Moleskine work for me.
It's that kind of redefined relationship that I want to find with all my tools. I encourage you to try to find the same relationship with yours.

If you need it.

PZS Announcement

2009-07-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,
I'm a little late with this, but I'm going to be at the Portland Zine Symposium all day today and tomorrow selling my comics and generally mingling. It's happening in Smith Memorial Ballroom on the PSU campus and entry is free. If you're around, come and say hi!

Hello Dar

2009-05-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Hi guys.
Working on a proper new blog; just wanted to give you a heads up that the Spring Music links will be taken down on Friday to make way for new records.

xo

Closing the Book of Face

2009-04-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

Oh, internet. How you entangle.
I used to be pretty indifferent about the online communities I used. Being somewhat late to the party (I never used Friendster or Livejournal - okay, that second part's not true, but I digress), I figured each newly ubiquitous community was okay as long as it served its purpose and didn't make my life too complicated. When Facebook sprung up, however long ago, it seemed a godsend; the ugly, non-functional mess that is Myspace had long since worn out its welcome, and back then, Facebook was simple, clean, and spartan. Plus it seemed a good way for people to keep track of me, if they felt so inclined. Anyway.
Cut to the present, and the natural evolution of popular online communities has once again played itself out: Facebook has turned into something bloated and ungainly. Where once it was elegant, it is now an eyesore. Again, digressing, but I'm going somewhere with this.
This is not the place for me to list all the things I don't like about Facebook; the faux-connectivity it creates, the bizarre share-all mentality it fosters. That is another blog, for another time (though probably unnecessary). No, the issue here is that of knowing what you want out of your internet, and then working to get it. I'm a firm believer that the internet doesn't have to be a black hole of distraction and lost time; but navigating it responsibly is a difficult thing, so I try to help myself as best as I can.
I've long been a proponent of Twitter as an alternative to the Facebook micro-blogging tool, as Twitter wisely focuses on what is being said while all but eliminating who is saying it (although, inevitably, 99% of people seem to use Twitter exactly as they do Facebook - 3rd person updates about their lunch, etc.) My views on this are strongly influenced by Rands' article about proper tweeting, and how to make the most out of it. The long and short of it is: Sure, you can now let your friends and family know exactly what you're doing any minute of the day. But why should anyone care? And why is it worth sharing in the first place? But the digression continues.
I'd go it one further and put forth that for those already sold on Twitter, a beautiful application like Tweetie is the way to go - simple, elegant design, completely eliminating the need to even open the web browser. It delivers content, and nothing more. Beautiful.
And this is where Facebook loses me.
The purported strength of online communities, as best I can tell, is that they allow you to stay connected to people you might otherwise be unable to. This is a noble cause. However, whatever its intentions, what I see happening more and more on Facebook runs something like this: People update snippets about their daily lives, others comment on them (or 'like' them. What?), and the whole thing becomes this surreal, almost high school-esque drone. Almost nothing is actually said, and it is said all day, every day.
I understand that a lot of people like Facebook for this very reason, but as I said earlier, this is about figuring out what works for each individual, and for me it's somewhat frustrating. I don't usually think to share details of my daily life; how much more valuable is it to offer some insight that might reach someone out there in the ether, and in turn make their life a little bit better? Much as it feels like it sometimes, the internet is hardly a void. And don't even get me started on the influx of pointless quizzes that have spread throughout Facebook like a cicada plague lately; again, well and good if people like them, but from where I'm sitting it all adds up to distraction, and that isn't why we're here.
The final nail in the coffin came in the form of Tumblr. It serves the simple purpose of being a platform for short, multimedia updates (as opposed to this blog, which does just fine for these lengthier missives), and it allows complete customization (as well as a simple, tasteful UI) that makes sharing content easy and attractive. I am sold.
The downside to Tumblr, they all say, is the absence of a Comments feature. It is one-sided, narcissistic. Yelling into the void. Perhaps, I answer.
But the counter to that is twofold: First, there is this here blog, with its comment-friendly nature and a link to actual contact information. Second, in the land of Facebook, where the comments fly free and easy, how much communication is actually going on anyway?
I aim to document, and share what I find. I figure that's the best any of us can do by our friends on the internet. And RSS is your friend, folks.
You know where to find me.

More Music for Springtime

2009-04-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

Hello again! And so soon!

Assuming by now a few of you have heard my Spring Mix, I thought I'd go it one further and make available to you some of the albums I've been listening to lately. They are by no means representative of all the spring music out there - these are just my picks for this spring, this year, right now. What I do know is that they will reward you if you give them a chance. So with that said, please, Enjoy.

And get outside.

The Dodos - Beware of the Maniacs
Arthur & Yu - In Camera
Menomena - Friend and Foe
St. Vincent - Marry Me
(Edit: Links are now down. Sorry.)

Announcing the Spring Mix

2009-04-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

Greetings all.
I'm pleased to say that the Spring Mix is finally complete, and instead of bothering with cds and packing and all that nonsense, I'm making it available for download right here on the blog. The catch: since it's digital, it requires a little leg work on your part. I've zipped all the songs (plus cover art) into a single file, which you must take into your iTunes, or whatever player you use, and arrange correctly. After that, just find yourself a sunny spring day (or a good pair of headphones), and Enjoy.

Spring Mix 2009:

1. Okkervil River - The President's Dead
2. Arthur & Yu - Lion's Mouth
3. The Dodos - The Ball
4. Marnie Stern - Transformer
5. Jens Lekman - Julie (Remix)
6. Lykke Li - Dance, Dance, Dance
7. Yo La Tengo - Beanbag Chair
8. They Might Be Giants - Another First Kiss
9. Menomena - Rotten Hell
10. tUnE yArDs - FIYA
11. The Mountain Goats & Kaki King - Black Pear Tree
12. St. Vincent - What Me Worry?
13. Rufus Wainwright - I Don't Know What It Is

download

Hourly Comic Day

2009-02-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

So as you may or may not have known, yesterday was Hourly Comic Day, a sort of mini-marathon of comic-making. The goal is to draw a comic for every hour that you are awake. It was definitely a challenge (especially since I had to knock out a regular Mighty Bu comic as well), but it was also a lot of fun (although I became somewhat grumpy near the end, as you will see).

UPDATE: Blogger's image hosting is too small for my liking, so I've hosted the files at my webcomic's site instead. Click here to see 'em.

yeah yeah yeah

2009-01-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

I want a t-shirt that says ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN MY BLOG ARCHIVES.

Blogging from the Front Porch

2009-01-16T15:15:00.001-08:00

First of all: ACKPHTHPTLTLBLOOBLOOOFFFFF.

Ah. Better.

It is nice having an office, but the downside of it is that I spend most of my time in a basement room with hardly any natural light. I feel more and more like a vampire (albeit one that wears a purple robe and foot duvets) when I trudge downstairs each morning with coffee in hand. The place was once a makeshift recording studio - cardboard coffeeholders still line the ceiling - but even the small amount of light afforded by the two tiny windows is not enough to keep it from feeling gloomy. And that gloom has apparently translated into an inability to turn out a proper blog for the first two weeks of the new year.
So here I am on the porch.

As far as portents go, 2009 has not shown any sign of being better or worse than '08 just yet. Which is to be expected, I suppose. Foolish shortcut-seeker that I am, I awoke on the morning of January 1st thinking I'd be able to shake off all of my mental baggage and simply plow ahead into my work; who needs hours and hours of practice when you have the magic on New Years Momentum working for you?
I am this way about a lot of things. Why?
It is perhaps helpful that 2009 has offered up so little thus far, therefore making it easier to quickly realize the naivete of my initial approach and so set it down. I remember thinking, on New Years Eve, how all the world seemed poised to Make A Go Of It in '09, and that all the collective positive energy would no doubt carry me along. How can a person entertain such a notion? Answer: because it is a nice alternative to having to shut up and do the work.
And yet, and yet. You know the drill.
I'm as good at anyone at finding creative reasons to put off doing my writing and drawing practice. But if 2009 has shown me anything thus far, it's that it isn't about to start making it any easier for me to beat the system.
That's the state of things, folks. Stop trying to make your workspace perfectly clean, forget trying to get all the stars to align in order to make your words more pure and concise. It won't work.
So to build upon my initial plan for this year, let me add this: There ain't no easy answer. Best stop trying to find one at all. Gets in the way of doing the ground work. It's on the ground that the guts are made. It's on the ground that the well is filled.
I've got a lot of work to do.
Better get to it before I just start talking.

A few helpful links:

Cory Doctorow - Writing in the Age of Distraction
gapingvoid on being creative
The Second Virtue of Writing
Craig Thompson on getting started

The Year of the Exploratory

2008-12-29T22:24:00.000-08:00

All right. That's quite enough of that.
A friend of mine remarked recently that he hates blog entries in which the author apologies for how much he or she hasn't written lately. He wished that the author would just get on with it and write something, already. No good comes of further delaying actual work by bemoaning the various reasons for the lapse. And I agree with him: it is more or less pointless.
But.
If I am to give in to some backward-looking lamentation and offer some explanation as to why I've been silent these past two months, believe me when I say that it is inextricably connected to what I have to say now, and bears on what I will say in the future as well.
And now I hardly know where to start.
Writing things down, for me, has always served one or two functions. First, it provides a record of my life, thoughts, and progress. Documenting each day gives that day the feeling that it has not been lost, and no matter what specific details and observations I write, it is heartening that they have been set down.
But secondly, and far more importantly, is the fact that writing things down acts as a buffer against the incoming tide of new information: like Dumbledore's pensieve, it lets me take each day's barrage of information and store my thoughts and experience somewhere else than in my head.
I forgot how important this was.
I've never really believed that I would one day go back over my old journals and re-read what I'd written. Even if something was particularly profound or clever, I knew the odds were good that I'd never give any of it another glance.
I can see, in hindsight, that the real value of daily writing is not anything that I wrote on any particular day, but the sanity purchased by simply doing it.
And this is where the silence comes in.
When you slip from a discipline (I better speak for myself here - when I slip from a discipline), it naturally gets harder to pick it back up the longer I wait. Not just because I'm giving in to procrastination like any normal person - if that were all, it should be relatively easy to cope with. But in my case, the longer I wait, the more keenly I feel all the unrecorded days weigh on my mind. Inertia intensifies. The number of specific things I'd intended to say blur together until I feel fairly choked by the prospect of cracking the massive exterior that's grown over the period of lost time.
So it seems entirely appropriate, then, that another new year is upon us.
In years past I've downplayed New Years Day as just another day, dismissing the notion of resolutions. It was probably no more than this: at that point, I found myself in a strong enough place to make such claims. I do not find myself in such a position now.
Admittedly, I'm less interested in tiny, specific resolutions than a few general gear shifts. It's not just what I will or will not do; it's how I'll try to approach them. I know all too well that part of the reason I've been so paralyzed lately is that my standards for myself are quite high. I don't practice writing very much at all, and yet being unable to express myself perfectly right out of the gate (as foolish people like me expect to do) has made me doubt myself, write less and less, and so on and so forth. As 2008 comes to a close, my discipline is in a bad way.
A few years ago I audited a course at Reed College. My professor, Ken Brashier, would give us our daily reading assignment, but in addition, we were each to prepare something written for the next days discussion.
He called it an exploratory.
In the framework of the class it sounded very serious, but really it amounted to simply writing down your thoughts, unformed and raw as they were, about the reading. A simple idea, but an effective one: it forced us to come up with something, anything, to say about material we were still processing. And then to go on. It would never be perfect. It would just be a rough sketch meant to catalog our progress each day.
So, I've been thinking.
No resolution that obliges you to turn your life around with 100% success can be expected to be met. To say that this year I'm finally going to get rid of such-and-such behavior, or finally do that thing I've been putting off, is a bad beginning. I know, at this moment, that I'll fall again and again. It's crazy to think otherwise. But a resolution to try and do better than I have while allowing for this? Well, that sits with me comfortably enough.
The exploratory is the first step. Practically, it will take the form of more frequent updates in this blog (if you guys can stand it). I'll write, and try to let go of my perfectionist grip on the things I do. I'll write, and it'll be crap a good bit of the time. But it's a good start.
Thanks Ken.

Catching Up with Fall

2008-10-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

A quiet evening at home is a rare thing these days.
I know I've been rather incommunicado lately, so it may help to mention that I've just recently settled into a new house with some friends, ending my 2-year stint of living above a bus stop on Hawthorne. So long, noisy streets. Moving into the lush bubble that is Ladd's Addition has made the world seem a good deal quieter.
And what a crazy time it is in the world. Up until a few months ago, I hadn't followed politics too closely; hell, before trudging down to the Waterfront Park to hear Obama speak a few months back I'd never even heard the man's voice before (on that day it was not exactly clear - by the time I arrived the crowds made anything in earshot nigh indiscernible. But I digress).
Cut to now, mid-October. I've been catching up with the world in a number of ways. I finally discovered Hulu, much to the detriment of my productivity, DropBox, which makes the slow, temperamental file-transfer site YouSendIt seem Stone Age by comparison, and Twitter's constant stream of Election-related updates. It's Hulu that has really helped me reconnect with current events: Who knew you could have The Daily Show dropped in your Queue four days a week with the push of a button? A long way since TiVo, we have come.
At any rate, all this newfangled interweb technology has got me quite over-stimulated with Election-frenzy information, to the point that I'm starting to lose sleep over it. My resigned position over the last several months has been more or less pessimistic about the possibility of any real change (this shirt says it well). Sure, I'm hopeful, but anyone who's ever been let down will tell you it's better to prepare for disappointment than walk into it blindly. At worst you get what you were expecting, at best you're happily surprised.
But this has been changing over the last few days.
Maybe it's the influx of articles like this that do it. I know I can't read anything by Mark Morford or watch an episode of Jon Stewart and really allow it to get my hopes up; but any sign that the people on the fence might actually be backlashing against McCain at this late hour for the vile personal attacks that have been the mainstay of the McCain campaign lately is another matter.
And yet the more that little kernel of hope and possibility gnaws at my brain, the more worried I become. Have you seen those people in the McCain-Palin mob? I am well aware that places like New York and San Francisco and Portland are bubbles of primarily liberally-minded voters; but outside the small world I live in people are quite different. They are fearful and violent. Already there are accounts of incidents like this and this coming to the front. How many more people share these men's sentiments?
I am afraid.
For while a McCain victory (which, inevitably, would turn into a Palin presidency, something absurd to the point of seeming like some Monty Python sketch that never was) would no doubt be a spirit-crushing disappointment, an Obama victory brings out a different fear altogether: the fear of what certain Americans will do should it occur.
More than ever in my short life, I'm afraid of us.
So I hope that all goes well, and resign myself to trying to live as well as I can in the meantime. Trying to spend more time enjoying the simple quiet of walks through my new neighborhood, where squirrels and crows are the only life I encounter. Trying to savor the changing of the seasons, and think that while the whole world seems to be on the verge of something, be it for better or for worse, it's still a lovely evening that I'm pretty grateful to have to myself.

Hello.

2008-10-08T01:24:00.001-07:00

I'm not dead.
I have been quite out of the habit of writing. But this is changing. I've found a reason for it again. I have also not given up on the cartooning (especially the 3-on-the-3rds). It's had its rough periods, but the Bu is still chugging along.
I've just taken a much needed break from the world.

I'm coming back now.

My Kingdom for a Punchline

2008-08-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

As any of you who've been keeping up with the Bu know, I'm still jumping around stylistically, and am enjoying the variety so far. However, I've been feeling increasingly frustrated with the process of writing the comics themselves. There have been times when I came up with a good punchline and the thing just wrote itself, but the more common situation is that of me sitting at my desk drinking coffee as I labor for hours trying to craft something funny. I'd never considered how difficult this can be to do on a regular basis. I've analyzed the formulas employed by a couple of my favorites, done the bulk of my comics so far in imitation of one of them or another, and yet I keep coming back to that old truism: make the kind of comic you'd want to read.
So I take it apart over and over again and try to establish just what this means to me. Sitting at the bar at Noble Rot tonight, I finally confronted the fact that I don't really like telling jokes in my comic. The idea of trying to structure a comic to get the most laughs seems dishonest and misguided. Already I've had several times when I felt crippled by the pressure to write something that would appeal to others, which is a backwards approach to the whole creative act in my opinion. So much of humor, to me, is bound in the context of specific situations, and the observation of true things. For my money, a sharp observational insight trumps a comedian's zinger ten times over.
Another thing I mean to avoid is humor based on outright mockery. I am critical of a good many things, but it doesn't feel right to use the comic as a platform to cast my judgments about, at least in such a direct manner. First, because I'm trying to stop being so self-centered all the time (I'm embarrassed by how many of the strips so far have been based on real-life events, for various reasons), and second, because while it's tempting to want to make fun of other people and their mysterious ways, it isn't all that funny.
Who knew writing humor was such a complicated business?
By the by, do any of you know of a decent comic layout program that I can get for free? I'm thinking about experimenting with a strictly photo/clip-art based style (maybe even creating a second webcomic devoted solely to it) which will let me indulge my more verbose side, but all the programs I've seen so far are awful..

Three by Three All Day!

2008-08-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late with this (y'know, with the whole Bu thing takin' up the majority of my time), but I assure you I did in fact draw all these on the Third (okay, the last one was begun around 11:15 and finished around 12:30, but hey, I had to wait for Pat Benatar for finishing inspiration). At any rate, I'm sorry for the delay.
Here are my contributions for this month's 3-on-the-3rd:

Also, in case you didn't know, Lindsey and Sanguinity have made a whole entire website dedicated to this comic adventure. You should totally check it out.

Kthxbai!

A Quick One While I'm Away

2008-07-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

Alas.
It seems apparent already that I'm a bit too busy and overwhelmed to keep up with the 100-theme project. Which isn't really any kind of excuse, but I am getting way too stressed, stretched, and generally depressed about everything else to justify the added pressure. I've been neglecting piano practice and yoga, much to the detriment of my emotional and physical well-being. And anyway, I'm still drawing all the time, working on improving the quality of the strip as well as my technique. So apologies for jumping the gun a bit there, I just need to recognize my own limitations.
On a different note, I've been feeling a bit schizophrenic about the Bu lately. I'm very conscious of wanting to do something new with each one, either a different layout/format or a different pictorial style. Which is all well and good, but I imagine it might be a little jarring from a reader's perspective. I am aware that given the fickle nature of internet-surfing these days, you have a better chance of keeping people interested if you maintain some degree of consistency, if not going quite so far as using recurring characters. I've thought about making it into a serial comic with a progressive storyline, but that just seems to close the door on so many ideas I want to explore... I love the freedom that drawing standalone comics affords me.
I've been reading as many different sorts of comics as I can get my hands on, and I can't escape the fact that serialized comics - both of the web variety (like QC or Girls with Slingshots or Sinfest) and well-known strips like Bloom County or Doonesbury (both of which I have tremendous respect for) are limited by their 4-panel formats. Their comics on any given day are rarely that funny. Sure, there's the occasional strip that makes me laugh out loud, but their real strength is in the cumulative development of the characters and the story and the fact that they can tell jokes everyday while at the same time building something big and lasting. I admire that. It's also worth mentioning that most of those strips update at least five days a week, so there's less pressure on each individual comic to be funny. Whereas a twice-a-week comic carries (at least in my mind) the responsibility to make up for those days in sheer brute comic force. And honestly, the urge to set up a 6-10 panel comic, totally self-contained, in order to explore whatever amusing thoughts I have, is just too hard to resist sometimes.
I know that the comic is still young, and I'm in no hurry to lock myself into a specific format. I'm just musing about it, and I'd like to know what you folks think.

Variations on a Theme/Birthday Pizza

2008-07-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

So already it is clear to me that I will probably not be able to keep to the theme-a-day deadline I initially set for myself. I probably could do it, but that would be piling a little more stress on than is really necessary, especially since the project is so individually-oriented (my friend Joanne has undertaken to explore each them via haiku, for instance). That said, I'll aim instead for one every other day or so, with some leniency.
And now it is my 28th birthday, as of a few minutes ago. Not many words just now on this, as it doesn't feel like much to talk about. I dealt with the imminence of 30 in last years' birthday blog, and my feelings have not changed in that regard since then. We'll see how the rest of the day goes, but really I'm not anticipating much in the way of birthday goings-on. I'll go to work in the morning like any other day, help my boss move some stuff after, and hopefully have a relaxing evening after that. Ideally there will be more cartooning. And it wouldn't hurt to treat myself to a Reggie Deluxe before work, I suppose :)
At any rate, I've just finished another installment of The Mighty Bu, and am now going to get my 29th year on this planet underway properly by taking myself out for late-night pizza as a reward.

In Which I Add 100 Things to My Itinerary

2008-07-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hello again! And so soon!
Well, I was milling around on the old internet just now, as I have been known to do from time to time, and I came across a drawing challenge on Alec Longstreth's illustration blog which caught my eye. I poked around a little bit (there's another example of it here). Basically, it is an exercise in drawing a picture (cartoon, watercolor, etc, the medium is unspecified) about a single theme each day for 100 days. That's really all there is to it. With such a wonderful list of themes to work through, I imagine that it will be a really fun experiment both in interpretation and varying styles. Again, this is not something that begins on a set day like NaNoWriMo, nor are there any real strict guidelines as to the timeline of it all. I'm going to aim for one a day. I invite any of you who like the idea of it to join me in the challenge. I'll be posting the cartoons in this blog as they are drawn, so expect a good deal more tiny posts from me in the coming days. I will probably also be documenting the whole thing with notes and assorted reflections, as I am wont to do.
Wheeeee!!

Update: here we go. One down, ninety-nine to go.

Our (New) Favorite Holiday

2008-07-04T16:54:00.000-07:00

Why hello, Blogger friends. It's been awhile.
I surface again with my July contribution to Three on the Third, which, as in past months, has made for quite the busy day. I'd thought I would have a good deal more to say after having gone so long without blogging, but now that it comes to it there's not much that isn't already captured in these three little comics. Life is crazy and busy and full of practice and learning to be patient and a million other things. The Bu continues to grow and change, and so far I've been happy with what I've done (it's even gained a small readership, thanks in no small part to the kind folks over at the PSU Writing Center). I am more than a little bit surprised and delighted by this. At the least it is all the more incentive to keep drawing :)

So without further ado, I'll leave you (for the time being) with the 3 other comics I drew yesterday.

Peeking Out from the Trenches

2008-06-11T11:52:00.001-07:00

So it's taken me a bit longer to get around to this than I intended (which seems to be the case with everything in my life these days), but I have been wanting to write a proper blog in which I check in about the whole comic process thing, how it feels so far, and whatever else. Sorry to be so single-minded, but it really has been consuming my existence lately.
I have now had more than one person get back to me saying they like my 'style,' as it has been thus far. I get a bit nervous hearing this, as I've been trying to push myself a little bit with each one, and try a different format each time. There've been multiple occasions where I was just too behind schedule and had to fall back on something familiar, but in general I've tried to avoid this. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad people are enjoying not only the comic's content but the art as well. It's just that I'm at a point where I want to move beyond my current style, which in my opinion is very limited, albeit pretty cute. I'm not trying to abandon cuteness here; it's more that I'm getting sick of myself. I should remind myself that even Craig Thompson gets sick of himself and his 'style' all the time (I heard it from his mouth), and take some consolation. It's not that I dislike the way I've been drawing, but that it feels lazy. I can do it without much effort, and it's not really helping me improve.
That said, I know that there has been some progress. I know that it takes time to really develop any skill. It's just hard when you see other artists (published or otherwise) produce things that, to them, may seem tedious, but seem quite beautiful to me. And then I look back at my own sketchbook, and my hand keeps drawing like itself. Sigh.
My road right now is still that of slow imitation, learning from the artists I admire (though I think I may implode with guilt if I rip off xkcd one more time). Sometimes the whole stick figure thing bothers me because it feels like an artistic cop-out, other times I find it really expressive and fun to play with. Also, as Scott McCloud has pointed out, there are many good reasons to employ stick figures instead of more specific characters from time to time.
I just don't want to get complacent.
On a different note, I am very much wanting to improve the general layout of the site. What I'm looking for is the single-comic main page look, with a side panel where I can say a few words about each strip, much like Jeph Jacques does with Questionable Content. I've found it really insightful to go back into his old strips and read about his progress from doing it twice a week, to three times, to making it a full-time job. Right now I can only dream about doing that myself, but it's nice to read about it.
So I want to throw it out there and see if any of you fine readers are html-savvy enough to help me design this sort of website, or know someone who knows how... I've registered a proper domain for the comic, but am holding off on choosing a webhost until I have a lead on how to make it look the way I want it to. It's probably very simple, but I don't know where to start.
With that said, I must tear myself away from this computer and get back to drawing. I'm in for the long haul; I have to practice some more.

Three on the Third, the 3rd

2008-06-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hello! Just a quick posting... yesterday was a busy day for comics, getting the biweekly strip of the Bu up as well as doing these little cartoons. I've got to run out the door for coffee now, but I'll write more about all this drawing soon. Happy Three on the Third!

Happy Birthday Bu!

2008-05-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in awhile. I just wanted to remark quickly on how the Bu turned one month old yesterday. It makes me smile.
It may not seem like much, but let me tell you: each time I manage to get a strip done and uploaded on time, it feels like a victory. I feel like I've barely got enough time to get the comic done, let alone make time to actually practice and improve my technique. But having passed the one-month mark, I'm starting to ease into it a bit more, as well as refocus the drive that got me doing all this cartooning stuff in the first place. Hopefully you'll continue to see improvements in both style and form.

p.s. I truly appreciate those of you who have been reading, and leaving me feedback. It really keeps me going.

xo

LOLs ex Machina

2008-05-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

Well, the hard part is over. The first few episodes of the Bu are up, and I've managed to keep to my schedule for two weeks. I'm hoping to get increasingly comfortable with just doing fun, silly comics (there's this little voice inside me that screams make it poignant! make it poignant! every time I draw) and experimenting in different styles, even if they occasionally don't work. I hope you'll bear with me, and of course, give me feedback. The style is far from being fully-formed.
I'm also looking to improve the design of the comic layout itself (moving away from Blogger and towards a more easy-to-navigate design, like most webcomics use. One strip per page, with the whole previous/next/first links, etc... if anyone can point me in the right direction for getting started with that kind of html, I'd be grateful. I'm going to give Comic Genesis a try, see if that helps. Ideally you will be able to read the comic at full size on the main page without having to click on it.

On a totally separate note, I want to share with you all something that has made getting my work done infinitely easier these past weeks.

It's called Freedom, and it is amazing.

It's sole function is to disable your wireless internet connection for a period of your choosing, up to 3 hours. It does this so you can actually be productive. As it seems to affect the wireless permissions on the kernel level (whatever that means), the only way to override it (if you feel like cheating) is to reboot your computer. If you're willing to do to get back to surfing, this program probably won't help you. I could also say a few words about the implications raised by the fact that such a program needed to be created in the first place, but I won't.

It works.

Enjoy it.

p.s. Freedom is only available for Macs at the moment (muahaha! that sentence makes me smile), though maybe if you plead with the developer he might make one for PCs as well.

Back to work!

In Which I Embrace My Inner Cuteness

2008-05-10T12:59:00.001-07:00

If you've ever heard me grumble about my art in the years past, you know that my constant gripe was never that it wasn't good enough technically, nor that it didn't convey exactly what I meant it to.
My complaint was always that it was cute.
As long as I can recall, this has been a dirty word to my ears, worse than derivative, worse than saccharine. Cute. The real 4-letter word.
Maybe it was just a matter of time until the Hordes of the Cute Army wore down my defenses and I could resist no more. Maybe it was seeing the work of artists I respect and admire and realizing that beyond the quality of their linework and brushstrokes, beyond the great pacing and storytelling, hidden underneath it all like a sugar coating on a bitter pill, was Cuteness.
And I liked it.
I've consciously avoided cuteness in my own work for a long time, to no avail. No more shall I resist. If cuteness is inherent, let it be embraced! Let it be one more tool in the cartoonists' arsenal. Let it be a weapon, not a hindrance.

To quote (heavily) from James Kochalka:

For these reasons we choose cute. We deny the ugliness of the world around us and stand in opposition to it. When we draw, our line will be as supple as the precious spring twig and as resilient as the fat cheeks of an infant. Our art shall remain as pure and innocent as the sleeping babe and it shall shine with the inquisitive twinkle of his wide, waking eyes. We shall not use cuteness to champion commercial ventures, for that use merely serves to corrupt and defile, twisting cuteness from beauty into ugliness. Nor do we live in a fantasy world where we pretend that suffering does not occur. Rather, we fight for beauty and purity and we fight to make the world a more joyful place.
~from The Cute Manifesto

To this I say Amen! Let the Cuteness shine forth!

In relation to this, and thanks to Lindsey's new favorite holiday, I've set out to revive my old webcomic. For those of you who had it bookmarked before, the address has changed slightly. I'm aiming to update it twice a week for the time being, on Tuesdays and Fridays. So without further ado, I give you:

The Mighty Bu

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

2008-05-04T02:38:00.000-07:00

So I had a very full, very busy Third. I've been working on my comics most of the day, though I did take a break to ride out to Guapo Comics for Free Comic Book Day. After that I went straight to a show at the Wonder Ballroom, and when I got home I got right back to work. I am really happy with how these comics turned out, but because of the extra detail, they took me a good deal longer than they did last time.
Long story short, it's now past 2am and I've got two out of three finished. The third one exists as a rough draft, I just need to knock out the final version. Does this count, Ye Overlords of Three on the Third? I swear I will get the last one done tomorrow. I'm just beat and I am pretty sure I've reached the point of diminishing returns with my drawing.

So, begging your forgiveness, here are the two I've got so far:

UPDATE: Here it is. Sorry for the delay.

Reset.

2008-04-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

Mornings are a crucial time for me.
I woke up around 9 o'clock, as I usually do. My first incoherent thought was: Do I have to work today?
My brain began functioning. No. It's Thursday. No work. Joy. So I allowed myself to drift back to sleep, guilt-free, for another hour.
And that's when things began to turn sinister.
The later I slept, the more I was aware that I should be getting up and getting on with my day. The longer I stayed in bed, the harder it was to get out of it. I am already fucked. Lost before I start. Same as it ever was.
So much of it is arbitrary. I feel that my morning productivity speaks for the whole day; there are others who don't get up 'til noon and have their peak productive hours at night. But whatever your settings read, once you make a misstep, there's always something inside you begging you to make another, then another, and then one more after that, ad infinitum.
It makes me wish we humans had a reset button.
A quick push and the useless thoughts would be gone. I could proceed unencumbered. Ah, wouldn't it be nice?
I know, in my higher mind, that it doesn't matter what the day's been like so far. I still have all day to be productive, live well, etc. But I know, too, that depression is a self-perpetuating entity. Maybe it's just me, but feeling like I've wasted my morning increases the likelihood of wasting the rest of the day a thousandfold.
It's quite mad, really. Nothing is wrong, per se; just the knowledge that I've let the hour and a half I've been up slip away without anything to show for it is enough to irrevocably mar the next 11 hours. All the while, I'm aware that you can spend a good amount of time putting off doing something, but when you finally work up the stomach to take care of it, it takes practically no time. Focused effort is a force to be reckoned with. Yet here I sit, prey to my computer. Instead of making breakfast, putting away laundry, and getting on with things, the internet holds me in its clutches.
As I've no doubt touched on before, this is most common on days when I don't work, with the free hours stretching out before me. We all know the theory of the advantage of working within a schedule. But if I'm getting more done on days I work than on my days off, something's very wrong.

I can't give in. I know that button is there, somewhere.

Ah, there it is.

Push.

Return of the SDP

2008-04-15T23:29:00.000-07:00

I am working tenaciously on a project I started long ago; an experiment in behavioral psychology designed to help me make a few personal changes. As self-help projects go, this one is the most straightforward, scientifically sound approach I've ever come across. I am pretty sure I've written about it before. I could go into greater detail, but it would cause your eyes to glaze over. Something about technical speak just has that effect on people.
The subject of my project is that of time management. I've been struggling (not for the first time) to give due time to all the practices I've been doing lately - writing, sketching, and learning piano, to name but a few - and in addition to feeling overwhelmed and unable to give any of them their proper amount of time, I've been feeling generally dispirited about it all, compelled to do them out of a sense of obligation instead of doing each because I enjoy it. So the project is a dual endeavor: both to learn how to actually manage my time more efficiently, and also to approach the things I use my time for with a better perspective.
So far so good. But like most things, this is gonna take some time. There ain't gonna come a point when I wake up and find that I've arrived at the plateau of perfect discipline and mindfulness; it's always gonna be a process. But the whole thing will be documented and, hopefully, the road to wherever I'm going will be littered with an abundance of cartoons, assorted writings, and new songs.
To this end, I want to say that I appreciate all of your words regarding my last post. Your collective wisdom is resounding in my ears as I plow forward on the road to having a healthier relationship with my various disciplines and try to find my way through it all. You are all awesome, and I will repay you in cookies yet.

Handwriting

2008-04-04T19:37:00.001-07:00

Due in part to yesterday's comic-drawing frenzy, I started musing in my journal about how often it is that you find yourself unable to draw even the simplest things; things you might look at a hundred times a day. It's partly that old truism (which I first came across via Danny Gregory), that you can really only know things after you've drawn them. Before this fact, what you draw is more likely to be your mind's image of the object: Coffee Cup, Bus, etc. By looking long and hard at something and drawing it specifically, you notice all the particulars that make it unique. Fine. Plenty of validity to Gregory's slow-as-snails contour practices.
But having done a fair amount of these observational sketches, what I keep being struck by is how unnatural each one feels (and looks) after the fact. The lines are always fractured and broken, there is either too much detail or not enough, and it reeks of trying overly hard to render exactly what I'm seeing in precise detail rather than making, well, a drawing of it. But maybe this is part of the exercise? (Ashley, I'm looking to you here).
My eye then wandered over my various notes to myself, and I realized that one thing I am totally comfortable with is my handwriting.
When we're young we're taught how to write cursive and to cultivate 'good' handwriting, and this stays or wears off to varying degrees as years pass. For my part, I went through a very clean handwriting phase, then went off the deep end in the other direction, filling notebooks with completely illegible (I'm talkin' like a heartscan) scribbles. Now I look back at my journals from the past several months, and see that my handwriting has settled into a style that I very much approve of. It's messy and occasionally still illegible, but it's very me. It has it's own character and eccentricities. After all this time, I've found my proper expression with it.
This got me thinking: how do you achieve such a thing in other forms? In my sketches, I still lack any kind of identity. Same thing with songwriting. In both fields I find it much easier to create pieces that imitate someone else than try my own thing (as I may have written prior, each of my FAWM songs was a direct attempt to be like a specific artist), under the premise that through imitation, eventually your own style shines through.

I offer up the following sketches that I did this evening as examples of this dilemma.

The Doubtful Guest

Cat and Girl

Pintsize (from Questionable Content)

My hand can imitate these styles, but I know that none of them are my own, per se. So what does it take? I know the only real answer is that long, hard road of daily practice. But lordy, those contour sketches can really get a boy down. What say you, friends?

Three on the Third

2008-04-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

Here's my contribution to a fun little venture brought to my attention by my friend Lindsey.

As you may guess, I'm feeling pretty under the weather, so without further ado:

Poetry and Giveaways

2008-03-26T11:44:00.001-07:00

Last night was another attempt at purging the old closet out. Finally gone to the recycling bin are my old college notebooks; xeroxed copies of old Chinese scripts that I will never read again. Week after week of handouts; remnants of my past lives. Out in the alleyway. It feels good.
One of the boxes in my closet is filled to the brim with old VHS tapes. Now, as I have no means to play these tapes, and no intention of acquiring such a means, I thought I'd offer them up here, to any who want them. So, without further ado: my old collection of videos. If you want any (or all) of them, simply drop me a comment or email me straight at recoveringmale@gmail.com, and they shall be yours.

(I'll do my best to come back to this entry and X off names as they are claimed)

~~Rushmore~~
Pump Up the Volume
Blue Velvet
Dangerous Liaisons
Manhattan
Dead Poets Society
Wonder Boys
Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet
~~Ghostbusters~~
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Fawlty Towers (3 random episodes)
X-Men
Big Trouble in Little China
Your Friends & Neighbors
Braveheart
Heat
Alien Trilogy (box set)
~~The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert~~
Shine
Leaving Las Vegas
Othello
~~Purple Rain~~
Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Sold Out!
Eagles: Hell Freezes Over
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Sleeper
Beverly Hills Cop
The Silence of the Lambs
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Cape Fear
Radiohead: 7 Television Commercials
Radiohead: Meeting People Is Easy
Al Pacino's Looking for Richard

Wow. That offers a somewhat telling glimpse into what I used to spend most of my time doing...

also, a few stray books that need a home:

~~3-volume set about The Swing Era~~
~~The Beatles Anthology~~

Get 'em while they're hot and sticky!

Now, as I hinted at before, here's something of a poem.

What of Spring?
Already the muck of cherry blossoms dot the streets.
Can I not import Kate for at least one bikeride under their streamers?
still Low is playing
and the rain is coming down.
I can wait.

I'm looking at an unfinished book
silent and still
as static as Roman ruins
I'm looking at my bandaged finger
one small ambassador of the ever-breaking body
but like Wolverine I clean
patch
and move on.
The body is a better healer than most give it credit for.

If you're reading this, maybe I finally let go
maybe I made it to the far shore
and found something my hands could not malign
nor my mind destroy before I even begin
like the drums I sold
or the corpses of the unused instruments.

I hate these cryptic communiques.

I would face my enemies on the field of war
so I can at least see their faces
when I take
them
down.

Alrighty folks. Back to the trenches.

~D

The Weakerthans - Everything Must Go!

Yessir, the Check Is in the Mail

2008-03-07T00:34:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on my songs, as rough as they are. For the most part, I'm proud of them. I went over the lot today making notes about how each will be tightened up for when I record my Proper Album, and I think I'll keep as many as 11 of the 14 for the final project. Some need a good bit of work, but some came into being, through some miracle, fully-formed and ready for their close-up. Funny how that works. I guess it's just a by-product of deadline-fueled creating. As my friend Lindsey put it: when you punch enough holes in the card, once in awhile you get one for free.
It works out well enough for me that I have to wait until April to claim my free membership at CD Baby (as a result of finishing and donating to FAWM). I'd thought I'd have to rush to get the songs re-tracked and off to them, but it turns out I have a bit of breathing time to do it properly. April 1st is a good deadline to aim for. And once that's all said and done, dear readers, I might just have a finished CD that you can actually spend money to hear.
That is a strange, strange thought.
In other news, I've fallen (again) into the trap of excess downloading. In the place of OiNK (or maybe they were there all along, and I just didn't know it?) I've been made aware of a handful of the mp3 blogs that exist solely to provide free access to all sorts of good new music, usually months before it is due out. It's an interesting balance they strike; it's all listed as strictly promotional on the sites, and users are encouraged to support the artists. They even offer to take down links upon request (quite a few labels make such a request, and they are honored). But it's remarkable how, with a little resourceful googling, most things can be acquired easily. It really reinforces the argument for OiNK: that torrent sites are not the villains responsible for pirated music; they are merely one tool of many. The music is out there. It can be found through proper internet channels if you just know where to look. When you use acceptable methods to steal music, who is responsible? Is it more ethically reprehensible to download an album than to check it out from the library and then rip it personally? The only difference is a little patience and (probably) a better quality set of mp3s. But no one gets paid in either instance...
And while it's wonderful to have a new source of music, the constant influx is again becoming problematic. I need to slow down...
I was sitting at home this evening feeling a bit stir-crazy, and so decided that an evening of semi-mindless entertainment was in order. I hied me out to the Laurelhurst to watch the new Will Smith vehicle I Am Legend with my friend Nate. While it was certainly not a bad film (at least not according to the standards I hold such films to), it was, I'm told, not even close to being on par with the book it was based on - which should come as no surprise, given the way these things go - but I couldn't help but wish they'd tried a bit more to retain some of the psychological depth that the story hinted at. With such subject matter, there's such potential to really explore the kind of thoughts and delusions that one would suffer when being the only survivor in a post-apocalyptic world. But no, instead they chose to pair him with a buddy-dog and use Bob Marley's music as a metaphor for struggling against the darkness of hatred and injustice (and, you know, annihilation) And I might add, at the risk of spoiling a minor plot point, that they risk all credibility by suggesting that one character has lived so far under a rock that she's never heard of Bob Marley. Damien Marley, yes, but Bob who? Come on.
Despite all this, it was a good popcorn movie.
Though next week is really going to be a treat, as not only has No Country for Old Men finally come to the beer theaters, but this week's feature film is none other than Big Trouble in Little China. Oh yes.
Anyway. Enough rambling. With all this talk about new sites and music, the least I can leave you with is a few links and songs to enjoy. I'll even throw in a tune I recorded a few days ago, in which I taught myself how to over-use the reverb plug-in while covering Lesley Gore. You should really listen to it in headphones to hear the full silliness in effect.

mp3 blogs:
Pop Apocalypse
Robin Hood of Indie Music 2
Le Shake

Some songs I'm really liking:

The Mountain Goats - Sax Rohmer #1
John Darnielle has become one of my personal heroes lately. Seeing him perform was like a revelation; as my friend J put it, if he didn't write and sing his songs, he would die. Amen.
The Minus 5 - Cemetery Row
This band is new to me. It seems they specialize in writing groovy, front-porch country pop music and then get all their friends to sing on their albums. Colin Meloy handles the vocals on this one.
Of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games
Listen to this song and just try to keep from dancing.
Jens Lekman - Julie (Rmx)
I know I'm late to the party on this guy, but better late than never... he sure does write a mean pop tune. And the voice grows on you too.
Retribution Gospel Choir - Breaker
Ever wondered what Low would sound like if they rocked a bit more? Look no further.

and:

Doubtful Guest - What Am I Gonna Do With You? (Lesley Gore cover)

Oh, and last but not least, I've decided to add a little Paypal Donation button to my blog, taking inspiration from Dorothy over at Cat and Girl. If you feel inclined to support my less-than-lavish lifestyle, I will (in straight rip-off fashion) draw you a picture depicting what I do with it and mail it to you. I certainly believe that people should get something back for their generosity, but if a drawing isn't your cup of tea, email me and we can work something out.
And remember:
When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, looks you crooked in the eye and asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that.

The End of FAWM

2008-02-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

And I am done.
What a long month it has been. They say that as you go, your personal style eventually emerges. I have no real songwriting identity yet, so I tried to approach each tune as a different sort of exercise, to see what felt right, like trying on different skins to see which characters I felt most comfortable inhabiting. Listen to the demos and you can probably name which band I used as a point of reference for each song; some of them are derivative to the point of absurdity.
Like Nanowrimo, I worry that being done will create this vacuum where I fall back into inactivity and despair; post-nano blues they call it. Let me tell you, it is Real.
One thing that will rise up to fill the hole left by FAWM's ending is more freewriting practice, a la Natalie Goldberg. It's really the only tried-and-true way to cut through the shitty writing and get in touch with the heart again. All this time I've felt more or less like a fraud whenever I managed to write something good. It's an unfortunate reality that I've always been able to fake it and turn out something passably decent without having to do the real ground work. Anyway, I'm going to be doing that more nowadays, which, if past experience tells me anything, means that my blogs will become much rawer for a time, but eventually they'll be far better for the practice. Hell, I may even start writing poetry again (much as part of me finds the idea repulsive). I'll just be focusing more on writing copiously, and less on whether it's good or bad.
So with that said, I'm going to tend to a few personal things that went completely neglected during this frenzied month, like basic house maintenance and dish-doing. Here are some demos from my FAWM experience. Keep in mind that most of them are not really finished; sketches, if you like (read: feedback is welcome) If you want lyrics to any of them, you can find them on my FAWM profile. For some reason the files on the website are cut off 30 seconds into each song (perhaps because the month's almost over) so I've made them available for download via YouSendIt.

love love love

~D

O Stella
On the Frustration and Futility of Second Hand Shopping (Punk Song)
Already Fucked
Sitting Still
You, Radio
The Spy
Song for Fishes
Sutures

p.s. my internet has being acting funny lately, so let me know if any of the links are broken.

Aaand We're Off!

2008-02-01T22:34:00.000-08:00

February! Already!

This can only mean one thing: February Album Writing Month.
That's right, it's the musical equivalent of that equally breathtaking and insane quantity-over-quality venture, NaNoWriMo. I've gotten off to a good start so far, with one song finished on the first day. We'll see if I can keep it up for the rest of the month...
I promise to write an honest-to-God Real Blog soon. In the meantime, I'll be sharing the songs I've recorded (to save you the trouble of having to go track me down on the website). Any feedback is appreciated.

As always, headphones make it sound better (this kind of goes without saying, don't you think?)

xo

~D

Doubtful Guest - On a Sunday Night

From the Sketchbook

2008-01-25T16:15:00.000-08:00

I have much to say and to write and to do, with nowhere near enough time to do it all. But between working, cycling, and perfecting the slippery art of time management, I thought I'd share a page from my sketchbook. I grew tired of doing coffeemugs and teapots, and the massive trees outside my window are a bit too daunting for me to attempt just yet. So instead, I've taken to drawing from my LP collection. They're nice to look at and they're good at holding still while you draw 'em.
So without further ado...

Mr. Nick Cave, à la The Boatman's Call.

Nick Cave - People Ain't No Good

Notes from Belpub 17

2008-01-18T10:46:00.001-08:00

Hi friends,

Just a quick update to let you know that my lappy is currently off at the Apple Headquarters being fixed up, so I've been pretty absent from the ol' internet lately. This hasn't stopped me from visiting the library's computer system, of course... Ah, it's just like the old days.
It's been nice to have one less distraction at home; I'm actually getting a good bit of sketching done (reading Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage has inspired me quite a bit), and reading graphic novels as well. I'm currently starting on the massive tome known as Bone. There's something magical about comics that no other medium seems to get. At least for me. And if there's anything finer than reading comics, drinking tea and listening to records while ungodly crappy weather rages outside, I sure don't know what it is.
That's all for now. Normal life will resume when the lappy gets home, hopefully without disrupting this pleasant new discipline I seem to have found.
Thank you to everyone who made t-shirt suggestions! They were all PERFECT. I intend to make at least one of 'em into a shirt. Keep 'em coming!

First Impressions, Pt. 1

2008-01-12T11:13:00.001-08:00

This year has been throwing off mixed signals left and right. So far nothing overtly shitty has happened to me, but a few friends of mine have already endured some bad news, and it's not even the 15th. The wind and rain have been almost Biblically gloomy, and things are falling apart in subtler ways all around me.
I spoke to one of my co-workers about it, and we agreed: This year is not bad, but nor is it to be trusted.
I never did sit down to write out any resolutions for 2008; I think it might be time (naturally, this will be an ongoing process).
First: I resolve to practice mindfulness in everything I do. I've begun to suspect that the practice of being aware of yourself and paying attention to your thoughts and surroundings might very well lead to better relations with others as well as better creative output. It cuts through the tendency to look anxiously towards the end (of the show, the affair, the high, or what-have-you), and roots you right where you are. This is surely a good thing.
Also, it makes you aware of just how many thoughts you have each day that are really little anxiety-loops, always circling around two or three key nodes of concern. They're usually not much to think about at all. Yet when you pay attention to them, it's startling just how much of your time they actually take up.
This leads to the second (apparent) benefit of mindfulness: things bother you less. Be it a recycled fear, a thought of some unfinished business, or simply seeing an appealing member of your preferred gender on the bus, all the things that come into our systems as raw data invariably get processed, identified, and, as quickly as they came, slapped with a label: Want. Do Not Want. Mediocre. Indie. Cheeseburger. And so on and so forth, ad nauseam. But mindfulness teaches you this remarkable fact (by way of a skill): that there is a moment between receiving new information and judging it when you simply encounter it without trying to make it anything other than what it is. You just see it.
Paying attention in this way teaches you to extend this moment out to the point that you never lay down your automatic judgments. Imagine! Nothing you face has to provoke such responses. After all: what, in reality, do your judgments on a thing, (example: song/film/idea) have to do with said thing? Answer: nothing at all. The way you interpret something has actually got no bearing on what it is unto itself. So if you remove that filter, you free up the room to actually see what you might have missed otherwise. I think the personal implications of this approach are vast, but I will leave you to make them for yourself rather than continue to talk your digital ears off about it.
Second: I resolve to be my own anchor.
My friend S and I have talked on a few occasions about the anchor idea. Basically, it comes down to having a stabilizing force in your life, something (or some-one) who keeps you on task. It's very easy to see why one would seek out a relationship with this in mind: having another person around is a great way to make yourself accountable. But, getting back to my prior discussion (via Amanda Palmer's blog), it's not really healthy to rely on people to keep you on task. For support, yes. But only you can push through the door, sit down at the booth in the coffeeshop, and do the work. No one can make you stop looking at the cute girls across the room (though engineering a device for just that purpose sounds like a fun idea).
So what it comes down to is just being more focused and learning to keep perspective. How often do you find yourself able to guide others out of their creative/personal slumps, but unable to do the same for yourself? It's hard to give ourselves the same slack, but it's important to try anyway.
I am determined to develop a sense of stability this year. So many projects have been born out of the urge to attract others (or at least keep them around); when they invariably go, the projects generally go the same way.
No more of that. This year I will not be moved from my work, though I expect that the nature/direction of the work will change frequently. It does that.
There are so many more I could list, but that'll do for now.

p.s. taking inspiration from Amanda's blog yet again, I want to get some ideas from you all for fun t-shirt slogans. Seriously. Two that she came up with:

I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOU IN MY LIFE
and
WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME I'M AWESOME

I would totally make either of those into a shirt.
But I also want to get some new ideas. Maybe we can all vote! Maybe the winning slogan gets printed on ten super-limited shirts for only the coolest of the cool.
Bring on your suggestions.

love,

~D

Putting the Days to Bed

2007-12-31T17:39:00.000-08:00

Reading over last years' New Years Eve entry, I find I have little to add to it. I read somewhere that you don't have numerous new revelations in your life, so much as the same few over and over again. So what more can I say?
2007 has been a pretty shitty year, both for myself and most everyone I know. There's no need to dwell on it or go into details, but suffice to say we are all quite ready for the new year to signify some sort of change for the better. After a year like this, it can only go uphill.
The only thing I know to do tonight is welcome it by spending the evening at home, reflecting on what's gone before, and thinking about what I can do now. I'm quite over the desire to pass the midnight hour surrounded by drunken people hooting and carrying on. I'd only feel lonely staring at all the kissing couples anyway.
So I will stay home and reflect, and welcome the new year quietly.

But before I leave you to make the final preparations, here are a few songs to give the old year a proper send-off and get the new one off to a good start.

Be safe, my friends.

The Long Winters - Hindsight
PJ Harvey - You Come Through (live)
Menomena - Muscle n' Flo

Holiday Round-Up

2007-12-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

Greetings, one and everyone.

It's almost Christmas (sorry, Dethemberween), and I wanted to say a few words. I've been feeling fairly cheerful about the holidays this year, having managed to eschew, for the most part, buying any gifts at all. Stepping away from the 1 a.m. mall rushes and the pressure of family, I'm left to appreciate the little things that usually get overlooked, like the fact that the holiday lights around my neighborhood do, indeed, look quite pretty. That there's a feeling of cheer in the air and people are, in fact, a bit friendlier to each other than normal.
So in honor of the season, I'm following my prior entry up with a few more Christmas-esque songs and other miscellany. In the way of a gift, I'm also sharing a holiday song I recorded over the last few days in my makeshift studio. If you didn't get an email from me, it is here for you to enjoy (and if you didn't, it's not because I don't love you, but because I'm very forgetful sometimes and/or don't have your email address).

Low - If You Were Born Today
Trans-Siberian Orchestra - A Mad Russian's Christmas
Doubtful Guest - A Christmas Song

On a side note, if you want to hear the full effect of my marginal recording skills, listen to it in headphones. Hooray for multi-tracking.

Happy Holidays, my friends.

much love,

~D

Field Notes: December Update

2007-12-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's that time again... lacking anything really insightful or interesting to say, I am here with a few tunes for your listening pleasure.

The Dodos - Trades & Tariffs

I happened upon this band through my friend S. We were sitting against the back wall at Dante's, surrounded by scantily clad hostesses, congregations of Titlelist-cap wearing alpha males, and free-spirited (read: wasted) bar patrons. The whole scene was smoky, fiery, and enough to make me wish for nuclear holocaust in five minutes, as Bill Hicks would say. The dregs of humanity on parade.
And then this band took the stage, and made it all worth it.

Hide & Go Hustle - Fight or Flight

Another band I was fortunate enough to be dragged to see by a friend who had my best interests at heart. The girl plays cello and the guy does guitar and loops and effects. Not only do they make beautiful music, they hand sew these cute little stuffed animals. I tried to bribe the cellist into selling me one, but she claimed it was for use in an upcoming music video. But once that's done, that little guy is mine.

Okkervil River - Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas (live)

Okkervil has long been one of my favorite bands, and this song one of the sweetest (and seasonally appropriate) tunes from their first record. They recently came out with a free 'mixtape' for the holidays (you can download it here), which consists of various live covers they've done over the past two years. This reading of the song blows the original away, if you ask me. Okkervil are a mighty presence on stage, so to have a well-recorded live version of anything by them is a treat.

Lastly, a bit of seasonal silliness:

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - An Angel Came Down and O Come All Ye Faithful/O Holy Night

Having recently discovered this band through a co-worker, I'm amazed I didn't know about them sooner. A band that combines over-the-top theatricality, classical/christmas music and heavy metal? What's not to love? It's as if Meat Loaf, Brian May, and the Original London Cast of Les Misérables got together, drank a barrel of spiked eggnog and decided to go caroling.
This is the kind of holiday music they should be blasting in Safeways and Fred Meyers throughout the land, instead of that bloodless mid-nineties shit they fall back on year after year. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there is good holiday music out there. You just have to look for it.
And hey, I might not flee those scenes of panicky orgiastic shopping madness so quickly if I were being pummeled by riffs like these. Everyone wins.

Love through the cold air, friends...

Fifty Fifty?

2007-12-12T00:30:00.000-08:00

To paraphrase Neil Gaiman (quoting Gene Wolfe, in turn), you never learn how to write a blog. You just learn how to write the blog you're writing. I'll trust that sooner or later what I would like to say (or mean to say?) will sort itself out.
All furniture has been relocated around my apartment, and I keep waiting for the sound of trumpets and the glowing lights to herald in some new creative age where I will know no doubt or hesitation as I bask in the connectedness of it all.
This moment is not coming, and I realize that for all of it, were someone to walk into my place this second, the change would be registered with a moments' nod and then moved past. It is different, yes. But it's no feng shui panacea either. All the art and band posters and candlelight I can muster doesn't conceal the fact that it's still my apartment, and for all my effort, might this have been just another way to kill some time?
Onward.
I have written much in my journal lately about how to slow the onset of depression/stagnancy being brought on by the bleak winter sky in the morning and the cold wind throughout the day. I've struggled to articulate how one must consider, when weighing in on any particular negative obsession, the opposite, positive alternative as equally valid. All things being possible before the mind comes along to make them so, yes? And this, in turn, leads to the question of Is Reality More-or-Less Dictated By Where You Focus Your Energy? Aye.
So, the challenge then becomes (have I gone on and on about this before? I really can't recall but everything these days feels as if I've said it a few times) disciplining oneself into focusing on, if not the positive, at least on seeing both sides of all things. Hell, not choosing positive or negative at all, but standing by watching them try to force their ideologies on you like the Vorlons and the Shadows, and then simply smiling.
That said, one can always use a bit of help. A recent blog from Lady Amanda mentioned the idea of a support staff, people/things/what-have-you that help you get through the daily mill of shit and familiarity. She made the distinction - and I'll keep this brief, as you should really go read her words - between people/things supporting you and doing the work/filling the void/completing the tasks for you. You get the idea. Something that isn't coming.
But supports are nice, and oftentimes necessary.
So I treat the apartment as one more agent of support. Being socially withdrawn to start, and it being winter, my interaction with Real People is at a seasonal low. So I turn, naturally, to this here internet and the four walls around me. I'm quite enjoying both Cat and Girl and A Softer World. Have a look at them after the gap.
The hardest part of this apartment business is that for the most part, I've had to act as designer/editor/executor for the whole process. Moving things around when you're constantly second guessing the placement of it all gets tiring quick. I've been in dire need of a second perspective, and have found none.
Anyway. It's nearly over now. I'm happy with a few things about the place. Here is one:

Now I'm going to lay down and watch "Me and You and Everyone We Know." Stay warm.

Cleaning Out My Closet

2007-11-29T12:15:00.000-08:00

Once again it's that time of year when I refer back to Mark Morford's glorious article about getting rid of excess crap (read it here). I've been rearranging my apartment with increasing frequency these days, yet none of the arrangements have been particularly functional. I've started several blogs and finished none of them. All these ideas that will probably never be seen through to completion. Isn't that just the way?
Many times something will come over me like a wave, a series of crystalline thoughts. I long for a set of wires connected to my brain that could instantly transmit what I thought in that moment into a piece of writing. The specific details. But I'm never at my computer when this happens, and the moments are lost. This is one reason I stand in awe of Amanda's blog; she seems to be able to recreate those frenzied torrents of speed-thought with amazing clarity. Does she really write them in such a way, or are they crafted, slowly, after the fact? Some day I'll muster the courage to ask her myself. Either way, I can never successfully go back and recapture those moments. They fade, as things do.
But reading Amanda's words, especially in the form of this book has got me all hellbent on transforming my apartment into an Artist's Den. Everything functional/connected. Glorious messes. Move all the furniture around. Purge purge purge.
Which brings me back to Morford's article, and the principle in general.
It is remarkable, if you look around, how seldom we clean up and revise our environments. Hell, even my internet bookmarks are outdated and cluttered. I'm sure half the links are dead now. Long, long overdue for revision. This is true of a lot more than my imminent surroundings, but that's another blog altogether.
The onset of winter is a good time to do this. We Portlanders hibernate for most of the season (we can, however, be coaxed out by the promise of good beer and company), so it is fitting that I take the time now to give my place a good overhaul and make it actually functional/lived-in instead of just being a copy of a copy of every bedroom I've lived in since I was a boy (read: sort of nice looking, but not conducive to anything but playing on the internet).
Somehow, this will all work towards doing more creative/personal work. Maybe then I'll get around to finishing all those unborn blogs/songs/stories. Maybe not. I'm certainly open to any suggestions as to how to make the best use of my space (you artisty creative types out there). What works for you?
Now, back to the closet.

Grace

2007-11-22T08:18:00.000-08:00

Happy Turkey Day, friends. Why do you get up in the morning?

Field Notes: November Update

2007-11-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

As promised, a music update.

A quick reminder: Music can be acquired for free with minimal effort these days, and I'm a strong believer in getting a taste of things before you buy them. That's one of the reasons OiNK was so great. However, it's very easy to forget to support the artists who make this beautiful music. So if you like these songs, consider buying their records. The important thing to remember is that there are many ways to acquire an album, some that benefit the musicians far more than others. One good way is to buy it directly from them (i.e. their label). Look for them on Cdbaby. Or go see them play - even better. In any case, avoid buying things from places like Amazon if you can. With a bit of extra searching, it's easy to find a more direct line to them.

Read this article for more information. It's thought-provoking, to say the least.

Now, onto the music.

PJ Harvey - White Chalk

The title track off her new album. While I love this album in its entirety, this song stands out. It's quite necessary that you listen to it on headphones (the whole album, actually), while surrounded by grey weather. One of the best fall records I've heard in a long time.

Bat for Lashes - Sad Eyes

What can I say about this song? Bat for Lashes make haunting, ethereal, nocturnal music. This song is one of the slower tracks on the record. It's the kind of song I would want someone to put on a mix cd for me, if that make any sense.

Phosphorescent - My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

I discovered this guy meandering around on Allmusic one day, through his association with Castanets. He plays throaty, spare folk songs that sound like the musical offspring of Neutral Milk Hotel and Will Oldham (I normally hate such A+B analogies. The subject is never equal to the referenced artists. Ever.) However, he does have a certain charm all of his own, and this cover of the old Willie Nelson song is pretty stellar.

Camera Obscura - Dory Previn

I was lying on my bed a little while ago listening to this song, and was immediately transported into some imaginary 1950s alternate reality: I am a schoolgirl walking home under orange and yellow trees, books under my arm, trying to forget about a boy and get on with my life. The words coming through my headphones are those of Dory Previn. I listen, and everything is clear. It cuts through all the useless clutter and tells me: Don't you think it's time I put him out of my mind?

The Decemberists - The Kingdom of Spain

In my recent attempts at songwriting, one thing I keep coming to is how the best songs are usually very simple. Analyzing song structures proves this point time and time again. This tune is one of Colin's most straightforward songs, yet it never feels boring or repetitive. The verse progression runs through the whole song, broken only by a tiny bridge and a two-chord outro. I need to learn from songs like this.

Low - Open Arms

Lastly, a song that just makes me giggle every time I hear it. The mighty Low, who make some of the most hypnotic music I've ever heard, doing a cover of the Journey tune. Alan cracks up at one point. Truly, this is one of the best things ever.

Over and out.

Speaker for the Dead

2007-11-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

I want to apologize, in advance, if anyone should be upset by what I write here, given the sensitive nature of the subject. I can only say that this is merely intellectual/quasi-spiritual musing, and no disrespect is intended to those who disagree with me. These are just my thoughts.

I am intrigued when I hear anyone speak of the deceased. Lately, this has centered around my friend Nick Bucher, who died last February. I will hear people speak of him in a way that implies that he is still around, as if hovering, watching us in a state of perpetual amusement. Or the discussion will take on a more sinister (at least to my ears) bent: dicussions of what he would or would not think/feel/do about any trifling thing.
Talk of this sort troubles me. I think about Nick a good deal, whether it be wistful nostalgia brought on by glancing at the photograph which sits on my bookshelf, or a memory that comes out of nowhere. I do miss him, and wish he were still alive. But since he is not, I face a conflict as to how, indeed, to think and speak of him now.
I am extremely hesitant to speak of 'souls.' I'm not really interested in discoursing on the word as it is meant in the eyes of various religions; such a talk would only lead to confusion. Language always falls short where such things are concerned. My point is only to have a meaningful term to use in referring to someone after they've died. But to even arrive at that successfully seems a laborious task, and nonessential to my purpose. I have always thought that if one can claim a 'self' (Oh, the holes I am digging for myself) can be said to exist, it is born in the mind. The intellect. Again, there is the potential here to veer into endless hours of debating over semantics, which I really don't care to do. I am here concerned only with two things. For arguments' sake I will put them forth as follows:

A) That in lieu of the deceased, people will create an idea of them for the sake of comfort and to have a point of reference to direct their love/grief/what-have-you now that the body is gone.

B) That no one can ever speak for the dead.

The two are, I'm sure, connected, but let me try to address them as separate for the moment.
I empathize with my friends' need to look for Nick in such a way, and to imagine him lingering about. It's comforting to think that though he is gone, he's not really gone.
Except he, as we knew him, is.
While I have no issue with a picture in a frame, it shouldn't blot out the reality that what once was is no more. Our bodies are quick to decay. This segues into the fact that as the mind/personality of the loved one was housed in that body, it also has to go, i.e. our conception of it has to be re-evaluated. How can we naïvely imagine that one's mind/personality lingers around like a disembodied voice? That it retains cognizance after death? These are nice thoughts, but really, odds are against.
All of this leaves me grasping for something tangible when I think of Nick nowadays. I cannot permit myself to think of him as existing as he did, or else expose myself as a self-contradicting fraud. Why, then, do I bow my head when riding by the ghost bike where he was hit? If I'm honest about my beliefs, this is an act of sheer vanity, and nothing else. The bike serves a purpose, and it is a good one. But it is not him any more than anything else is. So where can I look for him now?
There is nowhere to look.
While I wrestle about whether this is an inherently bad thing, let me attempt to answer that more nebulous second part: Speaking for the dead.
As far as I am able to see, I think it's possible to articulate yourself clearly enough that others may come to 'know you.' It implies an extreme clarity of self-knowledge, first of all, coupled with the ability to express that information in a way that it can be received by someone else. Anyone who's ever interacted with other people knows how difficult this can be. One could argue that books are written as a way of preserving the minds of their authors throughout time; that they 'live' through them, and when one comes to truly understand a book (whatever that means), they have understood its authors' mind, and therefore Know Them. That's one perspective, however contrived. The analogy of the book is simply useful because it is a carefully considered medium by which someone takes great pains to make themselves understood (at least in the case of certain philosophical texts).
Much more difficult is to know the mind of someone from your everyday life. To know someone to the extent that you presume to know (or predict) what they would think/feel/do implies the kind of intimacy that few ever achieve with another person. Even at the height of such an intimacy, it's impossible to be certain. This is abetted by the slippery fact that the one speaking for the dead will usually, whether intentionally or not, color their interpretation with their own emotional biases. Either way it's suspect, and should be avoided altogether. In the case of the living, you might do well (as an exercise) to try and guess what someone would think or feel about something, only to go check with them to see how far off base you really are. But when the one in question is no longer there to put you in line, what will stop you from twisting them around to suit your needs? It is not something to be done lightly, and the potential for disaster is great.
So where does this leave me when I think of my old friend?
I attempt to remember him as he was, conceding that time distorts memory as a necessary reality. That my feelings are my own and that I can never know him any more than I did while he was alive. I may come closer to him by studying his habits or traveling the same paths (i.e. reading similar books, etc.) but never, through all of this, will I ever know what he would or would not think about things now. Really, it doesn't even matter.
Where can I look for him? Only backwards. What can I learn? Only what I wish to learn. I cannot permit myself the delusion that the dead are out there, frolicking in the ether, hoping to teach me something. If I wish to invoke their names to fuel my own self-betterment (or self-destruction), let me not be deceived: it is my doing, not theirs. I can no more speak for them than I could claim to know the mind of another. Language will fail us at every turn.
I'd like to think that this is something Nick would agree with. Certainly I can think of few people I'd more enjoy having such a discussion with, over several rounds of beer. But that's more wishful thinking...

Christian Kiefer - Prologue
PJ Harvey - To Talk to You
Shearwater - Near a Garden

Reckoning

2007-10-31T12:34:00.001-07:00

October has flown by. October, the crown of fall. And now it is past. The days have been cold and wonderful, and strangely sunny despite it all... but the brutal winter is coming fast. I can feel it. Looking back - as we must do, this time of year - I am amazed at how much has happened, how much I have changed, and how much will change between this writing and next fall.
Growing older has, if nothing else, taught me the folly of being so serious-minded all the time, and so austere in my seemingly noble goal of constantly refining myself. I fell into the habit of never drinking, smoking, or even making the occasional appearance at the Hedge House to see my friends. All in the name of being better. Of reaching for an ideal.
Better than what? What ideal? What does this mean anyway?
I look down the road I've been on and see that it ends like this: I, old and tightly wound, with my hard-won intellectual clarity clutched in my fists like precious jewels that are no good anywhere. Then I look around for company, and see that my friends realized the absurdity of this approach long ago and have gone out for drinks.
That's all done now. Whether I've received some psychic kick to the head by some fall current or from one of my lovely friends, I have taken that path as far as I intend to.
The moment of clarity came, as far as I can pin it down, a few weeks ago when I took my first sip of Wolaver's Oatmeat Stout at a local public house. I drank, and was amazed. This is the taste of fall. This is the life I have been stubbornly resisting. This is good.
And now October is over, and winter is coming fast. What better time to shuck my asceticism and learn the finer points of good beer? To unclench my fists and go spend time with the people I care about?
Is this folly?
Perhaps.
Let's discuss it further over a pint of Black Boss Porter. What do you say?

p.s. Good luck, Wrimos!

It's Not Bad, You Just Don't Like It

2007-10-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

I've overheard more than one occasion tableside discussion at my work which followed some variation on the following theme: the server presents a wine, describing its characteristics and qualities. The patron then tries it, only to exclaim that the wine is terrible and that she absolutely hates it.
Hours later, the server who helped her quips back: It's not bad, you just don't like it.
Now, there are a lot of factors to consider in judging the quality of a wine, and I'll admit to being quite ignorant of most of them. That said, I know when I like a wine and when I don't, even if I can't really articulate why. But I also realize that palates differ, and it isn't for me to judge something harshly just because it doesn't agree with my tongue.
Right?
It reminds me how much we slap judgments on everything in our lives. Granted, there's a certain amount of processing and filtering we must perform in order to take the incredible amount of data we receive on a daily basis and make some sense of it. But it's one thing to observe the world we live in, and another to say it's this, that or the other. There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. What the fuck do we know anyway?
I've found myself guilty of this in the form of thinking about a girl. Forgetting for a moment the basic premise than any boy will generally lose his hard-earned sense of reason and logic when musing about a girl he likes; I have spent substantial amounts of time thinking, nay, overthinking various moments and memories until I've worked myself into a neurotic frenzy over what was probably nothing in the first place. Why did she do this? What does that mean? And will it all end in tears? And so on and so forth, ad nauseum. While I consider myself reasonably intelligent and level-headed, things like this make me question: am I so different from the woman at the bar snarling at a perfectly good bottle of wine?
There are an infinite variety of people, thoughts, ideas, expressions, and everything else you can imagine. Just because something is strange to us doesn't mean it's bad. But it's not even that. I think it's foolish to hastily attach value judgments to things, certainly; for how can you know what a thing is with only a cursory glance? Oftentimes the best things reveal themselves only reluctantly, and over time. You just need to give them room to make themselves at home, maybe have a glass of wine or two, and eventually, you might come to see what they really are. What really gets me, though, is the knowledge that beyond simple ignorance, closing our doors to new and different things is terribly limiting. Isn't that the way we grow? It scares me to open myself up to the possibility of letting myself be changed by life, instead of manning the controls with an iron fist all the time.
But if it's scary, it must be worth trying.
Right?

Those Days

2007-10-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

I'm always interested in that period of an artists' creative life between the time they began practicing their craft and when they unveil their first official release. Discovering what they were like at a more undeveloped, embryonic stage of their career is something most of them go to great lengths to prevent (I've heard of more than one musician expressing displeasure that such-and-such a demo had leaked to the internet); but these glimpses into the past do offer a fascinating look at how they came to be what they are now, which is invaluable in its own right. The official releases can, all too easily, become the only standard of measurement we have. By some perverted abuse of reason, this often brings me to the conclusion that bands such as the Arcade Fire and Okkervil River were simply born great, rather than achieving greatness, or, God forbid, having it thrust upon 'em. That they arrived at the studio, fully-formed, and laid down those beautiful tracks without a backwards glance, never breaking a sweat, and wrapped it up all in time for afternoon tea.
So when I find some recording that sheds some light on the developmental stages, I jump on it. Cracks appear in the shiny artifice I've built around the idea of 'creating,' and I'm less nervous about setting my own sub-par, off-key ramblings to tape.

I heard a wonderful conversation between Will Sheff of Okkervil River and Brian Beattie, their producer, which contains many hilarious insights into this process as well. Look for it after the gap.

p.s. I hope to update this thing more often, while removing the pressure for Grand Statement entries by cutting back the scale of the writings, and in turn increasing their frequency.

Here's a video I really like, by my #1 rock crush, St. Vincent.

love,
D

Will Sheff & Brian Beattie talking about the Stage Names
The Arcade Fire - My Mind is a Freeway

Closure

2007-08-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

As I put the finishing touches on the Summer Mix, I want to say a few words.
I've written before that I was swearing off the mixes, and reneged.
That changed about 30 seconds ago, when I wrapped the last one up in its packaging and tucked them away for tomorrow's delivery.
To say that the creation of this mix was substantially more stressful than any other would be inaccurate. They all are, to some degree, especially near the end. This time round, however, I finally felt myself scraping the bottom of the iTunes frying pan in desperation, looking for the perfect 3rd track to bridge so-and-so other tracks, with just the right variation of tempo and acoustic sonority. Seeing in my mind something very specific and scanning through page after page of music I do not know to find The One.
And if this be madness, the method is beyond me.
Coinciding with all this is the recent hand-slapping I received at the hands of my Wireless Provider Overlords, who called me out on my flagrant violation of their terms of service by my rampant downloading habit (cough, problem). It has effectively ended my acquiring of music here at home, forcing me to take trips out to Chance of Rain coffeehouse instead whenever I wish to feed that particular urge. This does afford the opportunity to get writing done as well, for it does compel one to get busy when others are around. Especially women. Don't ask for clarification, it's simply so (And yet I cannot help but muse on the fact that while there's no doubt that winning the heart of a woman has been one of the prime motivational factors in the creation of untold amounts of art throughout the ages, I find myself constantly distracted by said coffeehouse women when in the process of attempting to create. Don't they realize I'm doing it for them? Sheesh).
Anyhow, with the influx of music slowed to a trickle, I'm forced to see (as an alcoholic might see, after sobering up, all the silly things he's allowing to go on that drinking distracts him from) that I have amassed a collection of music that a) few could hold a candle to, b) is likely pretty good music, (at least most of it) and c) I am currently familiar with less than half of.
This is the point where my inner Fuck. That. sensors go off, and I give myself a good slap-in-the-face and realize: it's time to stop.
And the truth shall set you free.
I have made it. Survived. The Summer Mix is complete, as well as what I consider (no small amount of back-patting here) the most lovely packaging I've ever designed. When I put the whole thing to bed minutes ago, I felt not only the calm and satisfaction of having seen a long-term project through to completion with patience and attention to detail, but the relief of knowing that this was the final one between me and oblivion. Between that looming external hard drive full of untold wonders, and me. Grin.
I get to stop now.
I get to listen to music just to listen to music.
If this is starting to sound a little strange, it should.
Because it is a luxury to me. I'll refuse to consider making mixes for as long as it takes for me to fully absorb all the music I've acquired, until I know the songs for what they are rather than what they can be used for. Judging by the size of my library alone, that could take years.
Hallelujah.

The mix is done. I am tired. I think I'll go listen to Opeth and call it a night.

Opeth - Closure

Unfinished 1

2007-08-07T00:57:00.000-07:00

I like being busy.
It pleases me to get up in the morning, brew a pot of coffee, and make a prep (read: to-do) list on my white board and cross things out as the day progresses.
As I've mentioned in these pages before, it sometimes happens that productivity becomes a very cunning form of procrastination. When things are done less for their own sake and more to keep from doing other things. This happens to me often. The little things might have been worthwhile, but it's still symptomatic of a larger issue, and I'm old enough to know better. At least, I know myself well enough that I know I shouldn't be doing that shit anymore.
My bad habits are strong. I've spent much of my life being more concerned with appearances than actually living, and it's a hard mindset to break. Maybe that's why I so often feel as if the string's gone out of my back once I set foot inside my apartment. No one for whom I must be better than I am. No one to keep me on task. When I am among people, I become confident and clear. There is no doubt of the way. I move.
It's not an act. I feel these things. But it goes away when I get home.
Perhaps I'm focusing on the wrong thing. There's more to it, I know, than the fact of people (or absence thereof). There's this here computer with its speedy internet access. There's the fact that my apartment still doesn't feel like a home, or, more importantly, like a workspace. It feels like every bedroom I've lived in since I was a boy. That's the truth. So it could be reasoned that, as I never really had to lift a finger to get by in my life (especially growing up), being in that familiar environment might foster the same comfortable laziness. And yet, I cannot discount entirely the theory that I fall into action far more effortlessly when there is someone around to see it.
Which is kind of fucked.
All vanity aside, what matters is that it's been nearly a month since my birthday, and I haven't got a lot to show for it. I've done plenty of the usual self-indulgent journaling, and some highly illegible freewrites in an attempt to get back into the swing of things. The summer mix is nearly done. But somehow none of it feels substantial. All of the Big Things are still untouched.
I realized a few days ago (as I've no doubt realized and subsequently forgotten many times in my life), that the nature of my problem is that I am overly precious about everything I do. Attaching too much significance to every line. Never writing in my books. Never going crazy in my sketchbook. Never goofing off with my guitar (well, that's not entirely true - I wrote an old timey song the other day about the joys of friend-stalking your favorite bands on Myspace), but in general it remains indisputable that I'm holding back, afraid to get my hands dirty and make anything that might be rough or unfinished.
This must change.
I'm sick to death of how controlling I can be. It broke over me the other night, when, frustrated with the summer mix, I sat down with my iPod and just clicked on Shuffle. The fact of songs coming on without any knowledge - artist, title, etc. - was a revelation. I'd forgotten what it was like just to listen to music without any preconceptions; just hearing the sounds and words for their own sake. Much as I like giving my mixes to people, making them has largely poisoned me against having such experiences anymore: the ear is always tuned towards using songs for my own ends.
Again, fucked.
But the experience with the iPod reminded me that it's really quite simple to break these habits that are making me so ill. It's no different with songwriting or fiction: you just stop being so fucking precious and do it. Not only that: you have to do it over and over. No back patting! No pride! Write another song. Write another chapter in that goddamn novel of yours.
Yeah, I know the spiel. Hell, I wrote it.
But there are other things to write. I have a friend who is keeping after me to do some work. I owe her.
This one's for you.

Here are a couple of tunes in honor of the Shuffle experience. Because I would never have thought of following "Round the Bend" with "Sweet Child O' Mine," but damn if it wasn't a beautiful change.

Beck - Round the Bend
Guns 'n' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
Elliott Smith - Either/Or

On (Not) Looking Back

2007-07-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

The clock ticks midnight, and my inner calender turns another page.
I am become 27.
Do I really buy that line? Click, and I'm 27 now? It's silly to think of age like that.
In fact, today marks the end of my 27th year of life, and the beginning of my 28th. 27 is over. I didn't start at 1 year after I was born... But I imagine that's a bit more conversation than anyone wants to hear when they ask how old you are.
That said, I do have a few thoughts in the way of reflection.
In the past, whenever a birthday rolled around, it entailed a general sense of depression over how little I had done with my life thus far, how much time was lost or wasted, etc. And while I still feel that sting, it's slighter than in years past. And, as I'm answerable only to myself, it's easier to shrug off the idea that I have to accomplish some imagined set of goals by some arbitrary age. Also, it's easy to forget, or diminish in stature, the things you have already accomplished, the ways you've grown, and so on. Not all change is tangible.
I do struggle with the reality that I'll be 30 in a mere 3 years, which is really just the blink of an eye. 30? I can't wrap my head around it. I've been in my twenties for decades, it seems. Then again, I have several friends who are in their thirties, and I think of them as being in their twenties as well, which is to say: they are On The Level and not at all the "thirtysomethings" one might see in some mediocre sitcom, with all those middle-age life-crises and such. They're not all that different from me. I relate to them easier than I relate to your average 19-year old.
(Ah. After checking in with Wikipedia, I realize that there was a show by that very name, which likely had a great deal to do with creating these stereotypes about age. I may be dating myself here by admitting that it was before my time, but there you are.)
I think that, when the time comes, it won't bother me in the least to be thirty. I remind myself that Thom Yorke and Beck (a fellow Cancerian) are in their thirties and are still rocking like hell. That Neil Gaiman was well into his thirties when he finished writing The Sandman. And so on. Any silly notions I have about the effects of "turning" thirty dissolve under the first bit of scrutiny.
But that's neither here nor there. The point is this: getting older is, despite all of the things I've mentioned, just wonderful. I have felt the fire of youth cool over the past few years, and I am glad of it. I rebound from adversity more easily now. I don't stress myself out or worry about needless things half as much as I used to. And above all else, I am happier than I ever was when I was young. For all the intensity that came with being younger, I was unhealthily obsessed with feeling miserable and misunderstood. Always full of pride, and always sure of my own baseless superiority. But at what cost? And to what end? Looking back, I now ask the question: if it doesn't serve to bring you joy, what is the point of anything? My purpose is to enjoy my life to the fullest, and all actions and pursuits stem from that root. As I've gotten older, it's become easier and easier to cut loose the things that kept me from that simple truth, and rid myself of all the counterproductive habits I held in my youth.
And that, I think, is the goal. To make each year better than the one before. To become better, wiser, and happier with each successive year, rather than looking back on the so-called golden days of our past.
Finally, I was reminded last night that 27 is the age when I have to either die, or accept that I will never be a rock star. This does present me with a dilemma. Do I age gracefully and quietly for the rest of my years, or crank out a multi-platinum record and then off myself?
I guess I'll have to think about that one. If I am crafty, maybe I can find a middle ground.
In the meantime, here's a song for you to listen to. On one's birthday, it seems appropriate, but the message of the song is good for any occasion.

Cheers.

R.E.M. - World Leader Pretend

Wrapped Up in Books

2007-06-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

I am always reading a few books at once. It takes focus to fight the tendency to spread myself thin among too many, so the general rule of thumb is one work of fiction at any time. Books of philosophy on the side are acceptable.
For the last few months, my fiction of choice has been Atlas Shrugged. I chose it in part because my friend Nick cited it as one of his favorite books. It has been gathering dust on my shelves for years. His death seemed as fitting an occasion as any to pull it out, to become familiar with something that had touched him so greatly.
I knew going in that it was a book which provoked extremely mixed reactions, positive and negative. On two occasions now I've had friends who, after glimpsing the book in my hand, say "I'm sorry." As if it were an unfortunate twist of fate that found the book in my possession, a cruel sentence that I was forced to read it. I always blink when people say this. I know I am a very impressionable person: whatever I'm reading tends to affect me quite a bit; sometimes my mind succumbs to a more forceful one. Though those days are over, by and large, I'd be the first to admit that reading this book has, at times, put me in a very cold and inhuman way, much like the central characters. I've felt judgmental. I've felt robotic. Full of thoughts of motive power, etc. But I remain, still, quintessentially myself.
I can see Ms. Rand's ulterior motives in her writing (come on, subtlety is hardly the woman's strong suit. You can't really miss the subtext). But my fortitude is such that reading this book is not going to transform me into a Heartless Capitalist, who suddenly abandons all thoughts of compassion as gratuitous and irrelevant. And despite her obvious agenda and seriously heavy-handed writing style, there is a lot more to the story and the characters than the capitalist stance. And love her or hate her, her intelligence can hardly be disputed. And encountering an intelligent mind, even if you don't agree with it, is always worth doing. Perhaps especially if you don't agree with it. How dull would it be to go through life exposing ourselves only to those thinkers and artists who reinforced the ideas and philosophies we have already chosen for ourselves? It is precisely those who think differently from us that encourage us to grow. Anything else is just stagnating.
So what, then, is meant by their condolences?
I can interpret it as a statement of sympathy or pity, as I said above, but what is there to pity? The hours I spend reading this paperback tome which I'll never get back? Perhaps. If there is anything I consciously try to avoid, it is the wasting of time. And should I see others pursuing a course I felt was a waste of theirs, I might feel inclined to intervene. But is reading this book really an example of such a waste? Compare it, for instance, to the hours I spend nestled at my computer, idly letting my life slip away into the recesses of the internet. Or the hours I lose when I go out and get drunk and/or stoned, reducing my mind to a feeble, ineffectual state and probably consuming a good deal of fast food in the process. Is this not pitiable, from a different vantage point? Each person chooses their own standard by which to decide what is and what is not a waste of time. Is it not enough that I find it worthy of my time, to read this long and logorrheic book? Is it not enough that I learn from it?
So what can I say to them? The same answer I would give anyone questioning my motives: I entered into it, as I do all things, with a clear sense of purpose. I chose it because it will help me grow. And, to be sure, it will shape me in ways I can't foresee. If I am not strong enough to withstand a forceful mind, what other way for me to learn but to throw myself into it? How can I hope to grow if I don't experience the diversity of thoughts and opinions that exist outside of my head?
But ultimately, the real point is this: I've chosen it for myself. Every day I see people behaving in ways that seem absurd to me, and wonder why they live the way they do. Why they do things which, to me, are so foolish and wasteful. I both want to condemn them, and, at the same time, help to correct them. But who am I to do such a thing?
Everyone has to find their own way to live as they see fit.
I read on, and remember why I began it in the first place. I think of Nick reading it, and wish I could sit down with him and talk about it. I imagine our minds meeting on the page, and I realize how much of ourselves are left in the things we loved.
And that, if nothing else, is reason enough.

On Books, Ethics, and Giant Crabs

2007-06-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

I recently made a friend who hails from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She's new to the City of Roses, so I've taken it upon myself to get her acquainted with some of my favorite spots. She is a fellow library geek and bookstore enthusiast, and when I learned that she'd never set foot in the Central Multnomah County Library nor Powell's City of Books, my soul cried sacrilege and it became my moral imperative to rectify the situation at once.
We met up mid-afternoon and hopped the #14 downtown. After she filled out the form and was issued a library card, we set out into the heart of the library, climbing the marble stairs up up up. I walked a step behind, as in escort. It felt right that she should lead the journey. The second floor opened before us, and on each side of us an archway. Periodicals or Science?
Science. We went.
The Central Library is a big place. I lingered around the computer section while she explored, trying to keep track of her as best I could. I browsed through one of those yellow cartoon reference books, Unix for Dummies. It was Greek to me, even for one of those books. My mind kept looking for Mac or Windows, anything to latch onto. But no. Unix is outside of the dichotomy of my understanding of the technological world. I put the book back on the shelf and decided to postpone my dreams of designing a website using Linux until I could enlist a fellow computer geek to teach me in person.
We went up further, and now the choice was between History/Literature and Art/Music. I again deferred to her, thinking: Art/Music! Art/Music! I was, after all, there in part to see what free cds I could find to add a little more weight to my already obscenely bloated iTunes library.
She chose History.
We went.
As she made her rounds, I found myself standing by the columns of books on the west wall. I looked down, and beautiful little maroon book caught my eye. The spine read: On Doing the Right Thing. Above that: Nock. I pulled it off the shelf.
It was a collection of essays by a fellow named Albert Jay Nock, who I'd never heard of. The book itself was a first edition, stamped 1928. Beautiful. I flipped to the title essay and began to read. He wrote of the differences between Americans and Englishmen, specifically their particular inclinations towards doing said Right Thing. He put forth that there were three primary factors that influence our conduct. First, the laws of the land (whichever you happened to live in). He put it quite well:
"A man, for instance, may not murder or steal, because an organized power outside himself will withstand him before the fact, if possible, and make trouble for him after the fact."
Quite so, old chap.
The second realm of personal conduct, according to Nock, falls to things that really don't matter all that much one way or the other, such as what toothpaste or detergent you use (though some nowadays would claim that these are matters of the utmost importance). Last was the field of personal moral/ethical judgment, which the English, bless 'em, had a name for: Doing the Right Thing.
The essay continued by examining the degree to which this third category is affected by the growth or decline of the first category, and how in the States the lawmakers hold that it is the laws that keep most of humankind from transgressing into a sort of primitive and debaucherous state of abandon. The essay seemed to evolve then into a sort of treatise on the anarchist (what might be called libertarian, nowadays) reaction to this stance: that when laws were relaxed and personal freedom and moral judgment were given room to breathe, man would be able, through reason, experience and observation, to develop a strong inner sense of moral certainty and the faculty by which to exercise that certainty. To Do the Right Thing.
I realize that, out of context, these ideas are very simplistic and straightforward, but I marveled at the odds of ever happening upon this little book, among so many. The author being unknown to me, yet very intelligent, articulate, and agreeable to my mind. And here I had wanted to head straight for the music room. I tucked the book under my arm, and when we were ready to go, checked it out.
The walk to the bookstore took us past Jake's Grill, which brings out a special decoration once a year, around the time of the Rose Festival. I'd forgotten all about it until we were passing directly underneath and my eyes wandered to the rooftop. I almost stumbled, stopping us both and reaching for my camera. I directed her eyes upwards. And then we walked on.
At Powell's we did more exploring, me following her lead. I circled around the philosophy section, looking for a decent copy of Epictetus's Discourses and not finding one. I'm very particular about translations. I did, however, find a used copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, beautifully hardbound. And I was presented with another moral imperative: to buy it for her, much as I have felt anytime I encounter anyone who has not yet read it.
We left the bookstore and made our way toward the bus mall. I cradled the little red book in my hand, admiring it. I had half a mind to call the library in a few weeks and apologetically tell them that it had been lost; I would, of course, pay whatever replacement fees they asked. But would they really be able to replace this ancient copy? I wanted the book, but was it ethically correct to "buy" the book from the library in such a backhand manner? I looked at my companion, and then remembered the title of the book in my hand.
We both laughed.
The sun was setting over Southwest Portland, and I looked up at Jake's Grill, to bid my new friend a good day.

In Which I Fail to Come Up with a Title

2007-05-31T23:47:00.000-07:00

And the Spring Mix is finished.
The weather this past month has made it a frustrating venture. Everything I listen to has the air of summer in it; all the Elephant 6 bands, !!!, and the rest. None of them wanted to work on the current project. It's only 3 more weeks til summer officially hits; soon all will be well in my mix-making reality again.
As her recent post illustrates, Lindsey and I are of different minds about the whole blogging thing. I've been letting more and more time pass between them, and am feeling quite All Right about slipping out of blogger brain. In fact, I'm relieved to be living more in the real world. Perhaps we are not actually disagreeing: I am still working a lot on paper, if not in this blog. Perhaps I need to keep my writing private for awhile until I've stretched out a bit in my new habits. Am I afraid? Or just lazy? The question looms.
Either way, I am keeping busy.
My little online comic The Mighty Bu should be seeing a bit of new life soon. And there are a few other things happening behind the scenes. Plus, if you haven't noticed, it's freakin' beautiful out and I am getting better about taking my body, thoughts, and pen and paper outside once in awhile, even if blog-thoughts linger.
That's all I have to say at the moment. I suppose I felt compelled to put a word in here before I turn my Ditty Bops calendar to June.

Big love right back to you, friends.

Yes.

2007-05-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

New Skin for the Old Ceremony

2007-05-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am told it takes 21 days to form a habit. Something about training your body, tests confirm, etc. After a little bit of Googling, I will take the word of the friend who told me about this over any of those sites I found. The theory is intriguing either way.
My past attempts at discipline were generally short-lived, perhaps why none of them took. I flare up with the initial burst of determination, and then a few days later it's all gone to shit again. I really have nothing to lose. As the saying goes, how old are you going to be if you don't give this little theory a trial run? Yeah yeah. I know.
Inertia is still alive and well. Many moments of the past weeks have been lingering in my mind, calling out "Blog me! Blog me!" S sent me a wonderful cartoon a few weeks back that illustrated this perfectly. I'll link to it when I can find it. Something about Living to Blog. Ah yes, here it is:

It's frightening. It seems near impossible to avoid the urge, near impossible to counter. I could revolt and swear off my computer entirely, as the characters do. Throw myself into the world, and L-I-V-E, as Maude would say. But how long would it take to shake the urge to simply record my life for later documentation? How long before I stopped thinking, this would make a fantastic blog? 21 days?
I do try, more and more, to remove myself from the technological world. Playing LPs rather than plugging in the iPod. Putting the computer away when I'm not using it. Lighting candles. And so on. But it does nothing to loosen the grip the technological world has over me. What can I do when even my best effort becomes impure in its heart? But I digress.
It is a beautiful spring day. It is also Free Comic Book Day, for those of you who don't have to be off to work in a few hours. Maybe you'll find the newest episode of Fables, a clever and imaginative update of all the old stories. Who knew Goldilocks was such a bitch?
The chives on my windowsill are a good inch or so out of the soil. Being the first things I've really ever grown in my home, I'm quite fond of them. Their presence makes a huge difference to the feel of the place, and is one more strike against that black hole of amorphous electronic oblivion I feel myself ever falling into.
And now, armed only with my trusty Field Notes memo book and a copy of The Elements of Style, I dive back into the trenches. Godspeed!

How Am I Not Myself?

2007-04-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to the notion that we do not have one self, but myriad selves. Ignoring for the moment the simple truth that we are always changing, moment to moment (whether we grow or regress is yet another discussion), it is clear that we become different people constantly, dependent on our surroundings. You go in to work, and you are one person. You go out for drinks with friends, and you are another. Home for the holidays, another. The associations, antecedents and consequences of our experiences change us in ways so subtle and effortless we can hardly imagine them, and it happens in a heartbeat.
As a former theater geek and (aspiring) writer, it appeals to me to experiment with acting out different characters/versions of myself. I give in to my eccentricities and switch in and out of roles constantly, observing what I am capable of when I let go of my predominant ideas of myself.
Beyond the whimsical play-acting, I've noticed a few recurring characters that have become the primary players in the past months. It's gotten to the point where I can feel myself slipping into them almost at once. Sometimes I am military Dave, all business. Sometimes I am the devil's advocate. Sometimes I am a kind man. Sometimes I am not. I almost feel inclined to explain this to people lest they get the wrong impression: no, no, don't take offense; I am simply cold Dave at the moment. Warm, friendly Dave is elsewhere.
The more aware I am of each character, the better I can play to each one's strength. Each one has a particular skill or use; a particular set of circumstances that they thrive in, where other parts of myself would crumble. I'm at the point where I can occasionally summon them up; more often the change is brought on by external factors. But imagine being able to command them precisely, effortlessly! To deploy them as you would a team of specialists. But this begs the question: if each is a facet of the whole, is there some presiding 'higher mind' that serves to guide the overall process and/or keep the whole damn thing in check? To keep the characters from fighting amongst each other? I feel there is. What is it? I have no good answer.
I have read that contradictions cannot exist by the nature and essence of existence. That when contradictions appear, it is because one of our underlying assumptions about the nature of things is wrong. I agree with this in a sense; certainly you can pin a man to his character, and the better you know him the more easily you can tell when he goes against it (in books more than real life, perhaps). But is it really a contradiction? Man seems to be the exception to the rule in the natural world: we are machines, but our humanity is displayed when we deviate from reason and consistency. We are animals, but it is our acting against nature that sets us apart from the rest. The fact that is within us to set our own parameters and realities is a marvelous realization. As if we were each a robot constantly redesigning itself; refining its OS to better serve its ever-changing motives and needs. We discard what was once useful, and learn new methods for new situations. I find this a most liberating thought.
Walt Whitman wrote: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."
Yes. Multitudes. So where is the contradiction?

Sophe Lux - Marie Antoinette Robot 2073 (A Rock Opera)
Thom Yorke - Analyse

Fuck This...I'm Leaving

2007-03-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

I try not to speak unless I have something to say. Lately, this has been more and more infrequent. As each day dies, I feel myself getting more sick at heart, more tired.
I've been realizing that the only time I feel satisfied these days is when I'm at work, because it's the only place I'm actually focusing my mind and body productively and getting things accomplished. Once the day is done and I slump through the door of my apartment, the string goes out of my back and I succumb to the unholy triumvirate of Gmail, Myspace, and OiNK. Business as usual.
While I'm at work, my mind can run circles around whatever it wishes; my body is going through the motions. Preparing mirepoix. Peeling and dicing beets. Pulling the stems off spinach. The motions are mechanical and meditative. And over the past few months, they have taught me something.
They have taught me that it really doesn't matter what you have to say. The real work and creation is done on the prep table, day in day out, and the only task is to get it done. Some days the brownies will look better than others. Some days the bechamel might taste a bit funny, but you make it anyway. Talking is secondary. When I'm facing the dishpit and watching the steam rise and the machine purr, I feel as if I'm watching myself go through the motions with almost no interference; I don't think at all. It's a pure, beautiful act. And people still look at me funny when I tell them no, I really enjoy doing dishes...
I realize that this blog is, by and large, very repetitive and very whiny. It is, by its nature, talk. And the sickness that has been rising in me lately grows from the unavoidable question: what the hell do I have to say, really? With all my good intentions, plans, and daily pseudo-revelations, I manage to stave off the reality that I get fuck-all done each day. Between work, feeding and bathing myself with semi-regularity, and eeking out the occasional blog, I go to sleep each day with all the Big Projects left untouched. You know the ones.
One of my favorite blogs, and from whose mind comes the title of my own, is that of Amanda Palmer. I always aspire, unconsciously or otherwise, to create in my own blog the kind of satisfaction and insight that she displays in hers. But here I am faced with the crucial difference: who the fuck am I? Amanda has things to talk about. She's got her hands in it. She is (despite her recent protestations to the contrary) living first, blogging second. And either way, her touring and miscellaneous adventures give her actual substance to report back on. What do I have to report? Same shit, different day.
I'm tired of listening to myself talk, even in the form of pixels on a screen. I'm sure some of you are sick of it too. I know Valentine is.
So in the way of resolutions, this is a small one. It's about time I started shutting the hell up and going through the motions already. My hands know what to do, and everything I have to say leading up to the starting point has already been said. Beaten into a stain on the pavement where, once, long ago, there may have lain a dead horse, if I might borrow a page from the venerable Mr. Gaiman.
This is the point where I feel the brief joy of making a new start, which is followed by a false sense of accomplishment and then immediate relapse into inactivity. Oh no. Don't let me get away with it. I'm out to earn myself something worth saying. I'm out to get dirty, and hopefully get things done. Thoughts of quality and perfection are just two pretty distractions on the way to a deathbed full of regret. Let's just go.

The American Analog Set - Fuck This...I'm Leaving

Ceremonies of Light and Dark

2007-03-07T00:31:00.000-08:00

O February, you coldest of months.
In the dead of winter, synchronicity took a dark form. Death was everywhere. I used to write about how winter, if I could whittle it down, was the season of death. It looked good on paper. But that reality has touched all of our lives in many ways this past month. The tangible death of bodies, the amorphous deaths of the day-to-day lives we have known. The changing of the sights and scenery.
I moved from my old house into an apartment. So much of my recent past was tied to that place and that neighborhood, and I have taken it and put it in the ground. I don't look back much anymore. When Nick died, the grieving ritual began, and I tried to see to it that it was completed properly. The function of ritual and ceremony, as I understand it, has always been to satisfy our human need to give shape and form to a feeling. It focuses and sharpens our messy lives into crystalline meaning. From my purely secular perspective, ritual has a place even in our callous, modern hearts. It transforms everything, from our smallest actions to the doorways of birth, growth and death into something pure, even sacred.
I fell without question into the position of supporting my friends through the tragedy. It was simple necessity. I played my part, offering comfort and love as it was needed. Yet all the while I felt more like an observer than a participant. I observed my grieving friends, and I observed myself among them. To say I felt nothing would be inaccurate; but I was aware again and again that I felt less than I might expect of myself, in the middle of all this turmoil. I became adept at disconnecting myself from my emotions. I did it because I had no choice but to do so; to submerge my own little sorrows and private fears for the greater good. What else could I do?
The month felt like a long, arduous trek uphill in the middle of a storm. You couldn't think of how far you had left to go; you'd collapse under the knowledge, the sheer hopelessness of it. You could only think of how you'd make it through the next few feet. Then the next few hours. Then the next few days. There was too much that demanded our attention that we had neither the time nor energy to give to. So we did what we had to: we pushed everything else aside except that which was absolutely necessary to get through the moments. The rest of our burdens could wait, caught in our filters. We would attend to them in their time. Near the end we just felt like we were holding our breath, waiting for the calendar to pin itself up one more page and for the sun to begin to creep back into the world.
I learned that my ability to drive a stake between myself and my heart is far greater than I had thought. That I am capable of a detachedness I never imagined possible. I felt nearly inhuman; the cold, calculating mind that sees everything from a tactical perspective. Step by step. This is what we must do to get by. It's a strange thing to feel, especially in such a concentrated dose of time. I can't imagine that I'll ever be called upon to do it again in such intensity. Though I take some small comfort in knowing that I can.
But everything has a price.
In this case, the price is a tiredness that has crept inside of me and is refusing to leave. Even though the worst is past (it's March, hallelujah), I still finish each day desiring to disappear off the face of the planet, if only to sleep, uninterrupted and unreachable, for at least a week. To see no one. To have no obligations. I lay down in bed and can't turn away from the fact that though I manage to complete my necessary duties each day, I still leave the truly important things undone. I was surviving before. Now I'm getting by. It'd be nice to step up one further into actually living.
But I know that I'm getting better. I've got that much at least. S and I go for coffee from time to time, and I cherish the time spent. Something we recently discussed comes to mind when I think about this feeling of shortcoming. We can be the best things for others in our lives: wells of wisdom, encouragement, strength and love. But we struggle to be these things for ourselves. Even propping myself up with a clean new apartment of my own, putting up the Neutral Milk Hotel poster and lighting candles is not enough: I still, when left alone, cannot cheer myself out of a hole. Why is it so difficult to do for ourselves what we so easily do for others?
But it's a start. Living alone fills me with a small joy every morning when I awake to the blinding sun streaming in through my windows. Knowing that I have only my lonesome to answer to as I go through the rituals of preparing coffee and putting the stereo on. Sitting on the windowsill looking over Hawthorne as the busses roll by.
March has come, finally. The new Arcade Fire record has dropped, in all its holy, blistering splendor. I joke with a co-worker about how this record (centered around religion) is darker than the first (which is merely about death). The arms of the record grab me roughly and pull me back to life, practically slapping me in the face in an attempt to revive me. To remind me that, though February is the coldest month, it is also something else: the harbinger of spring.
Winter is the dead season.
Spring, as I have written elsewhere, is the season when we come back to life.
The Minbari (I know, I know, I'm obsessed with Babylon 5) have a ritual known as the rebirth ceremony. It involves reflection and meditation on what has past, what is now, and what is still to come. You must tell someone a secret that you've never told anyone else before, and you must give up something of great value to you. After all the pain we have endured, it seems only appropriate that we come together, now, to try and rebuild what has been torn apart. If you wish to participate in this ceremony, know that you will not be alone in doing so.
Ritual is for the living. We attend the funeral to say goodbye. We drink a toast at the wake to honor him. We shake hands to affirm: we are friends. And so on. Will we not now be reborn?

The Arcade Fire - Keep the Car Running
Will Sheff - Girl I Knew, Guy I Met
Pulp - Dishes
Laura Gibson - The Longest Day

A Fond Farewell

2007-02-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

My co-worker Nick Bucher (chef extraordinaire, Kool Keith enthusiast, and kind soul) was biking away from Noble Rot this past Friday night when he was struck by a car. They tell me he was thrown a great distance, and that he passed away the following morning at OHSU hospital.
This was a man I worked with three days a week, including my week-ending Saturday night downstairs shifts in the restaurant. I would slave over my dish pit while he worked his stuff in the microscopic kitchen to my right, and we would move in and out of one another's orbit, trading off bits of Thom Yorke songs or cheesy 80's pop fare (though I was not down with Mr. Big. Sorry Nick). He would pose random philosophical queries to me and I would return to my dirty water to think about them, returning with (hopefully) decent replies when I went to polish silverware. Is the expression 'god-awful' inherently blasphemous?
Well, that's a good question, chef...
Now there is this space where his body once moved, these things that we picked up and put down, and hovering over it all like a (screaming) banshee, the memories of my brief time knowing him. When I started at Noble Rot I felt shy, nervous, and quite certain that I didn't belong there, having no real culinary experience to speak of. I was thrown, for the first time, into the world of a professional kitchen, and the head chefs intimidated me. Between my fear of screwing up and general lack of common sense, I often had questions of protocol that went unvoiced when in their presence.
I would ask Nick instead.
He was the one who very graciously told me that it was best to hydrate butter lettuce in cold water, generally speaking. He was the one who I approached most often when I needed to know where some wayward pot, pan or straining implement lived.
It was some time later that I learned that Nick was 24, a good two years younger than myself. It shocked me at first to realize this; he was cool-headed, a remarkably professional chef, and a good bit taller than me as well. He exuded calm, discipline, and patience whenever I saw him. I always took him for, say, 27? At least? I always deferred to his presence as both an elder and generally wiser man.
Knowing now that he did indeed bear some of those traits that belong to the younger, less-mature types in our species (I've heard a humorous tale about his incredulously stubborn unwillingness to do dishes outside of the workplace), I can see that Nick was indeed flawed, was indeed young in many ways. I always felt that he presented a cool front, but that was fine by me - who among us doesn't do so, and with good reason? - but in the four months that I knew him I came to see him more as a real human being, rather than just the chef with the good hair and lots of obscure hip-hop on his iPod. In the last few weeks especially, I felt him opening up to me, and thought that it might, over time, become a more solid friendship. He'd even loaned me the final season of Home Movies so that I could verse myself in it in preparation for one of our Saturday-night banters.
I realize, as I have before when death has come to call, the importance of communicating our love to one another, valuing our time together, et cetera. The lessons you'd expect to learn from death. I've come to a point in my life where cynicism has a strong stake in my heart, and I wonder if we will, this time, remember these lessons. That we must be kind to one another. That we must live in a way that honors the memory of the one lost. And so on.
But what I take from it now, at least for myself, is this: our brother is dead. We must grieve for him and honor him. I know of few better ways to do this than to live in gratitude for having known him, and to remember the multitude of ways he touched (and in so doing, changed) my life.
I will watch the Home Movies dvd, and continue to quote them at the kitchen on Saturday nights. I'll strive for the same level of egolessness, of compassion, of calm that I witnessed in him. I'll sing his name with my instruments, as long as there is strength left in me to do so.
The Minbari believe that souls pass together from lifetime to lifetime. As such, they don't believe in saying goodbye, for no parting is final. Instead, they have a word: Nee'zhalen. It means good night. Literally it translates as be not alone in your travels.
So you will pardon me if I do not say goodbye.

Let me end this with a passage from The Sandman, in which the Lord of Dreams advises his son on the passing of his wife:

"You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell.
You grieve. Then you continue with your life.
And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on.
She is dead.
You are alive.
So live."

Nee'zhalen, Nick.

1982-2007

Boy Is It Ever Monday!

2007-01-29T10:42:00.000-08:00

Amanda, you ruin me.
I read your blog and marvel at the detail with which you recall your thought processes, your detailed memories. Your monkey mind all splayed out in glorious million-pixel clarity for me to enjoy. And then I am rendered silent.
Now I sit with slight sniffles, stirring coffee with a pen. New music flows in (maybe that's what clogs up my nose) and I am thinking about going to down to look at a new place. Lingering traces of a dream in which I was dying. I cried and bid farewell to people, and it was not at all pleasant. The runner mug sits with me and I think it is absolutely time for some Wolf Parade.
I've been trying to decode the signs and portents of the new year. Keywords are splattered on the whiteboard and my men are working around the clock to make heads or tails of them. (Slow down on that coffee, mate; once it's gone, it's gone).
I'll soon have to say goodbye to Ditty Bops springing up from cabbage patches, and welcome February, and with it, FAWM. That's right. Here we go again. I have a concept album in mind, but you'll have to wait and hear for yourself. I think it will be good.
What is this year? Left and right I hear about people flaking on their friends (guilty) and wanting to shave away all excess. All utility, all necessity. I am for this. We move together and right now we are moving towards simplicity and self-improvement, however masturbatory it may seem to Brad Pitt.
Speaking of masturbation, it seems to be another facet of life's synchronicity that everyone has split up or is splitting up or will, as of reading this, shortly be splitting up with their Other. Now let's assume that you're like me: Alone, looking out the steamed-up window of a Stumptown coffee shop as the display letters fall and break from too much moisture and manipulation, and you watch the people walking by on the street. You watch them walk by and we both agree that they resemble one another more than a little bit. They all seem too perfect, too obviously coupled, to be real. You inevitably begin to muse, for the umpteenth time, on just how many people in this heartbroken town are paired off, and really, where do these people find each other? I feel inclined to run out into the cold air with a notepad and pen, à la Annie Hall, and ask each passing pair for their secret, for the history of their origins. To study this strange beast.
I asked a friend: where are the good, non-attached women? She asked me: where are the good, non-attached, men (read: not boys)? The ones who have something to say, who like to read books and lounge about in their underwear with red wine in hand and trade off Homestar Runner quotes or geek out with Babylon 5 marathons? Where are these people?
Alas, they're probably doing just what we do most of the time: staying at home. Or working. Who wants to make an effort to meet people? It feels forced, rarely pays off, and costs a lot of money. At least the popular haunts seem to. Bars are out of the question. Work is too small a family. And, as Tom Waits said, you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops. What hope do shy romantics like us have to ever meet someone worth our time?
So it is in the face of this irrefutable dilemma that we segue back to our original discussion: what do to in the meantime. Nay, what to do instead of bothering with such trifles as companionship, friendship, and other ships. We have time. We are unencumbered. This presents us with an opportunity. To illustrate:
I will very rarely clean my room unless someone is coming over. when the public comes crashing into my life, I put on the presentation of relatively cleanliness and functionality, and this seems absurd. We put the comforts of others above our own, when we have to live with ourselves every second. S put it well: how can we expect to love and support anyone else in any sort of relationship when we don't attend to and care for ourselves in an equally loving manner?
How indeed?
This applies across the board. Whether you don't feed yourself properly, maintain room-cleanliness, or just get yourself off to internet porn when you could be cultivating your sensitivity and practicing separating orgasm from ejaculation (that's just for you, boys), it's all the same thing. Rather than using our solitude to learn to better care for ourselves, we continue to take the easy out and the quick fix. To borrow a phrase from another excellent blog: instead of taking the time to prepare a fine meal for ourselves, most of the time we just reach for a cheeseburger.
So we have taken this and run with it, grabbing the new year by its diapers and declared it the year of Masturbatory Solitude. Of becoming stronger. Of self-acceptance. No longer will we sit amidst a room of acquaintances and ask: what am I doing here? I like my own company just fine, thank you.
Guard your time. Use it. Don't fritter it away just because you're lonely or horny. You're not the only one, and this is the year of taking matters into your own hands. Put on the Flaming Lips, or DeVotchKa, or Greg Dulli. Stand up and say yes, chef! There'll be no break in your obligations, your trials. They keep coming. The only way is up. The only word left is onwards.

They Don't Write 'Em Like That Anymore

2007-01-09T01:52:00.000-08:00

I'm sipping some Papio and grinning as Jay Brannan sings through my speakers. I've been orbiting around a few records this past week, and the Shortbus soundtrack is the favorite of the moment. Scott Matthew's songs take my breath away. I can't wait until he releases a proper record.
The other disc is called The Ideal Home Music Library, Vol. 1: Show Songs, which, if the liner notes are to be believed, is made up of old show tunes unearthed from the Rare Book Room at the American Institute of Musicology, reinterpreted by Portland's own Michael Johnson and a few other locals. I don't know if I believe the bit about these songs really being written between the '30s and '50s (one dating all the way back to 1901) but either way the sound is unmistakably that of the classic show tunes, and the modern day Portland artists do a marvelous job of paying homage to these songs, wherever they come from.
Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned, but for my money there's nothing like the simple pleasure of a good tune (and old tunes - I'm talkin' Cole Porter here - are the best of the lot for this) to put a skip in your step and make you glad to be alive.
Here is one such song, with guest vocals by none other than Colin Meloy. And some Shortbus tracks thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

Reclinerland - The Lady from Riems
Jay Brannan - Soda Shop
Scott Matthew - Language

A Sort of Elegy

2006-12-31T19:36:00.000-08:00

Where is G'Kar when you need him?
Tonight will mark the taking down of one Ditty Bops calendar and the putting up of another. That's the only noticeable change my room will undergo.
I've been trying to think of something eloquent to say to cap off the year. In a perfect world, I would have spent a few weeks or a month reflecting on the events of the past twelve months and distilling my thoughts into a stirring elegy. I would sit at my desk, trusty pen in hand, and bask in the shining Uniball ink as I wrote out the final words of the piece that at once encapsulated the energy and pathos of the past year and channeled it into a resolve to carry on with renewed vigor and determination for the one about to begin.
But it's an imperfect world.
So what, pray tell, made this year unique? Every year is filled with sadness and despair. With walks and memories and screams and laughter. With chocolate and cheese.
Is it the names of the players? Was her hair red this year, while in years past it was dirty brown? Is it the changing scenery? The songs coming from the stereo? What were you doing when the balloon dropped over the masses last time around? I can barely remember. It seems so unimportant. What's one moment out of a whole year? It's like a single drop in the 2006 pail, slowly filling from the crack in the roof. What else is in the water?
Check all that apply:
Fall in love?
Lots of heartbreak and tears?
Holiday sickness?
Moments of sheer joie de vivre?
The death of a family member or friend?
Overwhelming, absolute readiness for the end of this year paired with a delirious, screaming eagerness for the blank slate afforded by the new year?
Am I the only one who scored 100% on that little test?
Perhaps it is precisely the sheer commonality of our collective experience that we will be celebrating when we raise our glasses tonight. The dirt under our nails. The dead skin that fell wherever we walked, and became dust. We pay for our existence with sweat and blood, and this is what the year keeps. Somewhere inside us are bits and pieces, loose ends and minutiae, made up from the grime and residue of the beatings we've taken each day this year. Imagine that they're located in a specific place inside your body, and that come the morning you will be taking them out and putting them away. You might throw them, good riddance, hurtling into the night to be crushed underneath the wheels of trucks, gliding on the freeway. You might just tuck them into the furthest recesses of your closet, not gone, but well out of sight. You might place them on your bedside table. But whatever you do with these tangled memories and emotions, they are what truly made this past year distinct from every other. It's the details, the change which have defined the year. Not vague lists or photographs, but the visceral reality that we went through what we did. All 2006 asks now is that we remember it, and hopefully learn from it as well.
So I offer this as a toast. Raise your glasses of wine, your pints of beer or your shot glasses of Makers Mark; even a glass of ice water will do:
May the pieces of yourself that get put away never cease to teach you how to live better, starting tomorrow. May each day henceforth serve to give those pieces meaning.
Tomorrow is Monday.
You can have tonight off.

Do what you love, and fuck the rest.

Cheers.

Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything
Inner - Slither
Modest Mouse - The World at Large
Merle Haggard - If We Make It Through December
Neutral Milk Hotel - Two Headed Boy, Pt. 2
The Decemberists - Grace Cathedral Hill

'Twas the Night Before Decemberween

2006-12-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

'Twas the night before Decemberween
and all through the house
MacBook Pros and G4s purred
with no need for a mouse.
The stockings were hung
by the electric fire
enticing the house cat
to curl up and retire.
We ate a grand dinner
we all had our fill
Now I sit and write to
some old Built to Spill
Pitchfork rounds up its lists
from this year nigh extinct
and I download the best
of what they all think
Homestar and friends
all ornaments on a tree
one fully afro'ed
none other than Coach Z
Letters to tube socks
and to socks argyle
as Decemberween comes closer
I just have to smile
The presents are safe
inside my bag by the bed
sealed in wax
some black and some red
So off to bed with me
time to turn out the lights
Happy Decemberween to all,
and to all a wight, wight!

Death Cab for Cutie - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Dreams to Remember

2006-12-20T00:43:00.000-08:00

An extra blanket, that's what I need to get out of bed in the morning. As counterintuitive as this seems, the extra warmth will make the harsh morning air seem less awful and I'll have an easier time making it to my coffee pot for reinforcements. This theory was proven last night when I stayed at a friends' house - catsitting while she's out of town. She has a down comforter on her bed, something I've not slept with in a long time. It didn't hurt matters that I had a very friendly cat named Pixel curled up with me for a good part of the night, once he'd settled down enough to stop headbutting me in the nose repeatedly. He just got out of the hospital after an operation, and apparently was very glad indeed to be home. I attempted to do a bit of journaling in bed, only to have the page bonked every few seconds, smearing my handwriting all over the place.
Never have I met such a persistent cat. Bonk. Bonk. Bonk.
When I awoke this morning I had little trouble getting myself out of bed. It must be the heat (or lack thereof, in the case of my own bedroom), that keeps me stuck in bed. So here I sit, an extra blanket draped over my knees as I type away.
This past week, excuse me, these past few weeks have been both pleasantly productive, and full of wasted time and counterproductive energy. It's been an albatross around my neck to sit down and make time to write in here, let alone anywhere else. But I have pulled off my first ever Christmas wherein I've made all my presents by hand. It's endlessly more satisfying than finding something out in the shops; even if it is something cool and perhaps even useful to the person you're getting it for, it doesn't compare to something made by hand. At least that's how I feel about presents. I can only hope that others will share this view come Monday.
As I write I'm wrapping up the last details of the presents, and trying to keep my head on straight with a bit of severe scheduling. I don't know about you, but I rarely find myself needing to pull out my calendar and plan out my activities and obligations for the next several days. But it's the only way I'll get it all done. I have endless details to attend to, packing, mailing, letters and bills to address before venturing home to the California warmth on Sunday. I can't even bring all of it to mind right now. And that doesn't include all the things I intend to get done once I'm there.
I've been stuck, lately, on the question of proper perspective. I've been through a few emotional rough spots lately (Honestly, who hasn't? Synchronicity is real), and there were moments when I lost my head completely. Despaired. You know the drill. One little thing, played back again and again through your mind, each time a little more distorted, a little further removed from what actually happened, until the real cause of your pain is buried under a mountain of props and perfumes. It's only when you step back and look at things with perspective that you realized it's not as bad as all that, and if anything you've orchestrated this whole nasty business yourself.
Well.
I have, with a little help from my friends, pulled myself from the wreckage by trying to keep proper perspective. My tendency toward self-destruction/sabotage (is this what Freud would call my Death Wish?) notwithstanding, I've been flashing on this more and more lately, always to calming effect. Look at it another way, one just as if not more valid than the way you're thinking now that keeps you so crazy and depressed. Take a step back from yourself and see things on a grander timeline. Or look at all the things that are going right, rather than wrong. The list goes on and on.
Yet we human-types seem to have the damnedest time keeping perspective. There's not much I know now that I didn't know at some time or another in the past, which, had I remembered it, could have saved me considerable pain and wasted effort. But isn't that just part of living and forgetting? And is anything ever wasted? Well, yes. Not learning from your mistakes (or learning from them, and promptly forgetting about it) seems to be the textbook definition of a wasted experience. But if I keep perspective I know that this is pretty normal, all things considered.
But what I'm coming out with from all this is that when people deviate from reason and coolheadedness, it's almost always on the side of things that are going to make them miserable and self-destructive. If you hold us up to the model of the 'ideal philosopher' (in whom reason is absolute), we err on the side of totally fucking crazy every time. I'm no different.
Alas. We're going to carry on anyway. It may be part of our nature to self-destruct at every opportunity, but so too is it our nature to fight tooth-and-nail against anything trying to put us back in the dirt.
The extra blanket is in place. The pieces are falling where they need to fall.

Catching Up

2006-11-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

I'm well past the point of feeling a bit guilty about not writing. The it's time stage came and went, followed by the no, it's really time, Dave, followed by a paralyzing sense of apathy and regret. I'd lapsed too long; too many thoughts had flown through my mind, begging to be set down, and what was I doing instead? Getting stoned with a few co-workers and listening to Johnny Cash on vinyl. Playing around on Insound. Damn my addiction to playing on the internet.
Speaking of addictions, and in case you didn't catch the multiple hints I just dropped, I've become entirely addicted to shopping for vinyl. The ol' turntable is out of the closet and equipped with a new stylus, counterweight, and pre-amp, and everything is running splendiferously. The difference in sound quality is staggering. I'm listening to Thom Yorke's The Eraser and cannot believe how much better it sounds than the measly mp3s I have on my lappy. I'm certainly no audiophile - I don't understand why it sounds like the band is in the room with me. But it does.
It was almost a week ago that, in a haze of word wars and novelist fuel, I wrote approximately 10,000 words over the weekend and found myself Caught Up on my wordcount for the first time since I began. It felt extremely satisfying. But now I'm finding myself a bit restless. Instead of having to throw myself into a frenzy just to reach my goal, I only have to write a little bit each day. It's not sexy. Not exciting. Also, the story seems to be nowhere near winding itself down, unless I pull a blatant deus ex machina and simply wrap it up with a few reductive sentences. No! No! Bad writer, no muffin.
I am reminded of Michael Douglas in the film Wonder Boys, when Katie Holmes (Boy, I never, ever, thought her name would wind up in my blog) gently critiques his latest work-in-progress, saying "You always encourage us to make choices in our writing. And while this is really, really, beautiful, it just feels like you didn't make any choices, Teach."
That's me. The end keeps getting further and further away because nothing is risked, and I'm not committing to my characters and binding myself to their actions and natures. Instead it's just kind of plodding along, not awful, but not terribly interesting either.
I guess it's not too important. I'll get to 50K, even if it is a drab, boring, and entirely unfinished mess by the time I get there.
I'm racking my brain to come up with a good list of things I'm thankful for, even if it is coming a few days too late. I think this kind of thinking is best done at night, to be honest.
I will get to it, and soon. And I will try to be better at writing when I have something to say, and not leaving it to pile up and accrete until I am more blocked than the grease trap at my work after two months' neglect. To steal from Wonder Boys again, I'm just a little sad these days.
Such is being alive.
Big big love, friends.

Remember, Remember, the 11th of November

2006-11-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who happens to look at the clock precisely at 11:11 on an almost daily basis, and is more than a little wary about this fact. We've talked about it a bit, and I joke with her that when November 11th rolled around, she ought to stay indoors entirely to avoid whatever catastrophes and pitfalls might be waiting for her.
Yesterday passed seemingly without incident. I saw her at our local coffeeshop, and she was smiling. I couldn't help but think that she had forgotten the date; otherwise she'd be far more apprehensive.
I've spoken to a few other people about this, and it seems we are not alone in our tendency to glance at our watches at such particular moments. Apparently there are many studies and groups which deal with this, such as the Midwayers and other New Age-y types. It was also the day of the ceasefire of World War I, back in 1918 (though it was only 11am when it was declared). It is the new number of evil, as well as a record by the lovely Regina Spektor.
But while most of the links I got after googling 11:11 seemed to focus on angelic intervention, it is still curious that we find ourselves looking at the clocks at these times. What's more, ever since I became aware of my friends predisposition towards it, I've been looking at my own watch at 11:11 far more often.
The novel progresses. I'm having a decent time writing in little bursts, taking breaks for coffee and tea, and then doing it over again. Over and over and over again. I've got a few characters who please me. However, control freak that I am, I'm not really letting them do their own thing just yet. That, and I'm just making life far too easy for all of them. Although I just killed off the character who was originally going to be my protagonist, and have found that he's far more interesting now that he's dead.
I went for a walk late, late last night. Soft, sprinkling electronic music came through the headphones as I walked over the I-84 freeway. I had been laid out by the two Terminal Gravitys I drank after work, and was still a bit buzzy when I meandered into the parking lot of Fred Meyer to deposit a check. Naturally the Wamu ATM was out of deposit envelopes. However, on my way round the building, I noticed that one of the sliding doors parted as I walked by (this was around 2 in the morning), and, unable to resist the curiosity, I crept inside. The inner doors opened as well, and I stood briefly beside the watch racks and electronics department, surveying an empty Freds. There were workers at the far end of the store, stocking and cleaning. I hid behind sales racks.
After my jaunt to the ATM I tried to go back in, and somehow in my semi-inebriated state I failed to notice that one of said workers was standing just inside the door. He barked at me: "We're CLOSED, man!" I hurried out with my tail between my legs.
In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have ventured in a 2nd time. But there is something intriguing about being in places during the off hours. And the beers probably didn't help either. C'est la vie.
Last night while we closed down the restaurant, one of the girls I work with was talking about some customer (excuse me, guest. We are a nice restaurant) who had come up to her and literally tapped her several times on the arm to get her attention. She was discussing how lonely people must be, how desperate for any kind of human contact, that they will reach out to servers or waiters, trying to engage them in conversation when they clearly have work to do. She spoke rather disparagingly of this guest, which was fair enough. But I realized, as she spoke, that I was no different from this man who'd tried to connect with her for a moment. So many times I feel myself nearly insane with the desire to feel my hand touching another's body. Just to feel it. Or at the very least to be out amongst people, like that old Smiths song talked about. The thought stuck with me the rest of the night, and as I walked home from Freds the feeling grew so intense that I detoured to Holman's for a late dinner and the company it would afford me. I paid for the French Dip, but what I really came for were the drunken people at the table adjacent to me, the neon beer lights and jukebox, the server who smiled and told me to spin the wheel. Is this it? Is this why bars succeed and people put poison in themselves?

I apologize for having to turn on word verification for those of you who would comment, but I was getting spam with increasing frequency. I hope it won't dissuade the rest of you fine people from leaving me notes. They always make me smile, no matter how small or insignificant they might seem to you.

In Which We Are Plodding Along

2006-11-06T00:05:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I need some serious time alone. I forget it sometimes, when I get so desperately lonely that all I want is be out amongst people, out with my friends, my co-workers. Have a few drinks, a few laughs, and go home to fall contentedly asleep. But I've run a bit short on solitude lately, and am feeling it tonight.
It doesn't help that it's November, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo when I am (and I'm not alone in this, I imagine) prone to being very grumpy and high-strung. I find myself feeling put out by anything that demands my attention unless it's a) something I'm being paid for or b) my novel. Writers. We are a sensitive bunch.
Speaking of said novel... well, it's coming. Slowly, and a bit behind schedule, but it's coming. It feels completely different from last year, when I had such particular emotional dilemmas to resolve (read: write about transparently in novel). This year the field is wide open. Instead of being overly serious about the whole process, I'm hoping to enjoy myself a bit this time around, and maybe taste of bit of the good craziness that is so intrinsic to the heart of the thing. The delirium that comes from hi-speed creation.
So far, it's mostly filler. But it is decent filler. And it hasn't felt like pulling teeth. Not yet at least. If you are interested, you can track my progress with that little icon near the top left corner of the page.
Naturally, having to write this novel has pushed my non-noveling productivity into overdrive as well. I'm getting a lot of little tasks done in the name of avoiding the blank screen. For instance: After letting it collect dust in my closet for at least three years, I've finally gotten my beautiful Sony turntable up and running. As I type this, Elliott Smith's eponymous record is spinning, the rain is coming down in torrents, and I think I'm having an honest-to-god Portland Moment.
I bought a few of my favorite records on vinyl recently, and am getting a huge kick from walking over to the turntable, flipping them, and hearing the crackle crackle of the record as it gets compressed and sent through my speakers. Grin. I was getting really heartsick from so much digital music on my computer, acquired through the tapping of a few keys, and played just as easily. It warms my heart to listen to music in such an involved way again.
I walked to the library to return some books, stopped for Chinese on my way home, and got utterly soaked. It was glorious.
Onwards!

Get Behind the Wheel, and Let's Go

2006-10-29T12:11:00.000-08:00

Here's the theory: If what's inside is a lot of wank, then what comes out will be wank as well. And you can dress it up with big word and clever phrases, obscure it all you like, but underneath all the perfume and frills, it's still wank. It stares out at you, its whining, petty little heart beating fast. Unmistakable.
I mention this only to point out that each time I sit down to write in here, several thoughts jump up that compel me to spew endless amounts of the stuff. Write something good. Something thoughtful. Witty and enlightening. Please them. Please them. Sadly, this was your life.
Blogs written under that ridiculous mentality are no fun to read, and even less fun to have written and then have to look at after the fact.
So. I try to clear my mind of shoulds, desired results/etc, and just sit down with an open, clear mind and write a new blog for you.
Naturally, in the interim between now and my last, a number of blogs have died in utero. Last week I rode to Freds and picked up a lovely 23 lb. pumpkin from their massive cardboard bins. When I got it home I logged into the Homestar stencils page, printed one out, and went to work.
Here is what I came out with:

I experienced a simple sort of joy doing this. It seems clichéd to say, but it's true: I felt like I was young again. The wonderful sticky guts. The seeds set aside to dry. Endless scooping. Time for your lobotomy, Jack! Every second of it filled with delight.

There were others, but they are lost. Onwards.
I have letters to write, and, in two days, a novel to begin. Yes, NaNoWriMo is upon us once again. We are all waiting with bated breath, runners awaiting the gun. This year is going to be another experiment in sheer manic rambling and stupidity; I don't have a plot, characters or anything. Only a desperate sense of determination: I must succeed, and go forth despite it all. It's terrifying having no idea what to write about, but I'm trying to see it as liberating rather than daunting. It will be a brilliant experience, that much I know. It is like nothing else; the frenzy, the giddiness, and the glow that comes from it are invaluable. Nothing else comes close. A month of stubborn ramblings and digressions. I will give free reign to my tangential mind; set it loose upon the blank, um, Word Document. Fuck writing this thing by hand. And while I may not be so wonderfully coherent and articulate as, say, Eddie Izzard in my bounding free associations, I will still have fun.

So in honor of Nanowrimo, here are a few songs. For my fellow writer-types, let these serve as a bit of a send-off, and for the rest, simply enjoy. Music is endless, it belongs to no one and everyone. And it can mean something different to everyone. That's the beauty of it. Jeff Buckley once said, when asked what he hoped people would get from his music, "whatever they want, you know... whatever you like."

So wish us luck.

Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Storm
The Long Winters - Pushover
The Red Paintings - Walls (Alternative Ending)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Details of the War
Tom Waits - Tango 'Til They're Sore
Christian Kiefer - Stumble

One Week, No Shaving

2006-10-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

I didn't wear socks, but still had bad dreams. With the blinds down it felt like 6am. I was grateful to have hours until I had to rise.
Some days it's sad music. The desperate, forced attempts at misery. Some days it's as simple as chopping 35 yellow onions for the evenings' meals. Your body doesn't know the difference as long as the tears are there. Between you and me, I prefer the onions.
A shower and cracking open the window transform the world. A hermitage becomes a playground. Outside, children shrieking like they're being murdered race around swing sets, and it is a terminally beautiful day.

Keep Your Eye on the Finger

2006-10-17T00:06:00.000-07:00

Just past midnight. Time creeps. I keep telling myself not to care, not to dwell. O angel, won't you call me? No no no. I don't care. I care desperately. I tear myself apart. I run into the night, determined not to stop until I arrive at some sort of answer. Until I track down some reason. Are we going to survive this damage? Will we ever come back again? We must. Must we? Naturally we must.
Reading Dave Eggers does this to me.
The plan is as follows:
Keep busy. Keep busy. Keep busy. November is coming. Don't leave the haiku til bedtime:

olivia tremor control
says please please please
don't you ever change your mind on me

There is the stale smell of incense on the air. Memories of years gone by. The smell of every room you've lived in. Jeff Buckley's favorite. Aphrodisiac for the world.

Consider the adage: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, For Tomorrow We Die.
If you're at all like me, you feel fairly secure that, while anything is possible, you will rise tomorrow feeling healthy and very much alive indeed. That you will continue to do so for many days to come. All things being possible, we may die before the morning comes. Though the odds are against.
But if we are to die tomorrow, then tonight, we must dance.
Take a drink to loosen your limbs, or follow this ingeniously simple suggestion from Mr. Jason Webley:
Point your right index finger towards the heavens, hard and erect. Hold it up proudly. Look at it. Look at it as if it were the only thing in the universe. Don't look at my finger, look at your own damn finger!
Keep looking at it...
Now: spin around twelve times. Keep your eye on the finger...

Come, I'll do it with you.

Are you ready?

One!
Two!
Three!
Four!
Five!
Six!
Seven!
Eight!
Nine!
Ten!
Eleven!
Teeeen....
Eleven...
TWELVE!

Dance. Sing.

And rest.

It's a Magical World

2006-10-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

Hello! The time is at hand.
If I had written this a few days ago, well, it would have been different. I would have written about walking home from the Belmont library, listening to Stephen King talk about his childhood in that nasally voice of his. I would have written about how I was walking down Stark by Laurelhurst park, feeling generally absorbed in the gray half-rain of the evening. How I felt something hit my nose, which startled me back to my senses. I brushed my hand over my face. It had to be a spider. I looked down, seeing nothing. Where was it? I patted myself all around. Then I saw it, sitting on my scarf.
It was not a spider.
It was a little yellow larva.
I brushed it into the bush, and kept walking. Then, blinking in the bright light filtered through the drizzly gray, I saw the rest of them.
Little yellow specks, floating in the air. In the middle of the street, dangling from treebranches on invisible silk strands. Spinning in the dew like living lights.
I would have written about that.
How things come and go! They are born, seemingly out of thin air (Why is it always thin air? Why not chubby air, could-stand-to-lose-a-few-pounds air?) and you capture them or just let them go. There's no looking back!
I have no pretty pictures to paint for you at the moment. I love the sight of the Willamette River at night. I love feeling gravity pulling me down Salmon Street on my bicycle. I love anything that makes my heart light. I love you, as well. I struggle to know you truly, to see past my idea of you. I want to know you. And I want to be known to you.
Please, tell me something. Take me out of my head for awhile.

Did you know?

And do you realize?

O, October! Will you marry me?

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3
David Ford - I Don't Care What You Call Me
Regina Spektor - Samson (she is coming to town on the 25th, and you should all go. PDX folks, anyway)
Okkervil River - Love to a Monster
Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill
The Album Leaf - The Light

Bollocks and Band-Aids

2006-09-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

Before entropy sets in completely, let's get a bit of an update here.
I'm still churning out the same whiny shit in my notebooks, but I'll spare you that rubbish here. I set in to work today, thinking the whole thing through, and reckon I've made some progress on how to cut down on the wanking and just get on with my work a bit easier.
The job is good, yet I am managing to constantly fuck my hands up. Between peeling roasted pimentos, blanching kale and doing load after load of dishes, I find myself with withered, exfoliated hands on a daily basis, and a variety of cuts and pokes as well. I type this now with five band-aids covering various fingers. Either I'll grow thicker skin or learn to be more careful. I worry at the fact that many of these little holes I find in my skin appear inexplicably. I don't know how I got them; it's as if someone were sticking pins in a voodoo doll.
I am fascinated, when I come home to clean these wounds by pouring hydrogen peroxide over them, just how much of my hands light up white as the chemicals react to the bacteria. My skin bubbles and stings. Then the handsoap, the rinsing, the wrapping of transparent band-aids. The rest will attend to itself.
I don't know if anyone else has this, er, tendency, but lately I've felt inclined to adopt an English accent whenever I speak, and sometimes even incorporate English slang into my language as well. I admit that I've always been something of an Anglophile, but I think I'm going through some kind of phase as well these days. Maybe it's all the British television I've been watching. Spaced, for instance. Good lord, where have I been? I've just been loaned all four dvds of Black Adder as well, which I've never seen. Apparently I'm in for a treat. I'm enjoying The Smoking Room quite a bit. Not to mention this hilarious bit from Extras wherein Daniel Radcliffe finally escapes his Harry Potter trappings.
So it has seeped into my language a bit. I find myself wanting to greet everyone with an 'alright?' instead of a 'hi how are you?'
It makes more sense. Brief, to the point, and no answer is expected. Not to mention the fact that hi, how are you is, at least for me, a hollow exchange that I feel more or less obligated to spit out but hate all the same. I imagine other people are just as tired of it as I am. But I also imagine that I'd get many an odd look if I went round saying 'alright.'
Getting back to my point. If you were a fly on the wall while I happened to be talking myself through something serious (it's helpful, what do you want) you'd probably find me slipping into a bit of an accent. Even if I were alone. I feel like a bit of a wanker for doing so, but I also don't really like my own voice and feel ridiculous when I hear myself saying anything. So getting a bit in character is useful. And if it works, well, fair play to me. Alright?
That about covers things for now. I'll try to debut some proper fiction before too much longer, if I can successfully get past my ridiculous hangups and such. I'm writing this and that, and I've begun a new webcomic just for kicks. But I need more. I'm still holding back. Still looking for some magic key, some golden ticket.
It hardly needs mentioning that summer has finally turned its toes up, and fall has come at last. So in honor of that, here's some tunes for you.

Hawksley Workman - Autumn's Here
Elf Power - The Spider and the Fly
Tim Buckley - Hallucinations/Troubadour (live)
Shearwater - The Kind
Yo La Tengo - I Feel Like Going Home
Low - In the Drugs

And Bob's your uncle.

In Which Monkeys Are a Hit

2006-09-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Bookclub. Every other Thursday night, my friends and I gather to discuss a book over food and drinks. I didn't get around to reading it this week, due to my life being more hectic than usual. But I attended at their request, and sat with them listening and doing sketches and eating Pillsbury croissant rolls and drinking Papio. Everyone liked the Papio. We all got right drunk and there was even some inebriated dancing to Christopher Cross. Ye gods.
I drew a picture of my friend Tom, though really I think it looks more like Craig Thompson.

This morning, I am in my purple robe. Coffee.

Go say happy birthday.

Sunny With a Chance of Ditty Bops

2006-09-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

This is late.
The past few days have been full and overwhelming. An emotional ride to say the least. My friends and I drove up I-84 through the Gorge - stunning - up into the Husum highlands for a wedding, camping out in the shadow of vineyards and mountains. Sleep was drunken and uncomfortable, but the ceremony was perfect. Beautiful. My need for ritual was satisfied.
The winds of change sweep in, shaking the trees. The birds all fly away. A new job, and everything has a sort of bittersweet air these days. Tainted. The last gasp of summer.
I was delighted to witness the charming stage show of the Ditty Bops last night at the Aladdin Theater. This morning, as I rode out towards Hawthorne to meet a friend for coffee and writing, I looked across and saw two very tired and disheveled looking women walking towards me. It was none other than Amanda and Abby themselves. I rode up to them and shook their hands, giddy; I thanked them for playing and made small talk, trying not to gush. They looked exhausted, so I let them be on their way... yet they were completely gracious. I'm always wary to stop a musician on the street, afraid to come off like some creepy fanboy. But they seemed pleased.
I rode on with a big grin on my face.
Our writing session was really more of a peoplewatching affair, as inevitably happens. I get out of the house to focus on my work; I go back home because I can't focus when there's so much to look at. One panini, iced coffee, and severe case of the jitters later, I was back at my desk. I wonder how I could have expected to get anything done out there.
Once home, I set about taking my procrastination to appropriately extreme levels; it's my prerogative as a writer to put off doing work for as long as possible, naturally. I alternate between episodes of The Mighty Boosh and glasses of Papio, and scurrying around my room listening to the beats of Simon Posford and tidying up obsessively. Anything to keep me from facing the blank word document. Let me check Neil's blog again. Let me inspect my new Moleskine cahiers. Again. More wine? Yes please. Nothing like drinking and electronica to fuel a cleaning session. Mood lighting and incense. I am on fire.
Cleaning becomes more frantic as it wears on. Less to do. I fancy my new calendar and listen to songs about the sea. I lay on my floor and drift away. Endless checkings of Adium and Ye Olde Gmail account.
The entire day has been mine. No work, no evening obligations. These are the days I dream about, not a care in the world, every moment offering itself to me like a sacrifice, begging. Live. Live.
I do love those Ditty Bops.

Here's some mood music:

The Essex Green - (Don't Know Why) You Stay
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Nobody's Baby Now
Summer at Shatter Creek - Something to Calm Me
A Silver Mt. Zion - Horses in the Sky
Christian Kiefer - Original

and lastly,

The Ditty Bops - Short Stacks

Good Morning, Fire Island

2006-09-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Tabatha Cottis, who are you?
Are you in need of wheels? Can I help you somehow?
I rode to Freddie's yesterday to deposit a paycheck, and discovered that the balance was somewhat lower than it should have been. Home to check the history. Sure enough, over the past five days, there were three checks which had been cashed out of my account, in amounts of $220, $300, and most recently, $600.
My memory is faulty, to be fair, but surely I would remember something like this.
I called it in. I had no idea that the bank had visual records of every check that they processed... but they pulled up the errant checks and, lo and behold, found that the signatures didn't match the ones on any of my other checks. Not by a long shot.
It seems I have been irresponsible in my disposing of old checks... perhaps I trashed some, and they were recovered. I'll never be sure. But there it was, in front of me:

How surreal to see your name written in someone else's handwriting! Who is this person?
After taking care of the necessary forms, signing affidavits and freezing the account and securing it all tightly, I headed off to the southeast precinct of the PDX police department and sat in one of the cushy leather couches of the waiting room. Finally a burly, gum-chewing officer came out and took my report, smacking away. I rode home in something of a daze. The money will be reimbursed, Tabatha will be investigated. And I will go on with my life, as before. Except I'll take a bit more care of keeping records of my checks from now on.
Which reminds me, I have a date with the fireplace to destroy all my current checks right now. Then off to Powell's.

Big big love, friends.

Hmmm

2006-09-07T02:15:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'd get more done if my desk weren't so messy.

Claire and I in the Dark

2006-09-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

12:01.
The first minute of the first of four, count 'em four days off.
Can I get a hallelujah?
Candles? Check. Pinot Noir? Check. Housemate out of town for a week, leaving me alone in the house? Check.
The shadows dance, candelight making my speakers look like monoliths on the wall. The wine is poured. The music will be played at a volume sure to disturb the neighbors.
Can I get an amen?
The next few days, I tell you, they will be grand. They will be well used.
But for now it is time to dance in the dark.

DJ, at your leisure.

North American Hallowe'en Prevention Initiative - Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?
Devics - Heart and Hands
DeVotchKa - The Enemy Guns
Ladytron - Soft Power
Gomez - Love is Better Than a Warm Trombone

Notes and Errata

2006-08-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

Busy little me. I've been drawing in my journal a lot, doing sketches, taking notes, having fun. Working a new job which I don't particularly like, but from which I'm learning a lot nonetheless. It's laid back and I get to draw at work. I recently got a nifty new printer/scanner, so I'll scan some pictures as soon as they're ready.

But in the meantime, here's some music for your listening pleasure. As promised. Enjoy...

The Ditty Bops - Aluminum Can
Wolfmother - Mind's Eye
Joanna Newsom - Sadie
Calexico - Smash
The Long Winters - Seven

Note to Self

2006-08-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

In Which There Are Decisions, Farewells, and Doughnuts

2006-08-13T01:39:00.000-07:00

And so it is: there will be no fall mix this year. Nor, perhaps, a winter mix. Why? Because, as I've written before, my relationship with the mixes is not altogether healthy and lately has been causing me more undue stress than it has any right to. My obsession for collecting new, obscure music has pushed my iTunes library past the 15K mark. Its rapid weight gain has stretched its belt almost to bursting and it can scarcely get out of its chair most days.
And where am I in all this? Surely, I have lost my way. What good new music when none of it will be heard?
The eighteen-wheeler that is my downloading addiction comes screeching noisily to a grinding halt; the forces of inertia are strong and not easily overcome. The exhaust sputters and complains.
Understand that the sinister aspect of the mix lies in the pressure to perform, as it were. What once was fun and creative has become performance art, an act of frustration instead of joy. Bollocks.
So begins the era of processing the massive amounts of 'new' music.
However.
Do you really think I'd just disappear without keeping you informed of what I learn and discover? Perish the thought.
The mixes may be on a hiatus of indeterminate length, but in its place I will continue to post, perhaps weekly, songs that I have fallen in love with, as they come. It is my hope that they might turn you on to new and interesting artists, as I always wanted my mixes to do. But where they put emphasis on construction and design, this venture is unburdened by such formalities. I will listen to my music. And I will pass along what I find to you, good people.

Tonight I and hundreds of others said goodbye to one of my favorite bands, Sleater-Kinney, in their final show at the Crystal Ballroom. I've seen them twice before, but never have they played so ferociously as tonight. Imagine it, knowing that this will be the last time you play this song, hit this note, sing this line. They gave everything they had, and none of us were left standing by the end. It was emotional, to say the least. As their special guest-opener said, I feel truly grateful that, though I may not have been alive to see the Beatles play, or the Who with Keith Moon, I have lived to see Sleater-Kinney live on stage. And so I honor them.
And I say farewell.
And thanks.

The night ends with a ride down Burnside, dodging taxis and potholes, to Voodoo Doughnut, where I finally achieve my longtime goal of having a doughnut with bacon on it.
Wow. Now I can die happy.

No Name #1

2006-07-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

Okay. Time to get back on the wagon.
Last night I was particularly drunk, visiting with old friends, and this morning I found myself in the kitchen forcing a couple glasses of Britta water down my throat. Hours later, I'm glad I did. I had closed the blinds and gave myself permission to sleep in till noon if I so desired. But something about being hungover just made me want to get up.
More than that, it made me want to stop fucking around. Don't ask me why. I woke up half an hour ago and realized that in a few hours I'm going to head off to work again, and that on a normal day this would serve as justification enough for me not to get anything done in the interim. And I just felt sick at the notion. After all (and like Valentine so succinctly pointed out) I've repeated myself quite a lot in this blog, and one of my well-worn-out statements has been that when I'm left to my own devices I won't get much done at all, especially when I have all the time in the world.
I've been on this well-intentioned but perhaps ultimately simplistic drive to organize my room, my projects, all my 'open loops' as the author calls them. Anything and everything that's on my mind, weighing me down. In my typical half-hearted way I've established a little file system divided into projects, calendar tasks, etc. The point is that for all my naïveté, I have learned something from this system: you can't ever 'do' a project. You can only do specific steps in a focused order that will, in time, result in the aforementioned project being 'done.'
Case in point: my shitty first draft of a novel. It looms and only grows more ominous and untouchable as time passes. I need to rewrite it. I need to 'do' it. Naturally, I don't know where to start, and so don't start at all.
So this system is helping me to break it down, at least.
And something about waking up this morning with a decent hangover, finding myself to be in possession of a few valium and a little capsule of MDMA (I do remember acquiring these, but nonetheless it seemed somewhat poignant), and a strong craving for french toast, has just left me ready to start to tackle it piece by piece. On a work day. That's key.
Now Elf Power's Back to the Web plays, and my dual externals sit happily and quietly next to the glow of my screen. I would do well to clean my room. But I have had lots of time to think about what Valentine said, and that's just another distraction in disguise. I know it. So let the rumpled clothes and strewn Oregonians stay where they are.
But I'll need energy. I'm gonna go make that french toast.

Hey kids.
Just wanted to let you know that Dave checks this constantly and always laments that no one comments on it. Every time he looks we all hold our breath and have to endure the subsequent whining. So for my sake, you should leave comments. If not to respond to the blog, at least to say hi. Do it for me.
~Valentine

Don't Dream It's Over

2006-07-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

I'm back. Thanks to Valentine for filling in during my absence.
I feel a bit overwhelmed of course. The past few weeks have been pretty devoid of writing, first because of my arm, and after a few talks with Valentine and the rest, due to the realization that writing had become a form of self-sabotage unto itself. A sneaky and seductive one to be sure, but one all the same. I was writing myself into holes, not out of them. Writing missives and pretentious resolutions, rather than just putting my nose to the grindstone and getting on with the fucking story, as they say.
I've been keeping busy with lots of reading, in the meantime. I was sad to see Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell come to an end. How often does a nearly 800-page book seem too short?
But there are many, many more books to read.
In other news... in a weeks' time I shall be done with my cell phone once and for all, returning to the land of home phones and an ever-changing answering machine message. You'll want to call me constantly just to hear it. I swear. I'm excited to be without the phone... my text messaging addiction is out of control, and besides cutting that out of my life, I'll be paying considerably less per month. All around it seems wise.
My music collection is reaching absurd proportions. I always feel I need just a little more, when I am already overflowing with music I will never be able to find time to listen to. During the last few weeks, I've been orbiting around the planet that is Bob Dylan. Beyond his Greatest Hits playing in my household when I was growing up, I never knew him too well; it never really touched me. I went back and listened to his old albums individually, and something just clicked.
I'm a bit obsessed.
I feel like I have a lot more to say, but I'm too tired to go on.
I'm going to go lay down to read One Hundred Years of Solitude and let the donuts I just ate settle.
Mmm, donuts.

A View From the Gallery

2006-07-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings.
Guest blogger Valentine here. Dave’s going to be out of service for a while, as he fractured the head of his radial bone recently and is sitting around in a sling. Which, naturally, leaves him unable to type or write or any of those other things he likes to do, so it falls to me to keep this old thing going. Apparently he was on his way to the Night Ride, some critical mass type thing, except he was wearing a skirt and wig. And there were donuts in there somewhere. He should be out of commission for a few weeks at least, and in the interim I'll be here keeping you posted on his recovery and talking shop. When I'm not fetching him numerous cups of tea or helping him change in and out of his pants. He's quite needy.
Sooooo… I’ve been reading over these pages and again and again I’m struck by how much repetition goes on around here. Me and the rest of the boys in the office don’t interfere too much. But if you ask me, he should have a sounding board or an editor to work them over before these blogs go to press. The kinds of things people do when no one's looking, I tell you. They get away with the worst sorts of whining and self-indulgence, no one there to give them a good smack in the eye. Unchecked, rampant whining always ensues. Poor poor me, and so on. We see it all the time.
Last week I was trying to talk some sense into him. Listen, I said, you’ve got to try to look at things positively. See, he’s been griping that with his dominant arm out, he’s stuck in doors all day, can’t ride, can’t work, can’t do this or that. But you and I know as well as anything that when you can do anything you want, nothing standing between you and your slightest whim, well, then it just doesn’t seem so interesting. Loan that book or movie out, and bam, that’s the one you wanted for this evening. It never fails.
I tried to explain this to him. But if there’s anything I can say about that boy, it’s that he’s got a resistance to anything that might actually help him like nothing I’ve ever seen. Anything that can feed the inactivity or keep him from getting on with his life, he’s on it like flies on shit.
Take this past blog here, the one about ‘inquisitors.’
Okay, okay, I can appreciate the sentiment. But.
First of all, we’re all human. We’re not perfect. Can’t expect to be saints. But it’s pretty convenient to set these impossible goals and standards for yourself if you’re really determined to keep on sitting around getting a whole lot of nothing done.
It’s one thing to want to change, I don’t begrudge anyone the desire to be a better person or improve things about themselves they’re unhappy with. But, and I feel like I’ve said this a million times, you’ve got to look out for the point where your good intentions twist around into these nefarious agents of distraction and deception. You might think you’re doing the right thing, but really you’re just killing more time, baby. See it for what it is.
It’s a bitch though. The worst is always the kind of thing that disguises itself as a virtue or a useful activity. So I told him: all your ‘inquiry,’ all your ‘need for understanding’: what is the fucking point? I mean really.
He stammered something about getting to the roots and changing the principles, and whimpering about his arm.
I just sat there and listened. It’s a beautiful and true thing that when people are full of shit eventually they’ll just run out of words, or steam, or whatever it may be, and find themselves running into the proverbial wall. Their argument just doesn’t hold up. It looks good on a piece of paper, and maybe flashed across this here internet. But really, when you get down to practical application, it just falls apart.
He got real quiet at that point. God, I live for those moments.
Anyway, like I was saying earlier: here you are in this predicament, right? You’ve got nothing but time. Stop kidding yourself. See your tendencies for what they are. And bottom line:
Something only matters inasmuch as it helps you along. Otherwise, fuck it. You don’t need to scour the meaning out of every little thing, and you don’t need to pace around endlessly to make sure your every deed and thought is pure and genuine. That’s a lot of wanking, if you ask me.
Maybe with him unable to go anywhere he’ll finally get around to facing that.
So, like I said, I’ll be maintaining the blog while his arm heals. It’s good to watch him, having to do everything one-handed, hopping around, generally disheveled and unshaven. I keep telling him to make the best of what could be called a shitty set of circumstances. To keep on looking for the silver lining.
It’s there, you know. It’s always there. We just need a reminder from time to time. And he wouldn’t like to hear it, but you can’t deny: sometimes life gives you just what you need, whether you like it or not.
Boy it’s hot out today. Time for some bubble tea.

Comes the Inquisitor

2006-07-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

Another day. And another. I want to understand what I'm so afraid of. I've many large goals, large projects I'm trying to undertake. However, all that happens is the occasional burst, the occasional day of creativity. Those are good days; but I always fear that they will be isolated events, and rightly so. Without practice, without set habits, these days are random and disconnected. The big things never get started.
I have to face the fact that these isolated 'bright' days are, basically, worthless and wasted. One day alone means nothing. It becomes clear that my heart is not in the right place. My desires and sense of purpose are not clear to me. If they were, I could not help but do all the things I so desire: read, write, practice the piano, meditate, and so on. In reality, I have to push myself to make even the smallest effort to emerge from my daily routine of Babylon 5 re-runs, computer games, and general lethargy. It is not my heart that drives me to create, but the feeling that I should, because that's the sort of person I want to be. Why? And if I truly want to be this sort of person, truly want to do these things, why am I so unmotivated to pursue them?
I live with so many distractions and deceptions. That once my life 'settles down,' then I'll be able to get on with things. That I'm stretched too thin with taking care of those around me. That I am tired and need to rest. But there will always be someone who is falling apart, stricken with grief, or losing their sanity. Or I will be. And there will never come a time when everything simply settles into place and I am suddenly transformed, without effort, into a creative machine.
It has to do with fear.
I'm afraid of many things. Chief among them is the fear of questioning myself, my heart, my motives; also fear of leaving the comfort of complacency. I've gotten by all my life without inquiring much into my nature, without truly looking at the whys and hows. Instead, I set up an ideal self, projected to the outside world: admirable, kind and good, but primarily on the surface. I wished people to love me and want to keep me around. It's led to a rather strong feeling of disconnection from myself, and a willingness to carry on in quiet misery and acceptable apathy until that self that's within me, wherever it is, gets so nauseous and disgusted that its scream is all I can hear. Then I am again reminded: this is not the way. Why do you do it this way?
And again I have no answer, and am silent.
For what might seem to be a right action, if done for the wrong reasons, is really the wrong action. If the heart behind it is not pure, the deed is corrupt. It's become painfully clear recently how little I truly resemble the man I present myself as and wish to believe I am. I present myself as open-minded, tolerant, and kind; but almost daily I find myself full of anger and judgment. I feel I am cultured and intelligent and refined, but in my heart I know I am driven by a desire to feel superior to others, and to condemn them. That my desire to give gifts to those close to me is motivated as much by the need for manipulation and control as by generosity and love.
It's a problem.
A friend recently told me a very true thing: that the kindness and compassion we extend to others when they err (as humans do), we must also extend to ourselves. It is much harder to do this than it is to forgive others. But we must do so.
I do not think I'm an evil man. I know that in my heart I am selfish, childish, and manipulative; but they are what they are and there is more to me than that. However, I'm unable to deceive myself any longer about my 'noble nature.' The heart is empty, the show has been everything. I know it; now I must deal with it.
I will assume the role of the inquisitor. Demands the whys of myself. The real reasons must be grasped. Part of me worries that such extreme self-analysis as I have in mind will be detrimental... but it's necessary. Without examining myself, I'll continue to drift along, never sure if the things I am, and do, and desire, are pure. Are true. It must be extreme: without demanding that I account for myself, I would too easily slip back into my old bad habits. It wouldn't really be living anyway.
Which brings me back to the disciplines. The big projects. I feel, or hope, that when I've come to understand my drives a little better, the rest of it might fall into place a little more easily, for better or for worse. I know there's no simple cure. Understanding is just a foundation; hard work will also be required. I'm not afraid to work for it. I've never been lazy, but if there was no meaning in the things I did, I could scarcely lift a finger.
Perhaps this is an attempt to redefine the meaning in my life. Perhaps once it is done all that has seemed so overwhelming might be brought into a manageable perspective. I've already taken a few steps. The nonelectronic day of rest (for lack of a better name) ritual has begun, and already I am healed slightly. There are many things I can do to help myself. Remember the lesson of NaNoWriMo: that the largest, craziest projects can be accomplished if we take them one piece at a time.
Remember to dance:

And remember to laugh at yourself. From laughter, there is wisdom.

The inquisitor comes.

The Time at Hand

2006-06-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

Okay folks, it's confession time.
It's a confession in the way of a question. Is anyone here like me, in that they are compelled, obsessed, and drawn beyond their will to spend inordinate amounts of time on Wikipedia every day of their lives? I'm not the only one? Thank God!
It is one of those things that, the further I delve into it, the further I’m compelled to dig. One thing always leads to another. With a fancy new high-speed connection in one hand, and those twin sisters Wikipedia and Wikibooks in the other, I find that there is nothing I cannot learn if I simply set about looking into it.
I delight in following random links, and then subsequent links, and so on and so forth. It never ends. I grin wondering how many of the kids today who walk around donning black eyeliner and Nine Inch Nails patches on their backpacks are familiar with the origins and meanings of the word Gothic. It’s remarkable. A 4th century language and a (beautiful) style of architecture, among other things… most interesting to me is the fact that ‘gothic’ was a derogatory term thrown at those cathedrals back in the day, meant to imply how ugly and barbaric they were.
"Darling, what do you think of these new buildings?"
"I think they're positively gothic."
This kind of thing just makes me smile.
Not that I dislike modern-day gothic culture, mind you. I've had my share of nights where I pulled on the fishnets and Docs, downed a few shots of Jäger, and pounded the dance floor to the pulsing beats of VNV Nation; I also dream of having a pair of elegant gothic sconces fixed to the wall of my bedroom someday.
But I wonder how many Hot Topic kids know the history of something so integral to their identity.
I’ve found, as anyone who spends any amount of time on Wikipedia finds, that there is far more out there than anyone could digest in a lifetime. The sheer scope and comprehensiveness of it is awe-inspiring. Say you are sitting there, listening to Gomez do a glorious cover of Tom Waits’ “Goin' Out West” and sipping your earth-colored Tuocha. You may suddenly tangent over to the life story of Sima Qian and learn how he shaped Chinese historiography for centuries to come. Or over to the fantastic fictional world of Babylon 5, where the conflicting ideologies of Vorlons and Shadows threaten to engulf the universe in fire. Then you're looking at types of clouds. Then the discography of Marty Robbins. And so on, into the sunset.
All of this is at our fingertips, all of it is free, and it knows few, if any, bounds.
It can be overwhelming. I have to take breaks often, be it with hilariously entertaining Star Wars vids from Robot Chicken, or seeing Henry Rollins tear Ann Coulter a new one. These things help me escape from the constant barrage of new information, and give my brain a rest.
I must take some time away from the computer. I'm very aware of its power to make me feel I've been productive when really I've simply reorganized my iTunes library for the fifth time that day. With a force like Wikipedia, it's hard to feel that there could be any wrong in it. But nonetheless, I know when I'm addicted.
So in the imminent future, I will be initiating a new ritual: for one day a week, I shall forego all computer use, cell phone use, and use of any other contraption that might make me reachable or distracted or otherwise disengaged from my own life. Instead, I'll spend more time with Jonathan Strange, the wise words of Barry Lopez, or just plain take a walk.
I've yet to think of a suitable name for this ritual, or to choose a specific day. But the day is nigh.
The time, as always, is at hand.

4th Time Around

2006-06-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

It was a good day to work on the summer mix. Work ended early, and the heat of the afternoon fit the music like a glove. Like it or not, the corresponding weather sometimes gives me the clarity I need to make structural decisions that nothing else could have. It has been difficult to work on this mix on rainy days.
But now, at last, it's done. The dragon is slain for another few months. I'm really beginning to consider retiring, at least temporarily, from the seasonal mix process. It's become more stressful than it's worth, and I'm running out of songs. Feeling a bit like Bilbo, stretched and thin, like butter spread over too much bread. I won't go into the root of this as I've covered it in past blogs, but I definitely think a break might do me some good.
Though I hate to stop when fall is next. I love fall. We'll just see how things go, shall we?
I appreciate the comments... I really do read them and take them to heart. Sometimes you can feel infinitely strong, never questioning the meaning of what you're doing; other times you're doubting your every step, and a kind word of encouragement makes a huge difference. Really. Thank you.
And so the days roll on. Summer approaches, and I escape into books and music. There are so many great books out there, and so little time. At the moment, I'm spending a good part of each day in the rainy, romantic streets of London in the early 1800s, where faeries hold masquerade-balls nightly and bewitch the high society. Where Napoleon Buonaparte is sent nightmares by magicians in the employ of his enemy, the English. Where the days of English Magic being a thing of antiquity are coming quickly to an end.
I love this book.
I realize that both of those links encourage you to buy things, but before you accuse me, at least consider that both of them are good businesses. Powell's needs no defense, and Gorey Details is based right here in Portland as well. They're nice people. And I like their stuff.
I am feeling happier these days than I have in some time. It's a strange feeling, not one I'm terribly at home in. I certainly resist it. But there is so much to smile about. I walk to Fred Meyer everyday, crossing over the I-84 freeway, watching the trucks gliding and listening to music and enjoying the feel of the sun against my skin. I read. I look at the people, and keep walking. The trip to Freddie's has become almost ritualistic. Sometimes I have it in mind to buy some cereal, or orange juice, but more often than not I'll simply wander until I find something I want, or grow weary of the search and head home again. It's a nice walk. What more justification could I need?
And now... well, now I have time. There's no way around it. And if I'm tired of anything, it's of making statements about what I have to do now. I know what I have to do. Making grandiose declamations of purpose is counterproductive.
So there. No moral, no resolution.
Keep on keepin' on.

Cracks in the Roof

2006-05-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a while.
Like before, I found that the longer I waited, the harder it was to summon the will to write again. The pressure built up in my head, and I shied away from it more and more. This is a nasty cycle.
Funny how things work that way. Lately I've been extremely depressed and non-productive. Perhaps it was because I didn't have a job. Perhaps it was the messy end of a friendship that'd got me so mired in self-sabotage. Whatever the core reasons for my being so, I've excelled at keeping myself down. One thing feeds another; I perpetuate the darkness.
And so, there has been little to no writing.
When you are looking up at the things you'd like to fix or improve about yourself or your life (let me rephrase: when I look at these things) I am faced with so many issues and desires that I become overwhelmed and subsequently do nothing at all.
First things that come to mind: I'd like to loosen up in my awfully perfectionist habits, my tendency to think there's a right way to do everything. In doing so I would have a far easier time cutting loose creatively and feeling free to make any number of glorious mistakes, which would both do me good and no doubt lead to some good art as well.
I'd like to develop a better sense of discipline. The time I've spent without a job or any other externally imposed structure has been largely wasted; I sit in front of the computer and do nothing. I've had the experience many times of being far more focused and creative when forced to work under limits and schedules. But left to my own devices, I flounder. I'd like to change this.
And I'd like to spend more time understanding why I have the tendecies I do. Why I seem to seek out drama, situations that will keep me from being happy and creative and so on. If I have any skill, it is at finding these situations, or making them up in the absence of real ones. I am a master of keeping myself unhappy and never really looking at the fact that I'm engineering it. Instead I ascribe it to other people, the world, fate, what have you.
I look at all these things and feel overwhelmed. Where do I begin?
I know where to begin, of course: Anywhere I like. Just pick something!
It's simple enough to laugh at, and maybe that's why I never do it.
I can only change myself in small ways, and each of these changes will affect me as a whole.
But it's still hard to get started.
I did get a job, finally. So with that I feel a change in the air, and it will be the current that starts other little changes moving. The return of structure. The return of a semblance of meaning. And then I might just start writing more. And drawing more. And maybe just finding a little bit of joy in my day-to-day existence.
So what all this amounts to is that I am going to start writing more. I won't wait two weeks between entries. I don't care if it's too much for you to read. I need the practice.
I've made many mistakes in the recent past. I'm going to try to understand them, to know why I make them over and over, in hopes that I can break the patterns. Writing is not a panacea, but it is one of my tools.
It's high time I gave it the respect it deserves.

Nobody Broke Your Heart...

2006-05-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

this is for Amy.

Where has all the poetry gone?
I think back on my past and can barely recognize the person who used to be so full of wonder and romance and life. Who would write down lines of obsession and love without hesitation. I remember a time when there was some meaning in the world. When I could look at art or listen to music, or even read something beautiful, and be moved by it. A time when I felt more deeply.
But did I really feel more deeply? Am I just romanticizing the past, creating some rose-colored “good ol’ days” to reminisce about?
I feel like a shadow of myself. Who am I really? Every day I wake up and am filled with fear of doing the things that would enrich my life. The things that will actually be worth remarking upon after I die. I fill my time with false productivity and self-sabotage, staring the clock in the face, and running away in terror.
I stopped looking at the details. I stopped believing in myself, and I lost the ability to risk mistakes, lost the courage to put my heart on the page, to fearlessly express whatever modicum of truth I possessed.
There is a strange paradox here. I know one thing is true: I am more able to feel and express emotion these days than I ever have before: I cry more easily, laugh harder, and breathe deeper. This I know.
But I have also become almost entirely cut off from the parts of me that are willing to give that emotion any shape or form. I don’t write that much anymore. I never write poetry; I wouldn’t even know where to start. It’s all bogged down in thoughts. Why not just say what I am thinking? And who cares what I am thinking? Then there are thoughts of structure, of the “rules.”
I must have died. How did it happen? Whatever my original intentions, I have become truly lost.
I can still see the world of beauty. I know it exists. I know what it looks and smells like. But I feel like an observer, unable to really participate in it.
The world of poetry and life and love is all around me, and when I read the lines all I can think of is how much more it would have meant to me in years past. How I used to feel able to inspire beauty in others. Now I cannot even inspire it in myself, nor muster the courage to try to make it.
That Elliott Smith song keeps running through my mind. Everything means nothing to me…everything means nothing to me...
Sometimes I cry, and yet never do I turn these moments of true emotion into any sort of art. They are lost. It’s such a selfish way to lose, the way I lose these wasted blues…
Sick to death of this. Sick of feeling afraid to get out of bed each day, of preferring to turn over and hide in dreams until the screaming of the schoolchildren across the street force me to get up.
My life becomes nothing more than a collection of lyrics, and I look around for someone to take me out for drinks or to call and just help me shut off my mind.
I fear creating petty, mediocre art. Afraid enough that I never do anything anymore. When did I become so tired and jaded? All the time in the world is at my fingertips, and I waste it.
I’m writing this to give the sickness a name. To bring it into the light.
So I can start to come back to life.
It is said that if you bring forth what is inside you, it will save you. Alternately, if you don’t bring forth what’s inside you, the same things will destroy you.

I bought a book of poetry tonight. Maybe it will wake me up again. Maybe it will be the pebble that starts an avalanche.

Maybe everything’s not lost.

-----------------------------------

You gave me stormy weather
with just the shadow of your hand
across my face.
You gave me the cold, the distance,
the bitter midnight coffee
among empty tables

It always started raining
in the middle of the movie,
and waiting amid the petals
af the flower I brought you: a spider.

I think you knew it was there
and enjoyed the awkward moment.
I always forgot the umbrella
when I went to pick you up,
the restaurant was always crowded
and on the corners they were hawking war.

I was a tango lyric
to your indifferent tune.

~ julio cortázar

Catching Signals That Sound in the Dark

2006-04-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

There is a contradiction here somewhere, see if you can spot it.
What started out as a simple journey to Target to use up the last of a gift card a friend had given me turned into much, much more.
I rode along the bike path overlooking I-205, all the cars and trucks gliding along down the hill from me. Nick Drake sang softly to me. Dandelions dotted the path on both sides, and above me, the most incredibly blue sky. A perfect day for riding.
I got to Target and looked for Cadbury eggs. No luck. People seem to swarm upon stores before Easter is even past to claim them all... ah well. I finished my other business in the store and returned outside. It is curious how stores like Target, Circuit City and the like never have bike racks in front of them. I guess they assume no one rides to such places. On one occasion this gave me reason to actually take Lyra inside a Circuit City with me, which was fun. She usually gets left outside; I could feel her excitement.
I rode away from Target and back along the I-205 path. The album was progressing, and I rode back towards home. When I reached the exit, I decided to try exploring a bit rather than head straight home. I knew there was supposed to be a cemetary somewhere around there, the Willamette National if I remember right. Probably a military graveyard like the one seen in Harold and Maude, or the one where my grandfather was buried. Rows upon rows of identical white markers, stretching out forever. I wanted somewhere to sit in the shade and read. A friend had recently bought me a copy of Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, and I had become quite taken with it.
The road opened up to the right, and all I knew was that this was the general direction... I rode a ways and the path began to wind uphill... always off to my right were trails leading into what looked like paths through woods. I asked a man waiting for the bus which way the cemetary was. His English was poor but he repeated 'cemetary' back to me and gestured up the hill a ways. I thanked him and kept on.
The hill grew steeper and I shifted gears and kept pedaling, starting to sweat. There were trees everywhere, I felt as if I were nearing a forest. On my left I saw a large church. I kept riding, the road winding around and around, and then I found it. Or at least, I found something.
Lincoln Memorial Park was not what I had been searching for. But there it was, a cemetary built into the hillside itself, cement paths winding themselves among the tombstones and trees, going up up up. I rode and rode, climbing. It went on for what seemed like an eternity, but I know it felt that way simply because it was so steep.
Halfway up the hill I passed their mausoleum, a giant white building. I stopped inside for a moment, and left almost immediately; the air smelled dead and dank. Stale. I wanted to feel life today.
I kept riding up, and finally got near the point where I saw no more hill rising above me. I was almost to the top.
When I finally got there, I found a gazebo-like structure, a perfect resting place. There were plots and graves even up here, and countless trees and squirrels and insects. I parked Lyra by one column and sat down at the opposing one, taking off my pack and pulling out the book.
I read, and wrote, and breathed. It felt so peaceful be up so high, with a clear view of most of the city stretching out before me. There was no one around for miles in each direction. I read and looked around and reflected. I am grateful that more people don't choose to take comfort in the serenity of graveyards. There was nowhere else I could have been so completely, wonderfully alone.
Life came at me and overwhelmed me. Maybe it was reading Narcissus and Goldmund, maybe it was the sound of the wind in the trees. But I felt life filling me up, and I felt joyous and calm and utterly present. I wrote a few pages, and sat leaning against the column, receiving everything and marveling that life was so impossibly infinite and wondrous.
You see, for the last several weeks I've been feeling extremely disconnected from real life, giving in to excess time on the MacBook Pro and texting on my cell phone. I've felt more and more cut off from myself and my ability to breathe and speak truth.
When I sat there today, it came flooding back upon me like a great wave. Life! I am here. I'm reading a book. I like the trees and the quiet. How fucking wondrous it is to be alive.
Before I left I wrote a note to myself, asking how I might be able to retain this sense of calm and clarity when in my day-to-day life, how to remember to just be, and be amazed. I didn't have an answer.
But having felt it so strongly, I know that I will not forget it.
I put my things away and suited up for the ride home. Clicked on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and set out. The way up had been an excruciating uphill climb.
The way home felt like flying.

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
And when we meet on a cloud
I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

Turn on the Bright Lights

2006-04-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

I stand at a point in my life where the next step I take can be in any direction. I can do whatever I please. Contemplate a career change, a new house to live in. I can take the time to ask myself: What do you want to do now? Of course, I could fall back on everything I’ve done before. I’ve become quite proficient at mindlessly steaming milk and smiling at people I hate. I can sleepwalk through coffee jobs. It’s become automatic. I can do it.
But I could also do something new.
I stood in the shower this morning and felt overwhelmed. Flooded with thoughts. Am I not terrified? Not full of glossy resolutions and slick, streamlined blogs? I realize I spend a lot of time attempting to present myself as being very cohesive and together. Yet now more than ever it feels foolish to even try. It keeps me from trying anything new. There’s no room for falls and experimentation. I whittle each movement down to a presentation that has a message, a question, a bit of wisdom. Fuck that! I have no idea what to do now.
It frustrates me how there will be times when you are filled with ideas for things to do and write and try and be, and then, almost as quickly as they came, they are gone. Moreover, they always come at times when you’re not able to capture them. Like in the shower this morning. I sat down at my computer again and whoosh, almost entirely gone. I struggled to get down what I remembered. Things always come to me at inopportune times, like when I’m riding my bicycle and listening to my iPod, or when I’m gazing happily at the stage watching a show. Can they be analyzed, these varying moments that bring such possibility?
The other day I lay on my back in Ladd Circle looking at the sky, brilliantly blue and speckled with clouds (what kind of clouds are they? It occurs to me that I cannot name almost anything in nature. Yet I am semi-encyclopedic in my knowledge of music. This is wrong), and I felt really small. Not in a bad way, just small. As if looking up at the overwhelming hugeness of the sky was simply giving me proper perspective again. Things seemed to not matter so much.
Could I not take this moment in my life, where I am bound by nothing, and really invest the time to take a fresh, intelligent step? To re-think everything I’ve valued and done so far? Isn’t every moment good for that, and aren’t I just being lazy and simplistic by needing such a moment to ask myself what the hell I’m doing?
Well, yes.
Nonetheless, that’s where I find myself. Asking a lot of questions and feeling afraid to try and answer them. Maybe it’s simply the overwhelming silence, the space afforded by having no job and no obligations, that has filled me with such terror. I have all the time in the world to do….what?
I could snap into action tomorrow and find some job that I love. Shannon put forth that I’d do well as a music supervisor. It sounds like a dream job, but for the fact that I have no contacts in this town or any other, only an obsessive love of listening to and collecting music coupled with a high-speed internet connection.
But I could find something if I set myself to it. I could find some job that didn’t fill me with disgust and drain my energy and make me feel more and more isolated from my fellow man. Some job that would cause me to look back on the past year of my life and think did that really happen? Did I really put up with that for so long?
I could do it. And I could take the time to learn the names of things. Of clouds and trees and that amazing dark blue bird I saw arching its wings majestically as I rode along the Eastbank Esplanade last week.
I could do all these things.
But resolutions are bunk. The future is unknown and undetermined, or so I believe. But that’s just one more question I can ask myself. It’s a fucking mess, and that’s just how things are most of the time.
Don’t get the impression that I’m pessimistic or overly worried. Really, I’m just musing aloud. I just watered my little basil and garlic plants that Shannon gave me, and put the kettle on. The garlic has grown visibly just in the last few days. It makes me smile.
Spring is here. The robins are returning to the world. I am in love.
It’s up to me now.

Dying Like a Day

2006-03-24T19:47:00.000-08:00

Taped onto one of the shelves on my desk is a strip of paper which has the following words typed on it: Writing makes you feel better. It was given to me by my friends Staci and Solon, who had made several copies of it to keep as general reminders, free to whomever needed one. I took one home after my last visit with them.
How true it is. Miraculously, the simple setting down of words, as with the speaking of one's feelings, has such a therapeutic effect. Nothing is changed or fixed, but just getting it out does so much.
Today I have been struggling against time, willing the clocks to stop, and growing more and more sad as I futilely watch the day slip through my fingers. I feel this every day, and yet I find that it's more intense when I'm actually using my time well. I have been so productive today! I argue. Why cannot time slow down for these moments? When I waste my time, I hardly notice the end of the day approaching. But when I have lived, when I have done all I could do, it always makes me sad. I start to slow down. The coffee has long since worn off, the light starts to fade. The energy, the will drains out of me. Perhaps it's simply the passing of my peak hours that brings me down. I feel most creative and alive between nine a.m. and noon. Once it's past, I cannot help but feel diminished.
But that's no reason to let it stop me entirely. I would do well to learn to work with these feelings, not futilely rail against them. I just refuse to accept the inevitable passing of that part of the day, and that part of me that lives in it. I can create and function for the afternoon and night if I just readjust my expectations and intentions. Mornings are good for writing and listening to pop music (especially Elephant 6 stuff). Afternoons are good for reading and drinking tea and relaxing. Evenings make me want to listen to Low, drink Papio, and perhaps do a bit more writing. These are all good things.
But I still have the desire to retain that morning feeling, that fresh, zealous attitude, and so I despair everytime I am unable to keep it.
So the good days seem to fly by, the mornings of infinite possibility and joy, and the down times seem to last forever. I still get sad, and each passing morning feels like a tiny death. I can't stop it.
So I write it down. The clock still counts off the seconds, the day wanes.
But writing does make you feel better. It's true.

Fuck Safeway

2006-03-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

Safeway truly is one of the outposts of hell. You can tell just by looking at it, even from the outside. There is, after all, a giant red 'S' guarding the front gates...
You enter and immediately feel your soul being bombarded by the tacky cardboard displays and condescending banal sales pitches blaring out through the speakers, sandwiched between some of the worst songs you never hoped to hear again. They seem to specialize in mid-90s soft rock, usually Phil Collins or Rick Astley or some other sucker of Satan's cock, as Bill Hicks would say. Really. Can anyone actually stand it? Are Safeway regulars so fucking inundated with noise and ads and shitty music that they don't notice it anymore?
I went in with the simple intention of buying some burn ointment. I was sealing a letter with wax not long before and burnt my finger on the lighter, in my determination not to touch the wax itself. I didn't have anything in my bathroom, of course, so I reluctantly headed out the door and drove off.
I scanned the Pain Relief and First Aid aisles. Row after row of Ibuprofen and Alleve and fuck-all knows what else. Itch relief. Cracked skin relief. Relief for nearly every possible ailment imaginable... except burns. I blinked. I looked again, sure I was missing it. Nothing. I asked for help and the guy started looking feebly through the rows, just as I had, while meekly asking me about the nature of the burn. Was it serious? Did I really need some ointment for it? No, I told him, it's not dire, but it hurts and I would certainly like to put something on it. Oh and did I mention that I don't have to justify to you why I want to put burn cream on, you fucking moron? Do I need to have a third-degree burn before you'll magically produce something from your back pocket? Christ. What are you trying to gauge with these inane questions about the state of my finger? I guess he felt the need to make conversation to stall the inevitable.
He suggested Benadryl in the end, it being useful for burns among other things. I wanted to murder the guy. But I thanked him and turned away any further assistance so he would leave, and then picked up the Benadryl and walked away from the First Aid section.
Goddamnit. I had been in such a good mood earlier.
The soulless, vapid energy of the place was getting to me, so I moved to the aisle with all the cookies and such and looked for something sweet to buy. Nutter Butters perhaps. I scanned the different cookies, their plastic sheen glistening in the fluorescence like tiny idols. Nothing appealed to me enough to actually pick up. But I began fiddling with the Benadryl box. My finger was still red and hurting. I opened it and unscrewed it and put a bit on the burn, which felt nice. I was careful not to crease the tube. I capped it and closed up the box again. I am thankful I didn't have to break any seals to open it. My finger felt a little better, and I walked the Benadryl back to its shelf and put it back with all the other forms of relief. That cheered me up a little.
But I still wanted something for my sweet tooth.
Thankfully, it's the right time of year for this sort of thing. I walked to the end of the store and found some Cadbury eggs, paid for them, and headed out into the night air.
Fuck that place. I'll take Winco anyday. The people who shop there may be terrifying, but at least there's no Michael Bolton playing.

Beware the Ides of March

2006-03-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

I’ve thrown out all my old attempts at updating and written them off to being too old, left to sit too long. I don’t really care anymore to make this all that spectacular. I have to write something, or I’ll suffocate. I have been such an emotional mess the past month, and gotten almost nothing done. I’ve been caught up in an extremely intense relationship, which now finds itself finally being laid to rest. I can feel it below the ground. The earth is still soft. I felt the end coming and coming and it kept going up and down and threatening to break into something beautiful, but I knew it wouldn’t. I feel like I’ve tried really hard to grow and listen (and hear) things that were said to me, and yet I always fell short of doing so. I always shouldered the blame; I always took it all on myself. Sometimes I think that I’m doing so well, and then I just lose it entirely. I feel that in many ways I have been wrong, been unfair or unkind or simply not listened. But I am trying. I am trying so hard to hear.
Yet time and time again, I fail.
I am so very tired of this.
I have so many things to do. I’ve made a list of them all, which just stretches before me like a life sentence. I feel overwhelmed and stretched thin enough to break and I am just so, so tired. I need to take better care of myself. I am emotionally and physically exhausted.

I will try to update more, for those of you who read this. I’m sorry it’s been so long.

But enough of “the fight,” enough “you and I,” enough of “prevail” or “walk in the light.” While the angels stand by I get high as a kite. I'm too tired to smile or know that I'm right. Am I right? And all our best-laid plans, they crumbled in our hands. ~Okkervil River