Many things aren't written to be read. Rather, it's the process of writing that edifies. For me, it's sometimes been the ear that wasn't around to listen. It helps to talk your way through some things to reach a conclusion, however indefinite. Sometimes I write to remember. It's not that I'll remember by going back to read what I've written, but it somehow solidifies the product in my mind.

Something I've lost sight of, especially in the past few years is effort.
It's such a simple thing on the outside, but it can be very hard to tackle. Looking back, I realize I would often run away from putting in effort on things because when you try, you feel like you have something to lose. What I'm understanding now is that when you don't try, you don't have anything to gain. And when I look back at myself as a young boy, I see a person who gave everything his all and did a phenomenal job. At some point, I started to look back instead of forward and I saw things I had done as being better than I could recreate which caused me to view new tasks as daunting. Anxiety is crippling. Everything I've done in at least the last ten years has been half-assed because I've been afraid my absolute best won't be the best.

The truth is, I'll never know that I can't get further if I don't try!

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music:Birds outside my window

<->something I can never have<->

I really have to admit that I think I'm depressed. I think negatively far too often. I constantly feel nostalgic for times long gone and worry that happiness is unattainable. I know logically that it is, and I hope I never see a time when I no longer hold that logic in view. Knowing that I can be happy keeps me from drowning, but it sure feels like a long road to it. The more I try, the harder it is. Yet, I'll look back nostalgically on this time in my life at a later day, longing for the happiness and simplicity of it.
So what's the cure? I'd love to talk to somebody that can help guide me. I don't want pills. I don't want religion. I don't want to pay a fool for bad advice. I wish I could turn this feeling around.
I hate updating this with things that are going to bring down whoever reads it. Sorry reader.

Current Mood: numb
Current Music:disassociative

<->something I can never have<->

What a drag it is getting old...
22


Somebody far older than me says they aren't happy about their birthday and being another year older.
As a kid, I remember thinking, "why? birthdays are great fun"


As a teen, I remember anxiously awaiting the next number that awaited me. It was always cooler to be a year or two older.
My first, second, and third years of adulthood passed me by with the furiousity of a hurricane.

Today, I feel that first sentence. It's not actually about the number. It's not so much about feeling aches and pains or worry of needed doctor visits and medications. It's about being a huge step closer to death. Every second you live, the gap between now and death is shrinking. Each second becomes a larger percentage of the little time you have left. And worse than anything else, a birthday, much like new years, reminds us of how little we've accomplished over the last year compared to what we think we should have and could have achieved. A gap that, unlike with new years, continually grows with each passing birth date.

Current Mood: drained

<->something I can never have<->

What's new pussycat?
So I feel in love with What's New Pussycat by Tom Jones. I love the instrumentation. And it's in 3/4. 3/4 and I are friends. I tend to write about as much in 3/4 as I do in 4/4. I don't know why, but 3/4 just feels like it flows so well. 4/4 seems steady or to chug along. Many people seem to view 3/4 as silly or hokey. I view 2/4 that way. If ever I get around to recording an album of my songs, I think no less than 30% of it will be in 3/4. I can't think of any album off the top of my head that has that much 3/4 usage in it. In fact, I can't think of an album I have with more than two tracks in 3/4. Anyhow, I ought to record some stuff soon. Lipstick Pistol is going back to the studio one more time for mixing (re-mixing) and I plan on talking to the owner about striking up a mutually beneficial deal. Whereas, when he needs a bassist for a track on some singer-songwriter's album, he can call me and have me play. Instead of paying me in cash for the session, which is how the songwriter pays the studio for hired help, he could pay me in studio time. That way, for each track that he gets paid $100 by the songwriter for hiring a studio player, instead of passing along $50-75 of that to me, he can keep it and give me two or three hours of studio time instead. Songwriter gets a bass track. Studio owner/producer gets paid. I get experience and time to use on my own projects.

I really, really want to start working on my own stuff. Perhaps I'm becoming narcissistic. I won't say that I'm tired of working for others or that I'm tired of helping complete other people's visions, but that it isn't my main objective anymore. I feel like I've got enough stuff. Enough good ideas and know how, along with a good enough ear, to make something that I'll be really proud of. I've been sitting on a lot of ideas for so long and they never, ever fit the bands/projects that I'm involved in. And instead of starting a band around my songs, I just want to record them. Recording gives more freedom to each song than a band scenario does, plus I'm really not interested in creating a "band" around my music. I guess I view my future recording project more through the eyes of a jazz composer than through the eyes of a rock band or singer-songwriter or anybody else that wants to get out and share the music in a live version. It's all about recording perfection to me. Perhaps I'll play some of it here or there with different people, doing different takes or arrangements of the songs, but I want the recorded tracks to stand alone.

...

Work is miserable. One band I'm in is miserable. Another is mediocre. One is good. I have an abcessed tooth. Too much drama and stress. I had a migraine recently because of it all and I've had a few scares of developing another migraine and it just really sucks. There are a lot more things in my life right now that I want done and gone than those that I want to keep. I'm hoping it all passes soon, because my day to day attitude has just been getting more and more malicious and resentful.

Today is the first day in a while that I've talked about anything positive. Of course, the positives involve getting out of nearly every aspect of my life and changing in a direction that is more suitable. In short, I want to start working for my aspirations. I want to complete my aural visions and I want to gain experience with session/studio work.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music:Tom Jones:What's New Pussycat?

<->something I can never have<->

So my dad is leaving to go to Michigan to live with his brother for a time because he can't find work around here. He wants to move to Wisconsin and get a job soon after. He's been talking about it for a while now, but I guess I figured he'd find work here and he wouldn't have to move. I hate the idea of him moving to Wisconsin because I don't know anybody there and I know I would never go visit him. I don't often visit him now. Nor do I often call or email him, but at least I can and do every now and again. The idea of never going to see him again really bothers me. I know I could go visit, but I just simply won't. I love my dad and I'd like to see him and more than that, I don't want him to think I don't care about him if he moves and I never visit.
I feel like next week I'll be his age and he'll be an old man, nearing his death bed. I hate that time goes so fast..

Current Mood: sort of sad
Current Music:The Beatles-Rubber Soul:Girl

<->something I can never have<->

I think that sometimes I'm scared to push myself intellectually for fear of finding my limitations. It's easier to go through life blinded from your shortcomings, not knowing where the walls are, feeling free and uninhibited. A cat with a sock on it's head won't go exploring. I'm afraid. I idle.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music:My bass

<->something I can never have<->

It's been almost three months since I last wrote. That's the longest I've ever gone without writing in here. I really haven't felt like it. In fact, I'm only writing right now because I'm bored out of my mind and I have nobody to talk to. Maybe I am done with this journal finally. Time will tell, I guess.

Current Mood: bored
Current Music:Elsiane-Hybrid:Mend

<->something I can never have<->

Where do we go from here?
I really didn't get to finish my thoughts on the last update because I realized I was about to be late for work. Essentially though, as I find myself having more and more troubles, I wonder, how did it come to this? Why am I where I am and how do I change things? The only answer I can come up with as to why I am where I am is that I went through extremely rough times that seemed to never end and somewhere along the way, it got the best of me and I haven't found my way out.
I worry a lot. I think perhaps I've got problems with anxiety. Anxiety may be the root of my procrastination. Procrastination brings more problems and more worries. One of the things I worry about constantly is dying. I can't even drive under a bridge without the thought of it crushing down on me entering my mind. I've written before that I think of death quite a lot, wheather I'm happy or unhappy. The difference is acceptance. When I'm happy, I can accept death as a neccissary part of living and be okay with it whenever it should happen. When I'm unhappy, I'm consumed with worry of my death preceeding happiness. So my answer seems simple, when I become happy again my problems will go away. But where to start? Procrastination is probably the easiest thing to get under wraps and it makes me feel good when I accomplish something, no matter how small.
It seems like a paradoxical situation, but I've triumphed through something similiar when I had OCD really bad and had to shower again by the time my hair was mostly dry. I felt nasty within an hour of getting out because my skin would overcompensate for my constant showers drying it out. It's hard to get out of something like that, but I've done it once and I think I can do it again.

Current Mood: numb
Current Music:Alan Parsons Project-I Robot:Games People Play

<->I just want || something I can never have<->

I'm not voting today. Instead, I am in an unsurprising bout of apathy, wherein I allow what will happen to happen without exerting my involvement, same as my everyday life.
I think my everyday reliance on apathy comes from when I used it as a coping method. When I was out of a job, a car, school, money, and food, what else can you say but, "Fuck it."

Current Mood: apathetic
Current Music:U2-Achtung Baby:One

<->something I can never have<->

What a drag it is getting old
I'm so stuck on the beauty of the harmonized vocal melody in The Beatles' If I Fell.
I found myself looking back and remembering times past. Memory is a very strange thing. Why do you remember certain things and not others? Especially going back to early childhood memories, I tend to remember every single detail about a particular scene in my life. I remember all 5 senses and even what I was thinking. But I can't remember an hour or day before or after these few memories. Often, these memories seem insignificant, like catching a turtle on a vaction and having it run away when we were eating breakfast, or like the time when I accidently chipped a piece of cement off the stairs in my back yard or trading baseball cards with my baby sitter. I do understand now why elderly people will tell stories like this. If it's all you've got, it's all you've got and you don't want to let go of any memories of a time so long ago in your life. It's almost as though memory serves as justification of age. If you can't remember anything from the last 8 years, how can you be sure you were there?

I realized last night that I only write in here when I have something I want to say, but nobody to say it to. How can so many lonely people feel alone? When will the procrastinator change his behaviour? When will an indecisive soul decide to make a decision?

I've been thinking very recently about self improvement. Usually, I would say that I know me best and I can fix my problems by myself. When I see some of the things I do, I want to change them, but I never take a step towards change. I don't want to procrastinate about big things like filing taxes, getting insurance, seeing a dentist, getting a cell phone battery, etc. I don't want to procrastinate about little things like making a phone call to cancel a credit card or make a call to reinstate my password on my bank's website or set up direct deposit at my work. I don't want to live in a cluttered, dirty, nasty apartment or drive a similar vehicle. I seem to make the smallest tasks out to be gigantic, daunting obstacles. I read a little bit on Wikipedia about procrastination. It made me consider that I may have some problems I've never really thought about. I want to get a self help book targeted at procrastination. But will I ever read it?
You know, another thing that bothers me about myself is something that's personal and you probably don't want to hear about...masturbating too much. It's a habit for me. It's practically unenjoyable most of the time. Out of habit, every day/night, almost always when I'm not even horny, I start browsing the internet for porn so I can rub one out and be done with it. To get it out of the way so to speak. It's stupid and a waste of time, but I can't seem to break the habit.
Anyways, I want to fix some things about myself because I don't like the way my life is going. I'm not happy and I don't think I've been setting myself up very well to attain happiness in the future.

Fifth day in a row with a stiff neck. I'm starting to wonder what's wrong.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music:Tool-Lateralus:The Patient

<->something I can never have<->

Can I graduate?
Man...music and lyrics hit me so hard.
I can't explain.
When I say I want to leave...
I mean it on so many levels.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music:The Beatles-Sgt, Peppers...:A Day in the Life

<->something I can never have<->

So...the topic of this entry is related to politics, but I'm not aiming to promote any candidate with this. I read the news today, oh boy. John McCain was accusing Barack Obama of being insensitive to poor folk because he doesn't support a three month summer suspension of federal gas tax, which would save the average gas consumer about 18.4 cents per gallon and take billions of dollars away from mass transit and highway (re)construction. He says it will provide a neccessary break for the lower class, who "tend to have older cars that guzzle more gas." I wish everybody was able to see the clear flaws in this plan and McCain's statement as a whole.
First, poor folk don't drive cars. They ride buses, bikes, and sneakers. Whether Obama is or is not insensitive and out of touch with the lower class, it's blantantly obvious that John McCain is.
18.4 cents/gal will not give anybody much of a break when gas is still $4-5/gal.
It's true that many lower middle class individuals drive older cars that guzzle gas. That is indeed the case with my car, but 18.4 cents/gal will not give anybody much of a break when gas is $4-5/gal. I think wealthy folk are more likely to drive fuel inefficient vehicles like large SUVs and trucks (the bigger, the better), all of which continue to be popular choices for those who can afford them, despite record gas prices. So while it may bring my gas bill down slightly, it will more significantly effect the owner of an H3 Hummer who only gets 10 mpg.
Now, take a moment to consider how enormously irresponsible an idea it is to take money from our nation's roads to save people privileged enough to afford a car and gas, a small amount of money, providing an excuse to drive even more.

This proposed "gas tax holiday" is nothing more than another scheme by a conservative to give breaks to the wealthy/privileged with the guise of helping the underdog.

Current Mood: achey
Current Music:Michael Jackson-Thriller:Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'

<->something I can never have<->

Funny to think how the time gets away
Hello again.
Seems like forever between now and then.


This song is sooo beautiful.

I'm really tempted to get in my car for a drive to Florence. I have been all day. I can't remember a time when Lexington felt welcoming. I feel lonely down here. I feel like I've grown up and all I have is myself and my job to pay for my bills and that's it.
I feel like I don't have a lot in common with people around my age that are in college. I was walking around campus last weekend to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club play and I felt just as akward there as I did walking around NKU with my dad when he first enrolled, while I was still in high school. I don't know that it'd be accurate to say I'm in a different place in life, but definitely on a different course.
I have a crick in my neck.
I don't know where I am in life. I don't know which way to go, so I'm idling.

I did buy a mandolin, darbuka, and slide whistle though :)

Current Mood: okay
Current Music:Dave Matthews Band-Stand Up:Stolen Away on 55th & 3rd

<->something I can never have<->

Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Man, I miss the late 90s. Real bad.
It feels like we (my age group) owned the late 90s. Like, I remember when I could believe in alternative rock music. I could believe in mainstream radio. It's all in the music for me...
eve 6
new radicals
3eb
lit
splender
garbage
no doubt
blessed union of souls
sugar ray
bare naked ladies
aaliyah
notorious big
tupac
filter
harvey danger
counting crows
goo goo dolls
better than ezra
matchbox 20
eagle eye cherry
bone thugs n harmony

Anybody feel me on this? I miss being able to turn on the pop radio station and blissfully sing along for hours and hours to excellent music. I know all the change didn't take place entirely in the radio or music trends. I'm aware that part of it is my cynicism towards most commerical music and rock in particular. I could go to school and sing flagpole sitta with friends in sixth grade. Nowadays, I just don't find myself moved by most of what my friends listen to/hear on the radio. I'm not blaming the music. I think the problem is that I can't find my way into a song unless there's something new to me and I've heard so much that it's rare for pop music to get my attention anymore. My ears aren't the virgin ears I had in the late 90s when I listened to secular pop music for the first time. I miss that very much.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music:Lit-A Place in the Sun:Zip-Lock

<->something I can never have<->

I just saw an ad on the tele for eharmony where a couple boasted that they'd been together for a year and a half. I used to think a year was a really long time and that if a couple could last a year, they could last two, and two could last three and so on. After having relationships end that have lasted longer than a year and seeing so many of my friends be partners for upwards in three or four years and then part, I say, "what's a year?"
My grandparents were having marital problems recently. When I was younger, I wanted very badly to have it all, a wife for life, children, home, etc. I question now though, whether or not humans are meant to mate for life. I can't think of any other animals that mate for life. I've heard of them mating monogamously for a season or so, but not for life. When I think of the life a child, I realize the importance of a healthy family life. Where is a child going to learn love, but from his/her parents? I similarly feel that a child can learn to accept a loss and move on from their parents. I feel like a child whos parents fall out of love with each other can still learn of love if the parents don't instead teach hate, bitterness and cynicism. What I'm getting at is that my views on love have changed. I don't know that love was meant to be 'ever after'. I don't think I could ever honestly agree to love somebody through thick and though thin, etc, etc. It's not about good times or hard times, but that people change and just as two can grow together, they can grow apart. I don't think love is forever, at least in that way. Some love is forever though, like the love of family (generally) and anybody that you have really cared for. I don't think it's possible to not care about somebody that you've been so close to, even if you grow apart. I still care very much for and want the best for the two people I loved through different times in my life even though I haven't been "in love" in quite a long time. I love friends, past and present, the same way as past lovers. Even if I don't see them or talk to them much, I hope their lives are going well and they get what they need from it.
Back on topic though, I think love comes and goes, often inconviently for one party, but that's the way it is and there's no sense trying to stop or start the inevitable. In past relationships, my focus has been on lasting and staying in love/loved. I think my next relationship will be on true feelings of love alone. Now, if only it wouldn't take several more years for me to find somebody who feels the same and believes in honest expression of emotions.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music:Yeah Yeah Yeahs-Fever to Tell:Pin

<->something I can never have<->

Let me stand next to your fire
So this weekend has been pretty damn good. Let's see...
Wednesday night I jammed with Will and Buckner (guitar) until the wee hours of the morning
Thursday I jamed with Will and Buckner into the wee hours of the morning.
Friday I jammed with Eric, Luke (guitar, mandolin), and Joe (guitar, banjo) for a bit, then to Bruce's place to jam for the first time. He's a pretty good guitar player.
Saturday, I'm going to Will's again to jam with him and Buckner, then to practice with Eric, Luke, Joe, and Buddy (hand drums) for a bit before playing a show at CG with them. Charlie's going to be playing after us and though he planned on playing solo, I wouldn't be surprised to be called up to play with him.
Next weekend is going to be filled with playing with Josh and Nate.
The weekend after that, Bruce, Cliff's(saxophonist from work) band, and WIll and Buckner.
It's pretty awesome staying this busy with playing. Will, Buckner, and I have decided to officially start a trio/quartet. A friend of ours, Deanna, who sings and plays a lot of instruments half way will likely be involved in the majority of things. We already for the most part worked our way through Thanx Dub by Sumblime, Mr. Big Stuff by Jean Knight, Have a Cigar by Pink Floyd, and The Wanton Song by Led Zeppelin, in about an hour. Seems very promising. Cliff, a sax player from my work, wants me to sit in with his jazz band some time and maybe even start another band. 'Course I'm still playing with Charlie and Keith. I'm not sure what will come of this Bruce fella. Perhaps a blues band? Things are coming 'round for me finally...or at least they seem to be. I don't have any plans to continue playing with Eric....I think I had enough of that in The Sepia Tones. He wants to start a band and include me, but he's no where near good enough at anything to be as controlling as he is in a band structure. Yep, I'm just kind of rambling. I can't wait for Josh to come down here and jam with Will and I and maybe, hopefully, Buckner too.

Current Mood: good
Current Music:The Jimi Hendrix Experience-Are You Experienced?:Fire

<->something I can never have<->

I've been wanting to write in here for a long time now. 3:40 in the morning is not the time for that though.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music:Estelle-Shine:Wait a Minute (Just a Touch)

<->something I can never have<->

She only loves in stereo
On my mind:

Brooks is going to be back in the states April 1st :)

The Fratellis are awesome!

Quite a lot of mexicans at my work "quit" after it was found out that they were illegal. Illegal? Illegal to work and pay bills and put food on your family's plate and a roof over everybody's head? Okay, the United States needs to revise immigration laws and/or help countries that are less fortunate (instead of waging a war), especially if the country happens to be right next door and you don't want any of them slipping in. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in Mexico. I don't think I "deserve" my American citizenship any more than anybody else simply because my parent's parent's parent's parent's (or there about?) came here freely. It's been on my mind all day how it would feel to be in their shoes. You're born into a country that you have no control over. That country doesn't offer a lot of opportunity, so you "jump" the border to find better work and a better life. The "land of opportunity" is a place where you can't truly be yourself. You are forced to lie constantly to protect your identity and there's always the thought looming over your head that some day you'll be found out and have to start all over again in Mexico.
I guess I feel most bad about this guy, my friend, Jose, whom I feel I can really relate to. He's a really hard worker, showed up to work every day. The guy has a second job on top of working 50 hours a week. I'm sure he's gone through just as many shitty jobs as me, if not more. He finally finds a job at Amazon that's actually pretty good--a place where they not only notice hard work, but appreciate it and recognize you for it. He worked there for about 5 or 6 months and got hired on by the company about a month ago. Two days ago, everything he worked for, (the fulltime position, respect of his peers and managers, etc) was taken from him. People said, hopefully, that he'll find another job. Well yeah, that's true. But it's not likely to be as good a job and he'll still have to earn everything he worked so hard for at Amazon at a new place, where they might not care how well he works.
On a related note, if you say something racist to me and aren't just joking, I will probably lose all respect for you. I get so sick of people telling me negative things about other enthnicities, especially Mexicans coming to the US. Nobody has a supreme right to any piece of land, no matter how far back you can trace "ownership". We're all humans and we ought to start acting like it. Claiming you deserve a country and others don't, when you had nothing to do with shaping said country, is as foolish as any heir to fortune feeling entitled and deserving of it any more so than any man with the same first name.
That was long, and now I'm done.

Current Mood: restless
Current Music:The Cure-Boys Don't Cry:Boys Don't Dry

<->something I can never have<->

Gravity wants to bring me down
I understand why people "find God" and religion. When your brother is in Iraq for another several months and your sister finds a lump in her breast that may or may not be cancer, you feel pretty fucking helpless and everybody wants to feel like they can shape the scenario they're in either by praying or karma or something else.
I can't fool myself into believing in a higher power just for sake of ease in dealing with troubling circumstances though, so I try my best not to think about those things. I tell myself everything will be okay, because it probably will. I mean, what kind of fucked up mess would that be if I lost both my brother and sister?

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music:John Legend-Once Again:Coming Home

<->something I can never have<->

Is it safe to clean an apple with rubbing alcohol?
The weather is so lovely out today :) I walked to the laudramat and people were outside and people in their cars had their windows down. I don't know why, but that makes me smile when I hear what other people are listening to. Especially in my neighborhood, where you may hear just about anything.
I've been finding so much good music lately :) It seems like I go back and forth with writing and listening. For weeks or months at a time, I'll search out incredible new music and soak it all up and then I'll go into a phase of profuse writing. After a while of either I worry about not finding any new music or not writing anything, but it always works out and I catch up on the other :)

Current Mood: happy
Current Music:Deemi-Soundtrack of my Life:Soundtrack of my Life

<->something I can never have<->