art/life

I fly a starship across the universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again.

Way over yonder in the minor key

I can't think of a good opening to this right now. Reminds me of my years of writing papers for school... I always had the most trouble with the opening paragraph and the closing paragraph. I suppose waiting until 10 pm the night before due date could have had something to do with it, but strangely enough, my paper-writing methods parallel the way I live. Beginnings are awkward and forced, endings are short and rather inconclusive, often just sort of fading out, and the entire affair is put off until the last possible moment so that the final result is a hastily-assembled sloppy bag o'shit that stresses me out more than it should. This applies to people, work, school, everything.

Someone asked me the other day if I miss text-messaging. What a ridiculous thing to think about! Missing something like that; an intangible, mindless, and unnecessary thing. It's not a hobby, for chrissakes. You miss your old best friend or your long-dead dog or playing the piano or the coin/comic book collection your parents threw away when you went off to college. You know, things that mean a lot to you emotionally. Not text-messaging. Yes, there are times when I would like to use it for simplicity's sake, or even for fun (i.e. sending pictures), but I don't miss it and it's not worth the $0.15 it would now cost to use.

Speaking of text messaging... "Oh, I would have told you we were out, but you said not to text you, and I sent a text telling everyone where we were." Lame.

Still no word from ATC. I hope they get on it. I have things to plan.

My efforts at finding a new 'core' of people to spend my time with seem to be futile. At least in terms of them being anything more than superficial interactions. And I'm also getting the impression that I'm not particularly welcome. I sense a change in atmosphere when I show up. 'No Vacancy', flashes the neon sign.

I'm tempted to just not ever go back. But that's bad for business. I am hoping to be at least cutting back on my hours a little bit in order to try another venture. My contact person is out of town until Monday, so I don't even know the details myself. And I've had more than one false-alert, so I'm not going to get my hopes up (ha, gotta have 'em first) about this. It would be nice for something to work out for once.

When I see a spider outside, I think it's neat. When I see a spider inside, I think it needs to go back outside, but still it's pretty neat.  When something has been poking me in the upper thigh for 20 minutes and in frustration at this little irritation I shake out my jeans leg and a spider (bigger than a quarter) falls out, yeah, then I don't think it's neat.

Good god. I need a jump start.   

All he wanted was a little afternoon snack

I thought I had finally kicked this shit. That would be a 'not quite', good buddy.

WTF was I thinking? Oh, that's right. I wasn't.

Yesterday I went to Pet Supplies Plus to buy cat food/litter. As is always the case when I enter any sort of facility with animals, I have to look at them all because yes, I think they're all cute. So I've already checked out the reptiles and birds and fish, and am now looking at all the rodents. In one cage, there were three large feeder rats, two which were asleep and the third who was just chillin' in the corner, because what else are you going to do to while you wait to be 'invited' to dinner? Anyway, there was also a fly in the cage, and as I was wondering to myself if the rats get annoyed with flies like humans do, the rat sees the fly, watches for a second, then turns and snatches the fly right out of the air with his little rodent-paws, and proceeds to eat the fly alive.

That dandelion may be pretty...

but it's still just a weed.

Today was a day of zero percent productivity. Though it was absolutely beautiful outside and I had things I should have been doing like going to buy cat food, I instead woke up and immediately found myself staring into a deep hole in the ground and then decided I'd rather just sleep all day. So yeah, I got nothing accomplished. That is if you don't count the burning of bridges and destruction of the last remnants of goodwill (if not friendship) between myself and someone I care far too much for. Even though that whole caring sentiment is very one-sided, that is still not the person I want to be. Way to go, me.

For those of you who have my phone number, be advised that I will be cancelling my text messaging capabilities, for a little while at least. Having such a non-commital and non-personal form of communication literally at my fingertips has become a Very Bad Idea. It's getting me into more trouble than it's worth (see above), so away it goes. Also, I have lots and lots of minutes I never use. From now on, if you need to tell me something, call me. If I don't answer, leave a message. Let's take it back to 1999. Shit, maybe I'll just trade in the cellular and get a landline and a pager instead... Thanks, yo.

Back to the deep hole... huh. That's not so PG-sounding. Anyway. After deciding to just sleep all day rather than deal with life, it's dinner time. Hurray for freezing individually-sized packages of chili I made 6 weeks ago! After that, a night out (again) with Martha. I've been going out more often again, and need to stop that. Or at least need to stop drinking so much beer. On more than one occasion recently, beer has taken the place of dinner. But more importantly, I need to stop spending the cash. Also, drinking rarely chases the gloomies away, at least not in the end. But whatever. It's not like I have anything else to do, for lack of wanting to pick any more fights or sever more ties.

How telling that everything in my house, in my existence is individually-portioned. Single-servings. If someone were to come over right now, I couldn't even offer to have a beer with them, because I have only one. I do have a little Kool-aid left, but that's about it. We could share the one bag of potato chips, or split that cookie in half, but in the end it's just not enough to go around.

Making the grade.

1280. Not the greatest but not too shabby either, considering the number of brain cells I've killed off over the past 8 years. I must not have been trying hard enough.

Stuffy. Sneezy. Sleepy. Nope, not dwarves, but how I'm feeling today.
 
Dwarf is one of only three (legitimate) words in the English language that begin with 'DW'. The other two are dwell and dwindle. This obviously doesn't include other forms of these three words, as they are really still the same word. Sorry to say that 'dweeb' also doesn't count because that is considered slang.

St. Johns Wort is making a little difference (to me at least). Enough that I will keep taking it.

The Belle Buster is currently bell-less. Oh where have you gone, lovely trumpet? Did you travel to Mobile with Peelander-Z? Did Guff squirrel you away in their practice space? Or did some fucktard abduct you, only to either brutally assault you or sell you off on the black market? Please come home.

Yay, bike. Not just a porch ornament anymore.

Hey neighbor... you seem like a nice guy. But please don't forget to let your dog in so that he can bark up a storm between the hours of 3am and 4:15am, which is the time I finally managed to get back to sleep. I will say that I was a little concerned and thought about coming over to knock on your door to make sure you weren't dead since you don't usually leave your dog out.

The clarinet will be getting a little more action soon as well. Not only will I continue playing with the good ol' Classic City Band, but I will also begin playing with the Northwinds Symphonic Band in Gainesville. I'm looking forward to playing in a faster-paced ensemble and more challenging repertoire. Now if only the Athens Symphony would realize they need more than two clarinet players. I really miss orchestral playing.
Ugh. Why didn't I go to grad school when I was still good? Oh, yeah. Because the professional music world isn't much different than your standard high school cafeteria. Gossip, back-stabbing, diva mentalities, over-the-top and unnecessary competing for everything... it's all there. Squabbles, cliques, 'the popular kids'. Except that it's all full-grown adults. Yeah, that's a big reason why I gave up on 'legit' music. I decided that wasn't the environment I wanted to be immersed in for the rest of my life.

But I do still really miss it. Three years ago, UC-CCM could've happened. Or UMich. Or Indiana. But not anymore. Not even if I still wanted to.

But if I had gone, where would I be now? Not here, not waiting tables, not so broken, that's for damn sure. Of course, the other side is that now I could be in the military, which is a very common option for fresh-out-of-school kids with music performance degrees. And I doubt I'd be liking that much either.

A couple months ago I filled out an online 'comment card' for Papa John's. I told them they needed a space on their online ordering form where customers could give specific directions to their houses, or even just some landmarks. This is because every time I order pizza it takes them two phone calls from the driver and an hour or more to find my house, which is 5 minutes from the store. I live on a 'closed' street, so it doesn't show up on their maps correctly. All I'd have to be able to tell them would be 'not on your map, 3 blocks down Atlanta Ave on the right' and they should find the place fine. Anyway, today I received a 'please try us again' letter that was actually signed by the district-manager-type and two 'free pizza' coupons. Hell yeah.

Also I found $5 in the pocket of a pair of pants I tried on at Cillie's.

F*ck Capitalization.

it didn't matter then. it doesn't matter now. and it won't matter tomorrow. do 'soul mates' exist? it doesn't appear so. and i sort of hope not, because i don't want to think that i'm so limited in long-term possibilities. but than why have i never been able to form such a connection with anyone else? and why has it destroyed me so when it didn't end up the way i hoped it would? i've had friends come and go my whole life. even very close, long-term friends. and it's never affected me like this. why can't i forget it, get it out of my head, move on, give up? i always thought i was stronger than this. i deserve better and i know it. but what i know and what i still want badly are so very different. incongruent. why did i even try? i knew better. i knew nothing would change for the better. but i ignored that. so i took a chance. and now look where i am. fucking pathetic. and i'm not sure i even want to ever try again. is it worth the trouble? the pain?

of course i know a song that sums it up. because i am unoriginal. i can find a(n already written) song for almost any situation. i probably could express myself better in a mix cd than i ever could in person. anyway... here's the song that's in the mix tonight...

I never expected you to love me the way I loved you.
I never expected you to love me the way I loved you.
To have you near was all I wanted, just to have you near.
It's funny how you can forget there's a world outside yourself;
where the trees keep growing and the cars keep moving without you there.
And it's funny how you can forget there's a world outside yourself;
where the one who loves you keeps on living without you there.
I never expected you to love me the way I loved you.
                                                         -Azure Ray



in other news... the school thing is now a wait-and-see situation. the application's sent, the transcripts submitted, and the SAT taken (and by the way, after chatting with a few of the other people who were there taking the test, i feel ten times better about my intellectual abilities. these were a few of the people i'm in competition with for a spot in the program. no slight against them; they were nice people, but geez...).
now i'm just waiting for an answer. that's all i'm ever waiting for. an answer.