I like details. I can be in charge of details, and work with details, and love details. However, tonight i have once again reaffirmed my deep-seated loathing of being a director of many detailed things, which is to say that i cannot keep track of white-balance, aperture, sound level, framing, focus, and the continuity of whether the paper towels should be on the table or on the floor all at once.
So help me god if i lose points for the one shot i have with paper towels on the table i’m dropping out.
The feelings i have are these slippery things, and i wish they were more like velcro. I wish i could throw words at them and have them stick. I feel… slighted, continuously slighted by life despite my attempts to make it worthwhile. I feel unappreciated for being someone i enjoy being and over-valued for things i despise. And, of course, alone on a Sunday night my immediate reaction is to try to write a song about how i feel and, failing that, to blog about it.
The thing is, i’ve written this song already and blogged about it a hundred times. Yesterday Lindsay and i had a ridiculously deep conversation while watching the Eagles game, and i said something about getting married and having children and a house, and i meant it. But, i can never have any of that so long as i live within this private universe i’ve constructed, with all of its own symbolism and meaning.
I’m usually not shy with my lyrics, but this week i wrote something that says how i feel and i purposefully tucked it away. It Says how i Feel, but i can’t sing it or play it because for it to really come out and do justice to all the slippery feelings i have inside i need to make it perfect. In my head i hear the sighing melody and the double bass beat on the chords in the chorus, but try as i may i can’t get even a line of it to come out like that at all. Anyway, i don’t know what to say about this feeling other than what i already said in these lyrics last week, so here’s the latter half of them:
Imagine my whole life as Technicolor — with someone painting the shades into the scenes, and everyone acting from scripts with each other. They’re all off-book except for me, so every day is a stumble-through rehearsal, and each night is an actors’ worst dream because i never know the right thing to say, and i’m left silent in the spaces in-between. So, my front porch is a consolation, my door is a sigh of relief. The stairs are invigorating, my room is a reprieve. It’s then that i open my mouth, and the room is filled — the words come pouring out. My guts are spilled. It’s a shame i can only find my voice between four lonely walls of brick and concrete, but i don’t really have any choice: it’s just something about emptiness and me. Outside i feel just slightly out of focus; around other people i sing a little off-key. I wonder all the time if anyone will notice that i seem to be coming apart at the seams. I am coming apart at the seams.
It’s a one-dimensional representation of what i’m trying to say… my words stripped of inflection and tone. But, it’s the closest i can come to opening this up to you, so take it for what it is.
Having never hosted a party before, i was somehow blissfully unaware of some of the cardinal rules. Sure, they seem obvious, but when said party is really just a handful of friends kicking back with some mixed drinks nothing seems life or death.
For those of you not in the know, cardinal rule numero uno is that the host should not attempt to drink the drunkest party-goer under the table, especially when being “under the table” involves locking oneself in a bathroom for multiple hours while shouting out pleasantries like “How’s the cake?” and “Could someone please check Matt’s pulse.” Apparently, it’s bad behaviour for a host to lie crumpled half-naked on cool tile floor while his roommates and party guests make sure that everything gets put back where it belongs and that everyone gets home okay. Who knew?
For those of you keeping score at home, i now owe a big favour to all of my guests and roommates. Big. Like… do any of you have a line on this world peace thing?
So, the question of the day seems to be whether i prefer awkwardly and ineffectually flirting in person, or awkwardly and indistinguishably flirting via instant messenger.
Not much of a question, huh? Meanwhile, someone just found my website using my full name and “krisis” as search terms. Hmm… someone checking up on their awkward suitor? That’s what IP logs were made for…
129.25.17.# drexel.edu @ 4:28:53 pm, who are you?
I hated Napster, mostly. The way i saw it, a bunch of cheap college kids were using it as an excuse to short-shrift their favourite artists of hard-earned profit. It did have its high points, namely tracking down obscure and out-of-print Tori songs, but it wasn’t something i was very fond of. In fact, I may have cheered a little when it bit the dust.
Really, how could i help but hate any service that makes cd shopping somewhat obsolete? I live for cd shopping! Even with statistics indicating that cd sales actually showed signs of an upward trend for many of the demographics engaged in trading audio files over the internet, somehow i could never reconcile the idle sampling of a new album with myself — it takes all of the fun out of blindly buying something and then falling madly in love with it. Looking at some of my recent favourite albums, i don’t think i would feel the same about choirgirl, distillation, or poses if i had gotten any sort of substantial preview of them … part of the wonder i hold them in was my initial discovery of what they had to offer A lot of college students might have wound up buying things that they never would have previously, but for a completest like me the entire concept is the sonic equivalent of peeking at my Christmas Presents on December 22nd.
250+ purchases later, tonight i found myself warming to the concept of trading files for an entire opposite reason than i would have suspected Freshmen year. Essentially: my purchasing plan for Winter 2002 is already upwards of a dozen new releases — with my time and money already tied up in snapping up albums by the myriad of performers that i am already practically subscribed to, i can’t always afford to find & snag other random recommendations that people make to me. You could argue that i have enough new music to keep myself occupied, but i could be missing out on my next favourite album every time i blow off a suggestion! Tonight i found myself chatting with Andy, and we made reciprocal recommendations to each other. However, rather than add these people to our ever-growing shopping lists, we proceeded to neatly exchange a handful of their mp3’s, and now it would seem that i’m as destined to own a Mason Jennings disc as he is to buy a Peter Mulvey album.
I never thought of it this way, but i really am a one-stop shopping center for a shocking array of artists; i own between ninety and one hundred percent of the catalogues of Garbage, Madonna, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Peter Mulvey, PJ Harvey, Weezer, Death Cab For Cutie, Erin McKeown, Velvet Underground, & Garrison Starr, with significant holdings in Alanis Morrisette, Melissa Etheridge, Radiohead, and a slew of other artists. Of course, i collectively have under 10 mp3s on my computer of songs from these umpteen albums, but it’s sort of neat to think that someone who was interested in one of these artists could really hear anything by them via me. I think that i’m finally softening to owning mp3s because the odds are if i’ve listened to something more than once or twice i intend to buy it. I still can’t endorse things like AudioGalaxy and the like because i know that i am a highly unusual music consumer, and also because of my possessive singer-songwriter issues, but there’s a difference between randomly downloading a hot new single and making a calculated attempt at triangulating whether or not you should get addicted to an already established artist.
I don’t know why i felt the need to bring that up; i definitely wasn’t volunteering to hook you up with Madonna’s complete greatest hits, that’s for sure. Of course, if you were offering to introduce me to the collected wonders of Lucinda Williams, i would gladly give you three reasons to love PJ Harvey….