trio: season 2, #2
Over You, Tangling, (Until You) Awake
Over You, Tangling, (Until You) Awake
my music
Somewhere in my Communications Theory book it says something to the effect of art introduces a new or original way of looking at life. Right.
I have been having some fussy bitchy unjustified issues with Laurel lately. Don’t ask me why, because there is no why; any issue i ever have with Laurel exists entirely inside of my own head. But, anyway, the first day she got back i just got this vibe from her that Laurel Had Returned and that i had gotten shuffled way down to the bottom of the deck from where i had been before she left. And, why not? Laurel is the pretty one, the talented one, the intelligent one, the castable one. Of course, i never saw it that way at first; all i knew was that i had a dream where we kissed and that it didn’t seem like such an awful idea.
Two years later, the situation is more tangled in my head, and who knows what the situation is like in hers. Tonight when we started talking in our production class all the petty resentment i was starting to build quickly faded out because face to face there was nothing… only things i had created and surmised.
Before tonight’s round of auditions Laurel gave me a ride to my house, and while we were there i played her some songs … two she already knew and three i wrote while she was away. Sometimes i question whether or not anything i do is vaguely artistic by anyone’s definition let alone by the one i mentioned at the top of the post, and today while i was playing songs for Laurel i was playing all my usual games … glancing up and away, shutting my eyes, carefully watching my picking even though i surely know the patterns tried and true. When i inevitably got to “Under My Skin,” Laurel sang along just like she did on the demo recording, and looking at her she was really meaning something when she was singing the words… not just intonations and syllables, but something beyond. I’m not sure if she’s even applying the lyrics to the same time and place that i wrote them about, but suddenly they have life and meaning for her, and according to my communications book that’s one tangible step closer to art.
Trio: Season 2, #1
trio: season 2, #1
(just an) Excuse, Splinter, Supposed to Be
(just an) Excuse, Splinter, Supposed to Be
Somehow today rendered my entire life empty, and i cannot explain the process of it at all.
It all started with an argument about how i really don’t like theatre despite the fact that i’m regularly involved in it, and how if it was worth something to me i would take it seriously but in reality it is just a placeholder for my being able to have people watch me based upon my own creative work and not some mere interpretation. Somehow (although in retrospect it isn’t such a leap) the conversation ballooned out into being about how i don’t like anything inside my life at all. Well, that’s what i said, even if i didn’t quite mean it. Of course, that’s a misrepresentation and i corrected it immediately: i love creation. I love to write and to compose and to sing. You’d think acting falls under that umbrella but it doesn’t… it’s just a shadow … a directed interpretation of someone elses work.
Sometimes i say that i hate everything about my life and it feels like i’m just trying to be dramatic to get attention; i know too many of those people. But, really, there are days that my life is really just a shell and all that’s inside are some tiny songs that no one ever really hears and me plugging away at my classwork trying to make a dent. A difference. Whenever i get to this place it comes down to… what is the point? And, i can tell you right now that i don’t believe there is one. Is there any point to existence as we know it? Each of us is the product of the almost-hubris of our parents … so sure of their love or lust that they created a physical product of it. And we, as that product, are trapped here and all we can do is try to keep ourselves happy, or to better the environment for anyone else who might get stuck here without much choice in the matter.
It sounds like a defeatist view, but it isn’t. I have goals, and things i enjoy doing, but when it comes right down to it there is positively no reason for me to exist – except for the effects that i have on other people’s lives. I am not the biggest fan of It’s a Wonderful Life (or, Scrooged, for the more skeptical set) and i am not so full of myself to think the world would be inherently different without me, but i recognize that i have left marks on the people that i have passed by and that i’m here for them as much as they’re here for me. So, it’s not like i’m perched on the edge of a roof … this isn’t a suicidal kind of raging depression, just a contemplative one.
Sometimes when i am in this place the only way out of it is to evaluate … what is it that i have and love and why? Tonight i am a reductionist… i have my narrative voice, and i have a handful of friends who i can honestly talk to without ever watching what i say. And, so, i told Jeff honestly that the only thing i ever enjoy is writing… how i can write 3500 words about something i love and not even notice and then reread it endlessly. The same with writing songs. Jeff is a communications major a year ahead of me, and he has already found what he wants to do with his life and he’s doing it. I think he was trying to tell me that i can’t ever get there while i’m busy torching the bridges i’ve crossed and the one’s i am on.
Jeff ultimately understands my point, but he won’t concede it: I have goals and places to be, but i am 20 and life is already over even if i get to do everything i’ve ever hoped and dreamed for. The world is the container of a finite amount of possibilities both big and small, and i don’t think any chain of events will ever make me truly happy even if you substitute in all of the right jobs and friends and lovers where there are just empty spaces right now. The only true choice that i have is to do something that will make anyone else forget about how pointless their life might be… to make them forget about everything i’ve just said – because i know it’s here and no one seems to care whether i notice it or not. My goal shouldn’t(can’t) be to go back because there isn’t any such thing; i need to move forward. In a way, i am meant to be a distraction.
Not such a bad job, really.
The first day of fall on a college campus is always a memorable experience… yesterday was that in two respects: the first day of Fall while on campus, and the first day of Fall term. Freshmen were everywhere, lines for food and books were long, and i spotted nearly a hundred people i haven’t seen in months (and lamented easily another hundred that i didn’t see). I ran into Gina with former roommate Michelle and walked them to the bookstore where i had a sighting of Laurel and Ben before i was distracted by Kathe who was eventually joined by Selina, but then i had class with Karen and afterwards ran into Matt A. before headed back to class, this time with Gina. And, that was only in the span of an hour.
Sometimes you anticipate your relationships to all of these people changing, and sometimes you expect them to stay the same. Or, at least, i do. I’ve been finding out that sometimes i’m right and sometimes i’m not – sometimes in cases i didn’t really expect. Who knew that one biting comment from one of my favourite friends would leave me seething and writing a nasty song about them on the first day of having them back in my life? Who knew that someone i generally despise would put a broad smile on my face while i was walking around aimlessly? Who knew that people would change so much, or stay so much the same?
I haven’t really thought about my ‘blogging schedule’ … last year i took alternate weekdays off. Today i am headed to International Business Law, Critical Reasoning, Basic Production, and Communication Theory. We’ll see how i feel about blogging after all of that.