I am on a trip right now. I went to Georgia to watch my cousin get married and then to Austin, to scout it out two weeks before the big move south.
So everything I do seems primed with significance, symbolic in some way. I helped drive down to GA with my parents, but I didn't use cruise control because I don't like what it says about me metaphorically.
Saturday afternoon I sat out by the pool, my eyes readjusting to the light extremely slowly (due to the eighteen months, just ended, working third shift), and I was reminded of myself in the sunshine. I now have, thanks to a pale Irish complexion and a spotty job applying SPF 50, spots of severe sunburn that will soon start to peel, revealing the new me underneath.
I wore one shirt to the wedding itself saturday, changed into a different one for the reception, and finally a t-shirt for the casual, post-reception hour. The bride's side of the family, with only broad visual cues to go on, might've thought that I returned a different person each time.
That's the beauty of being conscious beings, I suppose: we can always reinvent ourselves (ants probably just have to keep being ants). In theory, I can get used to the dry heat (103 F right now) and the one way streets and everything, but I have to avoid old patterns and old cowardice. It's only day one, but I'm still raring to change my diet and cut my hair (soon, I can feel it) and pour myself into a different way of seeing things.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
on music
Music is as close to religion as I'll ever get. Those moments, seeing a live band, blasting the speakers in your car, your feet moving on their own, the world narrowing to a sunset or the hand you're holding or the memory that that song takes you back to, those are the best kinds of moments.
I sing constantly, and I hear melodies in my head, but I never had the patience or the self-motivation to learn an instrument. Words are the only thing I can manipulate with any aplomb (landing a line the right way on stage is rapidly nearing a religious experience as well), but it's harder to get that swelling of the score, that cinematic epic profundity that the best songs can instantly lend things.
In less than a month, I'm packing everything I have into my car and taking a two-day drive south, and I'm crossing my fingers that my cd player doesn't malfunction. I think I might waste a little money on CD-Rs and make 24-hours worth of mixes so I don't repeat, each song corresponding to a mile. I'm open to suggestions. Your favorite road trip music.
Because if you want to reach for those moments, you're going to need a soundtrack. I see the entire population of people with earbuds, presumably people who need music as much as I do, but it's only a small percentage that play air guitar and mouth the words and dance as they walk.
Maybe those people have actual religion.
I sing constantly, and I hear melodies in my head, but I never had the patience or the self-motivation to learn an instrument. Words are the only thing I can manipulate with any aplomb (landing a line the right way on stage is rapidly nearing a religious experience as well), but it's harder to get that swelling of the score, that cinematic epic profundity that the best songs can instantly lend things.
In less than a month, I'm packing everything I have into my car and taking a two-day drive south, and I'm crossing my fingers that my cd player doesn't malfunction. I think I might waste a little money on CD-Rs and make 24-hours worth of mixes so I don't repeat, each song corresponding to a mile. I'm open to suggestions. Your favorite road trip music.
Because if you want to reach for those moments, you're going to need a soundtrack. I see the entire population of people with earbuds, presumably people who need music as much as I do, but it's only a small percentage that play air guitar and mouth the words and dance as they walk.
Maybe those people have actual religion.
Friday, June 3, 2011
on enthusiasm
I've embraced having fun lately. There was a time that irony, cynicism had a romantic appeal.
But they weren't as much FUN, dammit. For some reason there's a prevalent sentiment in our culture, at least the sort of hipster pop culture to which I ascribe, that associates enjoying oneself with simple-mindedness. The implication is that critical thinking leads directly to disappointment, to the prominent noticing of flaws.
But that's just not true. I got wired back in march and wrote a long thing on facebook about how stand up comedy, for me, became so much more invigorating when I stopped approaching things by saying "you know what I hate?" and went with "you know what's absurd, and thus funny?"- the same is true for EVERYTHING.
I'm not perfect. Far from it. Admitting that makes it hard to hold it against the rest of the world. There are ironies, there's cruelty, there's bleakness and despair. And in a way, kneejerk snarkiness was a way of avoiding those depths for me for a long time.
But that's just treading water to avoid drowning. I'm going to laugh to myself loudly in restaurants, play the air guitar to my earphones in public places, say the first things that come to mind, drink some but not too much, be vulnerable, seek out the people and places that make me happy, make those people laugh and those places feel like home, and I'm only going to go diving to the murky depths of the middle of the loneliest nights when I have to, when it's healthy.
In the meantime, I hope to see you on the shore.
But they weren't as much FUN, dammit. For some reason there's a prevalent sentiment in our culture, at least the sort of hipster pop culture to which I ascribe, that associates enjoying oneself with simple-mindedness. The implication is that critical thinking leads directly to disappointment, to the prominent noticing of flaws.
But that's just not true. I got wired back in march and wrote a long thing on facebook about how stand up comedy, for me, became so much more invigorating when I stopped approaching things by saying "you know what I hate?" and went with "you know what's absurd, and thus funny?"- the same is true for EVERYTHING.
I'm not perfect. Far from it. Admitting that makes it hard to hold it against the rest of the world. There are ironies, there's cruelty, there's bleakness and despair. And in a way, kneejerk snarkiness was a way of avoiding those depths for me for a long time.
But that's just treading water to avoid drowning. I'm going to laugh to myself loudly in restaurants, play the air guitar to my earphones in public places, say the first things that come to mind, drink some but not too much, be vulnerable, seek out the people and places that make me happy, make those people laugh and those places feel like home, and I'm only going to go diving to the murky depths of the middle of the loneliest nights when I have to, when it's healthy.
In the meantime, I hope to see you on the shore.
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