I haven’t played a stringed instrument in 20 years, but I’m determined to learn a song on this ukelele today.

I haven’t played a stringed instrument in 20 years, but I’m determined to learn a song on this ukelele today.
Cause stuff like this can happen any time.
(I love Audra’s laugh. Conversely, I hate mine.)
(+50 bonus points if you get the song reference.)
John’s going to call me tomorrow. At 8:30. In the morning. Win?
What do you say when you meet someone, and already know where they work, where they’re going on vacation, and who their friends are?
Now I have a ukelele. #dreamscometrue
When working from home 4 out of 5 days of the week, the best part is your Mondays turn into Fridays. Worst part: your Fridays become Mondays
Reviewer keeps shortening ukulelehunt.com as “yookhunt” in his video. Domain name mistake, or greatest domain name ever?
I’m getting a haircut today. I tend to look a great deal frumpier when a month has passed, which is also around the time my hair starts to piss me off, in a “WHY WON’T YOU STAY LIKE THAT?! NO, LIKE THAT. AAAAARGGGHHGH” kind of way.
My last one was on Christmas Eve, in the middle of a rushed holiday schedule, and I remember exactly the frame of mind I had when I went for that haircut. It feels like I’ve been through so much since then; emotional changes, personal epiphanies, and life experienced. It’s only been a little over a month.
Sometimes, I wonder if it would be scary to be my friend or lover, because of how much transformation I can go through in short periods of time. Julie once said I had changed a lot in the year that I knew her at the time. I wanted her to quantify that for me, but I didn’t, hoping it was generally for the better.
I can only hope it’s always an improvement.
The best thing about Moo cards is learning a little bit about the person who takes one by the photo they choose. #subconscious
Edit: Wow, I found an old photo I took in 2004 of the CD in Trolley’s CD player.
Modest Mouse used to be the best kept indie rock secret. Then they let Gravity Rides Everything be used in a Nissan commercial. Then they did Saturday Night Live. Then they did The O.C. (Really, Modest Mouse? REALLY?). Then they appeared on Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, and now I wonder if they were just sellouts doing it for the money to begin with.
But before all that happened, or perhaps as it happened, they came out with Float On.
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This was the song of 2004. It defined the year for me. I was picking myself up off the floor after a torrid relationship, and settling down alone, finding my own little bit of peace.
That was six years ago, and I’m back there again. I had an odd moment of serenity as I left the staircase to the Tai Chi studio tonight, and walked into the frigid, calm air. Sort of like I had no hope, but that didn’t matter because I didn’t need hope; I had my hands, my senses, my wits, and my camera, and that was good enough.
I’m sure the fact that I’ve starting working from home four days out of the week has something to do with it. I can work on projects with my music loud, and my pjs on. I don’t get interrupted, so my productivity is great.
Okay, so I’ve been avoiding any movies or TV shows with dating or romance. I’m sticking strictly to Babylon 5 and The Sopranos. It’s been working, because I’ve been feeling better about myself and my current situation. Thinking: “Maybe I’m a nice secret right now”.
Walked into a martial arts supply store, and it was the most disorganized store I’ve ever been in. Weapons in piles, and no one at the cash.
(+5 bonus points if you get the album reference.)
I really do have love to give! I just don’t know where to put it!
—Quiz Kid Donnie Smith, Magnolia
Okay, I’ll admit it.
I need to love. I need it, the way I need to eat.
This is the same part of me that notices the faint outlines of hearts drawn in car windows. Also, the same part that marvels about that adolescent point in life, when one would draw something so simple and insignificant because the only worry was whether or not someone liked you back.
So when I don’t have someone to love, it fucking kills me.
Got two good hugs this weekend. Can I make it three by the end of the week?
Discovered that I can’t muster the concentration to pee if the song is too good in the room next to the bathroom.
You know it sucks, realizing that everything you believed in is complete bullshit.
—Some guy sitting on a bench in some movie
This is how I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve lost the plot. I’m wandering and wondering. Aimless. Floating. Disconnected. Questioning what it’s all for.
It’s not that I haven’t been able to keep myself occupied. My calendar until March is quite busy actually. But I feel like a spectre, floating through the world; ethereal, immaterial, intangible, and unable to be touched or affected by anything.
On the other hand, music is hitting me pretty hard right now. I tend to dance a lot, mostly in my room. I actually recorded myself dancing to see what it looks like. I can only imagine that it’s on the same level of embarrassment as getting caught masturbating to furries (yep, there’s a porn for that) with bean dip smeared on my chest.
I’m in a No Motiv state-of-mind; that strange period between Jacky and Louise, when I was living on Island Park with Trolley, and we would go for car rides in the summer to Diagram for Healing. But it’s And The Sadness Prevails that I’m rediscovering, hearing the songs from a different point in my life very different from when I last gave the album a thorough listen.
When John asks me how my day was, it seems like my answer is always somewhere between “shitty” and “like someone took a giant shit on my face1″. And when he asks what happened, I can never give him a specific incident. It’s just this depression, this sagging feeling that’s been weighing so heavily on me, because I haven’t been able to let go as easily as I’d like.
I’m trying to find my footing in the Tao Te Ching. Verse 44 in particular is speaking to me right now:
One’s own reputation — why the fuss?
One’s own wealth — why the concern?
I say, what you gain is more trouble than what you lose
Love is the fruit of sacrifice
Wealth is the fruit of generosity
Be content, rest in your own fullness —
You will not suffer from loss
You’ll avoid the snare of this world
You’ll have long life and endless blessings
The transition continues.