Notes

I found several old to-do lists and notes to myself tonight.  I'm happy to report that I've made significant advances beyond the worries I had then.

Thank goodness - life really does progress and we really do grow.

New England Conservatory

I went out to dinner at Christopher's with my housemate Matt today.  Before our food arrived, I got a call from my advisor (Dave Z.) at the Conservatory.  I was going to call him back later, but Matt encouraged me to walk outside and take the call; I didn't argue too much because I'd been trying to get ahold of Dave for a few days now.

I walked outside into the hail (did you notice that was happening?  Ugh.) and called Dave back.  I'm not exactly sure how long we talked, maybe ten minutes or so, but we hammered a lot of stuff out.  It was great.

We decided that I'd take lessons with him this semester, and that I should join an ensemble.  I'm going to take Jazz Theory I and Ear Training I for non-credit this semester to get myself back into the groove (I've taken them already for credit).  I may (may) do some stuff in summer - maybe I'll work.  But in fall I'm going to take a full load.

Basically... I'm in.  I did it.  I'm going to spend the next four months taking jazz guitar lessons, playing in a small group ensemble, and learning theory and ear training.  And playing with Jason, Kat, and Mark at our usual basement-band-jam-session.

And I'm not going to be working full time.  So... this will be my focus.

And if I have my way, I'll do the same thing for the entire next school year.

I got out, I really did it.  I have this strange, lovely, semi-euphoric feeling.  Surprisingly, right now I'm not nervous, which I've been every single time I started something at the Conservatory.  This time I know I have the time and energy to do it.

Watch out, Nels Cline.

Monday morning run.

Went for a run this morning for the first time in a while.  It was cold, I was in new shoes, and I'm out of practice, so I went easy on myself.  I went from Porter down to the corner of JFK Park at JFK and Memorial, and then walked myself home.  In total, that's 1.9 miles of runnin', and a total of 3.8 miles of actual movement.

It wasn't so bad out, all told.  My thermometer told me it was mid twenties out.  I didn't bother to bring gloves and just kept my hands in my base layer's pleasantly long sleeves until I warmed up.  All in all, not bad.  I'd prefer to keep it up, though I'm not sure about these new shoes.  Can't decide if they bug me, or if I'm just out of practice.

Here's the map:

A below average day.

I'm feeling very unproductive today, and indeed, am being very unproductive today.

Yesterday was a weird mix of good talks with Redstar and removing a significant portion of the side of my thumb with a god damn vegetable peeler.  I can't play guitar without putting too much pressure on the stupid thumb. I'm feeling a little flustered and annoyed, and admittedly I've done nothing today save play video games and eat a bagel.  It's concerning to me right now that I don't have anything to do until Sunday afternoon.

I'm having a moment of not really being that sure of myself, or what I'm supposed to be doing right now.  Is it reasonable to say that I shouldn't just go get a full time job?  Do I want something with stability after all?  Do I want to get really involved in a startup?  Do I want to try to not get overly involved in a startup?  Should I just say fuck it for a month and leave town?  Where would I go?

I've made this decision not to work right now.  I'm still, maybe, not quite sure that I'm using this time effectively.  There's a point, I'm sure, when taking time off becomes less about recuperation and finding direction and becomes more about being lazy and not wanting to work.  I'm not really sure if I've hit that.  I'm certainly taking it easier, and giving myself more down time than I'd be able to if I worked full time.  Is it reasonable to get used to that, and to treat it like the norm?  Is this how people are supposed to live, if they could only find a way?

Maybe this is one of those times when you're supposed to call your mom.

It's a fine time for a revolution.

Had a lovely day today to round out 2010.

I spent a few hours in Dado reading a fantasy novel (Belgarath the Sorcerer), and then followed it up with a really wonderful, productive hour or two writing lyrics. Not just poems, but composing words that feel more like lyrics and less like the stream of my consciousness floating by.

I'm starting to figure out how to write music, and I'm also figuring out what I want my music to sound like. I'm figuring out what I want to share. This sort of progress is how I want to remember this year - as the year, more than any other thus far, when I really started figuring my life out.

I successfully left full time software development, at least temporarily, a few months back. Doing that - which I have yet to seriously regret for a second - has been very helpful, and has given me the space to really think about what I want and what I care about. I've learned a lot about myself and being me. About what makes me tick, about what my faults are. I'm glad to have a greater understanding of my idiosyncracies, and I'm glad to know they're there.

I'm starting to understand, really, what I want to convey to the world. To shape it into something I can present to you with love, hope, and nary a shred of embarrassment.

I'm learning to have real confidence in what I bring to the table when I need to interact with others (and you thought I thought highly of myself before), and I'm learning to know when to step aside.

In past years around this season, I've often felt like the year went by and nothing really changed. Not this year.

I don't know where I'll be this time next year. I can't even begin to take a guess. All that lack of determinism is scary, but also incredibly exciting. I know that it'll never really be as different as I might guess, and that it'll also be foreign in completely unpredictable ways.

So cheers, Future Us. I think we're all looking forward to meeting you. Happy New Year!

And the little white dove, made with love, made with love

There's this thing that happens, often, when I listen to music.

I think it's the result of my current state of mind aligning with the emotion of a piece of music, such that listening to it just feels incredibly right and inspirational.

I've always kind of wondered if there was anything I could do with that feeling, powerful as it is.  Is it possible for us to transform the emotion we're given as an audience into our own creation?  I think it must be.  It's a difficult feeling to hold on to long enough to get into the act of creation, however.

Perhaps visual arts are more useful for that sort of thing; they can sit on the wall and stare at you, delivering their emotion continually for more than a few minutes at a time.  Maybe I need to do a better job of surrounding myself with sights that I appreciate; not simply music.

Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved)

I spent most of the day over in New Haven at Chris and Aleksandra's.

On my way home, I was listening to Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground.

Let's get one thing out of the way - I think Conor Oberst is an absolutely brilliant man.  Maybe I identify with Bright Eyes because I started listening to them on a very, very formative couple of days in my life traveling alone from Illinois to Connecticut over 19 hours in November of 2005.  I listened to Digital Ash In A Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake It's Morning repeatedly; for the entire trip, as I recall.

Hopefully you can appreciate that this music strikes a chord with me.

But tonight as I was returning to Oxford from New Haven, I was listening to the last track on the album, Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved), which is a long, epically beautiful, exultant, scream of defiance in the face of everything that sucks in the world.  Tonight it just hit me, and reminded me of all the reasons why I've always just wanted to sing at the top of my lungs and create music.  And I had this moment where I just felt to my core that that's what I ought to be doing.  And what I'm not quite doing.  And what I'm not quite pursuing.  Right then I found myself - 15 seconds left to the song - suddenly crying my eyes out as I drove into my parents' driveway.  I couldn't even tell why, exactly.  Maybe for loss of time, or regret, or beauty, or maybe just for the sudden clarity.  Or maybe hope that I still have a chance to do what I really want to be doing.  I was just... sorta overwhelmed.

Tonight I want to sing, and I'm writing this so that I'll remember it.  I want to scream bloody defiance and joy at a world which, often, seems intent on presuming the worst of itself.  I want to bring our faults to the light so we can see them for what they are.

That's what I want deep down.  I want to sing - literally and metaphorically.