February 23, 2012

On Success, Pursuing Your Talents

I know what I want from life. I’ve known what I wanted since I was 11 years old, running around the neighborhood with a tape recorder, recording people talking and then writing newsletters about their stories, around the same time I began following my dad’s lead by making up compositions on the piano.

I intend to be successful enough that I can spend most of my time on my creations.

Depending on your definition of success, I’m successful at spending the majority of my time on what I love.

I do have a “day job,” and because of county budget cuts I’m actually making less money than when I started working there almost a year ago in spite of a raise, but it helps me almost pay my bills. The rest I make through random freelance work I do for businesses and publications.

Since I don’t do drugs or drink or go out to see movies, preferring to spend every free moment working on my song EP (more in the works there, super excited!), and on writing, my social life kind of boils down to including only people I can communicate with on facebook or people who are involved with similar projects I am.

My best friend from childhood called me the other day and expressed a sadness that she couldn’t hang out with me, that I seem to have no time.

I told her that because I spent so many years avoiding my life through substances, prescribed pills, an eating disorder (believe it or not, I suffered from anorexia in my early twenties, when I got sober for the second time), depression, what have you, at age thirty I am, for the first time in my life, doing every single thing I want to do. I have a lot of interests. And I feel like I’m trying to make up for lost time.

This is what I did when my husband and I took a two-day "vacation." Good thing he thinks it's cute that I'm so focused.

I’m driven. I really want to succeed. And that doesn’t necessarily mean being a rock star or a literary super star, though I’d take either, or a combo of both. (I’ve always had a vision of somehow combining my music and my words in some sort of traveling performance.)

I am heartened when I see people continuing to pursue their music way into their later years, making a living off of it because they are constantly gigging.

I told my friend that I’m working on finishing my EP, writing some essays and stories I’m trying to get published, practicing for an upcoming kettlebell competition and level 1 certification in Hawaii, and I also have to work. Basically, if she wanted to hang out, she would have to come into my world.

And I apologized. I’ve known a couple of people who managed to be successful in a way that resulted in fame, and they were very myopic. Their relationships suffered as a result of their single-minded focus. I told her that I have that quality. If I didn’t check myself, make an effort to go on date nights with my husband, hang out with my friends once every couple of er…months…I very well would be exactly the same.

She wasn’t mad. She said good for you, for following your dreams. She told me a teacher in one of her college courses told her once that if you want to succeed, your social life will likely suffer, but not to trip on it. It’s a part of the process.

I like people, sometimes. I’ve been learning for the first time in my life to give people a chance. I’ve suffered from raging perfectionism my entire life. Growing up, my father would play a concerto on the piano, beautiful, seemingly immaculate, and after, he would point out the one note he hit wrong.

I do that same shit.

But I’m learning to be more forgiving of myself, realizing that my performances are not going to be absolutely perfect, though I can try to make them so. My stories and essays are going to be the best I can do when I release them into the world, but I might come back and wonder if I could have done better, once I’ve developed even further on the path. It’s the nature of art. Always progressing.

And because I’m being kinder to myself, giving myself a chance, I am able to understand other people better, give them a chance.

It used to be that if someone made a mistake, they were out. Done. The only people who I kept were those I’d known for a long, long time.

All this to say, basically, that I am going to succeed. I will continue to focus on these things I love, the things I’ve always loved. If I felt like I had any sort of calling in my life, it would be using my music and words to connect with others. Doesn’t sound like a huge deal, right? Connecting? But to me, it is.

Think about it. What books affected you growing up? What music took you out of yourself, made you feel not like jumping off a bridge while pushing through high school and your early twenties?

Imagine those artists never pursued their desire to connect, never put their music and writing out there for the world.

You might think I’m egotistical. You have to be a bit, to believe in yourself. Or maybe not. I don’t know. But if I don’t believe in myself, who the hell will? And maybe, more than that, I am simply determined and driven because I wasted so much time, because I was never ready to put everything into this before this past few years.

I know SO MANY people who just sit on their talents, not believing they have anything to offer the world. It’s as if since a slim chance of blowing up and becoming Lady Gaga is possible, they simply give up.

But the world is made up of the people we touch one by one. Most of us only have small groups of friends and family. We affect a few core people, and it trickles out. To others, for some reason, they touch a wider audience.

I told my husband yesterday when we were hiking outside that it could go three or more ways for me. I could continue to grow in a small, steady grass roots way, until someday, I have the ability to do live music performances full-time, making a living also by continuing to write, and I see this as my goal, cobbling together my talents to more than scrape by. Or, I could find the right people and suddenly blow up (less likely). Or, I could end up continuing to work at some day job to pay the basic bills, continuing to perform and write, always running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to make ends meet, trying to find enough time, dreaming about rewriting papers.

One of those things will happen. Im not sure which, but I am not going to stop trying to get my work out there. I won’t stop trying to make it better, to become in reality what I know I can be.

I remember reading Amanda Palmer’s blog. She’s Neil Gaiman’s wife, for those who don’t know. I found out about the Dresden Dolls when they headlined for Nine Inch Nails. Back then, I was writing music, but not at the level I am attempting now. I had something, but it wasn’t developed enough to be taken out into the world. It takes some of us a long time.

She was 28 at the time, and she’d been working on her music for years. Suddenly, she was on this big tour, being recognized for the talent she had believed in all along. And she said, “I’m glad I didn’t become this successful before I was 28. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t learned all of the things I’ve learned now.”

When I first saw her live, I felt chills up and down my spine and I rushed out immediately to buy her album after the show. I felt the same when I first saw my ex-boyfriend perform live. They both had that thing that you can’t explain, that thing that hits you in the guts, stops you in your tracks.

I feel like I have some of that thing, I’m not sure how much of it, or if it’s enough for a large group of people rather than a small group, but I aim to give a good live performance, to make people feel when they hear my music or read my words. To connect with that unnamed thing I know I have.

You could say I didn’t stand a chance, that growing up backstage while my dad performed piano for an audience made me hungry for that same ability to connect with people, something my parents both taught me to value.

And I understand what Palmer was saying. Our society focuses on youth. Youth sells. But the rest of us steady burners are banking on developing our talent to the point that we actually have something to offer the world besides our looks. (OK, I’d like to become a bit more popular while I’m still pretty, is that too much to ask for?)

Mostly, it boils down to dedication and hard work. It don’t come easy, none of this.

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February 21, 2012

Any Song Requests?

I started this blog a long time ago, because I wanted to practice my writing every day, but also because back then, I was reading blogs like Dooce and Demon Baby and feeling like maybe I could do that same thing they did: be humorous by talking about my own life and get a bunch of cool followers who pined away for my witty banter.

I’ve grown up a bit, realizing that I’m kind of an average person, at least to the world at large, and I’m not as funny as those two. And maybe, back then, I didn’t really have that much to say, anyway.

blogging so many so little

I spent four years writing to an audience of 0 – 5 people. 5 was a really good day. These days, having less than 100 views is a bad day, and gets me all bummed out. But really, as long as people are getting something out of this blog, as long as I myself am learning something in the process, it’s worth it. It’s a commitment to myself to write something every day, and hopefully something that resonates with other people.  And I always have to remember why I started this blog in the first place, why I write music, why I write words. To connect with people. To shed some light on my own learned lessons, and hopefully to hold a mirror up for you to see yourself in.

***

Today, I was feeling that strange emptiness I feel sometimes when I’m getting nothing out of facebook or the intrawebs (it happens often).

I put on my earphones to walk the dog. My songs were on shuffle and “Let’s Go To Bed” by The Cure, one of my all-time favorite bands, came on.

Robert Smith makes as many funny faces as I do.

As I was walking, I felt invigorated. I was like, hey! Why don’t I go home and learn this on the guitar. So I did, and then I recorded myself singing it so that I could show it to my friends, Staci and Heather, because they’re pretty much the core of the Kyrsten Bean cover song fan base. And they liked it, and I felt good for about an hour.

***

I like to cover songs these days. I learn a lot from doing it. There was a period, let’s call it my “I worry what people think about me” period, in my twenties, when I was too cool to cover other people’s songs, and as a result, stopped learning to play them, thinking that writing my own was the only way to do it.

I lived in this myopic world for a time, still listening to other people’s songs, mind you, analyzing them and assessing what components made them stick, but eventually I realized what I had been missing.

Covering songs, (duh), teaches you more than what you already know. It takes you outside of your box. You can only do so much without having teachers, peers, mentors. And since most of us artists tend to be isolated anyhow, it helps to be able to pick apart something that resonates with you, lay it out, and figure out what exactly makes it tick. Is it the lyrics that you love? Is it the melody? Is it the strumming pattern on the guitar? The chord structure? Maybe it’s all of those things and you can’t change it without losing the heart of the song.

It’s a homage to the artist as well. (Er, if you don’t butcher it)

“It’s amazing how often artists write great songs by failing to play someone else’s song accurately.” – Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers/Singer-Songwriter

***

If you’re like me, you have certain chord progressions you gravitate towards (hmm, Em, Bm, A). Even the songs you end up covering turn out to be similar, because those sounds strike your ears in just the right way. But learning a song that is more complex than your usual suspects, or simply something different can be a godsend, suddenly opening up your creativity to different possibilities.

For example, I covered Love Is Blindness, by U2. So did Jack White. And so did another guy named Mr. Bano. If you listen to all three of these versions, (all on Youtube by the way), they’re all good, all different. The song holds up under different interpretations. The recording quality is pretty bad on my version, so I’m not linking it here. If you’re curious enough, you’ll look it up and judge me accordingly.

***

I covered one of my ex-boyfriend’s songs because it was the song he sang about the songs he sings to all the girls he screws in hotel rooms and I thought it would be hell of funny if I, one of those girls he screwed at one time, sang his song. My sense of humor has always been a bit off.

I had fun. And Staci said she enjoyed it…(also, on Youtube)

Oh, and guess what. It’s in B minor.

***

Also, if you’re playing live, the audience is going to judge you within the first notes of your opening song. If you start with a cover they like, they’re going to be more willing to give your music a chance, now that you’ve buttered them up. Think about it. How many times have you been in the car with a friend and realized you and your friend do not like the same music, at all. It’s horrifying, isn’t it, to be forced to listen to jazz when you love industrial or Karen Carpenter when you need to hear some Guns n’ Roses.

Hey, look, it’s Chris Cornell singing Whitney Houston:

***

I write songs to connect with others, and also, to soothe myself.

I picked up guitar at age 13 when my supposed best friends were stalking me at my house, waiting to beat the shit out of me when I walked outside. I never put it down because I found something in music, something that fills that core part of me always searching for reason, meaning, validation. When I play music, I put my emotions in a song and it can project to others what I can’t really explain. I do the same with stories, with poetry.

In reflecting on my life, and the kinds of people I’ve attracted through music in the past, I want to make sure I put out there what I want to get back. I’m working really hard on making sure every piece I write, every song I record, is something I can stand behind, that my intentions are pure. I don’t want to hurt people, I want to find them, give them something to hold onto. My music and writing have been my saving grace in this crazy, hostile world. Other people’s music and writing have moored me when otherwise I would have drifted away.

The only thing I really want out of this life is the ability to keep doing what I’m doing, and hopefully reach more people in the process. I still seek connection. I still wonder what you people reading this need to hear, and if I’m saying it, or if I need to keep playing around with ideas until I get it right.

I started this blog to connect with others. I’ve connected with some pretty awesome people, but it took a long, long time. Through those people, I’ve met other people. It’s not an overwhelming slew of people, and it’s not like we’re part of some big utopian community now. Often, we don’t even talk to each other but simply read that which the other wrote in a recent piece, poem or on their blog without commenting on it, but some days, when we’re all working to help each other in our careers by commenting and tweeting and facebooking each other’s work, it feels pretty good.

Slowly, surely, the vision I had for this thing is coming true while I keep plugging away in the dark.

We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. --Henry James

***

I realize I’ve picked two themes for this post, connection and cover songs, but I think they’re related. Hard for me to limit myself to one subject, though I do it sometimes, like yesterday, when I wrote about Digging in the Past, again.

I have some questions, for the musicians out there reading my blog. What songs do you like to cover? Any song requests?

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February 21, 2012

Digging in The Past, Again

I’ve been writing an essay. I’m basically writing it because I’ve been trying to get into this one publication for about half a year, and I’m almost there. If I could just tease out a theme, said the editor, I love the stories, but where’s the theme?

For the love of all that is sane, I cannot figure out why I do this thing, writing, but there you go. Without it, I fear I am nothing, that my meaning runs dry. That I’m simply a snail shell, and the writing is the snail. It’s going to crawl away and leave me…empty.

***

I’ve always had a hard time with tying things together. I’m good at metaphor, at symbolism, at wrapping a truth up in one sentence. I’m good at showing you what happened and asking you to figure it out, the “show don’t tell” literary tactic that was drilled into me in my creative writing program (so what if it doesn’t make sense, decribe the oily black depths of the cesspool under the halo of a yellow moon) But for me to figure it out for you? That seems like cheating.

***

I took up the challenge.

I have written this same essay about twenty times now. It’s a classic case of what my husband calls my “obsession.” I get all into something and it becomes all there is. Every conversation turns back to this thing I’m working on. I can parallel what you just told me about steak sauce to my essay, tie it in to you stubbing your toe just now.

I’m like that picture of the writer who is writing a draft, crumpling it up, tossing it until she is surrounded by piles and piles of paper, except if electronic word documents were paper, I wouldn’t be able to breathe, there would be so much paper around me.

Each draft, I told myself, wow. This is it.

But it never really was it, not in a way that I knew this editor would need. Not in a way I thought the readers would want.

The first time, I sent it to a friend–I thought it was done. The second time I asked the same friend advice in a roundabout way and he gave me some really good advice on roughing it up, teasing out the theme, “going there,” again.  So I did. I spent an excorbitant amount of time reflecting, reliving, analyzing and trying to figure out the why of the story, the theme, the lesson learned, tried to round everyone out, good and bad sides included.

With the third draft, I felt like I’d expanded some truths, but it still didn’t have that thing. Something was missing. I sent it to two friends, and they both had different angles on how it could be expanded upon, worked out. I took both of their good advice and tied it in.

Then I was left to my own devices again. I tweaked at it, using google docs on my iPhone, for two days straight, putting it aside and coming back to it. I interviewed the people in my life who knew about the events that transpired, namely, my husband, asking what he thought. I tied his words in. I read it out loud to myself. I read it out loud to him. I reworded it. I typed it up from scratch.  I read each paragraph multiple times, switching sentences to be stronger, rewording to make things more concise.

Then, I simply hit a wall. I do not want to look at it, because I keep tweaking it. I can’t stop. It’s become some type of fixation at this point. I have to get it. I have to make it work.

At this point, I am not sure if I’ve succeeded in finding a theme, but I’ve learned a lot about myself from digging through these memories in my head, memories I’ve hashed out in a number of ways for a number of different stories.

I also dug up things that were true, but unnecessary for the story. A couple of times I looked at what I wrote, sat back and went, “Ouch. That hurt.” Or I laughed, because in retrospect, something was funny, even though at the time, it was horrifying. I went back and erased things, I tried to fit paragraphs into one or two sentences.

It took me, for this essay, talking to four separate people, not including myself, to get to the themes the editor was asking me to weave in, the themes he pointed out when reading the first draft. And I still don’t think I have it. I’ve succeeded in making myself insecure and crazy. I have a lot of good drafts, but I’m fearing none are *the* draft. Maybe I’m being too much of a perfectionist. Maybe, as usual, I am trying too hard, taking myself too seriously.

My point in doing all of this? I don’t know. I feel sometimes as if I’m simply a crazy person focusing my OCD on typing words and getting them perfect. But I’m hoping, like a recent short story I wrote, that when I set it aside for a day or a few hours, I can go back to it and find what I was looking for, find that I’ve finally written out a tiny piece of my truth, my experience, what makes me who I am.

And as a result, I hope telling about my experiences, in this case, about dating dysfunctional people, I can hold a mirror up for other people, that they might see something of themselves in what I slaved away to coax out. Maybe they won’t make the same mistakes I did. Maybe they will stop in their tracks.

I know, I’m not really telling you anything, not using metaphors or phrases or giving your examples to tie it all in, but I don’t want to right now. I’m done. I’ve squeezed the blood from the freaking stone. It’s over. That’s it. I’m letting this thing go, this Frankenstein creation, and I’m hoping it won’t haunt me, killing all that I held dear, peeking in their windows, strangling them. I gave up everything else in my life to work obsessively on this freaking story, and here we are. I’m going to spark it into life, see if it walks on its own.

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February 15, 2012

Tattoos, Culture and Complete Ignorance of Social Hierarchy

I’m not always the most alert person. It takes me a while to figure stuff out. Like who people are, why they’re important, that kind of stuff.

While watching the end credits for Million Dollar Baby, I once asked, "Who was that guy with the really deep voice?"

I often stumble into a community—say I decide I’m going to learn more about some odd sport like kettlebell, for example—and I adopt the habits of the natives, just chugging along, when all of a sudden I look around and realize that I have no idea who, what or why any of these people around me are, only that I’ve learned to know a few key players.

Kettlebell is how I got my aaaaaaaaabs!!!

And then the web unfolds and I find out I’m doing some complicated sport learned from Russians, and that there are leaders of different clubs who are in charge of handing down instructions in different formats and there’s a competition involved, where judges watch and base things on your performance, and hey, whoa,  I was just doing this thing ‘cuz it looked like a fun thing to do.

***

Not to say I don’t adapt. I do. Not to say I don’t appreciate the lineage of hard work and apprenticeship and earning your piece. I hell of respect that. Most great skills take time, dedication and work to master. There’s a whole order to these things. Somewhere. I often don’t know it.

Here’s another example. Tattoos. I’ve always liked tattoos. Before I was old enough to get one, I observed the people around me who had them with envy. Oh, to be able to walk into a tattoo shop and get one of these stamps of cool, something to talk about with friends and show off when your skin was bare.

Tattoos, to me, were very cool.

I got a couple, once I had the money. One of my friends owned a tattoo shop in San Francisco, and I lived a couple blocks away, so I popped in from time to time, getting random images, mostly on my forearms, some stars on my stomach. Nothing fancy. It took a while, because I suddenly realized how much money they costed.

Happened to be that the first major tattoo I got (read: big tattoo), was done by a tattoo artist who has become one of the most mentioned tattoo artists in every tattoo rag I read. But back then, he was just some guy. Now he’s at a boutique tattoo shop with a months long, maybe year long, waiting list.

It happened to be he also did a really good job.

Twenty-one years old. I didn’t know what I wanted from life, only that I liked tattoos. As an excuse to be in the shop, I walked in and said, “I want a tattoo.” The tattoo artists who now designs shirts, is on billboards, happened to be behind the counter that day, and I booked an appointment with him.

Hi guys. Looking for a tattoo, can you help a girl out?

“What do you want?” he asked. I’d not thought that part out at all. Not knowing how these things worked, and not wanting to get a picture off the wall, I decided, on the spot, that I wanted some roses.  He drew up some beautiful roses, old-school black and grey, with a neat drop shadow behind them. He was pretty proud of them, added them to his picture portfolio.

That’s how my tattoos went for the next few years. I wanted a tattoo. I walked into the shop and got a tattoo. People I know think and think and think about their tattoos. I mostly didn’t. I didn’t care. I wanted tattoos. I got them.

Becoming a painted lady sounds like a damn good idea.

As the years went on, I met friends with various tattoos. Some had all this fancy back story. And I read some books by famous tattoo artists, describing all the memorabilia people get, pictures to commemorate their parents, pets, places they love. Pictures their friends and family drew. I started appreciating this aspect of tattoo culture as well, the tattoo that symbolizes something.

I liked reading Lenore comics so much I got a Lenore tattoo, does that count?

I mostly appreciated a tattoo that simply looked good.

There were many years where I did not get a single tattoo. I had no ideas, no urge. And then the itch came about two years ago, and I decided I wanted to add something else. My husband, who had a bunch of tattoos when I met him, and does a similar thing, kind of, “Just throw something on there,” to the tattoo artist at a shop he likes, recommended I get not one of the things I wanted, but four.

I asked an old punk friend where he got his tattoos, because I always admired his back in the day and he recommended a shop. I went to that shop one day when I randomly walked by it. The tattoo artist happened to be drawing a bird on someone that day, which is what I was getting (a common thing, really, not too outlandish), in a style I really liked. And he was super sweet. Not pretentious at all. I booked an appointment with him, and kept going back, haven’t switched main artists yet.

One night, when he was doing the tattoo, which took a couple of sessions, a guy walked in, good looking, compact, blue, blue eyes and a tiny cross near his eye. He seemed like somebody—you know that feeling you get when someone walks in a room and they’re super confident, and have good energy, and you know they’re different? This guy had that charisma.

“Let me see your birds,” he asked. I showed him my back. “You should get more birds,” he said. And after chatting with the tattoo artist who was doing the work, he left with his adorable little toddler in tow.

I didn’t think much about the dude, until I was researching tattoo history for an article I was writing, and stumbled onto a video that was an interview with him, citing him as one of the essential tattoo artists in this wave of tattoo artists, tying back to some of the quintessential tattoo artists from  back in the day.

Turns out, he owns the shop I go to, and also another shop, and used to apprentice under some of the greats, like Ed Hardy.

David Bowie, I would certainly have recognized.

I got a little bit of extra cash, which doesn’t happen to me that often, and wound up back at the tattoo shop getting some words on my wrist, same arm I got those old school roses on back in the day. In walks main tattoo dude, starts chatting with the different tattoo artist I’m getting the words from, and compliments the art work on my arm, says it’s classic. He asked who did it, and I told him, and they both recognized the name.

Of course, being me, and not ever holding back on anything in my head, not obeying lines of authority or lineage in any group or culture because I often don’t even notice them, I start babbling about how I watched his interview and I didn’t even know he was THE person he is.

He looked at me with those crystal blue eyes and said, “Did you like it?”

“What?” I asked.

“The interview. That’s the important question. Did you like it?”

“Of course. It was great.”

He left soon after, was super nice and down to earth. But it was one of those things that got me thinking. Should I care about these things? I never truly adapt the garb of any group, be it tattoo, punk, hippy, what-have-you, whatever scene or culture is going on. I generally stay on the periphery, observe, like writers do, learn, and then report back through my writing. If something strikes me, I’ll research it more, as I have both kettlebell Girevoy sport and tattoos, but usually, I bumble my way through things, not knowing which hands to shake, who is big stuff, why I should even care.

I generally ignore titles and names and hierarchies and judge a person simply by what they present. How they act, what the wear, what they say, if they’re nice or kind of a prick. If someone is nice, I want to know more. If they’re not, I usually don’t want to be around them.

I always get confused when there are all these social customs and rules I’m supposed to be following, takes me a long time to see them, because I never quite learned why they were important. Not to say that are not important–-we organize our cultures according to things that work at the moment for whatever reason—simply that I often don’t care, unless there’s something I want and I need to know. Big names don’t impress. Unless you’re a down to earth good person. And both of these tattoo artists were, which is why I appreciate that their energy drew me in, not their name. Because it’s easy to get confused.

I’m not knocking lineage, skill or tradition. Au contraire. If you have talent and know-how and are nice to boot? Hell, you’ve got it made in my book.

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February 14, 2012

For Daisy, The Best Wittle Pit Bull on Earth

About ten years ago, when I was working for a legal messenger service, I met Sierra, a truly gorgeous gal, with long brown chestnut hair, an unforgettable face, and the most beautiful tattoos I’ve ever seen. We had a lot in common, similar interests and teenage years, a mutual love of tattoos and Lenore and random stuff that made us happy. I soon was introduced to her beautiful brown and white constant companion, a pitty named Daisy Maez.

Pit bulls are mostly loveable goofballs; I have always had a soft spot for pitties–ever since I fell in love with a brindle on the road as a teen, and Daisy was no exception.  When Sierra moved into a studio in downtown San Francisco, near the Tenderloin, I went and babysit Daisy, chasing her round and round the trunk in the middle of the living room, an endless game of catch with her tug toy.

Guess who always won?

Why me, of course!

I was on a bus with Sierra when she found out she was facing a nightmare. Crying, she told me that Daisy’s tail had an infection and would have to be amputated. She spent all her monies on fixing her little dog, without a thought, never complaining about the hard work she had to do as a bike messenger to earn enough.

Over the years, Sierra, Daisy and I met up for nature walks, to Lake Anza in Tilden Park, where Sierra and I would talk about life, the universe and everything thereafter while Daisy ran ahead and swam in the lake, chasing ducks, smiling big.

"That's when I was a young whippersnapper!" says Daisy

Years passed, Sierra and I both moved out of the city in separate directions, seldom bumping into each other anymore. Jobs changed, my hair styles changed, we both acquired more tattoos and kept in touch through text messages and Myspace, then Facebook.

One day, when I was unemployed, we decided to meet in a park near San Francisco, so that I could introduce my red-nosed pup Jix to Daisy, my favorite doggy.

I was worried–Jix is not the best off-leash dog, so I seldom let her off it. She roams too far, finds trouble, gets rough if provoked, so I keep the cardinal rule of pit bull ownership: if your dog is dog-selective, keep it safe from any variation in the plan such as pesky dogs not under control of their owners.

But here, in the sandy dog park near the beach cliffs, there was no one around and I let her off leash for the first time since she tore her CCL. Soon, we saw Sierra’s long, brown hair and cut-off dickies, and a little brown bump moving slowly towards us. Jix did a play bow, then raced across the sand to say hello, and Daisy and Jix were instant BFF’s at first sight.

As I got closer to Dais, running after Jix to keep an eye on her, I noticed that too much time had passed. She was gentler, more prim, with graceful movements and a big sprinkling of white whiskers on her regal nose. Sierra’s little pup had become an old lady! Never was I more aware of the passing of time, and how for dogs and people, there’s a big discrepancy. I kept expecting to see young, spry Daisy.

That day, Dais and Jix walked side by side, smelling the same things, stopping at the same spots, Jix doing everything Daisy did.

Gotta do what Daisy does, gotta do what Daisy does...

They raced through the same fence to play, Daisy running out of wind before Jix, but keeping it up to the end, regardless.

Gonna getchya.

Though Daisy never wandered far from her mom, Jix disappeared for long stretches, exploring further and further away from us. Finally, when she decided that she was the boss of everyone else, and Daisy, Jix, Sierra and I were her posse, I put her back on leash.

You win Daisy! You're the bestest, my mom says.

Watching Sierra with Daisy Maez over the years, I was always amazed. I feel I’m constantly impatient with Jix, always scolding her for antics (trying to tear my arm off chasing squirrels, eating my food, sleeping on my things) Sierra has always seemed accommodating to her pup, posting pictures of Daisy all wrapped snug in blankets, giving her home cooked meals, her spotted belly nice rubs.

Snug as a bug in a rug

I can say that Daisy, who passed away two days ago after struggling with recently diagnosed Lymphoma at 10 1/2 years old, had the best life I’ve ever known a dog to have, most always by her mama’s side, always put first, given shelter and love and kisses. Though Sierra struggled to make ends meet through a tumultuous economy, and some jobs that were really hard to deal with, she never, ever entertained the thought of parting with her doggie BFF.

This post is in honor of Daisy Maez, a dog most everyone who knew loved dearly, and for Sierra, who has given me the best example I’ve ever seen of a pet mama, especially among those of us who keep pitties and fight for the day that the horrible stigmas attached to them are forgotten. May we all aspire to unabashedly care for our furry adopted kin, remembering that their days are not as long as ours, walking side by side with them until they pass into the next realm, whatever it is, on to bigger and better things this plane cannot provide.

We'll be playmates again someday.

Thank you, Sierra, for teaching me how to love my own dog again, in spite of her endless health issues, mischievousness, and the stealin’ of my cupcakes, endlessly. ♥♥♥ you so much.

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February 13, 2012

Valentine’s Day Special: The Spaz and The Grump

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I’ve gotten something special for my husband on Valentine’s Day. Yes. And in honor of the date, I’ve decided to write today’s blog post specifically in honor of our relationship.

Couple dynamics are an important thing, but are often variable. Two artistic temperaments together doesn’t always work. Unless the two of you are so different, it can’t not work.

The Spaz, my husband, is a whir of kinetic energy, always on the move. When on the phone, he paces back and forth up and down the hallway, into the kitchen, through the living room where I’m usually sitting, typing on my laptop, and back again.

When he asks questions, he asks them in missile succession, five in a row. He answers your question with another question, a habit he probably picked up from almost two decades of working as a hairstylist, having to display interest with every client who sits in his chair divulging their life story, talking at him non-stop. This frenetic pace of gab has been mired in his very DNA.

He says he’s not creative, but he mixes colors, styles and cuts hair all day. His color creations run from au natural, just a trim, to full on multi-shaded pink mohawks.

He’s a consumption wheel, always churning, grinding air or food or conversation between his teeth. He can eat the amount a man triple his size can eat in one sitting, and he’ll simply pace it off in the next three hours, the only tell-tale sign his temporarily protruding belly. His friends like to joke that, like a cow, he has four stomachs.

He absolutely must be on the go, go, go–or else…something. Something might happen. And God forbid he spend a day in the house alone, staring at the wall. If he’s not working, pacing, chewing or talking, he needs to be playing a video game, walking the dog or watching a movie he’s seen already, just to do something, anything but be still.

He doesn’t like to be alone. He’s a truly social creature. A Leo, he likes to be the center of attention, likes to give others extravagant gifts and receive affection and admiration for his generosity in return. He is genuine and kind, loyal to a fault.

(He’s been trying some things, to channel the energy, like working out at a gym and taking a creative writing class.)

If he wants something, he is hard-pressed not to simply purchase it.

I, on the other hand, could very well be called The Grump, a stark counterpoint to The Spaz.

I’m logical, and stuck in my brain. I think about most everything, forever, before I do it. My first answer is usually an abrupt No.

I’m on the go, too, but I like to wander for hours down windy streets without a direction, through the pages of a memoir or up a steep, steep mountain. I channel my physical movement into Olympic-type weight lifting, a sport called Kettlebell (Girevoy, from Russia.) I take the dog through the foothills when its sunny, I scribble frantically with my pen, morning, noon and night. God forbid you interrupt my creative scribblings.

(I’m obsessed with working out. And eating healthy food. Especially with meat. I’m a food purist. Unless there’s a Susie Cake involved. Then I will break my gluten free, veggie, sustainable meat regime and deal with the stomach pains and the body aches, because Susie Cakes are so. damn. good.)

If I’m asked too many questions consecutively, i.e. more than one question, I explode.

If I don’t have me-time or space for writing, music and reflection, I explode. If I don’t have enough time alone, without any distractions, I explode. If there is too much going on, if the television or radio or dog or husband is too loud…if things don’t go according to plan…

We’re almost stark opposites, hubby and I, channeling our energies in opposite ways, him like a whirling dervish or spinning loon, and me, in a focused, compulsive manner bordering on neurosis.

He’s a generous gift giver, having grown up solid middle class; I’m a penny pincher, having grown up in a rented house with thrift store clothes and a donated mattress from the church goodwill program. He’s an hopeful optimist, easily persuaded. I’m a cynic, always needing evidence.

I’m more impulsive than him sometimes when it comes to a sudden overwhelming desire to meander. If I stay in the same geographic location for too long I get stir crazy, need a road trip. He likes to travel when I get stir crazy, but tends to be a bit more rigid with his schedule than I am. His schedule revolves around hair work, mine revolves around doing creative stuff whenever I can, however I can.

What we have in common is a history of neglect, the fact that we saved each other from a live of ruin and a sense that we’ve got each other in this world. We’re best friends.

We also share what we call The Want Monster–an entity that resides in our being, always pulling us to achieve or obtain more than what we have: This right here is not enough, need more.

We’re both pretty adorable. We share the Susie Cake weakness. And we do like each other, 9 years now…

My temperament is neurotic, brittle and tough, yet also cute, silly, and playful. His is rigid, proprietary, and formal, yet loose, whimsical, and insanely funny.

They say opposites attract–I’ve dated my likeness before.

It was all I yearned for growing up, a musician or someone deeply sensitive (tortured) like me. When I got what I wanted, it never ended well. Usually, it felt like what happens when a north pole of a magnet is matched up against the north pole of another magnet: the magnets repel. The force field of two likenesses is an energy of its own, causing an inverse reaction, something keeping similar personalities from complementing each other. Instead, the stress of too-similar personalities creates a sucking vorpal tunnel into neverland, burning a hole straight through the center of the universe, taking us with it into its pit of blackness.

Not as fun as it looks.

Kind of like that chemical reaction you get when you add vinegar to baking powder as a school science project. Things gets really exciting, they froth and foam, you’re all into it, then all of a sudden the whole thing shrivels to nothing. The anticipation far exceeds the actual event.

The Spaz and The Grump are like the north and south pole of a magnet. You don’t get that exciting repulsion, no force field to fight. Instead, you have a nice, steady magnetic pull on each other, a humming complementary energy that doesn’t harm.

Happy little magnets. Mostly.

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February 12, 2012

A Sick Odyssey

 

One day, you tell some of your friends in a gleeful tone, “I have five whole days off from work at my part-time job.” Excited about the prospects of five whole days, uninterrupted, to prepare for your upcoming recording studio time, polish off some writing you’re close to done with, get some training sessions for your next upcoming kettlebell competition under your belt, catch up on the articles you need to turn in for the newspaper on deadline, you tick off the days on your calendar.

Oh how much you will be able to get done, you think. Those queries you’ve been developing can be finished, your short story polished up, a poem sent out, your songs perfected for the studio. You’ll be able to jam with your friend, do all your kettlebell training down to the general programming exercises and the ten-minute sprint/run at the end of each workout. This time is much needed.

One night, after a particularly busy day, you notice a faint tingle in your throat, but you ignore it. Headed to the kitchen, you bypass the Vitamin C and the ginger. It will pass, you determine as you crawl into bed.

But when you wake up, it’s bigger, the ache in your throat. You guzzle home-brewed ginger tea with lemon by the jugful, grab some broth at a Vietnamese restaurant (running serendipitously into your friends at the same time, one of whom is also fighting off a sore throat) and try to take it easy.

As the day progresses, your thoughts are more and more vague, and you are prone to spacing out while people are talking to you. It’s almost…painful to think. You call to tell your manager at the part-time job that you will not be in tomorrow, due to a cold, “or something,” you explain, that has rendered you incompetent thus far into your own personal day at home, a day which, normally, you would spend catching up on everything from freelance project hunting to grocery shopping.

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You figure you’ll be fine, that if you force yourself to spend the day in bed, whatever “this thing” is will run its course. The next day, you wake up feeling horrid, hack up green crud, have to go to the doctors to get checked out. Your husband schleps you around and you collapse in bed, being told you “probably have a cold,” by the county doctor, since you don’t have a fever and it’s only day two.

“Come back if it’s still here in a week,” says the doctor. She gives you what she calls a handy sheet telling you all the useless over-the-counter drugs you can buy for each symptom as if you’ve never heard of a Walgreen’s before and you leave mumbling about wastes of time.

I know nothing about cough syrup, doc, thanks for letting me know about this new substance

The next day, you have to call in again, using up the last of your minimal sick time. You try to catch up on some writing, but find yourself unable to think clearly, your head throbbing, creeping malaise replacing the goodwill and excitement of the earlier week.

It’s as if overnight you’ve been replaced by a cantankerous ghost who roams around the apartment with no direction, no meaning and no purpose. You spend the day in bed, with aching skin, your heart rate pounding with some unshaped doom lurking in the horizon, all endorphins, dopamine and positivity wiped out of your brain, probably fleeing in search of sunnier hosts. You blend the crap out of every green thing you find in the fridge in hopes of healing your body, to no avail.

Yep. Every green thing including an avocado and spinach went in this one.

Day 4 of the illness, whatever it is, and day 1 of your anticipated 5-day stretch of You Time proves a little better. You still feel horrible, but since you cobbled together the last of the food in the house to try to trick your body into righting itself, you need provisions.

You dash from store to store, stocking up, happy to simply be able to do these simple errands you could not do for the past three days, three days in which you realized just how flimsy the walls of your apartment were as the neighbor’s baby screamed and pounded the wall connected to your bedroom day and night while its parents yelled at it, the old man downstairs on the oxygen tank rattled, hacked and rasped outside the living room window and another tenant’s daily ride to the local bar pulled into the driveway of the apartment complex twice a day, honking loudly right below your window each time, scaring the bejesus out of you.

When you get home, you can’t do a thing except lay in bed and re-read a book you’ve read before. Since you know what will happen, it’s easier to concentrate, you don’t have to think. You manage to go out to dinner with your husband and friends, clutching a snot-soaked Viva paper towel (they really are super absorbent) to your nose the entire time, trying not to say horrible nasty things every two minutes simply because all happiness and energy has been siphoned out of your bone marrow and all that’s left is a bitter, empty phantom of a person filled with rage and meanness toward all humanity because it takes so much effort to simply exist.

The next day, for your attempt to redeem normality for yourself, you pay dearly, spending the entire duration in bed with a cough rattling your chest, a headache, sore from head to toe, like your very nerves are bruised. You’ve lost 5 days of your life to this “cold.” All of the tasks that you did need to do have been pushed back and pushed back, now they fill the rest of your week, the pressure to get better now hanging over your head. You must get well so that you can be PRODUCTIVE, damn it, so that you can MAKE MONEY and GET AHEAD and not be lost in the shuffle, just some person who ate and slept and dreamt, gotta leave your mark.

But you can’t even sing, your voice is gone. You can’t sit up long enough to play guitar. This is not a vacation. It’s a nightmare.

As the minutes tick by, you let go of the idea of “five days of me-cation!” and instead surrender to the reality that the universe has sucked this simple joy out of you and given you the stress of a compressed week filled with necessary activities you suddenly are unable to do.

***

Bitter? ME?

No, not I.

Something about being sick reminds me of dark times, whether when I was young and into stuff or when I lived in the mold house and was sick every other week with one thing after another.

It strikes my very soul with ennui, fills me with dread. If I can’t produce, what am I? If I cannot create, am just passive–my husband walking the dog and making me dinner in between his garishly overbooked schedule–what worth am I to the world?

Who will notice me? What will have been my point?

And since the world goes on with people moving, buying, creating, purchasing–not, for the love of all that is holy, merely sitting still–there pervades this deep fear that it will all just go on without me. And it does. If you can’t join the constant production stream, you are quickly and easily forgotten.

And…if it can all be wiped out by a virus–your brain, your desire, your happiness–well, that’s just a terrifying thought.

Sometimes, when I’m forced to face my mortality, like I do when I’m sick or otherwise woefully detained, I wonder if we are all connected, if even when completely, seemingly alone, we have some thread winding us together, and if this thread has meaning or if it is just complete random chaos.

Everything then unravels in a series of what-if’s and the world is stripped away as I ponder my worth in a society where my only worth, it seems, is my ability to produce babies, ideas, labor or money. If none of these things, worth equals nothing. Endless zero. And not in the Buddhist enlightenment way.

Boggles the mind. Makes the old head turn sideways.

And in spite of being still sick with god knows what, I am also in awe at all of the things I am normally able to do on a weekly basis: work part-time at a library, come up with freelance ideas to pitch and finish articles on deadline, write for my own personal projects daily, work on music almost daily, grocery shop, cook meals, walk the dog multiple times a day, wash laundry, clean the house, go to appointments, go out to eat, walk to the market and back, update the blog every night, interview people for the local paper every week…

Boggles the mind when I can barely do one of those thing (update the blog) without having a meltdown, because of this pesky, lingering thing called a “cold” that will not vacate the premises no matter how much hippy BS I throw it at, from greens to herbs to rest. Like all entropy, it has to run its inevitable course.

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February 8, 2012

Don’t Get All Smothery With Your Art

I am sick. Some sore throat plague. I probably have a zombie virus and am going to infect all of civilization. This is it. 

I just wrote an entire post and it was swallowed into the abyss. This is the first time this has happened with WordPress. I was using my iPhone to update my blog, as I am hanging out on our only couch, a white leather two-seater passed down from my grandfather to my mom to me. It’s not long enough for me to lay down on. But I was comfortable, until the phone ate my post. It was a good one too, full of sexual innuendos and double entendres and such.

It, *sigh*, was pure genius, and I will never know what I wrote because my iPhone ate it, like so many other of my things: cash, time, attention.

What I was trying to explain is that almost every artist is faced with a moment when he can tweak his work more–or he can set it aside.

I’m a strong believer in setting work aside for a while after it comes pouring out like scalding lava from a place in Hawaii you will never see. I believe in having multiple projects to mess around with, a polyamory of sorts. For example, I am working on a poem, a non-fiction piece, a review and a short story right now, among other things, like some songs and stuff. And some EP I promised people.

It’s always good to let pieces stew a bit. Don’t want to get too chummy with any one project, don’t want to smother it to death with your misplaced love.

And if you’re borderline (or maybe ignorantly full-blown) OCD like I am, there’s going to come a time when you tweak your project a bit too much and it falls apart like the straw man pulling out his stuffing.

At that point, you can’t stop, so you gather all the loose twigs to try and stuff them all in there, but the original idea is unraveling, it won’t hold up under the latest edits.

I have a story like that right now. It’s a great concept and idea, I love the main character, but it’s been tweaked a bit too much.

My friend Cami once told me, when I was trying to write one of my first feature articles for a newspaper, that the article seemed like it had been butchered and in the process, I’d forgotten I even had an audience.

She put it much more eloquently. But I think of that often, when I’ve got a piece I’ve just gone a bit too smothery on, and it’s not acquiescing to my needy whims. C’mon story, I say. Make sense! Now! But sometimes, the story doesn’t want to make sense.

I read advice somewhere from a pretty well-known writer who was saying that you can’t go back to your old stories and use them. Ever.

I don’t agree!

I often go back to what I’ve written before, when I’m stuck, and mine the crap out of it. It’s fresh pickings. It’s like stealing into someone else’s garden and picking all their tomatoes, except you planted the garden. Only you forgot about it. And now it’s overgrown. Gotta weed it back.

Some of this might make sense. I’m going with total stream of consciousness tonight, I can’t think straight, I can barely swallow. Stupid, whoever gave me this cold.

Now…

I was trying to explain how we don’t want to get all cozy with our projects on the first date. Don’t want to take them to bed and introduce them to our friends. Enjoy that first date. Let it sink in. Give it a few days, then check in on the project, start chatting a bit, but avoid getting too overbearing. There’s a power balance in any relationship, and once the project is created, it has a mind of its own. It wants to be something, came out purely unadulterated and raw.

Let it be what it wants to be. Go at it with an expert eye, but only once you get to know it. Cajole it, slowly, tenderly into submission, give it flowers, smack it around a few times lightly, but not too hard, or else it may well run away and you will never see it again.

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February 8, 2012

Fun Times at the Starry Plough Open Mic

The Starry Plough in Berkeley has been around for quite some time—one of my dad’s friends says she used to play there in the ‘70s. When I was going to community college in 2001, one of my music classes had their final project at the Starry Plough open mic, but of course, I had something “more important” to do, and didn’t go.

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Last night was my third time performing there.

The list is long to sign up for Tuesday night open mic. It starts with a lottery; everyone’s name goes in a beer pitcher at 8 p.m. (Not there to sign up? Sorry! SOL.) Then, one at a time, a name is called and voila, you now get to sign up on the sheet thing.

There is an opening band, invited by the house–usually an act from a previous open mic who did a great job and got good feedback from the audience.

In between the open mic performances and the house performance, there are trivia questions. For example, “Will someone, for a free beer, come up and perform Britney Spears ‘Toxic’?”

Which actually happened last night. A guy and a girl from the audience had a Britney Spears standoff, and they both won a beer. It was fabulous.

Last night, there were 40 acts who signed up. The first time I went, there were 32. I thought that was bad. Then, I was number 23. This time I was number 23. Fortunately, my friend Jafar gave me his slot at number 11. Which wasn’t a total loss for him, I hope, because he was also my bass player.

Usually at open mics you expect a cast of good, not-so-good and completely sub-par. Last night was an exception. Come to think of it, the last time I did Starry Plough, about a year ago, it was also an exception. Some damn good people play at the Starry Plough in Berkeley. Many of the acts are solid acts, mainly there to promote shows they have going on in other places during the week.

The night opened with the youth open mic. Kids less than half my age were belting out soulful pop and R&B songs, mesmerizing their parents in the audience, who were very serious about the whole thing, walking on stage to take pictures, rapt on the edge of their seats. And rightfully so. Their kids were very good.

Once the open mic got going, around 8:30 or 9:00pm, the live acts did not disappoint; I was blissfully surprised.

Highlights included a 16-year-old kid, Matt Jaffe, who played a song in the style of Talking Heads and David Bowie, with a punk flair. He annunciated well, he was spot on with his guitar, didn’t make one mistake and was doing some complicated things. I was blown away. His chorus was tinged with irony, “If you want to avoid your death, you have to prevent your birth.” I found a video that looks like it was from a while ago. He was much better last night, this video does not even do him justice.

Watching Jaffe sing, “If you’re not already thinking, you’d better start now,” made me feel a little ominous. God, if I’d had the confidence at 16 that this kid had, I would have taken over the world by now.

We had a hip-hop duet singing about smoking spliffs, “You know where to get it,” We had a short girl with a soulful voice singing an original song about drinking a lot of beer because you’re broke while being accompanied on guitar and vocals by a very–maybe overly–confident twenty-something guy.

There was a rap number by “Emu,” who also contributed break dancing and mic boom chic boom stuff when other bands were playing (with their permission of course). Never have I seen such an expressive, bendy, in-the-moment person, happy to participate in almost everyone else’s music and obviously good at his own. The hip hop act that sung about spliffs was singing along while he went–even the announcers were singing his refrain about having game at the end of his piece.

A man with a beard who was probably about seven feet tall got up, and in a deadpan voice confessed that he is deeply inspired by Nsync.

“This song is dedicated to Lady Gaga,” he said, with a completely straight face. Anyone who dared to laugh would have been stared down. And then he belted out a pretty good song. For Lady Gaga. Singing, “It could happen, it could really happen…”

There was a guy who sung a capella, but before he started, he told us he was moving to India for six months, and then to New York. He also explained that he’d had a degenerative throat disease and had to retrain himself to sing, this was going to be his first performance in public, he had not even performed for his mom before us lucky watchers got to see him.

When he belted out, his eyes rolled back in his head, and you could tell he was putting everything he had into singing. He looked straight up possessed. The chorus (which repeated often) went, “I don’t care what you think, as long as it’s about me,” and then something about how we all know how to deal with misery.

An awesome shredder guitarist played a number with an established rock band, then went on to play a heavy metal number with a stellar bass player (sparing us the double bass drums, he said), and then joined in a reggae jam with a very lyrical blonde dude wearing a beanie. So cool.

Then it was my turn. And we all know I rocked. But really, having practiced the hell out of my songs lately alone and with friends has put me in a better position when I’m performing. I was nervous, as I always am, before I went onstage, and had a bit of an existential meltdown. “If so many people are playing, why does it even matter if I play?” whined my brain. “What’s the point?” My brain also periodically checked in by telling me that everyone else was much better than I, and that I was definitely going to suck. “Listen to that soul chick’s voice. She’s almost ten years younger than you. How are you going to even sound, what with your thin, nothing voice…”

When I did get up on stage I was very calm, and because of prior experience, made sure all the equipment worked first, then introduced my song. My fingers knew what to do, and I didn’t have to pay much attention to them. My new guitar sounded great. When I heard my voice in the mike, I was like, “Who the hell is that?” I almost wanted to look around to see who could possibly be singing with such a full, rich, annunciated voice, perfectly on key and remembering all the right lyrics.

Some random guy recorded my performance. When I looked over at Noel, his mouth was wide open.

Why was his mouth wide open?

The last three times I have attempted open mic, I’ve had technical issues. The guitar strings are too bendy or out of tune. The PA system isn’t working. I can’t hear my voice. I didn’t practice enough.

You get the picture.

He was very surprised, and happy.

On the way home, we were talking about practicing, the difference between being subpar and professional. With practice, even if you’re nervous, your fingers know the pattern. They’re going to go through the motions–you’re not going to forget your spot if you rehearsed your song dozens and dozens of times before you go on to perform.

But alas, if you don’t practice with everything, down to checking your equipment at home before you hit a stage, you’re bound to hit a snag.

Watching some of my favorite performers, I am always blown away that they never make a mistake, that their showmanship is impeccable on video after video after video.

Contrary to popular belief, you’re not born with this ability to be perfect when you’re performing. It comes down to practice, practice, practice. Until you’re singing your songs in your sleep, waking up with them on your breath.

All of the acts tonight practiced the shit out of their songs. And because of this, I had a very fun night, the perfect end to a most excellent day.

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February 6, 2012

The Opposite of Futile

I often lapse into conversations with other artists about the futility of writing and music and art. Seems many with whom I keep company are resigned to the idea that they may never make a living with their art, yet we all have this ember of hope that keeps us going, this idea that someday, it’s all going to make sense.

Futility means ineffectiveness. Uselessness.

What’s the opposite of futility?

Fruitful. Abundant. Full of life. Not an empty gesture.

It has to be innate, the idea that the act of doing is a reward in itself. Why spend a life engaging in so many useless motions if never to enjoy a single one?

We find breadcrumbs on the trail, little scraps someone out there left for us to scramble after so that we don’t starve.

Would we have that analogy if someone hadn’t once written the story of Hansel and Gretel? We have no idea what will remain in our collective unconscious as the future mythos for culture, no idea whether our works will survive past the grave.

I imagine the reason I have 20 journals stacked on a bookshelf in my bedroom is more than because they have always been a cathartic means of expression and a way of making myself cringe or go “Aha!” reading back.

Everyone has to start somewhere.

If it’s futile, if meaninglessness is the point, then why try. Why bother.

If the motion itself brings a sense of fruition to life, a feeling that secret stacks of gold are mounting in the basement under our feet, then there’s a desire to go on.

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