Hindsight Is Always...

Tonight's fortune cookie contained inside it my attitude for 2020: "If you want it... take it."

2019, while not without its highlights and fun moments, was a hard year. Losing my father in early February took a lot out of me, for a long time. Seeing Amanda Palmer in April (and learning more about her struggles and sorrows), and Aimee Mann in July, and Tessa Violet in August, and Tegan and Sara in September helped bring me back a bit. (The pic I got with Tessa when meeting her before the show seems to have convinced my aunt that we were dating or something...) Having a number of my closest friends join me at the New York Renaissance Faire on my birthday helped a lot, too. Oh, and discovering the official Twitter account of the Garden State.

Tony Robbins' "Unleash the Power Within" event in Miami in November impacted me more than I'd expected. The firewalk (yes, I am a firewalker now) and the other things I did and lost and gained there have changed me- well, really, they've helped me to change me. It's an ongoing process, but I feel better overall than I did two months ago.

And that's where "If you want it... take it" fits so well. Not in a Trumpian "They let you do it. You can do anything" sorta way, but in a "You can be/have/achieve whatever you set your mind to" sorta way. No, not adamantium claws. I wrote 50,000 words toward my (first?) novel, Just the One of Us, in November for NaNoWriMo. I still have some more to write, and then a hell of a lot of editing to do, but it felt pretty good to get that much writing done. I finally replaced my seven-year old 15" MacBook Pro with a brand-spankin'-new 16" MBP just before Thanksgiving. After a few fits and starts earlier in the year, I began playing guitar regularly again in December, and I've got a few new ideas (plus one or two old ones for which I found some scribbled tablature) for songs.

And so, 2020, take note: if I want it, I'm going to do my damnedest to take it. Thursday night, I'm flying back to Brazil for two weeks. When I come back, I'll start running again, and get back to the guitar (thought about bringing one with me, but nah). There's a lot of troubling stuff going on, in this country, and in Brazil, and in the world at large, but I'm trying to focus on changing the things I can rather than railing (too much) against the things I can't. Time to seize the day, find joy in the now again, and take it. Happy New Year!

Return of the Son of NaNoWriMo Lives Again IV

Yes, I'm taking another stab (and slash, and burn...) at NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, this November. 50,000 words? Pshaw.

My ninja!

I first planned to tackle writing a novel called They Might Be Roses for NaNoWriMo in 2012. Then Hurricane Sandy hit, and a planned flight to Louisville, Kentucky was canceled, forcing me to drive instead, and... suffice it to say, I didn't get much writing done (though I did eventually write and record a song with the same title). I made attempts again at banging out a novel in 2013 and 2014, but it still never worked out.

I'd vaguely considered trying again this year, but really wasn't certain I wanted to commit myself to it. I'm seeing Sleater-Kinney tonight (yes, a Halloween concert!), and "Terminator: Dark Fate" tomorrow night, I'll be traveling next week, and attending another concert the week after that, and then there's Thanksgiving... It just seemed like I'd already lost so much writing time. Then I opened an E-mail this Monday about a gathering of regional Northeast New Jersey "nenja" NaNoWriMo participants, at a time and place (three miles from home!) that I could easily make. I still dithered about it for a few hours, particularly since I wasn't going to know a single person there, though I finally decided I'd check it out. I'm glad I did.

I had a fun time with these people. OK, maybe the margarita helped, but rather than cutting out early as I'd expected to do, I stayed over an hour later than the event was planned to end. I didn't talk much about my own novel plans; truth be told, I didn't have much in the way of novel plans, other than a title (Just the One of Us)and a vague idea, which has grown a bit since then. At any rate, I am now determined to do this. Pretty sure I need to do this. So NaNoWriMo, here I come...

Nah... No WriMo

I wrote the lyrics to three songs today. I opted against trying to do NaNoWriMo this year, because frankly I've got enough on my plate without stressing myself about writing 1700 words a day for the month of November. I'd still like to try my hand at writing a novel, and I've got an idea about taking some of my previous ideas and putting them together with an old short story idea; I don't know if I'm going to attempt this for the next NaNoWriMo, or just do it at my own pace...

...but right now, the album is my creative focus, and so I finally sat down and wrote "Morning, Doves" and "A Blurb" and "A Blur" today. The first was inspired by the loss of a friend (in that most final sense) as well as the end of a romance; the second and third are intended to bookmark the album as its opening and closing tracks respectively, and were inspired by my quote: "Better that your life be a blur than a blurb." I added a few more lines to a fourth song, "They Might Be Roses," too, but that one's not quite done yet, and I'm not sure if it's going to be on the album anyway. Perhaps it will; that would bring me to 42 tracks, and we all know how relevant that number is.

Yes, this thing is going to be a bit gargantuan. I'm planning on using a number of the songs from Joy in the New (remixed and mastered), a number of the songs I've recorded since then, and ten or so that I have yet to record. I've been working on the remixing, and I was quite happy to find the original multitrack recording of "Hole in the Wall," which I'd thought I'd overwritten well over a decade ago. I've also been working on demoing and recording some of the new stuff.

I haven't quite settled on the album title yet, but I may go with The Unfortunate Truth, Signifying Nothing. A reference to myself, a reference to Shakespeare... what's not to like?

I'll tell you what's not to like: Daesh. Fuck Daesh. I don't have very positive feelings for anyone who lets them win their games and gives them what they're after, either. Islam is not at war with the rest of the world, and refugees fleeing from death and destruction are certainly not at war with the rest of the world. It's Daesh, the bigots and sowers of discord, who want to kill anyone who doesn't think exactly like them, and anyone like that deserves our contempt, all of our contempt.

Another Year Over...

...and a new one just begun.  2013 started out as one of the best years of my life, and ended up as one of the worst.  Still, what doesn't kill you only makes you hurt like hell stronger, right?  I suppose my expectations for 2014 have been lowered substantially, and maybe that's a good thing.

This holiday season has been a depressing one despite "Doctor Who" and birthday get-togethers and turducken (I didn't decorate at all, which I think is a first), and while I was sorely tempted to stay home and sulk on New Year's Eve, I opted to go see Gogol Bordello at Terminal 5 instead.  I tried not to witness an arrest on Secaucus Junction's track 2 platform while on my way to New York (probably drugs, but I don't know and didn't want to); I was largely unimpressed with the amount of beardage at the venue (why do today's kids feel the need to look like early 20th-century Midwestern farmers?); and I was rather unsympathetic to the teenager who asked me to buy a Budweiser for him, though at least he was gracious enough to accept my polite refusal.  And he didn't have a beard, though it was probably not for lack of trying.

The opening band, Man Man, were a lot better than I was expecting, and they certainly got the crowd going.  Gogol Bordello, however, were on fire.  They had the whole place dancing and jumping around, and they sounded incredible.  And I got twerked on.  Twice.  Well, OK, the first girl definitely knew what she was doing, even if alcohol may have played a part, and I couldn't back away as I was leaning against a column.  The two friends about twenty minutes later were probably just getting carried away with dancing and didn't know or care that they were grinding against someone, and it would've been rude of me to ask them to stop...

At least they were only dancing.  A few minutes after that, what I'd thought was a frenzied burst of dancing a few feet away turned out to be two girls fighting, and it took a few people to pull them apart.  The band and the crowd counted down the last few seconds 'til midnight, and then we were showered with confetti (which I'm still finding).

Happy New Year!

I left before the encore began, in hopes of not getting home too late... and saw two more angry girls on the train; one slapped the other one's boyfriend before storming away.  Ah, nothing like the holidays and alcohol to bring out the best in everyone.  Anyway, I was home before 2:30 AM, and would've been home at least twenty minutes sooner, but New Jersey Transit decided to hold the westbound Main Line train for every single train that was coming in from New York, on the off chance that someone might want it.  Thanks, NJT.

I'm not doing the "resolutions" thing.  There are goals I want to accomplish this year, and things I want to change about myself, but I don't think it's realistic to set them in stone on the first day of an arbitrary calendar, nor do I have a final list in my head.  NaNoWriMo was another bust for me last November, but I did start a novel... just like I did last year.  I want to write them both this year, or at least make some serious progress, so I can make a serious attempt this November.  I want to get more music done; I've been writing and playing, and I've got new ideas (in addition to old ones that haven't been fleshed out yet), but I need to record more.  I want to get back to organizing and uploading my collection of photos to the Gallery... of Death!  In June, I'm going to do the Spartan Race with my colleagues Jenn and Vaida (we're the Eh Team), but that means that I need to stay focused on running and eating better than I have been these past two months.  I'd like to run at least one 5K before then, too, just to make sure that I'm on the right track (so to speak); Jenn might accompany me as well.

I want to be happy again, but that's not really a goal in and of itself.  I need to take happy where I can find it, and hope that I find more and more.  As a Chinese cookie reminded me on New Year's Eve, "Every person is the architect of his or her own fortune."  Someone else may have taken away a reason for my happiness, but that doesn't mean that I can never be happy again.

"I don't think my time is quite yet complete,
     So I'll follow the rhythm, and speed up the beat."

Runnin', Writin', and Rockin'

NaNoWriMo has me in its clutches, but I intend to run and to play guitar every day this month (at least) in addition to the writing.  OK, I procrastinated Friday and Saturday, but I did manage to do all three today, and while I haven't produced as much text as I'd like just yet, I have started, and that puts me far ahead of where I was in the game last year.  While I've not put too much planning into "The Divorce Is Final," I'm happy with the direction in which it's currently going, and I do have some general ideas and will no doubt develop more as I get deeper into it.  I do want it to feel at least as much like fun as it does like work...

Isn't it?

Preeti dozed on the couch behind me this afternoon as Mozart streamed from the Apple TV and I began putting words to paper the cloud.  (I'm sure the end of Daylight Saving Time means absolutely nothing to a creature who dozes most of her day away anyway.)  Tuesday will mark one year since we brought her home to the apartment, and while our little family is littler than it was then, I think my female feline is pretty happy overall.  Granted, she'd prefer to play fetch with her mousey for at least an hour a day longer than I consent to, but we do play.  Meguilla the chinchilla gets her playtime, too.  And her raisins.  Mustn't forget the raisins.

While I've mostly played either the Danelectro or the Kona acoustic/electric over the past two years, lately I've been eschewing both left-handed guitars for my old Epiphone knockoff of a right-handed Strat (strung and played "upside-down," of course).  I do love the sound of the Danelectro, especially with the light top/heavy bottom strings I mainly use with it, but the Epiphone seems to rock more, and I like to play it slung down lower than my other guitars, which just feels more rock, too.  Anyway, I played this evening 'til my fingers were sore, and then I played a little more.

I'd planned on recording a new song or two this month, but I'm realizing that I can't really dedicate that much time to it, not if I want to get a 50,000-word novel done before December.  That Entwistlian bassline for "I'll Live" that keeps running through my head is just going to have to wait a bit longer...  I'll settle for getting a few new songs written, and although I'm not going to run a 5K before springtime, I'm determined to run every day and gradually get my endurance and my speed up to something that'll make a good showing when I do tackle my first race.  Should help to keep those winter (and holiday!) pounds at bay, as well, and I'm starting to reintroduce some South Beach phase two recipes into my meals, after a lengthy period of not managing what I eat very well.

Also going on this month: a weekend road trip to Boston with a couple of my colleagues, and "The Day of the Doctor."  I've been a fan of "Doctor Who" since probably sometime around 1982, and this special looks to be... well, special.  I'm going to watch the simulcast at the AMC Loews Village 7 in Manhattan on November 23rd, having snagged a ticket despite Fandango's ineptitude.  Anyone else going?  Anyone wishing they were?

OK, I've written too many words already for something that isn't "The Divorce Is Final."  ;-)  I'm going to relax with a cup of hot chocolate and a scone.  Later!

The Divorce Is Final

Laura Liston and I never even actually got married... but she came over on Saturday (Sweetest Day, coincidentally) to pick up the last of her stuff and haul it away back to Pennsylvania.  I'd packed most of it up carefully ahead of time, and I helped her and her two roommates carry everything out to the car; she did thank me for making myself available (though not for the work I did), then just got in the car and drove off without so much as a goodbye or even a little wave.  :::sigh:::  The closest she got to the old Laura was when she found and picked up Preeti, but it was a fleeting moment.

So, yes, despite how much I loved her, despite all the sweet things we did for and said to each other, despite our engagement (and the ring, which she gave me back, even though I'd told her to keep it), despite her having elicited a promise from me that I wouldn't do this to her, Laura has flounced out of my life.  Presumably forever.  Tonight would've marked one month of marriage, but instead it feels like I've been through a divorce, and while I'm glad to have custody of the "kids" (furry though they are), I still can't make much sense of what's happened.  I knew, getting into this relationship, that she had some emotional baggage, but then who among us has not?  I had some myself, though I like to think that it was only a carry-on at that point.  I seem to have underestimated how heavy her baggage was, however, and as a result, I've found myself with quite a lot more to carry around now.  Please bear with me as I adjust to the weight, and build the Wall back up...

The kids still love me, at least.

I really like the Google Nexus 7 I gifted myself for my birthday.  :-D  The fact that I can tether it wirelessly to the iPhone (when there isn't open WiFi around) definitely helps, though I've got some books and some music on it that don't require Internet access.  It came in handy for showing my dad my "honey-less-moon" pictures while he was in the hospital, too.  He spent two weeks in a HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital after that, and is home now, but he's still not doing that well.  We've heard talk about fibromyalgia, or possibly polymyalgia, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and anemia, but no one has really helped him with the pain, or the weight loss, or a definitive explanation and treatment plan.  It's been really frustrating, for all of us.

Hopefully, I can channel some of my depression and anger and frustration and loss into art.  In addition to working on a few new songs (lyrically, at least, for the moment, although the music is coming, too), I've decided to try NaNoWriMo again this year, in spite of the fact that I failed miserably at writing much of "They Might Be Roses," my intended novel last November.  I still intend to write that one eventually, though it'll be bittersweet now; but this year, I'm thinking that the novel's going to be titled "The Divorce Is Final."  It's not going to be about a literal divorce; it will be flavored (seasoned?) with some of my recent sorrows, but it's not going to be the story of Andy and Laura, either.  If you're interested in what it is going to be, well... stick around.

NaNoWriMo Failure

(...and yes, that's "failure" and not "fail."  I know it's trendy to use and misuse mono- and di-syllabic words these days, but I do my best to avoid that sort of thing without fail.  Snarky man is snarky.  Because snark.)  I'd fully intended to write a 50,000-word novel (at least) last month, but... things happened, and on the morning I'd intended to begin penning "They Might Be Roses," I found myself driving across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky instead.

As you may have heard, a bit of wind and rain called Hurricane Sandy (or "Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy" or "Superstorm Sandy") came ashore in the Garden State at the end of October, and while Laura and I only had to deal with a few hours without electricity and a day and a half without cable/Internet, the storm did end up causing our flight to Kentucky on November 1st to be cancelled. As we'd both already requested some time off for the trip, rescheduling wasn't a realistic option, and so I decided to rent a car and drive us 700 miles each way, and we left on Halloween evening instead of early Thursday afternoon.

We ended up getting there earlier than we were originally scheduled to depart from Newark Airport, but of course I was exhausted from driving all night, and I wasn't able to start writing while at the airport and on the plane like I'd planned. I never did any writing while we were in Kentucky, either, but we had a wonderful time with Laura's dad and his wife, and Laura's sister Amanda and her kids.

Amanda, Sofiah, and Silas

I thought that maybe I'd finally get going on Monday after a good night's sleep back in my own bed in Jersey... only we found ourselves going to the Bergen County Humane Society in town that day instead, and I was selected by a young tortoiseshell cat to bring her home. Three-month old "Fluff" was quickly renamed Preeti, and even more quickly became a part of our family (though her older sister Meggy, the chinchilla, doesn't like her much at all and has made it clear that she's not going to be intimidated).

It's Caturday!

Tuesday saw me going back to work... but because New Jersey Transit was still reeling from Sandy's damage, the Main Line train was still not operational, and I opted to work from home. On Wednesday, I felt out the buses, and while the commute was longer, it was doable. Unfortunately, I don't usually have the ability to take out my laptop and use it on the bus the way I do on the train... and anyway, I was stunned by a phone call from my mom telling me that there'd been a fire and she and my dad were at a neighbor's home because they weren't allowed back into theirs.

I was shaken, understandably I hope, as was my sister when I called her (to give her the news after wishing her a happy birthday). She and I met my parents at the house on Saturday and surveyed the damage, then mom and dad came home with me and spent the night with Laura, Meggy, Preeti, and me. At least they finally got a chance to sample my Big Easy shrimp (it went over well), and they would've stayed another night, but the insurance finally located a hotel for them.

I didn't get any writing done that weekend, either, although I'd been thinking that I could've gotten a few hours in (before the fire happened).  I did finally get over a thousand words written the following weekend, but the damage was already done, in my head at least.  Work was keeping me busy and stressed, I started reading Stephen King's "11/22/63" (great book, but bad idea for me to get invested in someone else's novel, and a big one at that), and then came Thanksgiving.  We visited my parents at my sister's house before heading to Laura's aunt's for the big turkey dinner.

My parents, sister, nephews, 'n me

We stayed away from the stores on Black Friday (well, other than the local Dollar Tree), and I suppose I could've done some writing that day, but instead we went to the park and fed the squirrels for a while.

Thanks for the nut!

Then came Laura's birthday, and the requisite sushi/sashimi dinner at Momoya in Bloomfield...

Sushi and sashimi

Before I knew it, the month was over.  Yes, I could have managed it, but it just would've been too hard with the lengthy delay in starting, and while I wanted to make it happen, there was too much going on in November already.  I still want to write the novel, though, and I will, but December is another crazy month, so although I'll hopefully get some writing done before the end of the year, I don't expect to finish "They Might Be Roses" before February or so at the earliest.  I intend to finish writing and recording the eponymous song as well.  There's that Web site overhaul to complete, too; I'd really like to get that done before 2013.  I think the resolution for the New Year is going to be better time management.  There's a lot I want to do: I haven't picked up a guitar in forever, I may start writing short stories again, Laura's teaching me to knit... but I have to set aside time for such things and actually use it.

Lastly, the holiday season is rapidly approaching, and while its lyrics certainly don't represent the way I feel anymore, my song "Christmas Lonely" is still a pretty good tune, or so I've been led to believe.  I'd appreciate it if you gave it a listen and maybe invited your friends to do the same.  Hey, ask your local college radio station to play it.  ;-)

NaNoWriMo

So.  I've decided to give this NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) thing a try.  The idea, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.  Yeah, it's a real commitment.  I'm admittedly nervous about the prospect of writing over 1,600 words a day for thirty days, but... if I'm ever going to write a novel, this is the scenario most likely to make it happen.  I've signed up for it, and broadcast my intention to the world, so the pressure will hopefully aid me in reaching the goal.  Besides, it'd be nice to be able to say that, not only have I written and recorded my own independent album ("Joy in the New"), I've written my own novel, too.  ;-)  I've already purchased a NaNoWriMo 2012 T-shirt, in hopes of egging myself on:

Speaking of my music, I've decided to tie the novel to a new song I started writing a little while ago.  "They Might Be Roses" as a song title (and then a novel title) was inspired by a walk with Laura a few months ago; we came across a flowering bush (hmmm, that could be a title for something else entirely) we couldn't immediately identify, and the musing "they might be roses" response led me to think about... well, you'll have to check out the song and/or the novel to discern what it led me to think about.  In any event, I started writing the song lyrics in September, and several weeks later, after I'd committed myself to NaNoWriMo, it occurred to me that I could expand the concept I was using for the song into a novel, so that's what I'm fixin' to do.

Laura and I will be flying on the 1st to visit her father and sister for a few days, so instead of reading on the plane as I usually do, hopefully I can get some writing done.  I'm expecting that I'll have to rearrange my daily routine in order to get so much wordsmithing done in a month, but I'm determined to make it happen, and preferably without much procrastination (I'm too honest with myself to say "without any procrastination"); I can't imagine myself trying to bang out the last 10,000 words in the last two days.

"Better that your life be a blur than a blurb."  This past week has been a blur, with Regina Spektor, Indigo Girls, and Aimee Mann concerts keeping us up later than usual for three nights out of the last four, and I expect November to be blur-rific as well.  For now, though, we've got an impending "Frankenstorm" to weather.  Stay safe if you, too, are in the Northeast!

8:09 10-11-12

Fancy meeting you here...  Well, I've fallen behind a bit with the whole 'blogging thing, so I decided today would be a good day for a new post.

Less than two weeks ago, I turned 42 years old, and Laura gave me a silver guitar pick, inscribed with a line from John Lennon's "Imagine," as a pendant for the chain she'd given me earlier in the month for our one-year anniversary together.  We figured we'd mark this auspicious occasion (my birthday, not our anniversary) with a small and vaguely "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"-themed party.  (For those who are woefully unfamiliar with "HHGttG," 42 is determined by a supercomputer to be the answer to the "ultimate question" of "life, the universe, and everything.")  We ended up with 22 guests, less than my 40th but a few more than we'd originally planned on; still, a fun time was had by all, and when my peers had all left, I did two shots with Laura's twenty-something co-workers before they, too, took off.  I preferred the taste of the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters I'd whipped up, but hey... I'm not old yet.  ;-)

Last weekend, we opted to celebrate Oktoberfest! We took the train to Hoboken early Saturday evening and walked to the Pilsener Haus Biergarten, where Viktoriya ably waited upon us and delivered two Maßes of beer, delicious beer:

That is a lot of beer

After we downed all that beer, as well as some pretzel dumplings to go with our wienerschnitzel and goulash (and Spätzle!), we took our leave and went giggling down the quiet streets of Hoboken toward Ben & Jerry's, where Laura had her dessert, and the Old German Bakery, where I had mine.  There was also a brief romp through a Halloween costume store...

My silly, silly girlfriend...

We've got three concerts coming up near the end of October: Regina Spektor at the Beacon Theatre, the Indigo Girls at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair (we're going with their biggest fan, my friend Dawn), and Aimee Mann at Town Hall.  Three great acts in four days!  Aimee's video for "Charmer" is a lot of fun, too, and the one for "Labrador" looks awfully familiar...  After that, there's Halloween, and we're hoping to attend the Village Parade, which Laura's never seen, in costume.  November will see us going on a four-day trip to visit her dad and sister.  First time flying together, though we've been quite content and comfortable on four-hour road trips with each other...

I also intend to take part in NaNoWriMo next month.  I first heard about National Novel Writing Month last year and briefly entertained the idea, but I just wasn't organized enough to pull it off.  Can't say I'll definitely be successful this November, but I'm going to give it a determined effort; I've written short stories and poems in addition to essays and songs, so I think I can tackle a 50,000-word novel.  Right?  Hey, that's only 1,666 words a day, and this 'blog post has almost 700 already...  OK, so I'm feeling a little daunted now.

I'm in the process of revamping my Web site(s), too.  The UI should look nicer across different resolutions and orientations (browsers aren't such a consideration these days), and the Gallery... of Death! will finally be updated with all of 2012's pics.  Not sure when I'll be putting the new site up, though; I'd like to have it done before the end of October, but I've got music to work on, too.  I've got most of the music and some of the lyrics to a new song written, I just haven't had much time to finish, what with Slime and the party and work and all...

Two members of Pussy Riot are going to have plenty of time, two years in a penal colony (there's a joke in there somewhere...), in fact.  The third and oldest (at 30) convicted "hooligan," Yekaterina Samutsevich was released yesterday with a suspended sentence, because she'd been ejected from the cathedral by guards before she'd had a chance to get her guitar and join the "punk prayer."  Let's hope common sense prevails and Maria and Nadezhda are released soon, too.  Free speech and political protest are scarce commodities in Putin's Russia this Red October...