beforeknowingremembers

[beforeknowingremembers]

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews composer and French horn player Tom Varner's new album, Nine Surprises:

"Tom Varner’s writing is a bit like shaker furniture: sturdy and well-crafted with clean lines, and details that rhyme from piece to piece. He once said he’s looking to construct “a big picture with lots of little pictures” in it. In his “Nine Surprises” suite, that march keeps coming back, transformed—as in a ghostly variation with clarinet in the lead."

Photo Cred: John Edwin Mason

[beforeknowingremembers]

What day should it be?

Hahahaha well that didn't last very long now did it? It's really pretty cumbersome to do that kind of shit. But I think it has its merits. I'll try harder...next week.

[beforeknowingremembers]

Day 2 - Starts and Fits

13 - Unfortunately went to bed at 1.15am after falling down an internet rabbit hole of music and the nostalgia. Toss and turned until around 2am when I fell asleep (lacking impulse control/will). Awoke at 6.50am, ate breakfast, got laundry together, and escaped to the laundromat. Read for quite a bit, still a slow reader, but just have to keep that in mind when planning. Finished up at around 9.05, Millie pissed on the bathroom mat, so I went to Target without much success in finding a cheap one. Got in the apartment by 10.05, worked out exceeding expectations, showered. 11am started on the xbox. Got everything in working order (after updates and password issues) by around 11.45am. Lacked will power and ended up playing until 2.30pm. Made a late lunch, ate, and began to clean the office and put away laundry at 3.00pm. Made good headway on the cleaning, but was unable to get to the porch. Lacked foresight. Also bought Helicopter, Helicopter's By Starlight due to lack of will. But I wanted it. Yes, this is still a major problem for me, clearly. At 4-4.30 took M to the doctor, sitting in the car reading. Quick to anger in traffic, really all day. At least I am making a conscious effort to recognize this when it is happening. We went Tuman's after for dinner and drinks. Met up with some unexpected friends. Got a little drunk. Got home at about 8, took the Mills out and played with her in the snow. Then proceeded to play Mass Effect for another hour or so (will will will). Made some popcorn for M and I at 9.30, watched Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce while blogging this at around 10.30pm or so. 

14 - Wake up and go do the rest of laundry @ 7am (again). Workout @ 10am. Crockpot dinner @ 10.45am. Code a random activity generator based on goal worksheet @ 11am. Eat @ 1pm. A little xbox @ 1.30pm. Laundry and back porch @ 3pm. Go to the gym @ 4.30pm. Shower @ 5.45pm. Eat dinner @ 6pm. Random activity @ 7pm. Journal @ 9.30pm. Read @ 10pm. Sleep @ 12am.

[beforeknowingremembers]

So much going to bed by midnight. Love this band.

#HelicopterHelicopter

[beforeknowingremembers]

Day 1

Well here is the first part of this little experiment. 13 - Wake up and go do laundry @ 7am. Workout @ 10am. Shower @ 10.45am. Hook up xbox, little recreational game playing @ 11am. Eat @ 1pm. Quickly code a random activity generator based on goal worksheet @ 1.30pm. Rearrange back porch/kegerator @ 3.30pm. Take M to the doctor @ 4.30pm.  Make/Eat dinner @ 6pm. Random Activity :) @ 7.30pm. Journal @ 9.30pm. Shower @ 10.30pm. Sleep 12am.

[beforeknowingremembers]

Yes!!! Now go glowingly gather up some laundry and wash it.

[beforeknowingremembers]

Fits and Starts like Tolstoy

Never read him, but read an article about his youth and diary-keeping. More on that later.

Currently listening to one of Mock Orange's new tracks that are coming out: High Octane Punk Mode.

Sounds like what I remember. I am excited to hear more.

For the past year now I have been trying to find something that works for me to be me. I feel like I am trapped within myself. I feel like I have let my passion, which was stoked, burn down to embers. 

There's just no thinking anymore. It's just Wake, Work, Watch TV OR Drink OR Internet OR Eat, Sleep, Repeat. It was in one of these tv/drink/internet/eat(TDIE) episodes that I stumbled on an article from Salon.com about Leo Tolstoy. It goes on to talk about his diary-keeping in his youth; how he created all of these rules for himself, and journaled about how he did not meet up to his created moral code, and what he wished to do the following day. 

Another interesting part is that he started this while in a hospital being treated for VD about to leave university for lack of academic progress. Rings true to my past...the lack of progress not the VD. I like the idea of writing a journal in that vein... Oooooo another Mock Orange song: End of the World. There's something mind-lifting? about their music. I hear the main riff in the intro, and it just turns on lights inside. That makes me happy, the lights being on inside.

...so here is the deal. To do that part of the diarying....diarrheaing? Within that framework, create a more detailed framework moving me away from TDIE episodes. Nothing wrong with any of it, I just can't have it be all of my free time, every weekday. 

So with the fits and starts of Tolstoy and his search for the meaning of narrative in his diary, let this be the first start among many fits to celebrate growth in art, writing, music, philosophy, and science. Oh. And human understanding; that of myself as well as others.

[beforeknowingremembers]

33 going on 33 1/3

I've got five minutes to blawwwg. Turned 33 on friday. Awesome. Another year older, and I feel like I am getting dumber. Today, with my indefinite hiatus from work, I have started making a "work" schedule for myself. The house is pretty clean, so I usually put an hour or so for straightening up, and the rest of that time is for brain improvement. 

I read a NY Times op-ed piece yesterday about communication, and how we might be in danger of losing the ability to have normal conversations. I can't help but feel that I have sunk into that. Can't help but feel that that is why I feel like I'm losing my brains. 

Have I written that before? 

Time to go to the head shrinker to try and make myself the way I should be. Almost said how I used to be, but upon a brief visit to the memory banks, I definitely don't want to be how I used to be. 

[beforeknowingremembers]

Re: Irony

And this is why excessive use of alcohol is bad. 

Not sure if my relationship will survive this last blow; it wasn't anything major, but I left her at the bar around the corner, because I was pissed off at what she was saying. 

Stupid Fight + Drunk = Bad Shit Happens

I'm cutting back to 2 drinks. I need to lose weight anyway. 

[beforeknowingremembers]

Irony

And ironically over after all that. Looks like I'm looking for a new place to live....at least its at the beginning of the month.

[beforeknowingremembers]

I need to post this again

[beforeknowingremembers]

A bigger, blacker blog

Replace "bigger,blacker" with "more private, more honest" blog...and/or journal. 

It has come to my attention that it isn't until you are in a relationship (or perhaps just living with someone) do you get that true reflection in the mirror. It doesn't necessarily mean you will look at, but it is still there. 

Over the past few months I have started looking at that mirror that is my S.O. And boy is it hard. I divert blame. I can be selfish in a relationship when it comes to conflict. I will cling to my corner of needs and wants, and ignore hers. I will defend it at all costs, and that includes spewing venom that is untrue, and only meant to hurt. 

I remember the first time Hailey(now ex-wife) had kicked me out of the house. I listened to Braid's new EP Closer to Closed and loved the line "I could have been a kinder man" or something similar to that. I am still not there. 

I have had many successes in self-improvement, but still not where I need to be. 

What I want in a relationship is to be able to communicate as "allies." We may be mad at eachother, but we are able to listen to the person who is upset, assess, and discuss. This isn't what is happening in my relationship, and it makes The Lady have to carry much of the weight of problem solving. This is because I do not talk. I shut down. I allow my negative thoughts to push my esteem down. My mindset is fixed: "I cannot change, this is the way I am, this cannot be repaired, it's your fault, it's all my fault, I am what you say I am", etc etc. 

Rather than speak what is on my mind, I will stew on it. It festers and I ignore the pain, all the while convincing myself like everything is fine. Until finally I become annoyed at the simplest things. I snap. I make faces. Because all of that bullshit that I identified earlier, but decided to ignore has now come to a full boil, and the pressure cooker that is my temper is about to explode. And the problem with that? This heats up another one's temper. 

And so then the explosions occur, and things said can't be taken back. Bags are packed. And while those can be unpacked, trust is chipped away, and that trust can be so difficult to repair. 

So the point is this: I need to analyze what is going on, more specifically put myself in her shoes. Make sure that I am indeed meeting her needs by saying what is on my mind.

No more festering. No more silence. The past year I have felt my brain is dying, but perhaps it is because all of this. It's the festering, the silence. Because it is easier to do that from an effort point of view. It is much harder to take action, to share, to write it down. I will start doing that from now on.

[beforeknowingremembers]

Not the best around, but definitely feeling like the best I've ever been. What a strange feeling, shadowed by the constant of looking over my shoulder, wonder when my psyche will let the other shoe drop. I am calm waters with an otter swimming in it.

#Karate Kid #You're the best around #Otters #calm waters #shoes dropping #optimism

[beforeknowingremembers]

[beforeknowingremembers]

[beforeknowingremembers]

So these guys rocked hard last night. 

#The Reptilian #Fucking #Rock n Roll

[beforeknowingremembers]

HAHAHAHA OH MAN!!! Such a great video and song!

#The Dead Milkmen #Punk Rock Girl #Awesome