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Showing posts from August, 2015

A depression day

No need to panic. No need to cry. No need to worry, either. But today is a depression day. Actually, this whole week has been like that.  I didn't want to get out of bed today. I woke up at 6:00 and my fantasy is that I can somehow become a morning person. But, I never want to leave my dreams. I fell back to sleep and woke up again at 8:00, but still couldn't get out of bed. I'd spent the night before writing about guns and rage and anger on Facebook, trying to get conversations going where people can at least acknowledge there is a problem. It seems that's a role I can play, or want to play. But then I wake up, and I don't believe in myself. I dread that I said awful things and that I'm going to be punished for voicing an opinion. I stay in bed and don't want my day to begin because I dread bad news and notifications of needs for corrections and other things that bring me a great deal of stress. I'm in a cycle, I know this. If I ha

Numb

I'm numb. Because this keeps happening. We go to Bridgewater Plaza several times a year. It's a place my children love. Two people I didn't know were murdered there in cold blood, doing the same job that so many of my friends do. All because some asshole couldn't get a handle on his anger and he had access to a tool that allowed him to impose his hatred onto the world. And it'll happen again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. That's why I'm numb. This one's weird because I've spent so much time in the exact spot where they were murdered. I've watched my nieces and nephews grow up there, and my own children delight in going to the arcade. My own sense of place was shattered in exactly the same way that it was when the massacre at Virginia Tech happened and exactly the same way it was when my friend's cousin was murdered by an angry man with a gun when I was in high school. How much longer u

The end of romantic foibles

After at least three dozen uncomfortable and awkward dates, a couple of really good first dates that didn't lead anywhere and one broken heart I've still not recovered from, I have decided to pull the plug on my online dating account after nearly seven years. I am not going back. With that action, I confirm that I have officially given up on dating for the near future with an option to give up on romance the rest of my life.  I can't write publicly all of the romantic foibles I've had. At this point, I can't imagine anyone wanting to be with me for more than a few minutes. This might be due to reading profile after profile of people who want someone to go exploring with. Usually these people don't have children, and still have the option to have lives of leisure. I don't have that option. I'm a walking red flag, so I'm waving a white one I surrender to being alone. But I am not surrendering to loneliness. I plan on working seven days a week s

Notes That Were Episode #6

So, I'm going through all of the audio in my archive in the hopes of sorting it out somehow. And I came across this episode of The Notes That Were, a podcast I did from 2005 to 2007 but never published because the content is likely not palatable to most people.  One of my formative influences is Negativland, and I wish they were a household name because it would make explaining myself so much easier. But they are not, so you'll have to look it up yourself. This is me chopping up all kinds of comments when I was an evangelist for podcasts in 2005 and 2006. I really wanted to make podcasts and I still do. Making audio is when I feel happiest. I think I'm going to go ahead and just do that and see what happens. Here it that episode. I'll explain if I have to, but just listen and see what you think. 

Time travel back to 2005

I don't think I can listen to this , but maybe I should.  In November 2005, I was part of a panel discussion sponsored by the Virginia Piedmont Technology Council on blogs, podcasting and RSS. I may have even written about it in the past on this blog, but I'm not sure.  That was a different era. But maybe it's the same era.  I don't know.  All I know is this is the second day in a row I'm experimenting with things, organizing things, and trying to figure out how to get back into the podcasting game. I'm not making a quick move towards that, but I feel I've lost touch. I must get back to it. I'm experimenting with different services. I'm working with some friends to produce a podcast they want to do. Moderately intelligent sports talk is what you'll hear on the Cool Stove . I'm using a service called Podomatic on this one to test out what one of these podcasting sites offer. I can easily embed each episode here. I'm c

The power of making music

When I am in my most stressful moments, snippets of lyrics I've sang in the past generally save me.  I don't share all of music with the world, because I don't have the time to perfect it. I do it for me, because I need something to save me at times of severe stress. I'm in times of severe stress frequently. My beard is going grayer much sooner than I thought it would. Every single day brings with it some crisis that has to be solved. And they're almost always solved.  Since 2009, I've made at least fifty hours of songs, all improvised as I play my guitar and try to let myself go as much I can. I become this weird version of myself when I sing, and I love being able to have the luxury to spend some of my humanity to capture this stranger who lives inside of me. That stranger saves me all the time. I can't explain it, but I want to. I'm one human being among way over seven billion now. So many people, so many potential points of vi

Malcolm Tucker and the Doctor

I was just getting used to finally accepting Peter Capaldi as the Doctor when someone at Buzzfeed decided to point out 21 ways in which we can swear like Malcolm Tucker .  If you click, it's decidedly not for people who can't handle profanity, obscenity, abuse, or any of the other lovely things I came to appreciate watching The Thick of It . For me, I was very skeptical of Peter Capaldi being named as the Doctor. To me, his face was so associated with the amazing spectacle of Malcolm Tucker, the spin doctor for an unnamed party in British politics in that fictional show. I first watched it on a trip to England in 2012 and fell in love based on Capaldi's ability to so easily display concentrated hatred that could be used for political ends. So, when he was announced two years ago as the replacement for Matt Smith, I was completely flummoxed. I watched the presentation on a live stream from the BBC with my children present. I didn't know what to expect, but when hi

It worked again

I felt grumpy all day. Nothing felt right. I had a 9:00 meeting so I didn't get to run. I opted instead to spend about half an hour cleaning before I went out to meet my friend at Brazos.  I also had to cover a meeting at which I didn't get to say anything. I was a ghost in the room taking notes and attending to my work correspondence.  I started several blog posts but they were very depressing and that's not the side of me I want to present to the world. I'm tired of being grumpy. Then I had to cover another meeting that I didn't know about, which meant I had to change my evening plans. Those plans were to go the gym and do something to keep building a new habit. I need that new habit so much. I weigh almost 200 pounds, the result of totally giving up on exercise this summer. I'm not going to chastise myself for letting myself go. I had reasons, and I've taken steps to get back on track. I got home from the meeting and my mind real

Away from the fitness

I saved my life by devoting myself to exercise. Maybe I can do so again.  There was a time when I had nothing else to do but run. I dropped 30 pounds in four or five months as I ran and ran and ran.  It's all back. And I'm not sure I have the willpower to make it go away.  But, I'm trying to fight whatever demon in my mind wants me to stay away from the endorphins and the feeling of satisfaction that comes with being fit. Last week I bought new shoes for the first time in two years. And today I fought off a potential wave of sadness by signing up for a gym membership and promptly went for a three mile run.  The strategy worked. It's wearing off now, for reasons I can't say, but I so hope I can remember this tomorrow and get some miles in. I don't quite know when I stopped practicing the power of exercise, but I did. Maybe there's part of me that just doesn't care anymore. I hope that part goes away and that I can make intentiona

Sense of perspective

Aside from various projects here and there, Roanoke looks pretty much like it was when I left there thirteen years ago to move to Charlottesville. Of course, my American children and I only spent about six hours there today but my cursory observation is that the place has the same charm and somewhat latent energy it has when I left to come here. We all have question points in our lives where things could have turned one way or the other. For me, taking an official job in the public radio system was one where perhaps I should have paused a bit. I can certainly imagine the world with me becoming a public citizen in Roanoke the same way I seem to have done that here in Charlottesville.  The danger of having become a writer and a journalist is that I tend to be able to pick up everything, including my own life. I've written hundreds of thousands of words now, mostly for myself, but I have a body of work covering local politics in my community. What does "politics&quo

42

I didn't expect to get this far. I'm not sure sometimes that I did. I've written many times about feeling like a ghost, but today I actually relaxed and allowed myself to feel corporeal.  It was nice. 42, of course, is the answer to life, the universe and everything. The question is all wrong, yes, yes, we know that.  I thought I would have answers but I don't have any. I don't have any questions, either. Nor do I have any statements. Now I am here and it's time to see what that's going to look like. I have my thoughts, but I don't know for sure how long they will last before they collapse on themselves. That tends to happen.  In the past several days I've had many things to think about, but at the moment I only have this, and it is ephemeral. Yet I shall let it go anyway. I was going to write something about my music and what it means to me, but the more I get older the more I realize it's best to keep the things truly