(no subject)
on one level, today was a good day. and in fact, it's been a good past couple of days. the issue of ugly things that i had mail-ordered around christmastime got here, so i was able to finally read part two of the story of the misunderstood, which i had somehow missed when the magazine was on the newsstands. i'm in the middle of it now, and for those who don't know... not only are the misunderstood one of the most underrated bands of the mid-60s psychedelic era (download their songs "children of the sun" and "find a hidden door" to see what i mean), their story is one of the more interesting musical biographies i've ever read, and i read a lot of them. so that's cool, though it is distracting me for the time being from hunter s. thompson's "kingdom of fear" (which i'm also really enjoying). and then today i decided to go out on a shopping expedition, and i picked up all kinds of cool stuff.
first, i went by tower records, and though i didn't buy any cds, i did find a new issue of "murder can be fun", which i thought had stopped publishing years ago. i also picked up the vice magazine book collecting the best of their "do's and don'ts" section--which is always interesting and hilarious, probably my favorite section of their magazine. it was 30% off, which reduced it from $17.95 to $12.57, or i never would have bought it. but as it is i got a deal on it.
then i headed over to plan 9. i was hoping to find some cds by the misunderstood, as there has been a recent reissue of a bunch of their demos, entitled "lost acetates, 1965-66". however, i think i'm going to have to order it from ugly things if i want it, because plan 9 certainly didn't have it. and upon further reading, i've learned that most of the collection dates from before steel guitarist glenn campbell (not to be confused with the country guy) joined their band, and i personally don't think they were worth too much before he joined. so really, i just want the last 6 or so songs on the cd, and for that i should just keep looking for it on soulseek.
i did find plenty that i was interested in at plan 9, though. chris terry, when he was down here last week, had mentioned to me that i should check out bent outta shape, a band from brooklyn who he said sounded like the early replacements. plan 9 had their 12", and though it sounded less like the replacements than crimpshrine or something like that when i listened to it, i did enjoy it enough to pick up. i also took a chance on an lp that a couple friends of mine from the richmond hardcore scene (who go by the name "perpetual motion machine records") had released, by a band called life at these speeds. the first song sounded good, and it was only $7 (as was the bent outta shape 12"), so i figured what the hell. finally, i picked up a comp called wayfarers all, which features stop it! and wilderness medicine, along with a bunch of other bands i've heard of but never heard. i've got friends in both of the aforementioned bands, and even an ex-bandmate in one, so i figured what the hell. this was also $7, and it was good to see a bunch of reasonably priced lps at plan 9 for once. they also had a reissue of the negative fx lp, complete with a bunch of bonus tracks, but it was $12, so i held off for now. they had four copies, so hopefully if i decide to go back for it after i get paid it will still be there.
after digging through the vinyl, i decided to hit up the used cassettes, and this was where i really struck gold. in the $3 area, i found a bunch of stuff that i used to have in my late high school/early college days. i passed over smashing pumpkins' "lull" ep and a couple of tapes each by the cocteau twins and lucinda williams, but i couldn't resist picking up "so tonight that i might see," by mazzy star, and both "pod" AND "last splash" by the breeders. i also grabbed a pretty random thing that totally caught my attention--"bird dog", by the verlaines, which had been reviewed in one of the first issues of rolling stone magazine that i ever got delivered to my house, back in 1988. i'd never actually seen a copy of it for sale in the 17 years since i read that review (my god, has it been that long? i guess i WAS 12 then, and i AM 29 now... oh, man), but i still remembered how interesting it sounded, and just couldn't pass up the chance to finally hear it. i was going to head upstairs and make my purchases then, as i had pretty much spent as much as i'd budgeted for the trip, but i had to stop by the $1 cassette bin before i did. and wouldn't you know, there were plenty more tapes in that bin that i wanted. i passed up a bunch of stuff there too, but i did get some more early-90s vintage alt-rock tapes i used to own, such as curve's "doppelganger", belly's "star", mazzy star's "she hangs brightly" (and why this was $1 while "so tonight that i might see" was $3, i don't know, but hey... i'm not complaining), and the charlatans uk's "some friendly" (which, now that i think of it, i may still own on cd. let me check... nope. guess it's a good thing i bought it after all). finally, they had the first, self-titled placebo album in the dollar bin, and as that's my favorite album by that band, i totally grabbed it.
my friend carrie was working the cash register, and when she rang me up she gave me some sort of discount that reduced my price from $40 to $35, which was cool. she also invited me to a potluck/show at her house this friday, which eric's band is apparently playing. i'm not going to be off work early enough to make the potluck, but i hope to remember to get over there and see eric's band, as i haven't hung out with that guy in a good six months, at least. she gave me a rather vague location, but i used to live in the neighborhood where she's living now, so hopefully i can find it all right.
so yeah, i spent about $60 today, including the lunch i bought at stuffy's before going record shopping. it was pretty much the entirety of the money i was ok with spending before i get paid again (i have $113 in my pocket, including a $100 bill that i'd promised myself i wouldn't break), but i remembered as i was driving home that i'm actually supposed to get paid tomorrow. i won't get paid until the day after, unfortunately, as my boss doesn't work tomorrow and i forgot to leave her timesheets before i left work on saturday, but i'm pretty sure i can get through until tuesday on the $13 i've got left other than that hundred-dollar bill. so i guess everything's good...
but i'm so fucking lonely.
i think a lot of the reason i even went on some kind of ridiculous shopping spree today was just because i was trying to get my mind off things. i hung out with jen last night for a couple of hours, and it was nice to see her. i couldn't help but think of just how much i've been neglecting my friendships during the time kat and i were together, simply due to how much mental and emotional energy i was putting into my relationship. there was no reason i couldn't have gone out more, seen my friends more, especially since kat was in london and i was here for three and a half of the five months we were together. however, i was too wrapped up in the whole thing, and that's how it came down. now, though, i'm right back to where i was before she and i got together, where i was too depressed and freaked out a lot of the time to be able to make myself go out and see people. it seems like, no matter where i am in life, this is always a problem. when i lived alone, i thought the problem was that there was no one around me that i could hang out with without having to make plans to do so. then when i lived with people i didn't know, i thought the problem was that they weren't friends, and we didn't have much in common. and now that i do live with friends, i spend a lot of time hiding alone in my room. i felt the best when i was dating kat, even though she was always far away, because the eventual plan was that she would be here in richmond. i think in the end, what i'm looking for, what feels missing and makes me so depressed so much of the time, is that i don't want to have to go out to see anyone. i want someone in my life that i can come home to. i can look back now and realize that, growing up, i never felt that sense of togetherness and being linked that some people get from their families. i can remember when a bunch of things that are hardly relevant to tell at this juncture were coming down when i was in high school (i'd guess i was 15), and my dad gave us some big speech about us getting through it together because we were a family. i remember thinking, "oh, please. what a pile of shit," and retreating to my room. i never felt it as a kid. now, as i get older, i find myself wanting that sort of thing in my life, desperately. i'm certainly not talking about kids at this point, and who knows when or even if that will become a possibility, but i AM talking about wanting to find someone to be in love with. my friends are always there for me, and that's nice as far as it goes, but it isn't and hasn't ever been enough. there are so many things that you can get from a true, deep, enduring love that just aren't available to you in any other interaction, and it's those things that i find myself desperately longing for.
i heard from kat this morning. she called me from new york, where she spent the weekend hanging out with her friends there and looking for a sublet. she's found a place and will be moving up there next weekend. we're going to see each other one more time before she goes--i'm driving up to her house in northern virginia and spending my day off this week with her. but then after that, even though she says she will visit occasionally and wants me to visit her there as well, and even though we'll probably talk on the phone frequently, especially right after she moves up there, i know i won't be seeing that much of her. it's nice to know that she still loves me, that it wasn't a lack of love that kept our relationship from working. it's nice to think that the problems that kept us apart now may yet work themselves out with time, depending on which direction we both grow and what sorts of things happen in our lives. but when i'm at my most brutally realistic, i can admit that the odds are against things going this way, and that most of the reason i even think about it is because it's making it easier for me to deal with the fact that it didn't work out, and that i'm losing her as a girlfriend/potential longterm companion (though certainly not as a friend, and maybe not even as an occasional lover).
when i think of what might happen for me if kat and i never are together again, i don't have that much hope, at least not in the short term. it was random chance more than anything that led to us finding each other, and i've been in richmond long enough that i feel like if i meet anyone else before a time comes that i end up leaving this place, it will also probably be someone who is from a different town. it's a lot harder for such long distance things to develop naturally, as this whole thing with kat has proven, and really i just feel that for now, the thing i want as far as a longterm relationship is concerned is not going to happen. and sure, that sucks to contemplate, but don't get me wrong--i'll survive. i'll be ok. kat is the first person i was in a committed relationship with since summer of 2000, and i made it through those four years of sporadic dating and long stretches alone. i think i can make it through another four if it comes to it. but i wouldn't say i'm looking forward to it.
it's good to look at where i'm at right now, and see that i am at least writing. i'm not all that satisfied with the type of writing i'm doing, though. typing in this journal may improve the amount of words per day i put out, but it's never going to pay the bills. at this point, i think my best plan is to clean up and polish a few of my more recent writings on music and send them out to a bunch of places to see if they're interested in publishing my stuff. it's a long shot, i know, but not trying never got me anywhere. and maybe if i do try, i can finally feel like i'm moving forward and getting things accomplished in life, instead of spinning my wheels like i've done for most of the past two years.
first, i went by tower records, and though i didn't buy any cds, i did find a new issue of "murder can be fun", which i thought had stopped publishing years ago. i also picked up the vice magazine book collecting the best of their "do's and don'ts" section--which is always interesting and hilarious, probably my favorite section of their magazine. it was 30% off, which reduced it from $17.95 to $12.57, or i never would have bought it. but as it is i got a deal on it.
then i headed over to plan 9. i was hoping to find some cds by the misunderstood, as there has been a recent reissue of a bunch of their demos, entitled "lost acetates, 1965-66". however, i think i'm going to have to order it from ugly things if i want it, because plan 9 certainly didn't have it. and upon further reading, i've learned that most of the collection dates from before steel guitarist glenn campbell (not to be confused with the country guy) joined their band, and i personally don't think they were worth too much before he joined. so really, i just want the last 6 or so songs on the cd, and for that i should just keep looking for it on soulseek.
i did find plenty that i was interested in at plan 9, though. chris terry, when he was down here last week, had mentioned to me that i should check out bent outta shape, a band from brooklyn who he said sounded like the early replacements. plan 9 had their 12", and though it sounded less like the replacements than crimpshrine or something like that when i listened to it, i did enjoy it enough to pick up. i also took a chance on an lp that a couple friends of mine from the richmond hardcore scene (who go by the name "perpetual motion machine records") had released, by a band called life at these speeds. the first song sounded good, and it was only $7 (as was the bent outta shape 12"), so i figured what the hell. finally, i picked up a comp called wayfarers all, which features stop it! and wilderness medicine, along with a bunch of other bands i've heard of but never heard. i've got friends in both of the aforementioned bands, and even an ex-bandmate in one, so i figured what the hell. this was also $7, and it was good to see a bunch of reasonably priced lps at plan 9 for once. they also had a reissue of the negative fx lp, complete with a bunch of bonus tracks, but it was $12, so i held off for now. they had four copies, so hopefully if i decide to go back for it after i get paid it will still be there.
after digging through the vinyl, i decided to hit up the used cassettes, and this was where i really struck gold. in the $3 area, i found a bunch of stuff that i used to have in my late high school/early college days. i passed over smashing pumpkins' "lull" ep and a couple of tapes each by the cocteau twins and lucinda williams, but i couldn't resist picking up "so tonight that i might see," by mazzy star, and both "pod" AND "last splash" by the breeders. i also grabbed a pretty random thing that totally caught my attention--"bird dog", by the verlaines, which had been reviewed in one of the first issues of rolling stone magazine that i ever got delivered to my house, back in 1988. i'd never actually seen a copy of it for sale in the 17 years since i read that review (my god, has it been that long? i guess i WAS 12 then, and i AM 29 now... oh, man), but i still remembered how interesting it sounded, and just couldn't pass up the chance to finally hear it. i was going to head upstairs and make my purchases then, as i had pretty much spent as much as i'd budgeted for the trip, but i had to stop by the $1 cassette bin before i did. and wouldn't you know, there were plenty more tapes in that bin that i wanted. i passed up a bunch of stuff there too, but i did get some more early-90s vintage alt-rock tapes i used to own, such as curve's "doppelganger", belly's "star", mazzy star's "she hangs brightly" (and why this was $1 while "so tonight that i might see" was $3, i don't know, but hey... i'm not complaining), and the charlatans uk's "some friendly" (which, now that i think of it, i may still own on cd. let me check... nope. guess it's a good thing i bought it after all). finally, they had the first, self-titled placebo album in the dollar bin, and as that's my favorite album by that band, i totally grabbed it.
my friend carrie was working the cash register, and when she rang me up she gave me some sort of discount that reduced my price from $40 to $35, which was cool. she also invited me to a potluck/show at her house this friday, which eric's band is apparently playing. i'm not going to be off work early enough to make the potluck, but i hope to remember to get over there and see eric's band, as i haven't hung out with that guy in a good six months, at least. she gave me a rather vague location, but i used to live in the neighborhood where she's living now, so hopefully i can find it all right.
so yeah, i spent about $60 today, including the lunch i bought at stuffy's before going record shopping. it was pretty much the entirety of the money i was ok with spending before i get paid again (i have $113 in my pocket, including a $100 bill that i'd promised myself i wouldn't break), but i remembered as i was driving home that i'm actually supposed to get paid tomorrow. i won't get paid until the day after, unfortunately, as my boss doesn't work tomorrow and i forgot to leave her timesheets before i left work on saturday, but i'm pretty sure i can get through until tuesday on the $13 i've got left other than that hundred-dollar bill. so i guess everything's good...
but i'm so fucking lonely.
i think a lot of the reason i even went on some kind of ridiculous shopping spree today was just because i was trying to get my mind off things. i hung out with jen last night for a couple of hours, and it was nice to see her. i couldn't help but think of just how much i've been neglecting my friendships during the time kat and i were together, simply due to how much mental and emotional energy i was putting into my relationship. there was no reason i couldn't have gone out more, seen my friends more, especially since kat was in london and i was here for three and a half of the five months we were together. however, i was too wrapped up in the whole thing, and that's how it came down. now, though, i'm right back to where i was before she and i got together, where i was too depressed and freaked out a lot of the time to be able to make myself go out and see people. it seems like, no matter where i am in life, this is always a problem. when i lived alone, i thought the problem was that there was no one around me that i could hang out with without having to make plans to do so. then when i lived with people i didn't know, i thought the problem was that they weren't friends, and we didn't have much in common. and now that i do live with friends, i spend a lot of time hiding alone in my room. i felt the best when i was dating kat, even though she was always far away, because the eventual plan was that she would be here in richmond. i think in the end, what i'm looking for, what feels missing and makes me so depressed so much of the time, is that i don't want to have to go out to see anyone. i want someone in my life that i can come home to. i can look back now and realize that, growing up, i never felt that sense of togetherness and being linked that some people get from their families. i can remember when a bunch of things that are hardly relevant to tell at this juncture were coming down when i was in high school (i'd guess i was 15), and my dad gave us some big speech about us getting through it together because we were a family. i remember thinking, "oh, please. what a pile of shit," and retreating to my room. i never felt it as a kid. now, as i get older, i find myself wanting that sort of thing in my life, desperately. i'm certainly not talking about kids at this point, and who knows when or even if that will become a possibility, but i AM talking about wanting to find someone to be in love with. my friends are always there for me, and that's nice as far as it goes, but it isn't and hasn't ever been enough. there are so many things that you can get from a true, deep, enduring love that just aren't available to you in any other interaction, and it's those things that i find myself desperately longing for.
i heard from kat this morning. she called me from new york, where she spent the weekend hanging out with her friends there and looking for a sublet. she's found a place and will be moving up there next weekend. we're going to see each other one more time before she goes--i'm driving up to her house in northern virginia and spending my day off this week with her. but then after that, even though she says she will visit occasionally and wants me to visit her there as well, and even though we'll probably talk on the phone frequently, especially right after she moves up there, i know i won't be seeing that much of her. it's nice to know that she still loves me, that it wasn't a lack of love that kept our relationship from working. it's nice to think that the problems that kept us apart now may yet work themselves out with time, depending on which direction we both grow and what sorts of things happen in our lives. but when i'm at my most brutally realistic, i can admit that the odds are against things going this way, and that most of the reason i even think about it is because it's making it easier for me to deal with the fact that it didn't work out, and that i'm losing her as a girlfriend/potential longterm companion (though certainly not as a friend, and maybe not even as an occasional lover).
when i think of what might happen for me if kat and i never are together again, i don't have that much hope, at least not in the short term. it was random chance more than anything that led to us finding each other, and i've been in richmond long enough that i feel like if i meet anyone else before a time comes that i end up leaving this place, it will also probably be someone who is from a different town. it's a lot harder for such long distance things to develop naturally, as this whole thing with kat has proven, and really i just feel that for now, the thing i want as far as a longterm relationship is concerned is not going to happen. and sure, that sucks to contemplate, but don't get me wrong--i'll survive. i'll be ok. kat is the first person i was in a committed relationship with since summer of 2000, and i made it through those four years of sporadic dating and long stretches alone. i think i can make it through another four if it comes to it. but i wouldn't say i'm looking forward to it.
it's good to look at where i'm at right now, and see that i am at least writing. i'm not all that satisfied with the type of writing i'm doing, though. typing in this journal may improve the amount of words per day i put out, but it's never going to pay the bills. at this point, i think my best plan is to clean up and polish a few of my more recent writings on music and send them out to a bunch of places to see if they're interested in publishing my stuff. it's a long shot, i know, but not trying never got me anywhere. and maybe if i do try, i can finally feel like i'm moving forward and getting things accomplished in life, instead of spinning my wheels like i've done for most of the past two years.