haven't posted in a while...
and i'm going to do this post in honor of "the confederate mack" zine, which i've been reading a lot of lately since raven sent me 5 issues a couple weeks ago.
TOP TEN THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN ON MY MIND LATELY:
1. my computer has been bombarded with spyware constantly for the last two or three weeks. after never really having to deal with any of this (except getting the sasser worm back in the day when it first started, and fixing it easily with the microsoft patch), it seems like the fact that one thing got onto my computer sent out some sort of virtual signal to open the floodgates and dump all this shit down on me constantly. between the aurora trojan (aka "the nail"), neededware.com and all it's related bullshit, and a million other tiny things, i've been experiencing unwanted popups, unexplained running processes, extreme slowdown, and basic inability to enjoy the fact that i even have a computer anymore every time i even try to check my email. i end up running hours of anti-spyware, anti-trojan, and anti-virus scans, and still not finding everything because shit just keeps coming back. i think part of it may be that i have never installed windows service pack 2 onto my machine, and part of it may also be that i've been too lazy to download mozilla and dispense with microsoft internet explorer completely. however, now that i've decided to do those things, i can't get rid of the fucking spyware for long enough to even get started on it.
2. as a result of all this, my sleep schedule has been so terribly fucked for weeks now that i'm starting to have bouts of physical sickness because of it. whenever anything is on my mind and feels unresolved, it's very hard for me not to just focus on it constantly with every fiber of my being. so the fact that a lot of these big spyware attacks hit late at night makes it really hard for me to go to bed at a reasonable hour, even if i do have work in the morning. last night i finally said the hell with it and made myself go to bed at 2:30, but i had to be up at 8:30 for work and six hours is barely enough for me to make it through the day on. not to mention the fact that i then tossed and turned and woke up several times during the night, every time leading me to think worriedly of my computer. i'd left a virus scan running when i went to bed, and the temptation to get up, check the results, and do further tinkering was something i had to fight off every time. and of course, today i feel like shit.
3. last night, on my way back from a show, my car wouldn't turn over when i went to start it. i couldn't tell whether this meant that the battery was dead, the alternator was dead, or if it was some other problem, but by tinkering with it a bit, i finally got it to start and drove the six blocks home. of course, the tinkering i had done didn't work this morning, and i had to get brandon to give me a ride to work. i'm going to be walking home--which is fine, i need the exercise--but i'm really worried about things being broken on my car. i can't afford to have it fixed right now if the alternator has died, and i can barely afford a new battery. of course, all that said, when i called my dad (who has worked in the car business since before i was born and was doing his own auto work in his spare time long before that) and explained what had happened, he figured it was caused by corrosive buildup on the battery terminals, and that giving things a good scraping down would solve the problem. i really hope he's right, because a cheap fix is what i need. i could use the exercise, but i don't exactly look forward to the idea of walking to work every day until the 15th when i get paid.
4. i find myself feeling a lot more even-keeled emotionally lately, now that a lot of the fallout from the whole kat thing has started to fade from my mind. sometimes i still miss her a whole hell of a lot, and i know i'll always love her in some way, but one thing i find myself noticing is that, while i'm not as happy sometimes as she would make me, i'm also not ever as depressed as she'd sometimes make me (by the way, i don't mean that kat would do things deliberately to depress me, i more mean that i'd often get depressed over events that were occurring within the relationship, and by extension affecting the status of the relationship itself... or at least, that's what i feared at the time). i'm not sure if it's worth the trade-off, but it's an interesting thing to notice, that i was at times far more depressed while in a relationship than i generally am while alone. i tend to blame all of my depression while single on loneliness/desire for a relationship, but this is pretty obviously overly reductive, and recent thoughts and events have only made that more obvious.
5. what the above makes me wonder about a lot is whether i really even want to be in relationships anymore. i'm not saying this in a drama queen sense of "fine, fuck it, i give up, i'll just be a celibate asexual whiner like morrissey" or any of that. i'm more thinking in terms of the fact that i work a lot less hard on my ultimate life goals while i'm with someone. that's a hard thing to face, but it's the truth. i also wonder whether it would stay true if i really found the "right" relationship. but i guess i'm feeling burnt lately, and would rather just not try, at least for a while. i'll focus my energies on writing and music, and if something comes along i'll worry about it then.
6. of course, on the heels of that i must mention that as soon as i decide all of this, i meet a girl who really gets my attention on a number of levels. what's more, i felt like the interest was at least somewhat mutual. part of me wants to be the awesomely determined guy who tells himself he's not going to bother, but i think in the past that's often been a smokescreen i used to hide my own fear. i don't know that it's all that likely for anything to come of this (the girl of which i speak actually lives a couple hours away from me, not that that has ever stopped me before), but i think i want to try pursuing it. i'm not expecting or hoping for anything in particular, but i gotta admit that i'm interested enough to find out what will happen.
7. i mentioned music before; well, eric has moved back to richmond recently and we're already deep into discussions of forming a new band with dave odell and rian pupa. it would probably combine our favorite elements of what we were both doing with tri state killing spree with what eric, rian, and dave were doing with human timebomb. of course, we need a rhythm section, but both eric and dave have ideas where that's concerned, and eric and 7 other people are renting a big house with a big basement that he's planning on soundproofing, so we'll have a place to practice. i really look forward to what comes of all this.
8. speaking of eric's big new house, i went over there and hung out with him and his roommates the night they moved in, doing what i could to help carry stuff inside that was still left on the moving truck (i missed a lot of the moving in because i got there so late). there are so many different projects set to spring up from that household of kids i just can't believe it. in addition to eric's band the catalyst, most of whom live there, they already have a screenprinting business going that's been doing t-shirts and record covers for bands (in fact, eric needs to get his studio in the new house going asap because of all the orders they've gotten that they haven't filled yet). also, his roommate kyle is doing a record distro, and eric and some of the other kids are trying to do some sort of locally-oriented music zine, which i've volunteered to write for. all of these projects make me happy and excited too, and i like the idea of all of them coming down here and breathing new life into the scene. i hope to be able to help out with a lot of this stuff.
9. last night at the show i went to, i met a guy who posts on the lastplanetojakarta forums with me, who is from richmond. it's funny, lptj is a much smaller forum than makeoutclub, and yet there are 3 richmond people on there, while i'm the only one on moc (well, the only steady one... there's a girl from richmond who posts on there occasionally, and a couple other local kids who used to post but don't anymore). anyway, it was good to meet him and he's a really cool guy. in fact, he planted a new train of thought in my mind, as he himself writes for a couple of internet music sites and was saying that he's read my music blog a bunch and thinks i'm a "much better writer" than he is (i don't know about all that, but it's what he said). he was telling me that the way he got on the sites he writes for is that he saw that they'd put out a call for writers and sent them what they were looking for. and he got accepted. simple as that. this makes me think that i need to start monitoring all of these websites to see if they are looking for submissions. of course, i don't quite know which ones to check, other than that i don't want to write for pitchfork (even if they pay, it's worth it to me not to be associated with that whole crew). but i think i'm gonna have to start looking around. this whole thing where i've never sent anyone anything just gets more and more ridiculous the older i get, and if younger kids than me can send stuff out and get gigs so easily, i can't imagine that i'd have all that much trouble finding someone who wants to publish my crap. so that's something to get working on (in addition to the fact that i still need to send stuff to spin. my procrastinating is getting ridiculous on that front as well).
10. i don't plan on using this journal much anymore. most of my writing these days goes on my music blog. i try to update it at least once a week, and though i don't always get there, i update it three or four times in one week at other times. so check back semi-frequently, and hopefully i'll have new content for you more often than not. it's not as focused on my personal life as this journal tends to be, and i think part of the reason i'm writing more there than here is because i don't feel as inspired to write expository essays that are directly about my own life as i used to. but when i write about music, i'm generally writing about myself on some level, and i think you'll continue seeing that if you look hard enough.
TOP TEN THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN ON MY MIND LATELY:
1. my computer has been bombarded with spyware constantly for the last two or three weeks. after never really having to deal with any of this (except getting the sasser worm back in the day when it first started, and fixing it easily with the microsoft patch), it seems like the fact that one thing got onto my computer sent out some sort of virtual signal to open the floodgates and dump all this shit down on me constantly. between the aurora trojan (aka "the nail"), neededware.com and all it's related bullshit, and a million other tiny things, i've been experiencing unwanted popups, unexplained running processes, extreme slowdown, and basic inability to enjoy the fact that i even have a computer anymore every time i even try to check my email. i end up running hours of anti-spyware, anti-trojan, and anti-virus scans, and still not finding everything because shit just keeps coming back. i think part of it may be that i have never installed windows service pack 2 onto my machine, and part of it may also be that i've been too lazy to download mozilla and dispense with microsoft internet explorer completely. however, now that i've decided to do those things, i can't get rid of the fucking spyware for long enough to even get started on it.
2. as a result of all this, my sleep schedule has been so terribly fucked for weeks now that i'm starting to have bouts of physical sickness because of it. whenever anything is on my mind and feels unresolved, it's very hard for me not to just focus on it constantly with every fiber of my being. so the fact that a lot of these big spyware attacks hit late at night makes it really hard for me to go to bed at a reasonable hour, even if i do have work in the morning. last night i finally said the hell with it and made myself go to bed at 2:30, but i had to be up at 8:30 for work and six hours is barely enough for me to make it through the day on. not to mention the fact that i then tossed and turned and woke up several times during the night, every time leading me to think worriedly of my computer. i'd left a virus scan running when i went to bed, and the temptation to get up, check the results, and do further tinkering was something i had to fight off every time. and of course, today i feel like shit.
3. last night, on my way back from a show, my car wouldn't turn over when i went to start it. i couldn't tell whether this meant that the battery was dead, the alternator was dead, or if it was some other problem, but by tinkering with it a bit, i finally got it to start and drove the six blocks home. of course, the tinkering i had done didn't work this morning, and i had to get brandon to give me a ride to work. i'm going to be walking home--which is fine, i need the exercise--but i'm really worried about things being broken on my car. i can't afford to have it fixed right now if the alternator has died, and i can barely afford a new battery. of course, all that said, when i called my dad (who has worked in the car business since before i was born and was doing his own auto work in his spare time long before that) and explained what had happened, he figured it was caused by corrosive buildup on the battery terminals, and that giving things a good scraping down would solve the problem. i really hope he's right, because a cheap fix is what i need. i could use the exercise, but i don't exactly look forward to the idea of walking to work every day until the 15th when i get paid.
4. i find myself feeling a lot more even-keeled emotionally lately, now that a lot of the fallout from the whole kat thing has started to fade from my mind. sometimes i still miss her a whole hell of a lot, and i know i'll always love her in some way, but one thing i find myself noticing is that, while i'm not as happy sometimes as she would make me, i'm also not ever as depressed as she'd sometimes make me (by the way, i don't mean that kat would do things deliberately to depress me, i more mean that i'd often get depressed over events that were occurring within the relationship, and by extension affecting the status of the relationship itself... or at least, that's what i feared at the time). i'm not sure if it's worth the trade-off, but it's an interesting thing to notice, that i was at times far more depressed while in a relationship than i generally am while alone. i tend to blame all of my depression while single on loneliness/desire for a relationship, but this is pretty obviously overly reductive, and recent thoughts and events have only made that more obvious.
5. what the above makes me wonder about a lot is whether i really even want to be in relationships anymore. i'm not saying this in a drama queen sense of "fine, fuck it, i give up, i'll just be a celibate asexual whiner like morrissey" or any of that. i'm more thinking in terms of the fact that i work a lot less hard on my ultimate life goals while i'm with someone. that's a hard thing to face, but it's the truth. i also wonder whether it would stay true if i really found the "right" relationship. but i guess i'm feeling burnt lately, and would rather just not try, at least for a while. i'll focus my energies on writing and music, and if something comes along i'll worry about it then.
6. of course, on the heels of that i must mention that as soon as i decide all of this, i meet a girl who really gets my attention on a number of levels. what's more, i felt like the interest was at least somewhat mutual. part of me wants to be the awesomely determined guy who tells himself he's not going to bother, but i think in the past that's often been a smokescreen i used to hide my own fear. i don't know that it's all that likely for anything to come of this (the girl of which i speak actually lives a couple hours away from me, not that that has ever stopped me before), but i think i want to try pursuing it. i'm not expecting or hoping for anything in particular, but i gotta admit that i'm interested enough to find out what will happen.
7. i mentioned music before; well, eric has moved back to richmond recently and we're already deep into discussions of forming a new band with dave odell and rian pupa. it would probably combine our favorite elements of what we were both doing with tri state killing spree with what eric, rian, and dave were doing with human timebomb. of course, we need a rhythm section, but both eric and dave have ideas where that's concerned, and eric and 7 other people are renting a big house with a big basement that he's planning on soundproofing, so we'll have a place to practice. i really look forward to what comes of all this.
8. speaking of eric's big new house, i went over there and hung out with him and his roommates the night they moved in, doing what i could to help carry stuff inside that was still left on the moving truck (i missed a lot of the moving in because i got there so late). there are so many different projects set to spring up from that household of kids i just can't believe it. in addition to eric's band the catalyst, most of whom live there, they already have a screenprinting business going that's been doing t-shirts and record covers for bands (in fact, eric needs to get his studio in the new house going asap because of all the orders they've gotten that they haven't filled yet). also, his roommate kyle is doing a record distro, and eric and some of the other kids are trying to do some sort of locally-oriented music zine, which i've volunteered to write for. all of these projects make me happy and excited too, and i like the idea of all of them coming down here and breathing new life into the scene. i hope to be able to help out with a lot of this stuff.
9. last night at the show i went to, i met a guy who posts on the lastplanetojakarta forums with me, who is from richmond. it's funny, lptj is a much smaller forum than makeoutclub, and yet there are 3 richmond people on there, while i'm the only one on moc (well, the only steady one... there's a girl from richmond who posts on there occasionally, and a couple other local kids who used to post but don't anymore). anyway, it was good to meet him and he's a really cool guy. in fact, he planted a new train of thought in my mind, as he himself writes for a couple of internet music sites and was saying that he's read my music blog a bunch and thinks i'm a "much better writer" than he is (i don't know about all that, but it's what he said). he was telling me that the way he got on the sites he writes for is that he saw that they'd put out a call for writers and sent them what they were looking for. and he got accepted. simple as that. this makes me think that i need to start monitoring all of these websites to see if they are looking for submissions. of course, i don't quite know which ones to check, other than that i don't want to write for pitchfork (even if they pay, it's worth it to me not to be associated with that whole crew). but i think i'm gonna have to start looking around. this whole thing where i've never sent anyone anything just gets more and more ridiculous the older i get, and if younger kids than me can send stuff out and get gigs so easily, i can't imagine that i'd have all that much trouble finding someone who wants to publish my crap. so that's something to get working on (in addition to the fact that i still need to send stuff to spin. my procrastinating is getting ridiculous on that front as well).
10. i don't plan on using this journal much anymore. most of my writing these days goes on my music blog. i try to update it at least once a week, and though i don't always get there, i update it three or four times in one week at other times. so check back semi-frequently, and hopefully i'll have new content for you more often than not. it's not as focused on my personal life as this journal tends to be, and i think part of the reason i'm writing more there than here is because i don't feel as inspired to write expository essays that are directly about my own life as i used to. but when i write about music, i'm generally writing about myself on some level, and i think you'll continue seeing that if you look hard enough.