baby, my head's full of wishes
Okay. So. Things to look forward to:
-Getting in shape. Happening a little bit every day.
-Mario weekend part deux with Peter, Dave, and Kayleigh.
-Thanksgiving with Tabby's family. Spending it alone last year was kind of cool, but also kind of devastatingly depressing. I need to feel that camaraderie again.
-The first Christmas with my family in 3 years. Holler.
-Homestretch tapes being released soon. Other Homestretch secrets. XO
-Cold Cave - "Death Comes Close" 12" EP (shipped, waiting for it!)
-Ringworm - "The Promise" deluxe pre-order (shipping TOMORROW)
-Gehenna - "Die High" shirt series (shipping sometime this week)
-Floor - "Below & Beyond" Boxed Set (shipping sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas)
-Integrity - "To Die For" deluxe pre-order (shipping around Christmas)
-Flying up to Baltimore to see Integrity, Ringworm, Gehenna, Starkweather, Pulling Teeth, and Seraphim, with many of my closest friends, on January 9th.
It's good to take stock in the little things that make life enjoyable. I know it might seem like I'm grabbing at straws, and a large percentage of the above list is comprised of very material things, and maybe getting excited about records and t-shirts and punk rock gigs at age 22 seems really fucking childish to some of you, but it all means a lot to me on a level I have never fully been able to put into words. So I won't try.
Now, on to the whole "life" thing: maybe I'm not having quite as good a time as a lot of people my age. Maybe I'm still struggling with a few things. Maybe I need to live with more reckless abandon, throttling caution and tossing it into the gears, jumping without a chute. By all accounts, now's as good a time as any I'll live through, should I desire it of myself, to be cavalier: to love many and know few; to get into trouble; to talk shit; to take swings and come to blows; to pack a bark that matches my bite; to prowl like a crazed nomad from city to city, town to town, access road to access road, suffering from terminal Henry Rollins disease, screaming at the top of my bleeding lungs and swan-diving off of mile-high amp stacks onto hordes of the unloved and weeded out, sweating out old demons and making love to the horizon, with the people that matter the most to me sharing the whole stir-crazy, frenetic, pungently beautiful experience with me.
Maybe.
But right now, it's all about baby steps. Right now, I'm trying my best to relish all the moments, objects, memories, and especially people that deserve to be relished, and shrug off all the petty crap that doesn't deserve my attention anymore. This still needs work, and will probably always be my biggest uphill battle. But thanks to those of you who actually take time out of your busy lives (and I know they are truly very busy lives; there is no irony or sarcasm intended) to actually give half a shit about how I'm doing. It's not going unnoticed.
Here's to learning how to be an adult as one goes along.
Here's to the written word, and the relief it brings.
Here's to not doing anything without contemplating the love behind it first.
Here's to random acts of kindness. And most importantly, here's to almost always being blessed enough to have a reason behind them that makes them not so random after all.
Yggdrasil.
-Getting in shape. Happening a little bit every day.
-Mario weekend part deux with Peter, Dave, and Kayleigh.
-Thanksgiving with Tabby's family. Spending it alone last year was kind of cool, but also kind of devastatingly depressing. I need to feel that camaraderie again.
-The first Christmas with my family in 3 years. Holler.
-Homestretch tapes being released soon. Other Homestretch secrets. XO
-Cold Cave - "Death Comes Close" 12" EP (shipped, waiting for it!)
-Ringworm - "The Promise" deluxe pre-order (shipping TOMORROW)
-Gehenna - "Die High" shirt series (shipping sometime this week)
-Floor - "Below & Beyond" Boxed Set (shipping sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas)
-Integrity - "To Die For" deluxe pre-order (shipping around Christmas)
-Flying up to Baltimore to see Integrity, Ringworm, Gehenna, Starkweather, Pulling Teeth, and Seraphim, with many of my closest friends, on January 9th.
It's good to take stock in the little things that make life enjoyable. I know it might seem like I'm grabbing at straws, and a large percentage of the above list is comprised of very material things, and maybe getting excited about records and t-shirts and punk rock gigs at age 22 seems really fucking childish to some of you, but it all means a lot to me on a level I have never fully been able to put into words. So I won't try.
Now, on to the whole "life" thing: maybe I'm not having quite as good a time as a lot of people my age. Maybe I'm still struggling with a few things. Maybe I need to live with more reckless abandon, throttling caution and tossing it into the gears, jumping without a chute. By all accounts, now's as good a time as any I'll live through, should I desire it of myself, to be cavalier: to love many and know few; to get into trouble; to talk shit; to take swings and come to blows; to pack a bark that matches my bite; to prowl like a crazed nomad from city to city, town to town, access road to access road, suffering from terminal Henry Rollins disease, screaming at the top of my bleeding lungs and swan-diving off of mile-high amp stacks onto hordes of the unloved and weeded out, sweating out old demons and making love to the horizon, with the people that matter the most to me sharing the whole stir-crazy, frenetic, pungently beautiful experience with me.
Maybe.
But right now, it's all about baby steps. Right now, I'm trying my best to relish all the moments, objects, memories, and especially people that deserve to be relished, and shrug off all the petty crap that doesn't deserve my attention anymore. This still needs work, and will probably always be my biggest uphill battle. But thanks to those of you who actually take time out of your busy lives (and I know they are truly very busy lives; there is no irony or sarcasm intended) to actually give half a shit about how I'm doing. It's not going unnoticed.
Here's to learning how to be an adult as one goes along.
Here's to the written word, and the relief it brings.
Here's to not doing anything without contemplating the love behind it first.
Here's to random acts of kindness. And most importantly, here's to almost always being blessed enough to have a reason behind them that makes them not so random after all.
Yggdrasil.