(no subject)
I don't feel that good about myself recently. Better than I had earlier this year, but that isn't such a feat. This year has been a clusterfuck. I want this one in the ground as soon as possible. Let us never speak its name so long as we live (should we live through it, 09 is not without tricks and time left.)
I read more. I haven't made much progress through the literary canon I feel like I should have under my belt at this point. I like reading fantasy novels. I don't want to read something that reminds me of myself. I want dragons and magic and swords and things that I have no realistic expectation to ever have to deal with in my natural life. I like escapism. I played WoW. I don't do this for enrichment, I do this so I don't have to think.
I miss dairy. Being lactose intolerant has just made me avoid dairy as a reflex. For the most part, I don't really care. I still eat ice cream and pizza at home with reckless abandon. It's only when I'm out that i have to worry about it in any real way. My suffering should be my own. It (mostly) is.
Music is slowly creeping its way back into my life, and I'm thankful for it. I think it's a stabilizing force that I came to rely on heavily in my adolescence, in the formation of my habits. I think the equilibrium is getting closer now that I've accepted music as a part of my life. I read a piece on how we are always listening to music now, how silence is so rare that we should turn off out mp3 players for a day. I'm not sure I disagree with that sentiment, but I may have taken it to the other extreme after reading it. Maybe I just started listening to music that got to me again. With the advent of the iPod and the huge music collection, it's not often an album sees heavy rotation in my listening. I'm starting to think that's a real detriment to my efforts to make connections with the music. Prior to its implosion, CDs would very often, quite literally get "stuck in my CD player". I heard the intro to the next song in my head as the one before it ended. I could feel the pulse of the album.
I'm not someone who hits "shuffle" a lot. I see the order of the songs in an album line up as an extension of the songs' expression. They are meant to be played in such an order. I don't consume singles. I want to hear a cohesive offering from artists. The bands I love, really love are bands whose sound evolves between releases. I love hearing it change. I pretend it parallels the changes I make in my own life, that their sound changes along with the way I hear it. Thrice is a band like that. I think I really became aware of it when they released The Alchemy Index. That (those) release(s) really changed the way I look at the way I look at myself. The idea that they could dissect their sound into elements, give each of the classical elements a quality they ascribe to their songs, make it audible... it's just neat. It made me think maybe I could hear that in my own thoughts. I could hear the flavor of the voices in my head. It was an exciting time. I was also really depressed and weird. I probably ate a lot of ice cream in that time, I don't know if that counts for anything.
I read more. I haven't made much progress through the literary canon I feel like I should have under my belt at this point. I like reading fantasy novels. I don't want to read something that reminds me of myself. I want dragons and magic and swords and things that I have no realistic expectation to ever have to deal with in my natural life. I like escapism. I played WoW. I don't do this for enrichment, I do this so I don't have to think.
I miss dairy. Being lactose intolerant has just made me avoid dairy as a reflex. For the most part, I don't really care. I still eat ice cream and pizza at home with reckless abandon. It's only when I'm out that i have to worry about it in any real way. My suffering should be my own. It (mostly) is.
Music is slowly creeping its way back into my life, and I'm thankful for it. I think it's a stabilizing force that I came to rely on heavily in my adolescence, in the formation of my habits. I think the equilibrium is getting closer now that I've accepted music as a part of my life. I read a piece on how we are always listening to music now, how silence is so rare that we should turn off out mp3 players for a day. I'm not sure I disagree with that sentiment, but I may have taken it to the other extreme after reading it. Maybe I just started listening to music that got to me again. With the advent of the iPod and the huge music collection, it's not often an album sees heavy rotation in my listening. I'm starting to think that's a real detriment to my efforts to make connections with the music. Prior to its implosion, CDs would very often, quite literally get "stuck in my CD player". I heard the intro to the next song in my head as the one before it ended. I could feel the pulse of the album.
I'm not someone who hits "shuffle" a lot. I see the order of the songs in an album line up as an extension of the songs' expression. They are meant to be played in such an order. I don't consume singles. I want to hear a cohesive offering from artists. The bands I love, really love are bands whose sound evolves between releases. I love hearing it change. I pretend it parallels the changes I make in my own life, that their sound changes along with the way I hear it. Thrice is a band like that. I think I really became aware of it when they released The Alchemy Index. That (those) release(s) really changed the way I look at the way I look at myself. The idea that they could dissect their sound into elements, give each of the classical elements a quality they ascribe to their songs, make it audible... it's just neat. It made me think maybe I could hear that in my own thoughts. I could hear the flavor of the voices in my head. It was an exciting time. I was also really depressed and weird. I probably ate a lot of ice cream in that time, I don't know if that counts for anything.