(Phaysis)

So, it’s done. It’s finally over. After nine latent years, my Glass Door song “Best Laid Plans” is polished, posted, and ready for the harsh criticism of the faceless Internet.

I wrote it impromptu-style in 2002 during a dark period, and it shows. After languishing raw on my hard drive for years, I had enough of the anxiety and felt that it had to be published. In the past months of reworking and remixing it, I’ve gone back and forth on the sound, never happy with it. Finally, I pushed it into the right direction and decided that I was too tired to keep tweaking it. I had enough, the song had enough, and so there it is.

A song is where the musician got tired of mixing the music.

I’ve been sitting on this song for so long because it was raw and way too personal. I recorded it in one take, but it has taken the better part of a decade (most of that it sat motionless) until I was ready to show it. In public, I make a point of putting forth a manly, strong, guarded front, and the original spoken words for the song were too honest, too unprotected. I just could not, in all bravery, put it out there. So I had to rewrite the words, put some distance between my ego and the words, bring it to some sort of generic applicability to the everyman listening. Even still, there’s some of me in there — there has to be — but it’s a little more bearable.

All things told, I am actually that lonesome at times. If you’ve been reading all along, you’d know that all too well. I do crave the company of other people, but something in the metal-on-metal execution of my life leaves me unable to make that happen without unease. And so there I am, with “these lonesome ways of my soul.”

I have the singular ability to embarrass myself, which is convenient because it saves you the effort. The way I beat you to the punch by deprecating myself, I consider that a service I excel at. Like mama always said, if you can’t say anything good, say it about yourself, because for every finger you point there are three others pointing back and a thumb pointing off to the side. Just kidding, she never said that. She said she was proud of me, which counts in matters of the family.

In other news, alcohol is a helluva drug. I don’t drink often, but when I do, I drink dos drinkos. Or something like that.

2010 sucked shit. Did you know that? It had great promise, it did. End of the worst decade of my life. But you know what? I somehow ignored those promises and let them pass me by. I withered and shrivelled some, and then I whine about being alone. I’m the cause of my own misery. Did you know that? So what hope do I have in 2011? It’s just a year. It’s just another span of time, and the quality of my existence is not affected one iota by the name of the year. It will pass with or without my attention.

I have all the answers. I do, I have them. I know how to make myself and my life better. But I can’t take advantage of the answers. Too fucking proud to reach out and bring people in. I learned years ago that I have an unwelcome habit of making myself unwelcome by inviting myself along to the social whatevers. It was a painful, painful lesson, and I lost face from it. It’s best to go it alone unless I’m explicitly invited. But here’s the other edge of that blade: if the world doesn’t know you’re waiting on the call, it will be more than happy to let you stay alone while the more interesting people go off and do their things.

In the small world of small towns, small schools, and small groups, it’s easy to notice who’s alone. But the world at large, with all its billions of social circles, cliques, and ecosystems of people, the fact that you’re alone will never, ever be noticed, because to others, you may look like you’re too busy with your own little circles to join theirs. Which is, sometimes, the farthest from the truth.

So fuck 2010 for the embarrassment. And fuck 2011 for the solutions it won’t provide.

Reflecting on my life and where it is now. Turned 35 a week ago; I’m almost at the statistical halfway point until death. Sometimes I feel halfway dead already, and that’s unsettling. Starting to see further signs of growing older.

As I sat down to write this entry, I cued up some music, logged in, and sat with a blank form; the words didn’t come, and the music was keeping them away. I’m now seeing what our parents went through, that mental focus gets harder and harder. I’ve said before that I can’t get any work done at a coffee shop unless I have relative isolation; the same is true when writing journals. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. I had to turn the music off so I could think. Nothing but the drone of my computers’ fans; no distracting sonic impulses, no melody to carry my thoughts off like so many children behind their pied piper. I don’t want to be this way, but it’s a progression that’s been occurring for a few years. I guess I’m finally starting to recognize it.

I had an old flame come into town for my birthday weekend; not that she came in specifically for that, but she was travelling and stopped over for a few days on a coincidence. It was a true pleasure to see and spend time with her.

I had settled it within myself that I would be over and done after pining for her, holding a candle for her, for many, many years. And yes, I was done, resolute to move on. She has her life, her love, her choice; though we had a brief, jubilant shout of greatness years ago (with a few echos), her life was her life, mine was mine, and that was that. I sighed as I watched her drive away out of my life for the third time, but after being on a high from the greatest birthday weekend ever, I didn’t mind so much. I felt 29 again. I could conquer the world. I could date around. I could move on.

The nirvana didn’t last long; I foresaw that the depressive crash to my intense manic phase was imminent, and like a self-fulfilling prophecy it happened. Midweek. She and I are on the phone; I’m keeping her company as she was driving through Mississippi on to her home. She said she missed me. There was something in her tone that made me doubt my own resolve to move on. It cracked my foundation.

By the weekend, she made it home at last and got settled in with her new life and new love, and I was here aching and debating with myself. I felt withdrawal; cold, lonely, hungry. I knew what a heroin addict feels when he needs a fix. It’s that hunger, the desire to feel warm, loved, whole again. It hurt. She had nothing to do with my state but to say she missed me; that pebble started the avalanche that revealed the mountain of physical, mental, and social loneliness and longing that’s been hidden underneath years of snowy denial and distractions.

Enough time has passed since this revelation; my neurochemicals are somewhat leveled again. Still a little pensive, but that’s my nature. I don’t feel so bad about the whole thing, but I’m still left with the knowledge that I need someone in my life. It’s a bad, vulnerable place to be, sexual politics being what they are. I guess my best move is to keep my guard up and try to be the awesome guy I know I can be. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess.

I’m sad.

I don’t have anyone to share [Steak-and-B.J.-Day] with.

And I’m horny lately, to boot.

:sighs:

Any [takers]?