It Was Daylight When You Woke Up In Your Ditch

Tonight, after some coffee, I took a drive around town. Decided to avoid the big streets and thoroughfares I always take. Investigated some of the little neighborhoods I never see, the stuff in-between the high streets. The nooks and crannies.

I had the windows rolled down; radio off. Vent fan was turned off. All I heard was the engine, the tires, and the surrounding street. Ambient, peaceful. The midnight city was my music.

On West Lynn and 6th, I overheard three pedestrians talking about the song “Disgustipated” by Tool. One of them was quoting lines. It woke up a distant memory in me of a guy I used to know when I was 23. He was optimistic. Weathered, but ever-watching, ever-listening. He hungered for experience and thirsted for expression. He would watch documentaries like “Baraka” because they blew his mind. He drank to friendship because it blew his heart. He wrote poetry because it blew his load. All was life, death, pain, joy, suffering, art.

I haven’t been that guy in a long, long time. I used to think that I was one of the residents of bohemia, an enlightened, energized and empowered free-thinker who, with the stroke of his pen and a swish of philosophy, could create his own world.

That song, that album, I discovered it in my last year in school, and it informed me of a bigger world. One where the ugly beasts were beautiful; monsters and mind-expansion held hands and penned words like, “there was goo all over your hands; you wiped them on your grass, now your color was green.” That made sense to me. Bang.

And during that time I ran with people who understood, who knew, who had ideas, thoughts. Still in the twilight between youth and adulthood. We smoked, and talked, and drank until the lights went down and the sun came up.

That. That’s the distant memory. I’m reminded of that guy I was and I get a chill in my heart when I compare that guy to who I am now. I’m experienced, but with less hope. Weathered, but beaten. I don’t write poetry anymore. Music, the rhythm and melody has overshadowed any lyrical importance. “Baraka” doesn’t hit me as hard. My artistic drive has diminished, and tonight, I caught a glimpse of a reason why.

Back then, I could write my future. And I attempted. And passed, and failed, and failed, and passed, and failed. And I didn’t care one iota what was thought of me. It wasn’t important. We had our own society away from, yet within, the society of the world at-large. We were connected with a dim idea of something bigger Out There, that somewhere somebody was thinking the same Really Deep Thoughts that we were. So the eyes and ears of the people on the periphery of that world had no sway. I saw my friends, and my nonfriends be damned.

But that changed after I moved here. I started caring. And the voices of those around me carried with me as I walked. Suddenly, my thoughts and desires and drives had an audience. They told me every side of the story. They ooh’ed when I felt like striking out and aah’ed when I placated them by doing nothing. And as my world got smaller, they got bigger.

And that, that is my failure. I started listening to the idea that people, with whom I no longer associated, had something to say about the things I did. I let the faceless They With a Thousand Faces bear weight on my decisions to express myself. And it had a serious chilling effect.

I’m not sure if I can resurrect the dead. I don’t know if, during the course of the day, I can have him speak my voice again. I know his ghost haunts me in the night, but the scorching light of day overpowers him and I have to be a grownup again. His Eros, his Pathos, hides in the cool and the shade of the tomb. Wake up, dead man.

Fam on the Lam, and the Van That Moves the Fam Mam

So my mother is moving out of her shack (known in Austin as a “cozy bungalo”) and into my sister’s house. Hoorah for her! After three some-odd years of languish, she’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of the technological wonders of plumbing, running water, and central air. Good for her!

She’ll be helping out my sister in her time of need. Everyone will be pulling their resources together and making it work out. Good to see it happening. Circumstances notwithstanding, I’m happy to see the change.

One thing that bothers me, though, is that I found out about this important news through second-hand reporting. I was told tonight when I called up that I would’ve been informed some time soon. Sooner would’ve been preferable; instead, I learn from sideways mention of it during a conversation with another relative over the weekend.

I shouldn’t be so butt-hurt, but being In The Loop with my family would be nice. Hmph.

Leaving IRC, Shutting Up

IRC is the worst place to go if you have something to say.

No matter the message, no matter if you’re pontificating, ranting, trying to convince someone, convey your viewpoint, or call out for other people who agree, it’s the worst place to do it. There’s always going to be one motherfucker who has it out for you. He will issue the smallest number of words to completely derail you and reduce everything you’ve just said to the level of worthlessness.

“Why don’t you just blog about it?”

I’ve had enough. I’m not in with those people. Haven’t been for years. Trying to hold on to some shred of respect and fight for my own relevance. As in real life, so in IRC. This morning was a cascade of insults and issuances that pushed the thorns in a little deeper, and I’ve had enough. I cannot grow a thicker skin; I lack that ability.

I’m done with the oneupmanship. Done with the wit. Done with the insults. Done. I’ve parted all but one of the channels I’m on. It’s been a long time coming, but today was just too much. I don’t IRC from work anymore because I find it destroys any of the concentration I desperately require there. I only IRC in my free time now, and even that time is better spent doing something else. When my IRC window is open, I can do fuckall with any of my projects. Somebody speaks, the window scrolls, and there’s my attention running away.

Hi. My name is Shawn. I’m a recovering IRC addict.

So if I can speak my mind in a monologue on my blog, and if I can have realtime chat on one of many instant-messenger platforms, and if I can debate and argue on untold thousands of web boards and forums, and if I can share files with people in a lot of ways, then what use is IRC? What relevance does IRC have? It is obsolete, then. A ghost town. The domain of oldschool curmudgeons who do little more than idle unless it is to put some else down.

So I’ve done the one thing I do best: leave. I’m voting with my feet. You can say I’m “emoparting”. You’d be correct. You are always correct.

It’s been a long, unproductive ride.

Jetsom See

I’m antsy tonight. Feel like my legs are being held and my feet are sticking to the carpet. It’s like walking in waist-deep water. I want to do something. I want to create. I want to scream. And I’m slogged down by logic, expectations, frameworks, structures, plans, designs. Tired of all that. Tired of distractions. When I sit down to program, or write music, or think of something poetic, it’s like being in the wide part of the river where the eddy currents spin, swirl, toss me around like flotsam. I’m sorta moving forward, but not by my own propulsion. And not in a straight line.

I’ve been spending either not enough time or too much time working on my Ruby on Rails CMS for my site. Same old story, same old shit. My editor is open, I’m looking at code I’ve written, and then my mind wanders all over the place onto possibilities, what-ifs, things I need to incorporate, and then the vision I had at the outset becomes a blur of fragments, pieces, stained glass. Quixotic beams of sunlight reflected off the water.

Distractions. Flies in my eyes.

I’ve kinda taken a break from it; I feel like I need one, but I also feel this stupid compulsion that tells me that time not spent on writing the CMS is time wasted, because really all I have is time nowadays. What’s with that? Why do I feel guilty when I’m not working on it in my free time? Why did I railroad myself into one-dimensionality by forgoing all the other hobbies I had? Why am I pushing my plow into the hard earth without a mule, a whip, and a bag of seed? It’s going nowhere, and it’s in that state of being stuck that I can’t see the bigger picture. The clear vision is clouded. The inner sight is gone.

I was thinking this morning that I’d be a load more productive if I had a deadline, if I had a fixed point to work for. I’ve been screwing with this for far too long, and that’s because I only have myself to work for. I’m my own worst contractor and my own worst client. Self-imposition doesn’t seem to help, because I always shrug it off. It’s the same effect as trying to outsmart yourself by setting your alarm clock 10 minutes before real time: you sleep 10 minutes later because you remember what you did.

I need to plan this out in so much detail that the program almost writes itself. No, I need to write it as fast as possible so I can hold more of the pieces in my head. No. And now maybe you can see what goes on inside my head. Contrarian viewpoints, and I’m still stuck to the floor with a text editor and no working product. What the hell.

Eeyore and I Have Something In Common

Today is being spent in recovery mode. I’m tired, sore, sunburned, blitzed. Yesterday was a big expense on me. It was…busy. Nothing of any lasting importance, mostly. Just a large expenditure of energy, and I’m not accustomed to that. Aside from a few bright spots, it feels more like a waste of energy.

I went to Eeyore’s Birthday.

I wanted to do it all up right, so I played the part of Joe Pedestrian. I opted to leave the car at home and catch the number 5 southbound from my apartment down to where it transfers to 338 southbound. Got to the park at 1pm. The busride home was an abject failure; sat in the sun for 40 minutes waiting on the 338 northbound, then when I got to the transfer point, I saw on the schedule that I’d have to wait another 25 minutes for the 5 northbound. Fuck that. Thirty minutes later, the number 5 whizzed past me as I was walking back home. Capmet inefficiency in action.

I only stayed at the festival for an hour and half. It’s not my scene anymore. I’m not sure it ever was. I saw three people I recognized, and not one of them was a friend of mine. There was the World’s Tallest Hippy, the dude who rides his bicycle wearing a thong on his ass and a fluffy cat on his shoulders (he was wearing shorts), and The Silver Man. I saw no one else that I knew, not even the people I expected to show up.

There was only one drum circle this year, and it was rather pale. Maybe I was there too early for it to really cook, but there it was: lame. No viceral throngs jumping and grinding. Just an open space where the few who felt like dancing threw themselves around among the four disorganized clumps of drummers getting drunk on their own rhythms and five-hundred onlookers standing there with their cameras held high.

Beating a drum does not make you a drummer.

It’s not quite the free-thinking and self-expression rite of spring that it used to be. It’s family-friendly now. Not so many people dressed up in costumes or flopping around toplessly or passing the douchie on the left-hand side. The festival seems to attract people (like me) who are there because it’s “uniquely Austin”, and that by going we can make a tenuous grasp at some slim claim on being “open minded” and so very bohemian.

It’s not my scene anymore. My season for free expression is over. I’m no longer a 20-something. I can’t look into a crowd like that and say, “ooh, fresh opportunity!” I don’t see the throngs as people I could potentially interact with; I see them as that which gets in my way. I’m thirty-something; I need some people I know there with me, not strangers. My opportunity comes from traversing the bonds I have with others, and since I went alone (my fault), and since I left alone (my fault), I can’t totally fault the festival for my poor experience. It’s just not my scene. So I vent here.

Perhaps Eeyore and I do have something in common: we hate being happy.