04:15am 04/05/2004
mood: anxious
music: Imaginary Baseball League - "Posing For Stills"
To those of you still tuned in to the yawningly boring and overwrought saga that is my life, welcome back. It's been a while, as you no doubt already know, but things have pretty much been on the status quo until this past weekend. My days have consisted of: work and sleep; when not working - drinking at saints and sinners, sleeping, drinking at saints and sinners, watching tv, checking email/myspace, building IKEA furniture while watching DVDs, sleeping, and bowling on mondays.
Well, something happened that broke the cycle this weekend. Now, I'm not going to get into specifics, because anybody I want to know will know soon, as soon as I know the whole dealio myself. Let's just say that something that hasn't happened for a very, very long time in my life has recently happened. Someone entered a room long locked up and shuttered, with cobwebs over all the arcade games and studio equipment in the middle of the desert, like in that Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers video. That room having been amongst the tumbleweeds of a barren landscape, I'm a little worried about the possibilities. My biggest concern is not so much whether or not my heart gets broken again...it's kinda used to it, and at worst, I'll just get really depressed and write another album's worth of mediocre songs that I will likely not record in time to capture the angsty zeitgeist of it all (see also, the 14 songs I wrote when Christina broke up with me in 2000 that I still haven't recorded).
What scares me is that I have to fight every single impulse and instinct that my brain has commanded of me in every similar situation throughout my entire life prior to this moment. Everything I have ever done before (well, 99.9% of it, to be fair) was wrong. Granted some of these things were when I was 13, and let's face it, I know maybe one couple who was even sort of together at age 13, and frankly, I think it's kinda weird, but they're great people, so it's not weird in a bad way, but I digress from the point...i.e, me and my biggest enemy -- my brain (see also, everything I've ever written, ever).
It's not that I'm a bad guy, or unstable. Nope. My biggest problem is the addictive personality I have. Something makes me feel good or happy or different, and I immediately have to experience it again. Sometimes, it's minor -- I mean, listen to the "Puddin'" EP by Best Kissers In The World, it's a really kickass 25 minutes, in fact, there's only like 15 more minutes worth of songs they recorded that are as good. It's so kickass you have to listen to it again. That's normal. But does it mean that you have to search out every single song that BKITW ever recorded? Well, if you're most people, it doesn't. If you are J-Ro, it does. Luckily, the market for BKITW isn't booming and you can find the stuff pretty cheap. But multiply that by the thousands of bands that I own recordings by, and I think you get the idea. And that is just music. There are whole other aspects of my life that come into play here. For example, let me relate the story of a four year old me, which I am convinced will make a great case for the prosecution.
The scene: cute little four year old boy is picking apples in the yard with his grandfather. That sounds pretty idyllic, no? We all wish life could be like this. Boy leans in to grab an apple, an overripe one falls on his head. It feels squishy, and kinda neat. The boy thinks it is fun. Obviously, he is no Isaac Newton. Much like the Baby in the TV series "Dinosaurs," you can almost hear him yelling "Again, again!" as he steps deeper under the tree in the hopes that an apple will fall on his head. And then it happens.
*buzz buzz*
What's this?
*BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ*
It gets louder and more violent as the yard grows darker to his eyes and he finally feels the first sting. He keeps running to get away from the horrible cloud, but it does no good. Pretty soon, his entire body is numb as he stumbles towards the house. He asks his Grandma if Grandpa is okay as she combs the stingers out of his hair. Years later, he learns that his grandfather was actually allergic to bee stings, and thanks whatever force allowed him to survive this unholy terror that he unwittingly unleashed on them both.
The next thing he remembers is all the white. It is white everywhere, even the chairs, except for the shiny metal. A woman dressed in white says words he barely hears and understands even less. It sounds a lot like the adults talking in the animated "Peanuts" specials. His grandmother has been told to make sure the boy stays awake or he might die. Every time he hears "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd, he relives the experience, wondering how many of his friends have ever felt this way without the use of illegal substances or booze. Perhaps this is why he doesn't get high. It just makes him sleepy. Where's the fun in that?
Then there was the Yodel addiction in junior high school. For those unfamiliar with Yodels, they are a Swiss Roll desert cake made by Drake's Cakes, and are more popular in the NY metropolitan area than Little Debbies. He would eat as many as 16 of these in a sitting. They came in packages of twos. But he couldn't stop. Not after he broke up with somebody because some people in school said stuff about her. Somehow, this lack of good judgment was visible, like any zit on an adolescent's forehead. Sure, he lost the weight once he was able to quit cold Yodel, but not everyone is so lucky.
Even now, I get this way. I have a great time with someone and immediately I want to have that great time again. If I don't restrain myself, I may look foolish at best and obsessive at worst. It's not that I don't enjoy other aspects of my life, but when something is absent for so long and suddenly appears again, my instinct is to grab on for dear life because it could disappear at any moment. This may sound a little foolish, if not for the fact that in one summer, there were moments shared with three women in the span of four weeks, all of whom disappeared within that time. We all know the saying "If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours. If you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be," but sometimes the fear takes hold. I try not to give into the fear, but sometimes it is difficult when someone is new, unknown and unpredictable.
I spend every waking moment trying to keep my mind off of it, keep myself occupied, but all I do is play my guitar and strum sad chords and think about her waking up and realizing that maybe it was a mistake, to ignore him and he will go away. So I watch TV, try to build more furniture, pace around, stare at the unringing phone. Run next door, nervously check for emails that are never sent or received, run back, stare at the still-unringing phone, try to figure out how this shelf will get put up without the bookcase on the other side, and eventually realize that the chord progressions aren't very good or that it has been ONE DAY and that most of the time, several days go by before I get back to people. Sometimes, things get crazy, there are things that need to be taken care of. All I can do is not pick up the phone again until it rings. Not send an email to sound all retarded. Maybe even try sleeping. Sometimes that helps, too. Maybe I will just go with that. Yeah, sleeping, that's the ticket...
