Think of everyone in your life.  Friends and otherwise.  Then think that there are 6 billion people in the world.  And yet those people you just thought of right now, were the select few you’ve encountered currently.

When I think of all the random chances, paths crossing (and uncrossing) and all those crazy trumped up ideas of fate… it makes you wonder.  How many people we encounter and meet in a life time.  That girl i played with in a Holiday Inn swimming pool when I was 4 or some person I shared a laugh with in line at a convenient store when I was 16.  There are just so many possibilities.  And I see that now.  You the choices and the sheer fate of this relatively small planet we live on.

I’ve met people in the most random ways – at diners, on band message boards, even through guitar ads.  There is no wrong or right way to meet a person, make a friend.  It’s all there in the fine print – just depends who is on the receiving end.  I really do like meeting new people, especially good, interesting, well intentioned, passionate people.  There ain’t nothing wrong with that.  And if you have a sense of humor? Awesome. We’ll probably get along. Or I’ll back away slowly.

So to those random and odd friends that I have, whether I met you online, at a coffee shop or while buying a camera – I’m glad our universes collided. Even if it was just for a couple days, months, years.  Glad we did.

Finding it increasingly harder to write about anything lately.  I’m not looking for a hand up though.  I’m just going through something now, and it’s a transitionary phase.  It’s manageable but at the end of the day I’ve been feeling super blank.  It’s like learning to read a different language; I’m seeing life a different way.  And while I can’t always be sure if I’m growing up or giving up I don’t think it matters.

All these collective experiences that dictate how we perceive that which is around us.  One day it’s this, the next day it’s that.  And then at some point the sun moves away.  A cloud casts down and you don’t feel like you once did.  But clouds all eventually move away and pass, and above that there’s something.

There are so many people on this planet.  There are so many opportunities, places to be, people to see, things to learn.  It’s amazing how you can feel so pigeon holed in a specific set of circumstances.  And the change allows for that to breathe, so we don’t get caught up in this sideways show.

I keep reminding myself what I want and why I want it.  I keep reminding myself of what I don’t want and why I left it behind.  Most of the time I’m caught in the middle of those two thoughts.  And that’s okay. For now.  Reminding myself that things will be different.  I’ll have the people I love, the places I rest and the work that drives me.

It’ll happen.
It just has to.
I’m sticking to that.

I am staying with a friend and when I came home today there was a couple in their 20s arguing in front of the building.  Not in a large dramatic fashion, but in a way that you knew serious stuff was happening.  The guy looked at me and gave a look like “I’ve got this. I know her. It’s cool” and I gave a look of “wha?”  I didn’t really pay much attention to them until 5 hours later I returned and they were 5ft away from the spot they were at before.  Now sitting on a rock wrapped up in each others arms, still talking. Ain’t communication grand?

It was kind of sweet, and I should note that these people were not homeless, they just appeared that they didn’t want to go anywhere until the issue was resolved. She obviously upset and he obviously wanting to fix it, was.. actually endearing.

Usually I get a bit nauseated by overly affectious couples, of course tantamount to overtly contentious couples. But this couple surprised me, they stuck it out and worked it out, and worked it out some more. But I’m just a passerby voyeur on a downtown street. And maybe they were friends, maybe they weren’t I don’t know. It got me thinking.

Love and communication. You know like the Catpower song.  We all have different modes of communicating.  What may be an expression of affection to me, may actually offend someone (No surprise I’ve come across this a lot) and oddly enough which may be a sign of ill will can actually be a sign of affection to others.  It’s.. insane.  These patterns of behaviour and relationships are confusing to say the least.  Realizing that we do not all communicate the same, is an extremely difficult; for me anyway.  It’s all codes and notation, and citations of the notations of the codes we engrain in ourselves.  And the worst part is even if we communicate differently and don’t understand how others work, we sometimes don’t understand what it is we are ourselves are trying to conjure up in the first place.  It is a horrific crap show of confusing situations.

And sometimes lines connect.  We think what they think.  We interpret how they interpret and it jives.  Something has to click sometime.  We find modes of communication that are complimentary to our own or we just suffer a fate of never understanding.

So.. I communicate this to you:

-.. —   -. — –   . .- –   -.– . .-.. .-.. — .–   … -. — .– .-.-.-

Don’t do it. Just don’t.

Incredibly frustrated with the music thing right now.  I realized today I totally don’t feel like a musician anymore.  Caught up in other things, I’ve totally stalled on the music front and I had a freak out moment.  One of those big epic WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN moments.  What am I trying to do here…

Every year  I want to put a new record. But can I? Can I afford it?  Can I write it? Can I Can I Can I Can I? Let’s do the can can.

I’ve written most of it.  And I keep writing.  So there’s that.  Having trouble hearing arrangements on things, feeling a little lost.  Not sure what the answer is on that one. Or any of them.  I know I just have to try different stuff, but I’ve been standing in my own way.  The answers are not just going to come to me, appearing out of thin air, although that’s what music is. As Tom Waits put it “Music is a very interesting thing to do with air”.

Apparently my air isn’t very interesting.

I have things I want to do, trying to accomplish, especially on the artistic front but I’m getting frustrated.  I know this is the part in the story where all is lost and then a sudden turn of events happen and KAPOW.  You’re an alien. Wait. That doesn’t happen. Yet…


I sigh. Roll my eyes. And tell myself in a mocking tone When you’re walking in the right direction, all you have to do is keeping walking. Blah. YES myself. I KNOW.

But clearly, people are bad at taking their own advice.  However, no one ever says “Hey, I took my own advice and did great!” I never hear that.   Anyways something will break, it will ‘get better’ as I say. It always has.

Oh God.  Everything I’ve just written is awful. awful. BURN THE BLOG! SHE’S A WITCH! A WITCH! SHE’LL TURN YOU INTO A NEWT.

A newt?

It got better.

So much for nothing.  That’s what they say.

Tonight was one of those i really don’t want to write nights.  But it seems that momentum and continuity is everything.   Feeling as though my life is very fragemented right now.  Little segments trying to connect them all together.  No idea how that is going to happen.

Having a bit of musicians writers block as well.  I used to really love to share my new music with people, but it’s not the same any more.  I think it’s because I don’t always need a pat on the back like I used to.  Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. Maybe it is just the way it is.  I worried that it meant I cared less.  But I think it’s that I have more direction, so that when I do make decisions I feel well about them.

The war of head over heart.

Have you ever made a decision that seemed logical but made you feel awful?  Which do you side with? What makes sense at one point doesn’t make sense at all.  Lining up logic and emotions, intellectually is a dumb thing.  I don’t think it can always be done.  For reasons I don’t think we’re always capable of understanding.  We do one thing, but feel another.  We do what we feel and end up in irrational situations.  When are we going to get it right?

There is no right. No allegory to be learned.  Just time and time again spinning wheels until something gives, or explodes or sinks into the earth… and then shoots up visa vie a geyser.

What a great word. say it out loud: geyser

For some reason when I was bored on the internet, looking for very different things this posting came up, THREE times throughout the course of the day. It said:

Sometimes we put too much work into something and let it go too soon, when we shouldn’t have at all.  You ever take someone for granted? Have you ever been taken for granted?  There’s no right way and wrong way about things.  You just have to get through them.  And as dark, and damp and muddy as it gets.. you have to learn to make mud pies.  It’s not always perfect cinematic glory, but who wants what we’ve been told to want?

Broken, sick, tired, drunk, defeated, capsizing people.  We’ve all got our own funny kind of magic.  You learn to appreciate a smile, a stupid joke, or a superfluously email at the most boring part of your day. YES you need to see this kitten inside a fortress of kitten doom, and YES I expect a sarcastic overly excited response from you.

You know, on a side point it’s kind of funny, in the most tragic of ways that cat videos get 100′s of 1000′s of hits on the web, while, 100′s of 1000′s of cats get put to sleep everyday in North America. I’ve seen it. It’s insane… talk about being taken for granted…

I think going back to the original little kitch Bob Marley blurb it reminds me to value what you have when you have it.  Work harder when you know you have it.  don’t be complacent. Don’t be foolish.  But don’t stick around if you don’t want to.  That’s an awful feeling… sticking around because you feel guilty.

Whatever I say. WHATEVER.

Just don’t wait too long.  Eventually people give up, or so I’m told.  Enjoy things for what they are – right now.  Because everyone gets the carpet pulled from beneath them, at least once..

I have loved discovering new music for as long as I can remember. Records, tapes, CDs, you name it. I love new music hunting, and with the power of the ‘interwebs’ it’s kind of endless.

I also love funny coincidences, when I can tie two songs together. I’m known for listening to the crap out of a song when I catch it’s groove. Today that song was “The Edge” by Cant. It’s kind of smooth, sweet, saucy, troubled and chilled. Reminds me a little of Sebastien Tellier.

Later this evening I was digging this track… a little hip hop, pop pop… Kind of campy, lifting the riff from Grizzly Bears album.

Turns out “Cant” is the debut album from Grizzly Bear vocalist and producer Chris Taylor. Go figure. I love little music coincidences like that.

I’ve been feeling a little frustrated with my musical inclinations as of recent.  Kind in a push and shove situation with Late July. It’s me that I’m fighting and that’s a hard fight, to fight.  Maybe I’ll learn mixed martial arts like capoeira.  But it ain’t that kind of fight.

I adore people that introduce me to new music.  I love people I can genuinely bounce music related ideas off of.  I think there’s been a lack of that.  I haven’t been sharing, but maybe there’s no one to share it with.  Some people give good input, others give a blank stare and have no idea how to interpret a demo -so I keep it to myself. For the most part.  And all my stacks of songs pile up, it’s hard to know which one to pursue.  I like to go with the tracks that have stuck around, maybe a year or so, did their time but still sound good.  It’s hard to know what direction to go in.   I like to move in timeless directions, something that will still be standing years down the road.  I think that appreciation goes for everything in life, comfortable and clean – isn’t that pop music?

I can’t be sure.  If you’re in the mood for music hunting like me these days check out: www.stereomood.com

Back to the grind.
xoxo
mlj

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Starting over, over again. Leaping forward, bounding backwards, learning new stuff all the time.  All I know is that I don’t know what’s next.  I’m sure something is.  I’m interested to see where I’ll be by Christmas. Good lord, I hope it’s somewhere good. And happy.

Everyday happiness, everyday adventure.  Having the motivation to make everyday, no matter what,  be awesome. “We’ve got an hour left, how can we make this day memorable and more fun?” It doesn’t always work like that, but for a couple years I used to think like that.  It’s just harder when you’re alone.  I can have fun on my own, but I won’t lie there’s more fun with others around.  A partner in crime.  Not to say that my Charlie isn’t my partner in crime, he’s just not always as outgoing, especially towards the later part of the day.  He’s more like the silent purveyor. He’s happy to watch and supervise.  Keep the squirrels away and all that.

But an everyday sense of adventure; it’s an admirable quality.  One that I think I’ve lost a little bit lately.  Being able to point in a direction and say ‘we’re going this way; let’s see what happens’.  Sometimes you’ll run into dogs from Chile, other times you’ll run into a friend and have delicious home made ice cream.  I love the unexpected… when it’s good.  When it’s something good it’s called a ‘surprise’, when it’s something bad it’s called a ‘misfortune’.  Funny how that works.

So in this ‘new’ year of September, leading to the chronological end of the year.  I hope to find some adventure, not the back packing in Thailand kind, not the kung fu fighting in dark alley ways kind, just – the everyday adventure.  Even if it’s for a half hour, building a fort, have a dance off, hoola hooping… random, crazy, wild, everyday adventure.