I wish it were possible to have a lengthy, serious conversation with my mother that did not involve me crying, I really do. I'm not even always that upset; it's like the tears just queue up and wait for it. *sigh* It was good that we talked in a general sense, but I don't think it ended up clearing my head at all in relation to my current thoughts. Not that it would have anyway - she is not a good sounding board for stuff; too opinionated and her opinion influences me too much. She opines instead of listening. Being able to really talk to my friend was one of the many reasons I was so looking forward to the NYE trip I didn't end up taking, unfortunately.

Look at that: all these words pent up and I can't think of anything else to post. *waves irony flag*

Though I did just have a fairly critical epiphany. I've lamented before that my brain-at-work does not translate over to my brain-in-life in many dimensions, one of the biggest being decisiveness or lack thereof. I literally just now figured out why - and it's a bit of a DUH moment, really: because the decisions I make at work don't matter. I mean yes they do in that it affects whether I'm doing my job well or not (and not just this job, I mean in general), but ultimately, it's a job. If X doesn't happen, it's not the end of the world. However, in my personal life, it might be, or at the very least it has the potential for a far greater impact on me. And I think it is closely tied to taking/not taking ownership of the decision, i.e., choosing to bear the responsibility if I fuck up. I do that easily at work, and I also don't fuck up very often. My personal life tends to be the other way around in both aspects. Correlational perhaps? (Do I hear another, "DUH"?) It would be fair to say that I'm scared to make yet more life-eating mistakes. It would also be fair to say that I feel completely overwhelmed by the process of carrying out these huge, impactful decisions.

Why is it always so fucking hard? And why do I make it a million times harder than it needs to be?

Home instead. Poor Cass has been having issues with her jaw; they think it might be related to a car accident from last fall when she got smucked with the air bag. Anyway she was back at the dentist today and she's supposed to stick to mushy food and shit until she can see some specialist, so we've postponed. For the best since she was not happy about that, lol.

I did something interesting today. Well, interesting to me, anyway. I pulled out Metallica's St. Anger album and listened to it pretty much all day. Why is that noteworthy? Because I listened to it a few times when it first came out, and then I put it away, and I haven't listened to it since. I didn't watch Some Kind of Monster when it came out, though I really wanted to see it. (And I think I'm going to have to suck it up and buy it, b/c I am having NO luck finding it anywhere around here to rent. [Insert rant about small cities that think they're cosmopolitan when in reality they're only a step above hicksville most of the time.]) Ahem. So...this is actually important to me. They're one of my alltime favourite bands, but they were also strongly associated with my ex. In fact, I don't currently own a single album except St. Anger b/c I didn't take any with me when we split, and for a long time I couldn't even listen to the older songs that I adored. But with Devil's Dance on the Narc soundtrack (thereby equating to Fink) and just talking about it and stuff with looking_spiffy, the associations have been changing. I can't tell you how lovely it is to listen to metal and not have it hurt. Thank you for that. *loves*

On that decidedly loud and pissed-off kinda note ;-), I gotta go back to my email. :D

One of the things I've enjoyed most about becoming involved with LJ is that it often provides some kind of direction for the never-ending internal monologue.  Ninety-five percent of my "mental posts" will never make it to the computer, of course, but it sort of gives me a way to corral my thoughts into something resembling coherency.  Because honestly, the flow of words just doesn't stop.  There's like a handful of activities that engage my attention enough to build momentary dams, but those end and eventually wash away in the new flood.  I remember in my very last session with the psychologist I'd grown to dislike, she said that she believed that things were much busier in my head than my lack of talking to her would indicate.  I thought, "Lady, you have no idea."  I wonder what she'd think of me spilling my guts online in unlocked posts???  It almost amuses me to imagine it.

Getting out of bed today was difficult, and I don't like that.  It scares me.  There seem to be certain triggers that send me backsliding a little, and while I know which ones are operating now I still intend to move through them.  I can't live my life in fear; I already drowned in it too long.  This morning was just bad because I woke up from a dream where my dad caught my ex and I making out.  And it wasn't a memory of the time that actually happened, lol, it was current day, and my dad said something to A about if he hadn't received such and such an email from him, he would have killed him on the spot.  We all laughed and Dad left the room and A and I kissed again and it was happy.

Which is so far from the truth of what could possibly happen that it's utterly baffling how my mind could twist that way.  Still.  It pisses me off to know that some part of myself is forever irretrievable, burned away by what happened in a way that left such deep marks.  Yes, the wounds have healed, and I'm grateful for that but I also know I worked at it for a long time, to find some kind of meaning in a life that no longer bore any resemblance to anything I'd ever dreamed of.  Some days I think about how sad Magic's epitaph was, how those few words conveyed so little of who she had been and what she had meant to people, and right now there would be virtually no difference in my own.  "Beloved daughter and surrogate mother to a great cat. She loved books and music."  Scintillating, isn't it?

Depression is like alcoholism: you are never truly free.  You will have to guard against it for the rest of your life once it's seeped into you.  I look back at my life growing up and I understand that now.  I understand how my friends prevented me from withdrawing into myself the way I am naturally inclined to do.  I understand how, when they chose to remove themselves from my life because of who I chose to marry, that fragile structure began to collapse and one man--one boy, really--was not enough to save it, even had he tried the way he should have.  I understand how I became obsessed with a TV show that happened to come into my life at a time when I needed something to believe in, and some way to believe in love perhaps more than anything, just in its existence even if it didn't touch me.  And then the community, who encouraged me to pursue what had been my oldest dream, and suddenly there was a pen in my hand again.  Becoming friends with D., and later the others in the group, was what truly pulled me out, back into my own skin, because I had people who cared about me again.  Friends.  I don't have words for what that means to me; for what they mean to me.

And incidentally, I understand the brand new obsession with Green Day, too.  (Hi, my name is Tas, and it's been five years since my last obsession.)  I suppose it makes sense that a lyric from Jesus of Suburbia should sum it up fairly neatly: "I don't feel any shame, and I won't apologize."  They started out as just kids, literally living in what amounted to a crack house, and pushed through everything because of a dream, because they wouldn't back down and wouldn't be other than exactly who they were and more than anything, because they were fearless about it all.  I identify with that journey, and I want to make the same kind--to finish making it, all the way to something as brilliant in MY own way as I believe American Idiot is.  To live my life that way, without any apologies for who I am or what I want.  It's harder than it looks but I'm trying.

Another interview meme; this one's from cookie2697. :-)

1. If you had a choice between being visually artistic, musical, imaginative, or educationally proficient, which would you choose and why?

( survey says...Collapse )



2. If you could pick any one thing about your life to go back and change, what would it be and what would you do instead?

( probably not what you're thinkingCollapse )



3. List your top 5 favorite concert experiences ever (feel free to elaborate why if you want)

 I'm highly amused at this inclusion, because you KNEW the answers would be different by the time I got back and got to answer them!  LOL.  But here goes anyway, in no particular order.

( RTCollapse )

( GDCollapse )

( K & WCollapse )

( BJCollapse )

( the underdogCollapse )


4. If you could pick any one country to visit that you've never been to, where would you go and why?

( EaaaaasyCollapse )



5. Do you have any secret annoyances or dislikes in one of your fandoms that you've never shared? (i.e. song you don't like, plot point that bothered you, shipdom that you are secretly against, character you hate...)

( As a matter of fact, I doCollapse )

I haven't looked at anyone else's comments b/c I wanted to get my own thoughts out uncoloured - although I did check to make sure Anne got her tickets, and she did!  WOOHOO!!! :D  Hopefully that's fantastic enough that she won't want to kill me if I did wake her up this morning when her cell phone rang...I forgot that it would be so early on the west coast, lol. *blush*

Anyway, Matt Serletic is a genius.  The sound quality of the CD is phenomenal.  We've been reading everywhere about the slickness of the production, and while that's true, I found that it wasn't done in a way that detracted from the songs at all.  It's very polished but not over-produced; by that, I mean that the songs definitely would stand up to being played live without access to all the fancy playthings.  Which is fantastic, obviously!  I have favourites, of course, but honestly I like the whole thing.  Even Lonely No More, lol.  I was so horrified when Anne first played it for me, and I've never actually heard it on the radio, so I've really only listened to the straight/album version a couple of times, from a poor recording.  It's never going to be my favourite, lol, but I discovered that I can, in fact, play it, listen to it, and enjoy it.  And it has some wonderful lyrics - always the way to my heart. ;-)

It's been a completely, completely obsessive day.  I got up early so I could go by the mall to get the CD, after having a mild panic attack last night that Canada would be one of the "staggered release" countries and I wouldn't be able to buy it yet.  Fortunately, that was a groundless fear.  I went in and there was the rack like right at the front of the store, and the clerk laughed and said that I didn't seem to have any problem noticing where to find it.  Apparently some guy came in earlier looking for it, and instead of seeing what was right in front of his face, or checking under "T" in the rock/pop section, he actually asked, lol.  Hello!  Weirdly, it is not sold as a DualDisc here.  You can buy just the CD, or you can buy a slim double case with one CD and one DVD.  The extra packaging jacks up the price, of course, and Rob-with-DVD can be yours for the lovely price of $20.99 CDN.  Yeesh.  That was annoying.

But it was the only annoying point of the day, lol.  Jeff was laughing at me all day b/c I was higher than a kite.  She tried to tell me several times that it was our break time, and finally gave up and emailed me - from two desks down, LOL.  I noticed the new mail alert; didn't hear a damn thing before that.  Subject of the email?  Single line: Stop bopping to Rob so we can go get your tea!  Hee.  There was indeed much boppage.  It's a very infectious, catchy CD, which is part of why it's firmly planted in the pop genre, unlike MB20 who straddles genres somewhat.

I had some amusing moments listening to it.  About the 4th or 5th revolution, I got to a horn part of Something to Be, and heard Linzee (despite never having actually heard her live) say, "Horns!  Horns in weird places!"  It made me laugh.  I'm sure everyone thought I was a lunatic today, lol.  I giggled over random thoughts like that, and tried not to cry at some of the other songs.  Oh, I had a baaaaad moment with that when I had a better handle on the lyrics for Now Comes the Night.  I thought, oh this song would so perfectly suit the ending of The Notebook.  It was all I could do not to burst into tears at the combination!!!  I settled for crying through that section of the DVD documentary, safe at home. :D  But I think that My My My is going to remain my absolute favourite.  It's the one I immediately fell for when I listened to the samples that one night.

The DVD is nice, but there's really not a whole lot to it.  The 4-part documentary is really the only reason to get it, and that's maybe an hour all told?  The photo gallery is nice enough, but I'm sure they can be seen online, and the Sidewalk Angels thing is just a static graphic ad with A New York Christmas playing.  Which is lovely, and I love that song, but it's not very useful if you wanted to, say, compile a Christmas CD, now is it?  But it was nice to see his old, shaggy hair in some of the doc *sniff*.  LOL.  I think the best part was watching him run around with his dog. :-)  So cute!


On to less-specific but related thoughts...
While coming back from that trip to get tea, I said something to Jeff that really kind of hit me with a little epiphany.  It's been sort of percolating in the back of my head for the last couple of weeks, peeking into the light via discussions with Anne and Angel, but I told Jeff that I thought that I hadn't been this dizzy happy since high school.  And the next thing that popped out of my mouth was that, she is the first friend I've made SINCE high school who has gotten to know me as a happy person.  As ME, how I really am.  That was just so revelatory to me.  I've said recently that I truly haven't been happy like I am now since I got seriously involved with A, and that was around the beginning of my last year of high school.  So it's been years, literally, since I bubbled like a tea kettle.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

Well, I'm done.  More or less, anyway, lol.  I didn't do the thoroughest job of dusting, and I did toss some random stuff into my desk drawer to deal with later...but that's okay.  It's tidy enough to properly vacuum and clean now.

I did get blindsided by a few items.  I only moved in here last summer, and a while ago my mother went on a box-emptying rampage, and accidentally opened one of my memorabilia and shit instead of the kitchen things she was looking for.  She still emptied it, of course (you'd have to know my mother), but left it all sitting on my end table in my living room.  Where it remained sitting until about an hour ago, lol.  However, in amongst the old letters from penpals I had eons ago and never-used quilt patterns, I found a notebook full of wedding plans.  Drawings of the dress I wanted, magazine clippings, other ideas.  Wow, it's so sad to look at that stuff and remember how excited I was.  How hopeful.

Hope is a different creature for me today.  Back then, I was very naive in a lot of ways.  I suppose I still am in some senses, simply because I manage to still trust people and automatically believe the best of them.  Which brings up some questions about my personality, lol, that I could get kicked so fucking often and still not go all the way down.  Does that make me strong, or insane??  Little of both, maybe.

I've spent the last month or so - since just before my birthday - waffling between feeling like I was a teenager again (wtf is with the breakouts???  Yeesh!), and feeling incredibly old.  I guess in part it goes back to that concept of hope.  There are certain things that I always assumed I would do in my life, always *wanted* to do, that have begun to look less likely as time passes.  Okay, so I'm thirty-two and that's hardly ancient; some people persist in telling me that I'm still a baby, for which I'd like to kick them lol.  But being thirty-two, divorced, and having moved to a brand new city less than 2 years ago where I've only recently found a permanent job finally and am just beginning to make friends, all kind of lessens the prospects of finding someone who could be more than a friend.  I suppose I could get stereotypical and say that my biological clock is ticking something fierce these days, lol.  I know part of it is due to a friend's situation with their parents, and being angry about these so-called parents' behaviour.  It inevitably leads to the thought that I would do a much better job, and thence to the fact that I'm not a mother and not likely to be one any time soon.  If ever.  And I'm realising lately that I didn't always figure I'd have kids because that's what you're supposed to do.  It was always part of my life plan because it's something I *want* to do.  I simply don't know at this point if it's a dream that will ever come true.  Lord knows most of the rest of them got blown to smithereens.

I had a good chat with Anne about this the other day, and she really distilled it down for me: Now that I feel ready to move forward with my life at last, how the hell do I go about doing that?

And on that note, I really ought to get my ass to bed.  I knew I renamed this thing 3 A.M. Musings for a reason, lol.