Broken compass

The sharp tip of irony's spear has pricked my tender tissue yet again. Indeed, consider me thoroughly pricked.

Just as I got done howling from the rooftop about how the band dynamic had been steadily losing its appeal in my eyes, I find myself at an apex of new possibilities of just such persuasion. Ones with not only plentiful musical potential, but a veritable house of mysteries as far as social relations are concerned. A group of gents, yours truly among them, who know one another only vaguely and on face value, yet play together as a well-oiled machine nearly effortlessly with half a handful of rehearsals. Very few ensembles can match our instinctual compatibility as a unit of resonance and harmony; certainly none that I've ever been a part of. I would be stone cold mad not to at least consider the possibilities such a gathering of minds might come upon in the short or long run.

But then we come to the mother of question marks and one Jason Doyle Ward begins to backtrack on his hind legs instinctively and at once: are we socially compatible? Is there enough musical common ground? Will personalities clash and matters of taste become beachheads? Will my love it or hate it vocal sound cause some sort of rift as it has done before? Will people tame their egos in favor of a healthier atmosphere yet to the detriment of the music? Having had little personal interaction with the rest of the quintet makes these questions echo and resonate even more wildly in my top knob. My faith in the human blueprint has been shattered more than once and, truthfully, my estimate of who is and isn't trustworthy has been proven little more than a broken compass, a complete hit-or-miss endeavor, on many an occasion.

My scepticism, well-founded as it may be, makes me cringe and want to rise against my own instincts. There's something here. It could work. It deserves the opportunity to come to fruition or fade to black without being nipped in the bud. It is certainly not my call alone, but I'd wager all of us feel the same way. But - and this is a very substantial, life-lesson but - if I allow optimism to creep in and find it yet again unwarranted as everything turns sour, it'll only serve to alienate and embitter me that one step further on my way to becoming a joyless recluse detached from the stream of humanity. But we'll have to see if this tree bears fruit before beginning construction of the garden. At this point I'm just pissing in the wind, though I must say it's been a delightfully enjoyable wee!

While the past weekend offered a rich reservoir of positivity with no more than a teaspoon of negative vibrations, I find myself musing on the petty nature of some people. People I've come to know through various experiences and instances to be extremely needy for attention yet having very little to justify why we should all stop and stare. I know the type all too well and I'm sure you do too. One or two tried to gnaw away at me because they wanted the spotlight that happened to shine down on me for a microt. Another tried to take pot shots at me because they wanted to be in charge of a certain situation and felt somehow threatened. I see through it, because I want what you have is a mindset not unlike albino eyes - you can't mask that, at least not with amateurish manipulation, paraphrasing and other schoolyard tactics. Not with me in the room. I'll find you in my crosshairs just as quickly.

All that aside, last weekend's adventures were the best time I've had in months. The ride ended too quickly, but isn't that how it always goes? Unfortunately I fear it was also merely a brief breather before I find myself trying to decipher the lay of a strange, increasingly alien landscape once again. The landscape of a relationship falling apart.

This is the first time I've openly admitted this to myself and I'll be brief about it, as wallowing in what-ifs will do more harm than good. I don't believe I'm doing anyone a favor by writing this down, but I have to at least attempt to shift some weight off my chest before I buckle under the pressure.

I feel more and more out of place and out of control as the silence amasses and builds up to a wall of white noise. At some point it will overpower me and something will break. Our home doesn't feel like a home, but a shelter for two people who don't share a life any longer. We find solace in temporary jolts of love and harmony before drifting apart again like two pieces of driftwood floating around a seemingly placid lake. What makes it even more heartbreaking is I don't have the slightest idea how we got here. It seems to have slipped from my fingers without me even noticing. The lights are broken yet if I attempt to find my way out of this black space, I'm greeted with hollow words in the darkness about how nothing as changed. But it has. Something is amiss. Something has disappeared.

She doesn't listen to me anymore. Her attention is elsewhere and her focus hasn't been further from our relationship in all the years we've endured together. The aspects of our shared life seem to be little more than a chore and a nuisance to her, which serves only to aggravate me to the point of combustion, pulling the rift wider. My voice, my presence, is merely a distraction from more inspiring and intriguing affairs. A distraction most often met with disdain and indifference if I try to acknowledge said fact. Whenever she vehemently denies it all, I find myself unable to ignore the emptiness I see in her eyes when she looks at me. I am a vessel to fill the empty seat on the left, someone to ring up for groceries and sleep next to. Someone to be there, because someone needs to be there.

My presence interferes with some sort of new-found existence I have no part to play in. When I try to open the door I'm shrugged off and assured everything is all right - with no attention paid to the fact that I don't agree. Everything is not fucking all right. Not by an inch or a mile.

A friend of mine told me we're nearing the "famous" seven year crisis, whatever that means. I refuse to be a statistic, yet I fear we are indeed on the brink of some unforeseen peril that may well tear us apart. My heart feels strained and punctured, yet I also feel increasingly aggravated by being constantly ignored. She is not here. She has better places to inhabit, whatever and wherever they may be. We break apart piece by little piece, yet her composure stays intact. All this under what I can only assume is the assumption that I'll be here no matter what. That my endurance in the face of growing distance will remain unyielding and everlong.

It won't.

The Stranger is coming

Yes, yes. I disappeared for a while. I do that.

On a somewhat uncharacteristic positive note, the downtime from being socially noteworthy has been spent sipping deeply from the creative pot. Well, I should say the creative pot with great enhancement by my technical aptitude (in terms of studio tech and the tools at my disposal) that's been growing with truly surprising leaps since the last time I took note.

Bear in mind that I've considered myself at the very least a reasonably skilled mixer and producer - the ever-expanding space for growth always factoring in, of course - yet by having delved deeper into the production side and poking my nose into unfamilliar territory as deep as my honker will allow, my triptych has grown in appearance, style and grandeur without me even noticing it but as an afterthought. It's been a spectacularly fruitful accidental re-enactment of one doctor Frankenstein at the office, with the fruits of my musical labor serving as willing guinea pigs for their own betterment.

I've gotten lost in the mix, bewildered by the balance and perplexed by the plug-ins - and come out twice the wiser and thrice more unbound on the other end. I've taken my sweet time twisting, squeezing and poking around with every single nook, cranny and rock's underside, finding myself both rejuvenated by new discoveries as well as validated on certain musical choices that survived scrutiny by my brand new eyes. It's certainly always the human hand that grips the strings of the heart and one should always remain mindful not to let the carousel of knob-turning take over the entire carnival, but having an expanded armory of tools as a support structure for one's artistic vision certainly has its comforting appeal. After all, this is construction of self-sufficient worlds, from song to song to song. The surrounding architecture and atmosphere are less impactful if the air tastes funny or the sound of the birds isn't in tune with the entire experience.

I feel like I'm finally coming into my own as far as a producer of my own material, not only as an over-experienced, underworked developer of Ward 13's signature soundscheme. I'm putting up flags where shortcomings are found and addressing them accordingly, rather than working around the holes in the canvas and trying to make them part of the piece. Shifting focus from polishing a collage of details to scuplting the big picture as a truly cohesive whole has been more of a technical excersise than an artistic accomplishment, and I believe my art will improve from it.

The recognition of my own progress is much akin to when I finished Ward 13's first demotape back when the new millenium was taking its first breaths. It was a first on many fronts and a feat I single-handedly pulled out of my ass without so much as a clue or treasure map to rely upon. As was the case then, I haven't felt this... educated in quite some time.

Much, if not all of this has to do with the fact that The Stranger has finally kicked into gear. It is time indeed. Time indeed.

I've placed my personal musical namesakes on the back burner countless times to accomodate other, less fulfilling projects undertaken with other individuals. Projects that, I might add, have crashed and burned mainly due to internal tension or lack of true enthusiasm - essentially, because of people. Ironic, because collaborations have never yielded the same spiritual rewards as musical journeys set forth and guided by none but my own hand. Honestly, why did I bother?

After all the band debacles and joint ventures gone awry in the last few years I've finally come to the rather joyful conclusion that I will have all other endeavors play second fiddle to my solo projects. They are now top priority. Ward 13 and The Stranger will take precedence over all collaborations I may take part in. Having sealed this deal with the man in the mirror I can say it's a pact long in the making, solidified in no small part by my growing expertise in the field of audio design. I feel more confident than ever as the holes in my game get plugged one after another and the need for others' involvement disappears deeper into the mist.

I am done with compromises and politics, musical halfways, dodging backstab attempts, ego soothing and the air hockey of manipulation. All of that has taken far too much time and energy away from what is and should always be most important - the creative work. The only partnership I have in the works is with one of my oldest friends and is a two-man operation, so I have faith it'll come to fruition without any drama whatsoever. That also means my plate is filled to the brim and I am gleefully unable to attach myself to any possible doomed voyages lurking in the annals of tomorrow.

As with Ward 13, I've come to realize The Stranger cannot exist in any other form than as a solo project. While it has clinged to life under many a name and with a myriad of people involved at any given time, the creative part has always rested almost solely upon my shoulders and the other members have disappeared no later than when they've realized this isn't just a fucking pastime hobby for me. One might muse that I've simply had bad luck or even worse taste in bandmates, but whatever the reasons, they are beside the point and off the radar from hereon.

Mixing and producing Ward 13 has always been an excursion all its own with a very different face forward than, say, any project I've been involved in that incorporates electric guitars on a heavier regimen. Whereas W13 is essentially very ascetic, bare and minimalistic, the metallic aspirations of the undersigned have always tended to strive for wallowing, surging proportions challenging even W13 on the schizophrenic front; forging the epic with the sparse and the massive with the low-key, not forgetting the hot/cold, stop/go interludes that always seem to make their way into whatever I write. As such, getting them to sound the way I've envisioned they deserve to sound has been like traversing an ocean of liquid fire surrounded by an acid moat atop a steep hill covered in ice. Yes - hard.

However, with the acceptance that The Stranger will never be a band in the traditional sense has come a new kind of confidence. From the songs and hatchlings now either finished or still gestating, I'd have to say The Stranger is some of the best material I've written. Every bit as unique as Ward 13, though I would never compare the two. Still, now re-envisioned as another kind of vessel for my vision, it has proven to be a primus motor of pure inspirational fire & lightning and an outlet I've been sorely missing. As an experimental subject in the studio lab it has offered a thorough, point-to-point learning experience equally rich in inspiration and enlightenment. If vision and technique are weapons, I'm arming myself to the teeth times two.

Understanding that I am another step toward being a truly self-reliant musician and producer is, in a word, liberating. As the appeal of being a member of the pack wanes in the face of having absolute - absolute - artistic freedom, I feel less and less melancholy about not being surrounded by a group dynamic. I feel better than in months, because I know with increasing certainty that I don't need anyone else to achieve what I'm striving for and my priorities are now fine-tuned to best serve the creative energy inside me begging to be released.

Joy in solitude. Welcome back, old friend.

Pollock-esque

There is a disconnect inside. A rift that upsets the balance, a stone in the stream disrupting the flow. Pieces of an endless puzzle, factory-installed with one piece always missing, scattered to the four winds. Eyeless, mouthless shapes wandering in a neverending blank space, desperately searching for one another by aimlessly clutching and grasping at the darkness around them.

Sometimes I feel like the voice inside me, the one that translates into creativity, is a very real, tangible being with its own visage and imprint, yet wholly ill-equipped to communicate through any other means but by using me as a medium. There is a current of energy inside me, one I funnel outward to the proverbial canvas through the eye of a needle. It is never exact, never precise, but never aimless. Ideally the exchange is instinctual, but I've grown into a bad habit of adding too much thought to the process. That's where it becomes complicated: the communication becomes muddled and distorted, like conversing over walkie-talkies and the signal keeps breaking. Over-simplifying it would be to say I don't always understand the man in the mirror, but it's more concrete than that. More... otherworldly.

We co-exist. He, she, it... is a shadow over my shoulder, a whisper in the wind, an ocean of faint sighs, a dream. It is something inside me, a home away from home, yet strange, unknown and formless. A wall between me and the world, yet an undepletable, bottomless well. My own construct, to which I'm always a visitor.

It is a strange essence to both nestle and inhabit, one I've often pondered upon. I can't deny that it hasn't made its way into my output. After all, Ward 13's phantomusiq is essentially a parable of purgatory, starring a man with a split personality wrestling with his demons while his better angels take shape only to be cut down by the darkness that consumes him. His Hyde, the co-inhabitor of his physical being, the shadow on his shoulder. The irony is rife with the pungent stench of poignancy, I know.

Where he and I differ is how that part of our being manifests itself. I can get lost in the murky waters of my soul if I choose to relinquish control. Otherwise it's frightfully easy for me to be conventional, blasé and mundane, even if I'm fully aware that it's nothing but a facade for the sake of others. It is a guise I wear for necessity's sake.

My creativity, though, has lately had to brush up against a stonewall of conformity and pre-programmed expectations, partly losing focus in the process. I feel like it's somewhat lost without its leash, no matter how joyful to be rid of it. I've found myself unnecessarily complicating the process by adding exuberant amounts of reasoning and motive to the flow of progression. I.e. trying to find the why in the what. It's probably due to being involved in collaborative rather than singular musical enterprises as of late, but the after-effect is unsettling and unwelcome nonetheless. It is a terrible, terrible mistake I've allowed myself to make, but luckily somewhat of a recent development. Lucky in the sense that something freshly learned can be done away with without it leaving a lasting mark.

You wouldn't believe how much I loathe and detest being questioned about subtext, underlying motives, hidden agendas. Surprisingly enough that tends come up quite a bit, supposedly because I can be a rather cryptic fellow. Still, having to explain myself - the ignition, process or outcome - would be like sticking needles into my eyes. So I decline, often in a very forceful manner. Or I simply sit and simmer, hoping the message gets across via the wavelength of silence. I resent the dissection, the breaking down, the afterbirth analysis of my creative endeavors. It's like trying to rate your orgasms on a scale based on obscure graphs and pie charts.

That's why working with others can be such a chore. Things get talked to death and everything has to have a purpose. Even the void must be decorated with a sign that says "This is a void". Chasing the dragon's tail only to strike it down and peer into the beast's jaw is to deny yourself the mystery of the journey itself. Trust me, dear friends and foes: we are all in much more dire need of mystery than illumination and exposition, even if we don't know it.

Aaanyways... Speaking of the three-fold elseworld that begins with phantomusiq, I'll give a little insight on the following two chapters next time around. Shadow'd and Deathwork, respectively. It was my intent to bring all that up in this entry, but look at me drift off again. As said: never exact, never precise, but never aimless. Pollock would be proud.

Eulogy

News of Paul Gray's passing hit me pretty hard. Slipknot made an unforgettable impact on me with their debut 12 years ago and I've been a fan ever since. Wow. Twelve years. Hard to wrap my brain around the fact that it's been so long. I'm listening to the aforementioned album while I'm writing this down and it doesn't sound a day old. The impact isn't colored by nostalgia one little bit. It still has force, momentum. Relevance. As do all the albums that followed it.

I got a chance to interview Corey Taylor back when Iowa was released and remember vividly how impressed and taken aback I was by his sincerity. I was just a twentysomething buck from some Finnish metal magazine with a busted tape recorder, but he had no reservations and spoke openly about anything and everything. Painful and comedic subjects alike, all was fair game. Aside from him only Kris Rygg has made a similarily resonant impact across the proverbial push-pull table. As I recall that's the way I've always viewed the band, both in terms of their output and their demeanor (as far as one can perceive that from a distance). Brutally honest. Candid 'til it hurts.

They're also a prime example of sincerity gone awry. I'm still amazed and bewildered how many people think of their music as childish or tied down to adolescence because of its raw, uncompromising and honest nature. Not because those people don't have the right to think so, but because they're under 50 and generally speaking in a mindframe that should be well distanced from that old Everything after The Beatles has sucked line of bullshit. Being a dismissive, disconnected and hogtied little lemming in line with the others is something that always gives me chills when come upon in people of my generation or younger.

It's easy to be sarcastic about the band. Slipknot always hit stage in their trademark masks and overalls, rarely touched upon subjects outside the far end of the negative spectrum, all the while exuding a level of threat and aggression rarely experienced, pulling everything off with zero irony. They inspired a following that must've been off-putting in its intensity to anyone on the sidelines. They were and are an easy target for those who aren't equipped to handle that level of intensity without diluting its effect by introducing levity. Being a 9-piece big band with masks, overalls and assigned numbers is a wealth of chinks in the armor for anyone willing to poke through. Let's be honest here: most fuckers simply can't process another's passion - never mind their quirks and obscurities - if it isn't followed by a wink and a nudge.

The fact also remains that they became a huge phenomenon and that, if anything, divides people easily. Opinions gravitate to either extreme to become alignments, points of assault, beachheads. Reactions and responses compete to topple one another and before you know it, you're spewing rhetoric and cheap shots in a pothole on either side of the barbed wire fence. We've all seen this story arc play out.

I speak of the band in past tense not because I believe they're done for but because this is the end of an era. I doubt their path is at an end, but certainly an unmistakable staple of the sound is now gone. It may tint my view of their future releases, as I'll no doubt pick up on something being amiss and potentially be unable to look past that. Gray was an essential part of the band's songwriting nucleus, more often than not the primus motor, and the imprint he left behind may be irreplaceable.

Rest in peace.

Everything's ambient

For whatever reason, I've been unable to get a good night's sleep all week. Thoughts race around in my head at breakneck speed and though I've awoken more and more tired from morning to next, it seems I'm unable to relax. I've averaged about 2-4 hours per night. Caffeine is burning my guts and my concentration breaks like a twig countless times a day. I have to steel myself not to slur through my words or forget where I was going. It's a pretty novel experience, something like walking around in a glass jar that distorts your field of view. Or perhaps some sort of stretchy see-thru enclosure, bubble wrap esque. Not that I'd know.

I have absolutely no idea why falling asleep is suddenly an icy hill I'm climbing with rollerblades on. It's not as if I'm so deep in contemplation or weighed down by heavy air that I can't switch off. Quite the opposite in fact. After the recent myriad of different tribulations and downpour I actually feel sort of balanced. Cleansed. I've rattled some cages, yes, but regardless of what I wrote before about putting bridges to the test, it can have a surprising after-effect: strengthening the structure. It's a possibility, though not exactly a horse you'd want to bet on. But it can go that way too, which is reassuring. Having less on my plate also means I don't have to stretch myself as thin. So all things considered my sleep dep is a mystery fit for Poirot.

I've been drinking way too much lately. During the past year I've sort of fallen into a routine of having a few and then a few more on a weekly basis. A regular band rehearsal regimen will accomplish this in a flash. Pretty much par for the course in the country I hail from and the circles I'm privy to, but for me personally it's been a year of being well out of the realm of ordinary. I've entertained the thought that the alcohol has had its fangs deep in my drama queen mood swings of late. There has to be more to it, but it's no doubt been a contributing factor.

Under the influence my personality doesn't change, but it becomes more pronounced. I get dislodged, unhinged very easily. Even erratic at times. My center of gravity keeps eluding me (no pun intended, really). It's punctuated by a false sense of being in control. I feel like the situation is mine to master, yet something else is wearing my skin and directing the flow of words and motion. I don't like waking up to that, nor is it a comforting feeling to wonder if dodging the bullet of some sort of unforeseen excess has been mere luck & chance. It does no favors to one's psyche to deal with this as an afterthought.

I'm not much of a drinker, never have been, and I miss having the opportunity to pass the time in the company of others without a nagging need to pop, hiss and jug. On my part or theirs. Generally I can go for years without a drop, but that also means having next to no social life whatsoever. This is Finland after all. As I've said before I do still feel like a tourist in the realm of normalcy - the ebb and flow of social interaction included - but that also means there are a lot of traps this tourist still wants to get caught in.

I think about crap like this way too much, I know. That's probably a major player in this particular game.

Still, it's wonderful to see the populus transform come summer. Unless you live in Finland, you could never even begin to imagine how much this land of sullen shut-ins and sit-next-to-me-on-the-bus-and-I'll-eat-your-fucking-children mentality changes as summer sets in, like someone flicked a switch. No, really. It's like dropping a dime in a jukebox. As if the whole country is bipolar or schizophrenic. For nine months of the year people act pretty much as the generic cookie cutter stereotype Finns you might've seen or heard about. For the three month spread in between, however, we are the loud, energetic, joyful band of buffoons you normally might glance upon at hockey games. I have a hard time imagining another nation who'd endure such a twist & shake collective personality.

Alienation

I'm an alien, man. I don't understand anyone's anything.
- Henry Rollins

My previous entry set in motion a chain of events that resulted in me removing myself from the band I'd been playing with for about a year.

I took a timeout for the weekend to weigh in my options. I needed time to process everything with a clear perspective. After an open exchange I felt insulted, hurt and unappreciated. Ironic, seeing as that was probably the exact emotional response my words brought forth in the guys. Too much was already said and done to push any further as a team, so after careful thought I decided to take my leave. There's more to this story of course, but that's water under the bridge now.

I tended in my resignation over the phone. Organizing some sort of round-table farewell would've ended in contrived smiles and plastique well-wishing, which would have degraded us all by being obviously less than heartfelt at this point. We were all tired of talking. Tired of hearing each other speak.

I feel strangely comfortable with the whole thing. I leave them a stronger musical unit than they were before I entered the fray, and I can draw a sense of accomplishment from that. I wish them well and hope they find what they're looking for. I hope it pans out. I couldn't bring myself to say that if I knew in my heart the sentiment wasn't genuine. I hold the gents in high regard even though I battled a sense of being a visitor, an outsider for my entire stint with the band and never really allowed myself to grow roots. In some sense that was part of the appeal. To chart unfamilliar waters with no real sense of direction.

On the upside, being somewhat distanced means I move away from it all with surprising ease, a sense of relief even. I wish I could say there are absolutely no ill feelings, but I believe the situation was manipulated and while a lot was said, even more remains untold. Perhaps I intruded upon some perceived territory. Perhaps my influence caused a power transfer that wasn't welcome. Perhaps I stripped the rehearsal space of a sense of home away from home by introducing work ethic at the expense of having fun. Perhaps I tried to set goals that seemed over-reaching. I don't know. I'm guessing. I'll never know for sure.

But it doesn't really matter at this point. They go one way, I go another. Whatever baggage I leave with will fall off in due time. I have a lot of history with one of the guys and he remains one of my favorite people on the planet. I'd like to kid myself that this won't affect our new-found relationship, but without some sort of "social glue" to keep you on each other's radars it's so, so easy to fall out of touch. I hope our paths will cross from time to time in the future.

I'd have an easier time coming to grips with the aftermath of my departure if I didn't feel like I've wasted my time. Almost a year has passed and I don't play any better, sing any better, interact with people any better... I come away from this none the wiser and it's entirely my own fault. It's time to lock myself into the HQ, slip on the ol' lab coat and begin brewing strange musical concoctions on my lonesome again. Hopefully I'll prove myself wrong in the process.

More and more I second-guess the nature and very worth of these entries. While the original idea(l) might have been pious and spiritually rewarding, my words have served to only widen gaps and alienate me further. The line between honesty and hostility isn't thin, but it's become blurred enough to confuse even the writer himself. One could argue I've set aflame bridges that weren't sturdy to begin with, but smirking "Well, they weren't built to last anyway" while watching the flames rise is a stance I've taken before and I know exactly where it leads. Straining relationships to the breaking point just to see them swing in the wind is an arrogant, ignorant errand.

I've certainly ripped a great deal of dark matter out of me by pouring my heart into this journal, but that energy has disintegrated into the air around me and I find myself surrounded by a cloud of negativity. It seems to have impacted everything and everyone around me. It wasn't my original nor current intent, but I need to reap what I've sown and try to grow in the process.

Purging the septic tank on your front lawn has one effect and one alone: everything in and around your house will smell like shit. I need to get my creative juices flowing full-steam, lest I wish to suffer the odor of Eau de Buttcrack for a long time to come. I plan on getting busy immediately.

A cabin in the woods

I see a wall and I want to punch through it. I think about tomorrow and my thoughts darken.

People around me keep letting me down. Turning their coats. Slipping from one skin to another, making me question whose face stares back at me today. Their wavelength is so alien to me I feel like I'm tapping morse code in front of baby seals.

By comparison, yesterday was far better. The day before that trumped the lot by a mile. Before that - I don't know anymore. It's lightyears behind. I don't like where this is going.

I don't know how to respond when people I like turn on me. I don't handle it very well when my appreciation and affection is met with aggression, scorn or disrespect. Even if it's merely overlooked. It's a pretty selfish viewpoint, I know, but I won't apologize for it. I feel hurt and insulted, because I consider my offering a rare gift. Something bestowed to a limited few.

Respect is the most valuable commodity I have to give. Warmth and camaraderie are in bigger supply, because at the end of the day I'm perhaps even a surprisingly gregarious fellow. But don't think for a second I would waste my better angels on people I wouldn't raise above some kind of invisible bar. If this is neglected or indeed unrequited, it's never forgotten. Ever. I will never look at you the same way again. This I know of myself beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I expect them to fall and they fly higher. I wake up a surprise richer and an old thorn poorer. My anticipation grows. I expect them to soar and they hurl down, dragging me along for as long as I allow them to. The cynic within merely raises an eyebrow and retorts; "what did you expect?" My heart grows a spark dimmer. It goes from one extreme to the other and in the end I always feel naive regardless of the outcome.

The coming four days will be spent recording with the band. God, I hope it doesn't end up the fucking train wreck I anticipate it will. Perhaps I see more than is there, but it does feel like the energy has dwindled from a flood to a trickle and it dampens my spirits. From anticipation and drive to an almost pacifying sense of offhandedness and unenthusiasm. Indifference even - my nemesis. This paradigm shift is counterproductive and unwelcome, not to mention a surprise guest, yet I feel it taking hold of me like a virus spreading from carrier to carrier. It bumps me off kilter. The light is green yet the sloth, turtle and snail in the car in front won't budge. Either I'll turn around, pass them by or we'll have a fender bender - the gas pedal beckons and I long to stomp on it. I can't - won't - drag this cart of stones on my own, not unless it's solely mine to carry.

Some days I want nothing more than a cabin in the woods, offering no more than meager accomodation for my art and expression. Those days have been growing in numbers lately. It isn't the first time.