Forgive and Forget

I made a cascading series of mistakes, and for that I am humbly sorry. Nothing more I can do. Now let's move forward.

False Start

Hi. Since no one on earth reads my blog, I thought I'd use it as a journal. My heart is heavy, because I think I've made a wrong turn. I'm suffering the consequences of setting off on a wayward path; experiencing the stress of trying to undo that decision, what with other people being involved, and my future at risk. Fortunately, I've not done any damage, and wasted little time. My fear is that I am again making an emotional decision (as I did to get to this point), and that there will be regrets to go along with this one as well.
Here's how I feel - there is no shame in discovering a mistake, admitting it, and taking action to correct it. But what if I am (again) just recoiling in fear? Is this still part of an endless cycle of false starts, or am I really honing in on something? What is the alternative?
I'm gonna try to be more specific, for the benefit of the viewer.
I met an old friend at a party. Said old friend owns a recording studio. I talked said friend into hiring me to be her engineer. I was ecstatic, and jumped in earnest into the project. Thing is, I said I would be willing to do stuff. Turns out, after doing some of that stuff, I don't like it after all, and it's stressing me out. There may or may not (probably not) be some reward down the road, but I don't know if that's a road I want to be on. 'Tis a hard road, and many others are also on the same road, and most of them are younger. And hungrier.
So here's the question: do I want to work during free time for little money, doing unsatisfying work, with no clear reward at the end, when I already feel like I want to quit? Did I give it enough of a chance? What's next? Alas and alack.

Facebook Follies

Dude! I forget to write a blog because I'm always so busy typing senseless ideas out on Facebook. It seems like anything not worth saying is still worth updating: "I just rocked some wicked chili!" "I can't find my Ween CD!" "I can feel a weird draft coming from the ceiling - I think it's a ghost!" There is never any timely consolation for my desperate friend-treaties, and old friends who do finally get back to me are not really any more interesting, or interested, than I am. We're all out here just living our lives. BORING! Everyone involved realizes what an enormous time-sink it is, living vicariously through each other, and yet most of us cannot seem to leave it long enough to break orbit. It sucks - literally. On the other hand, I do have a lot of friends not watching me try to shimmy my way away from the screen tonight, so that's something. isn't it?

Help Keep Michelle Kwan in Kwanzaa

Jesus! What is it about separation of church and state that some people have so much trouble with? Is the government knocking down the doors of your place of worship and ripping the word Christ out of your Bibles, hymnals, sermons, and mouths? If Christians are so worried about secularism overtaking their precious arbitrary holiday, then go tell all the children the truth about Santa Claus! Tear up or lock away your credit cards from early October through late January, recycle your ornaments and stockings, and celebrate the birthday of your Savior in a way that he would find appropriate and blessed (with two syllables)! The spirit of the First Amendment was to protect religious freedom for EVERYONE, not just for Christians. Of course, nowhere does it explicitly say "separation of church and state" in the Constitution, as nowhere in the Bible does it explicitly say "celebrate My birthday on December the 25th of every year by spending exorbitant amounts of money on each other, in order to prove how much you love me - and while you're at it , be sure and legislate your beliefs, not just about my birthday, but about EVERYTHING, onto society as a whole, and suppress the rights of all minorities whenever you get a chance." The imbalance of this set of attitudes is self-evident, and I'm f***ing tired of the religious right continuing to insist on the absoluteness of their point of view. Spiritual awareness is a personal journey, but religion has turned it into a May Day parade.

Metaphor Overdose

I'm digging a little deeper into my psyche today than I had planned when my feet first hit the floor. Something about the way the ground feels this morning is inciting an emotional riot, and what started as a few weepy moments of happiness last night as Obama was declared the victor, has morphed into a bit more of a flood. I'm not crying anymore (save for the reprise earlier when I heard a replay of his acceptance speech), but I have made some headway towards alienating anyone or anything within a hundred foot radius of my mouth. I guess there's not really a selective emotional filter for me - since I, Obama-like, keep my emotions under an iron manhole cover almost always, when I lift the cover, everything that's been festering there swooshes out like a vapor.

I'm searching for a bridle to steer this ungodly snorting, crack-addicted vapor of self-expression into a corral. But there's no corral, just open plains. I read about places on earth that are so flat that the expanse of sky creates a kind of vertigo; an imbalance where points of reference are reduced to something less than this or that; not necessarily up or down, left or right, or even right or wrong. Maybe the prospect of a slingshot off of the gravity of the last eight years has disoriented me. The whole world changed in an historically profound way last night, and I may just be experiencing a personal cleansing that goes along with such a change. I feel myself shaking off a kind of grimy layer, and there's a lot of crap coming to the surface. I mean, how many non sequiturs and sloppy metaphors can I pack into one blog, anyway? I'm obviously clearing out the attic. All I know is, I need to get my sea-legs on, cause this is gonna be a ride I wanna be on.

Shaken, Not Stirring

Just one thing - take care when mixing friendship and business. It's OK to become friendly with a business associate, but always keep business between friends as strictly professional and sterile as possible. I learned this the mildly difficult way. I took a business deal with a friend for granted, assuming more than was mine to assume. As a result of this transgression, and its consequences, I have decided that all future business dealings will end up on paper - whether transacted with a stranger, a moderate acquaintance, or a dear friend. There is no allowance for error or assumption in these cases, and a truckload of frustration and heartache can be avoided. You would have thought I'd have learned my lesson after the whole lawsuit thingy, which you don't know about. Just know that it was the same lesson then, learned but unheeded.

What Is Love, Anyway?

Seth Godin writes a great marketing blog called, appropriately enough, Seth's Blog. Despite its declared subject matter, it is still more than tangentially relevant to my everyday life. The struggle to happily wed art and commerce is addressed in today's post, titled Maybe you can't make money doing what you love. I'm always hungry to commiserate with other artists, and I 'm glad to know I'm not the only one who loses the muse whenever money is involved. I don't know if it's the pressure of being exposed as a fraud that makes me clamp up, or the (pre-)realization that clients frequently want something with which they're already familiar. I've got to stop all this pre-realizing. Subverting, or more to the point, getting past my own expectations is what art+commerce is all about for me. I struggle on...