Six Steps Back

Well, here I am. One would think either the fact that I lived here on a permanent basis for a decade of my life, or the fact that I've visited back periodically for the other decade would make visiting here easier, but the fact is, I haven't felt at home at "home" for the past four years or so. I've really latched on to Baltimore in a way that I never did with Lawrenceville; it probably has something to do with how I didn't really live in a bona fide "dorm" after freshman year, and got to wander around the city (not to mention there actually being a city to wander around), something you just don't quite do when you've got curfew every day of the week, even if your friends roll up in SUVs to drive you to a diner where they chain-smoked and you chain-drank coffee, and everyone dreamed of being writer bums.

So, now as then, I look to my own words for solace (I do have my old Murakami collection here as well). My grandmother (mother's side) is getting somewhat stranger with the years; she always calls me "son," as if there weren't another generation in between us, and as if she doesn't have an actual son who is a member of that generation. Truth be told, she's probably counting on me to come through where he refused to (i.e. have children), and I'm not too comfortable with that. Of course, the same fundamental conditions of life that isolate us as individuals by freeing others from our expectations of them also frees us, in turn, from their expectations of us. There's a bittersweet epiphany if there ever was one.

Not sure what to do about Ben. Kid's a total nihilist. Only things that seem to interest him are comic books and video games. I was into comic books and video games (and other time-wasting crap) back in the day, but never to his extent. Also, angry at the world, apparently. I was never a rebellious teenager, so I can't even recall what it was like to figure out how to react to him. (Neither can my mother, apparently.) This is actually kind of bad...

On a separate note, I've been listening to a lot of Four Tet lately (mainly because Kieran Hebden uses Audiomulch, which I have just started exploring); a lot of the songs from the Rounds album are fantastically memorable, and it might end up becoming a significant album in my life. But I've also been revisiting some latter-day Autechre albums, namely Confield and Untilted; now that I've actually some sort of an idea how they actually made those beats, it absolutely boggles my mind. (Here I was thinking beats were all MIDI notes into drum machines...)

It seems that every time I start to figure out a new instrument, I become really fascinated with virtuoso performances of said instrument: for example, my Squarepusher and Pinback obsessions when I first got decent at bass, and I did go through a shred phase back when I started getting good at electric guitar--hell, I even went to a Yngwie J. (I remember my old guitar teacher saying: "Why does he need the 'J.'? Are there actually other Yngwie Malmsteens out there?") Malmsteen concert back in the day (though obviously my standards for listenable music has changed). I don't care about playing lots of notes on guitar anymore (all I do is play weird chords), and I'm more laid back about the feel and complexity of playing bass...hopefully with time I'll be able to settle into a comfortable pace with drum programming.

I do miss having my guitar though. It's kind of hard to think about music without it. Just got the itch today to make some granular pads, too...

Every time I come back, I count the days until I go back to Baltimore. Literally. I've got a little line of text somewhere that says "Day X/16," and I change the value of "X" daily. Today is day 4.

Being able to sleep a lot does make things easier, though.