Wish, Wish, Wish, All of This

Ever since 10th grade, my mind's been on a sort of strange trajectory. In high school I was very emotionally indulgent; I idealized girls (especially those whom I liked, but really, all of them), wrote poems half of which lines didn't even mean anything. I underlined sentimentality with verbosity. Sometime during the latter half of 12th grade, I started to roll this back, most likely because my escapades with the Barrett-Huber party were burning me out on human interaction; I'd become more deeply involved with them than I had with the Perkins-Han crew, and was older and wiser as well, and could see when supposed best friends did things to each other that made little sense.

But then I left New Jersey, and the thrill of starting anew in college, the rush of feeling open to and welcoming everything washed away the reservations I'd built up. And then 2005 of course...after that, though, I really got knocked off the pedestal I'd unknowingly put myself upon by taking all my own emotions and philosophies as pure and absolute things, at least relative to myself, to the point where I couldn't deal with it when I realized I was contradicting myself. So began a two-year long descent into perverse amounts of pseudo-rational criticism, refusing to admit to thinking about things to myself (a lot of those entries from 2006 aren't going to mean shit to me in just a couple years), and self-restraint, which peaked (or bottomed out, I suppose, would be more topologically accurate) around last fall when I spent a semester studying Frankurt School critical theory and simultaneously got smacked by a double-whammy of won't-get-fooled-again bitterness.

This past summer, though, and the dispersion of everybody, I have to say did work in my favor, in a way. The more I'm buffeted by human interaction after a certain threshold, the more numbed I get, result being I'll continue hanging out, but mostly out of automation. Being forced to not talk to or hang out with people every day allowed me to choose my battles. Some would say the cure for being burnt out by the world is to go out; for me, I suspect the opposite to be true. I've spent a lot of idle time untangling knots in my head, and believe I'm coming closer to tipping the scale back in the direction it recently came from.

That last entry, however, may have been a warning sign that recovery is being taken too far into regression. Seriously, trying to communicate through music choice is something that should've been over for me in high school. Referential mania as Jess said, or maybe just plain silly. Got to watch my own steps from this point on.

Let it not be said that I've not learned anything, though. My inner critic is still on my side. As much as he can be on anyone's side, I suppose. The aforementioned Big Life Decisions shall be made...sometime, but sometime soon. Actual Plans are being formulated and Real Action will be taken. I finished recording a song today. That's progress, isn't it?

Went to see Stars of Track and Field with the Sarahs (we came to the conclusion that Sarahs are mass-produced with factory-installed telepathy links) tonight. Thrushes got dropped from their opening slot, which was a shame. Anna and Brad happened to be there too. Brad talked about his newfound vinyl habit (records, don't get any kinky ideas) and terabyte of mp3s...I could never glut out on music like some people do. It was a good show, although unbelievably only a dozen or so people showed up to Sonar (drunk UMBC kids in skimpy costumes attending the Halloween party don't count). Although they have a pretty expansive sound, the songs themselves somehow feel like they'd be best enjoyed in a small room...anyway, I liked the show--it made me very happy for some reason--at least I have the CD-R, even if I don't have anything else. Check it.