Vicissitude

It’s been a week since my last post. I guess that means I have to write something.

Things are generally stressful and even panicky these days. I’m trying to get more piano students, but I’m also back to the good old job search that has dominated my life since I left the unreal safety bubble of studentship. Oh boy.

A friend of mine from BGSU, who always admired my alleged writing skills, sent me a link to apply for this freelance writers’ group. In an effort to find requisite “writing samples,” I sifted through all the old essays I could find. I even went through and skimmed every single blog post in the history of Land of Song last night. Looking back on the past five years, I have to say… damn, it’s been rough. I cringed so many times last night that I was in physical pain just from the clarity of memories rushing at me at once.

Things are not so glorious right now, either. Maybe that’s why it was extra cringe-inducing to rediscover all the things that “went wrong.”

But enough about the gritty history of the blog. Let’s back up a few days. Continuing in the direction set by the previous post, I found myself downtown Friday evening with nothing but my new hoodie and the Bourne scores to make me feel alive. It was interesting, walking around the famous 6th Street bar district, passing countless potential leisure hotspots I can’t afford (and don’t have the posse for anyway). I was only in that direction for an important errand, but I figured I could walk around downtown and observe the city for free since I’d already spent the gas money. I was drifting through the entertainment district, wrestling with the frustration over not being able to visit Kansas City after Thanksgiving, as I originally had hoped. I like the city. Any city. Even more so with the application of John Powell’s rhythmic drive.

I have also been fueling myself the past week with several bootleg tracks from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 by Hans Zimmer. I don’t have the measly eight bucks it would take to download the whole thing from Amazon, but I found several game rip tracks.

This also takes me back to last December, playing that game in Kansas City with my brother-in-arms and hetero-lifemate, Dean “The Reverend” Yzon. With the days getting shorter and twilight falling upon us in late afternoon, I am transported back to that time with similarly beautiful cinematography.

That is not to say that things were particularly glorious back then, either. But in my mind I’m holding on to the future, not the past. You see, amidst a shitty week, I’m keeping one toe rooted in the comfort zone, a hypothetical world in which I can freely visit my friends any time, anywhere, and do our thing. Not dwelling on last Christmas, rather daydreaming about how good the next one could be. Just as pointless. And, arguably, just as psychologically unhealthy.

I don’t want to cross the line into “unhealthy escapism” territory, but sometimes a man’s gotta cope. Modern Warfare 2, though just a video game, takes me back to a time when I was in better shape physically, mentally, and financially. Even if I’m not even actually playing it, since I don’t actually have an Xbox 360.

Every few days a new source of inspiration takes hold of me, though lately it seems to be an amalgam of the same ingredients with slightly different proportions (for example, the hoodie thing with The Force Unleashed, Assassin’s Creed, and the Bourne scores). So right now I’m staying alive with an I.V. drip of Hans Zimmer’s score to Modern Warfare 2. So be it.

I’d better go get back to my intense to-do list. I hope you don't feel cheated, since this blog post was essentially devoid of information. Modern Warfare 2 owns.