Summer In Summary

Golly. Look where we are. My last post was June 7th. I really meant to post once a week since then. It's just... by the time I make the time for it, it's too late.

My last post was met with crickets chirping, anyway. I thought it was one of my most glorious moments, regarding a major catharsis from the vendetta against BGSU (don't tell me it's all in the past when the same corrupt people are in charge today). And it still is a glorious moment, but perhaps it's what you'd call a sleeper hit, and will get recognition later. After all, I intend on being a vindictive nuisance on Twitter in October, for the New Music and Arts Festival (NMAF). As I told someone, every time I get blocked on Twitter, a demon gets its wings.

But after the sweet release that was my last blog post in June, I went through a lot of different phases, each of which should have been a blog post in its own right. I spent a lot of time contemplating lost or faded friendships, and contemplating the futility of trying to resuscitate them when the effort was only on my end. Other than that, a lot of the summer I felt like I was just going through the motions, and didn't have anything inspiring to say.

In July, on Friday the 13th, I expected to be inspired to have a horror movie marathon, also taking advantage of the fact that a couple of home fashions stores were starting to put out fall and Halloween decorations. Instead, things took a surprising turn when I found a way to salvage a treasure trove of old files that I hadn't even been able to open in fifteen years or more. This was a huge win for me, and it triggered a protracted phase of college nostalgia while revisiting some old music projects that I'd forgotten I'd even written.

While reworking a few old compositions, I disciplined myself to stay on-task by going on a sort of guided nostalgia odyssey, chronologically walking through the five years I lived in Kirksville, thinking about one month at a time. It was also a good way to force myself to listen to old bands and film scores that collect dust in my collection, since I never give them much thought anymore. It was frivolous and self-indulgent, but for a good and productive cause.

But it also brought me back to the prior feelings of isolation, with friendships from those times being faded to the point where I felt like I was just a footnote in history. The worst part was feeling like I couldn't even validate my own memories when I couldn't talk to someone who could corroborate them with a boisterous toast. This feeling was compounded with my 37th birthday, several days into my Truman Retrospective project. It's a sad thing to feel like nothing matters anymore, and therefore must not have really mattered in the first place.

This could have been a series of blog posts, but it wasn't. I did mention it on Facebook, though.

This slow-burning nostalgia odyssey was largely responsible for spurring me into starting a new game on Final Fantasy VII, which I hadn't touched in a long time. Over the 4th of July, actually, I skimmed a walkthrough of it on YouTube while flipping through the strategy guide for old time's sake. The seed was planted; seeing the gameplay again made me want to play it myself. JRPGs are notoriously time-consuming, so I am still very early in the story, because I just don't make the time to play it. But it's there. Another crawling nostalgia project that I will probably abandon before completing.

The momentum of my Truman Retrospective music project was disrupted when I had to take a trip to Missouri for a family reunion. I departed on July 24th. This should have also kicked off at least a couple of blog posts, but it didn't.

Juliet was scheduled for another surgery immediately after, so there was no way she could come, too. She needed to stay home and rest for the week leading up to it, not exhaust herself on the road. I took Liam by myself all the way to Northeast Missouri, then Southeast Missouri, then back. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but still challenging.

First I went to my sister's house in Columbia, getting there at 1:15am. The next day, we got to see her new baby, and just hang out for a while before drifting northeast another hour to get to my parents' house for a couple days.

I go to my parents' house every Christmas, but to be there in the summer was rare and different. The last time I was in Missouri in July was for my sister's wedding three years ago, and I had to make the trip alone, while other people helped Juliet recover from a major surgery. Now, Liam was able to enjoy exploring outdoors in such a way that winter wouldn't allow.

On the 28th, we took a caravan down to the Cape Girardeau region, staying in tiny Tilsit with relatives who'd retired to live there, where they had grown up. That began a family reunion of sorts, on my mom's side, at multiple locations throughout the weekend. I got to show Liam the wagon hill where I loved to ride down as a child. I got to show Liam all around an old house that defined much of my childhood summer memories. I also took pictures obsessively, fearing that this would likely be the last time I ever saw the place.

I couldn't access my blog while I was there, but if I had written about it immediately upon returning home, I surely would have had some more insights other than just telling you when and where I was, like I am doing now. As it was, however, another monkey wrench was thrown into my plans when, immediately upon my return, the hospital called to tell us that they arbitrarily moved up Juliet's surgery. With less than 24 hours notice, they moved it up to the early morning. I had just gotten back into town, and though exhausted and sleep-deprived, we now had to find an overnight babysitter so I could take Juliet at 4:00am to go into Austin. I was furious at the hospital, and at Fate in general for always, always fucking with me.

After a few days of processing my many thoughts from the trip, I returned to my college music projects and the nostalgia thereof. I also finally got around to converting some old microcassette recordings of my friends' shenanigans into digital media storage, so I got to relive a few specific days in vivid detail.

After this dull ice-breaker of a blog post, I should offer up a few concise portraits of a bygone lifestyle, so you know what I'm talking about. But this is running too long as it is.

But here's one, for example. By August 12th, I was so immersed in Fall of 2002 that I outlined an entire album's worth of music inspired by a film I was really into at that time: Plunkett and Macleane, and I changed my Facebook profile pic and timeline cover to reflect that. I also listened to a hell of a lot of the band Tool, and at this point I began outlining an electroacoustic tribute album to add to my wish list of big projects. Jim Beam and White Russians had a special place in those days. On the side, I was cherishing memories of a few friendships from those days, and in my mind I was having fun in the present day with them.

On August 14th, I also posted a picture I found on my computer from the last time I watched Black Hawk Down. It was a picture of the DVD case sitting next to a half-empty bottle and tumbler of Jim Beam Double Oak. I said:

I found this picture in a folder of random stuff to be sorted. This picture was apparently from November 2017, but this is exactly the mood I am in now. I have been listening to the ultra-rare Black Hawk Down Special Edition soundtrack in the car all day and night, appropriate in the inhospitable Texas August heat, especially since I was driving the back-up car with no air conditioning. I have been specifically reminiscing about February 2004, and this would hit the spot about now. 

A little context: I graduated December 2003, but stuck around for the spring semester to take graduate-level composition lessons that I could transfer, since the timing of my graduation made it so I had to wait until the following fall. This meant I also had weekly master classes to attend, vis-a-vis The Mostly Live Composers Society meetings. Other than that, I was in limbo while I waited to be accepted into a graduate studies program. In March, I gained such acceptance and therefore a direction in my future, meanwhile was spending most of March and April composing for a theater production, so February was kind of its own thing: I was just... a free man. Lost, worried, without direction, but with the luxury of free time. All I really had to do was helm the Shotokan Karate Club and compose music for graduate-level lessons. No job, either, just coasting on borrowed time. What a luxury. I knew even at the time what a rare thing it was to be savored, that I would never have that kind of freedom again. Now, with a three-year-old stabbing me in the brain every two seconds with "Why?" and two self-employment angles to handle, and a sampler platter of crises and medical bills to pay, and more home repair projects than an HGTV series, it is unthinkable to have something like that sweet spot of the limbo between lives that was February 2004. 

Ah, February 2004. Fridays in particular. 9:30am meeting of the composers, for which I had a love-hate relationship, but invariably caused me to spend the afternoon venting and mentally unpacking the week, then preparing to compensate for these frustrations by spending the night out with NON-musician friends in glamorous fashion. Around that time, we were regularly rolling with the French exchange students, remember? I want to meet those friends at Patterson's for dinner, then maybe Ryan's or Too Tall's until closing time. Or maybe pre-drinking at Dean's apartment with multiplayer Halo in anticipation of the demo for Halo 2. Yes, all of that plus Ocean's Eleven and Cowboy Bebop pretty much sums up February 2004 for me. 

If I had more time, I'd craft a blog post out of these thoughts, but I am digging for some vague, missed details from that time. Some thirst was never satisfied, I guess. For my current profession, I make sure other people are having a good time. I guess I'll take pride and satisfaction in that until I can figure it out. I should probably set about crystallizing these thoughts in a blog post after all, but I can never get around to that sort of thing lately. I guess this post was close enough. 

P.S. Frozen Margaritas at El Vaquero.

By the end of August, I finished my chronological-order run of Truman nostalgia, and set aside the music for the time being. I had been slightly productive, but not enough to actually have anything finished to show for it. August ended with a resurgence of horror movie interests, taking Liam to shop for Halloween decorations, and coming to terms with the fact that, yet again, there was no way the house would be finished in time to host a few people for a Halloween get-together.

But Oktoberfest was back on the shelves, and I had an Evil Dead movie marathon after finishing Season 3 of Ash vs. Evil Dead. It was a good phase to go through.

Immediately after that, I got screwed when I had to update my Mac OS, which caused me to actually lose several very expensive programs, including Final Cut, Logic, and a few others. I found out that the trouble came down to my Apple ID, and it's a long story that doesn't reflect well on me, so let it suffice to say that I am furious at a setback in which I have to buy the programs all over again. I can't just update them. Even though I'd been using these programs for years, I have to buy them all over again at full price. And I don't have that kind of money. So, the only music I can work on is Finale notation on the old computer that is literally good for nothing else. For now, at least I have that.

Now, up to mid-September, here we are. This week I was productive in revamping my approach to a long-term plan for my music website and some things that I actually did begin working on in earnest back in 2014, before my wife's cancer, before having a baby, before putting my ideas in a box in the corner of my brain marked "someday." September always seems to bring a surge of motivation. It must be a Pavlovian response to the back-to-school season giving way to the full-swing state of diligence, even though I haven't been a student in many years. There is a complex cocktail of positive and negative energies about it, with all the insecurities and baggage that come from being a music student in college, and then, especially, grad school. The summer heat is finally subsiding a bit, and though Texas is hardly as comfortable as Missouri or Ohio in September, there's still a hint of that on the horizon. For me, for better or (usually) worse, September is typically when big ambitions take root.

I am, however, now full circle back to June, when I was contemplating the disappearing bonds of fellowship, and that might be the subject of my next blog post.

That's this summer in a nutshell. Oh, and I read a bunch of Batman comics since then, too. That was something I declared as my New Year's resolution at the top of 2017, before it became twisted into the most harrowing year of my life, surpassing even the breast cancer struggle that consumed 2015 and beyond. 2018 hasn't been especially redemptive so far, but the past few days I have started to look ahead to 2019 with a weary, skeptical shred of hope that is probably just wishful thinking.

Really, I just had to get all of this out of the way, to catch the blog up to speed.