Thus and such, schtuff and sundry update

I’ve been falling down on blogging, but here’s a nice long update for you.

~ Went to see Nine Inch Nails on the 13th. It was a good show, but not the best we’ve been to in my opinion. NIN has a couple of new projects out – “Ghosts” and “The Slip” – and I haven’t had much of a chance to listen to either of them. Since tours are all about promoting new stuff, there were several songs I wasn’t very familiar with, and it took away from the performance a little for me. But it was a great show nonetheless.

I think I like live music in small venues better than in large ones. When you have a professional production like the NIN show we saw the other night, it’s always amazing – but it’s also slick and polished and rehearsed, so there’s not nearly as much raw energy and passion as you have in a tiny venue. Even bands like NIN are prone to this. When we went to see them at the Congress in Chicago, it was one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever been to mainly because the venue was so small. It was impossible for them to be polished because it was, like, the third show of the entire tour. Plus the fact that the entire thing was general admission and the whole place was overrun by insane rabid fans made the whole experience something that was almost surreal.

I love live music, I love going to see people play live music – I’m all for being entertained. But there’s something about big production shows that just don’t have the same spark of intensity and passion and creativity and love that being in a bar with a hundred other people, screaming out the words to your favorite songs does. I guess it’s kind of hard to explain…

~ Still writing, but the past week and a half I’ve hit a wall. I’ve been having some health issues, and the drugs I’m taking to deal with those issues really put my body through the ringer. By the time I get to the computer in the evenings to sit down and write, I’m too exhausted to even think properly, let alone create. It’s REALLY frustrating. For a few weeks there I was producing like clockwork, really getting into a groove. Now I feel like the groove’s been thrown off. I wish I could just slip into a routine and have it stick. I want so badly to be a writer for a living, but I can’t realize that dream until I have produced and published a lot of work. And maybe not even then. I’ve been eating the elephant a bite at a time, but right now it’s almost impossible to see anything but the whole huge thing and how daunting it is. I got a rejection letter back this week too, so… yeah. Sigh. It’s ok though, I just keep reminding myself that it’s a matter of statistics. The more I submit, the more that gets rejected, the closer I am to getting published. You have to work through the rejections to get to the good stuff. Just like the rest of life.

~ Trying to decide if we’re staying in the house or moving at the beginning of October. Personally I DO NOT WANT TO MOVE. At all. Period. I love the house I live in, even if it is kind of bunkass and the landlord does the bare minimum to get by. It’s a great party house, that’s for damn sure. And in the last year it’s become a comfortable home. But I can’t afford it on my own, and I don’t know if my roommates can handle their shares. Crutching along for a couple of months is one thing, but you can’t sign a year’s lease and not at least have some inkling about the monetary situation. Cross your collective fingers for me. I don’t want to move! I HATE MOVING!! And it’s not just that – I really, really do love that house.

~ I got a new laptop! It’s a Toshiba. I’m still learning my way around it. It’s hard (but nifty) to get used to a portable computer. And I still have my desktop so I’m kind of in computer limbo at the moment. But it’s very cool. I’m having a lot of fun with it. I got some killer speakers to go along with it too.

~ Had a huge party this weekend – LABORPENDENCE DAY! It was fricking awesome. Basically it was a conglomeration of all kinds of different summer-type parties: we had a lot of tiki/luau decorations like hula girls and tropical fish and tiki torches, and we had a grill-out with hamburgers and hot dogs and brats and ribs, and played games like badminton and cornhole and a water balloon war. We did power hour too. We did some really neat decorations… we carved watermelons (kind of like jack-o-lanterns) and made lanterns out of them. Erin’s looked like a tiki god and mine had fireworks on it. They ended up looking really great. The whole party, from start to finish, was a blast. We had about 30 people – around the same number as we had for St. Pat’s – and it was a really great crowd. I love bringing different friends from different circles together and having them meet each other and make new friends. There were so many interesting conversations going on that night that it was hard to keep up with everything. (Especially after all the alcohol that was ingested). We had such a fabulous time. There are pics – not many, because I was the only one with a camera and I kept running around having to do things, and then I got tipsy and forgot the damn camera. But the ones I took are really good. Check them out if you like, they’re at http://www.flickr.com/photos/28012905@N03/sets/72157606821229288/. Feel free to comment if you like.

That’s all for now. Back to work! Until next time.