The wall came down

In less than a week, I hit that magic age.  The one where I'm supposed to be well on my way to being set and having everything figured out.  40.  Or at least that's what I thought 40 was supposed to be.  Obviously, I was wrong.  I still have no idea what I'm doing, barely make any more money than I did at 30 (maybe less in fact) and still generally lost.  I've pretty much given up figuring anything out it seems.


When I was a kid in high school, I didn't think I'd live past 25.  And I truly believed that life as we knew it would be over way before the year 2000.  This was mostly due to the Cold War and the prospect of Mutual Assured Destruction.  Everything was going to end in a nuclear fireball.  Those that would make it would wish they were dead.  


And then the Wall fell.  And the Soviet Union collapsed.  Myself and others didn't really know what to do.  We were supposed to be dead.  For a brief few years, there were no enemies. 


Looking back, the nineties were a strange time in that regard.  There was no boogey man, no one to focus our collective fear and rage towards.  There was hope for the future, that maybe we could finally get over ourselves and actually make this a better place.  


Ten years later, that went out the window.


And here I am, almost 40 years old.  Living in my parents house.  I'm not sure what that says.

Sweet Home Alabama

Sloss Furnace
Originally uploaded by surly monkey

A week ago this time I was in Alabama.  Probably either watching or getting ready to watch Man or Astroman?.  Unlike Phrank, I thought the were awesome, she on the other hand thought they were horrible.  I believe her description of them was "spastic space monkeys".  Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

Luckily, I went into this trip with out knowing what to expect.  I've never really spent any time in the South.  I have to say I came away quite pleased with the experience.  The weather was great, so that helped but I found Alabama absolutely beautiful.  We were able to take a hike the first day I was there, and the forest was amazing.  Many of the same trees that are here in Indiana were present, but there were some I had never seen before.  Including magnolia trees, which were awesome, the leaves are the coolest thing.  Phrank told me to go feel them, they are smooth and waxy on top and fuzzy on the bottom.  The area she lives is a smallish city, and recovering from being hit by a tornado back in April.  But still had that small town feel and look.  And some of the best doughnuts I've ever had.

We went down to Birmingham for the show.  I found myself thinking that Birmingham may be the prettiest city I've seen in the US.  I was blown away by the old skyscrapers in downtown and the old apartment buildings and houses in the residential parts.  Plus there's an old steel factory called Sloss Furnace that is no longer in use and open to the public.  And I found that the people there were rather friendly.

I think I'd like to go back sometime and explore more down that way.

Somewhere South

Old light pole
Originally uploaded by surly monkey

The bag is packed, the car is relatively clean and I'm hitting the road after a half day of work. This will be the first time I've left the state (with the exception of Cincinnati for a couple of shows) since I got back here. And for once, I get to go somewhere I've never been. The road is taking me to Alabama, to see Man or Astro-man? and Phrank. Seems she moved to her motherland not to long after I did the same.

I miss the traveling. Over the past winter, I was driving back and forth from Steamboat quite often. Yeah, winter driving for at least four hours at a times can be stressful but it wasn't that bad. I got to see quite a few awesome moments of scenery. And some pretty cool sunsets.

Perhaps surprisingly, I'm looking forward to seeing Phrank again.  When she lived up the hill from me, it was different.  We could just go see each other.  Now that there's a fair amount of distance, I find myself missing her.  Or perhaps knowing that she's in my proximity.  After a few months of scowling across the courtyard at each other, we came to the realization that one way or another, we are going to be in each other's life.  And it is an ever evolving. shifting thing.  It did take me breaking my face for us to come to that conclusion.  Once before I left Colorado, I asked another close friend if I ever badmouthed Phrank when things were bad between us.  My friend said "No, and I wish you would have.  But you didn't.", so there's that.

And I'm pretty excited to see Man or Astro-man?, after all, they were one of my favorite bands in the 90s.

Fall Fell

This weekend was what I think is called Indian Summer.  The weather was beautiful, not to hot but not cold at all.  The trees started to turn to the fall colors and in the course of two days really took off.  I managed to get out and walk around in Skiles-Test Nature park, which is an infrequently travelled park in Indy.  I only saw about eight other people and that's probably the most I've ever seen there.  It makes me happy realize that I'm one of the people in Indy that know about this little secret.  And once I got off the main path, I only saw one other person.

It appears in some ways I've still getting acclimated to living here.  I keep expecting it to snow about now.  And even though that is possible here in Indiana, it's highly unlikely for another few weeks to a month or so.  After seeing people in Colorado posting pictures with snow on the mountains, I have to admit, I felt a bit sad that I wasn't there to witness it.  In years past, I would always get excited when that first visible sign of snow hit the higher elevations.  Here in Indiana, something tells me it's not really anything to get too excited for.  Although I probably will anyway.

The change in the weather is seems to be at a slower pace than it was in Colorado, fall seems to last much longer (summer too).  I'm finding it strange to realized that I'm already in the third season of the year here in Indiana, with the fourth one not too far around the corner.  In some ways I still feel like I'm on an extended visit (and perhaps I am), I don't fully feel like I belong here.  After all these years though, I recognize that I feel this way no matter where I live.  I felt in in Boulder, Steamboat, Colorado Springs and now here in Indy.  I think the only place I really thought I truly belonged was a brief moment in time in Muncie.  And that probably had a lot more to do with the time than the place.  Oh well.  I am used to it now.

And I guess it's ok, it will make it easier to decide to go to the next place where I feel I don't belong.

They locked me up in a padded cell.

There's no more pumps in my life except when I put gas in my car.  I can't say I really miss them.  The surly has worn off in the last few months perhaps years.  As far as the monkey, I can't say, that may still be correct.

Almost six months ago, I went crazy.  Or crazy for me.  To the point that I felt out of control and was scaring myself and those around me.  It's what precipitated my move back to Indiana.  My head got to the point where I wasn't sure if I could be trusted with myself anymore.  To this day I'm not exactly sure what caused me to get like that, although I think a lot of it had to do with working in a call center and a couple of other things.  Maybe it all built up and I got to the point where I just couldn't take it.  I wanted out, I didn't want to be on this planet anymore and it hurt.  It's always been the case that no matter what thoughts were going through my head about offing myself, I would never act on them.  But this last time, I wasn't so sure.  The thing I remember stopping me the most was the thought of someone having to come in and clean the mess I left, and I didn't wish that on anyone.

When I got back here, I never went to a professional to talk about it.  Things seem better now, I feel nowhere near as crazy as I did then.  But there's times when those thoughts of leaving dance around in my head.  And I've come to the conclusion that I've always had them.  As I get older, I'm just more aware of them.  But they aren't scary anymore.  Perhaps it's sad, but I think I've just gotten used to them when they bubble to the surface.  There's no real reason for me to have them anymore.

If I were to guess as to the root causes of why I get this stuff in my head, I would say one part is because I have always felt that I am a bit of a failure.  The rational part of my brain realizes this is mostly untrue.  Like anyone, I have my weak points.  But I know that I haven't completely failed at life.

I should probably pay someone to listen to me, but like health insurance, I can't afford to.

No words

If it's not obvious, these last few weeks have been a trip down the halls of my brain, trying to see what comes up.  It doesn't help that my recall sucks.  Quite often, some has to tell me the story of what happened before I really remember.  But, I have had quite a few unprodded memories come floating up.  So far most of them are about my time in Colorado, which makes sense in that I pretty much grew up there w/r/t becoming an adult.

There is a suspicion of mine that some of this is triggered by the music I've been listening to for the last couple of years.  I find myself listening to a lot of post-rock and instrumental music.  It almost seems at this point in my musical journey, I over listening to people singing.  A few good examples of what I've been listening are Red Sparowes, Explosions in the Sky, God is an Astronaut, Mogwai and of course Sigor Ros.  With the exceptions of Mogwai and Sigor Ros, there are no words (and the two that have word, the words are usually unintelligible.  I like this, I like not having to figure out what the singer is trying to say.

Some of the song do have a traditional song structure, but not many.  With the lack of lyrics comes a freedom to escape the verse/chorus/verse structure that is common with many songs in modern music.  Much of what I've been enjoying almost has a soundscape quality to it, there's nuances to the songs that go lacking when words get in the way.  And yet many times there's still a narrative to the song, there's still a story being told, but it's being told with sounds and music not words.  It's approachable in more than one  way.  I can play it as background if I'm doing something else or play it and really focus on the music.

Having said all that, all the shows but one I've been to this summer were metal shows.  Go figure.


 

Digging through the stacks

For the past week or so I've been digging around through the various accounts (gmail, myspace and the like (yes, I actually logged into myspace)) I have scattered around the Internet, not really for any discernible purpose that I can tell.  One thing that strikes me is that I used to have much more and quality interaction with people online than I do now.  There were emails that I had written that were many paragraphs long and if printed may have been multiple pages.  Before the days of everyone having either email or a social site profile, I was a bit of a letter writer, perhaps that explains some of this.  Not to mention I was more motivated to write in general.  Now, not as much.

I was going through a series of messages with someone I originally met online, meet in real life and actually wrote about here a decent amount.  I'm actually going to go see her in less than a month and am pretty excited to see her again.

Back to the point at hand though.  As with real life, my Internet life has become less engaging for a few years.  I mostly lurk on reddit.com, make a status update on Facebook, and then just spend hours going from page to page.  Before, I would occasionally chat with people, write a few emails and try to get a few posts a week down here.  That doesn't happen anymore.  Perhaps I had more free time when I started doing this and being online in general.  Or maybe as time went by, I just got bored.

I look back, and realize in some limited form, I've had this blog for a very long time.  Since 2005.  Sheesh.  Admittedly, I've been ignoring it for some of the last few years.  When I first started writing here, I was still using the dial-up modem built into my iBook G3, a computer that I didn't replace until late 2008.  Dial-up!  I remember how long it would take me to upload a picture to Flickr, and the sound of the modem connecting is etched into my brain.  That kind of connection I don't miss, high speed is definitely and improvement.  The Internet is not the place it was six years ago.

I wonder what's next?

little man

Burney crossed over the Rainbow Bridge a couple of months ago.  It's been a big loss and we all took it pretty hard, especially my brother and sister-in-law.  It's only been recently that she and I have been able to talk about him.  I never wanted to press the issue, but I'm sure she knows how much he meant to me.

Burney was the biggest dog in the world.  Not in size but in heart.  Everyone that met him fell in love with him and I don't think he ever met anyone he didn't like.  He had a gentle soul.  One of my favorite memories of him is how on a warm day, he would come outside, lay down on the brick patio and sun himself.  He couldn't have been happier.  That or crawling into a hamper full of clothes fresh out of the dryer.  He would just look up at you with that little head of his and then burrow back into the clothes.

Like all of their dogs, Burney was rescued.  And from the story they heard after the fact, he was much better off with them than whoever had him before.  That dog found his heaven with them.  They gave him the chance to be the best Burney he could be and he did.

I miss Burney.  When I go to their house, I sometimes think before I realize that I'll get to see him.  But it only makes me sad for a moment.  Because in the end, I was one of the lucky people who got to know Burney.

Ugly Truth

fern
Originally uploaded by surly monkey

Tonight was the night I knew I was getting towards the old side. The realization hit when it dawned on me that old school Metallica is pretty much considered classic rock.

It was at that moment that I looked around and thought to myself that these kids all look so young. Am I now the creepy old guy sitting in a place that I don't belong? I'm not fully convinced that this is the case, but there are placed I'm beginning to think I shouldn't frequent.

Somedays I feel like I'm becoming one of those guy I would see around in the nineties, the ones that looked like they were holding on to a youth that was increasingly eluding them. But at the same time, I'm not so sure. I know what I like, some of it's old some of it's newer.

This process of getting older eludes me even though I know and see it happening to me. I still am not sure what I want, and wonder if anyone ever really does.

My body feels the years go by. Each break and bump has it's own story, and for someone like me there are a lot of stories. But there are days when I still think I'm that lost 22 year old that got off the bus that night in Denver.

I'm not even sure if I have a point here, other than I'm becoming more aware of the years that are behind me. And starting to wonder.

flowers lomo

flowers lomo
Originally uploaded by surly monkey

I've been back in Indiana for almost two months now. When I first got back, I was taking quite a few pictures during long hikes in the woods. As money got tighter for me, this hasn't been happening as much. But there's a couple prospects in the next few days. If something happens and it looks like I may have income on the way, it may be time to have one last deep hike in the woods.

So yeah. I came back to Indy. Mostly because Colorado Springs was trying to kill me and I felt like I was going crazy there. I don't feel nearly as crazy now, I still need to talk to a professional and am hoping once I can get income, I can find one.

Anyway. Hope to get more posted here in the months to come and more photos up on Flickr.