pride, possibly in the name of love maybe

things that are a plus:

1) in the last week, i've dropped from 58 to 43 on the Burns Depression Checklist. So now, instead of being severely depressed, i'm evidently only MODERATELY depressed. i can only assume that this is a positive step of some sort.

on the other hand, if you look at my counter, i look like a damn alcoholic. granted, this is about 2 weeks' worth of drinking there, but there's easily at least 30 standard(?) empty bottles of beer there... from me... drinking by myself. i haven't done dishes in about a week, i have clean laundry chilling on my couch and my drums are kind of packed up all over my living room (as opposed to, say, my dining room, or family room... i have 3 rooms in my place, if you count the bathroom as one.)

it's a combination of things, to be honest. obviously, my last post dealt with a sort of realization - a fear, of sorts, of fully committing to anything, and the possible reasons behind that. what i think i might have left out is the effect that it's had on my creative process and my life, to some extent, in general.

musically, i think i have a lot of great ideas, but executing them to their full extent is evidently rather difficult for me. you see, i think "Highland Park" was something of a red herring for me - even as i was the one who wrote the songs, i had the advantage of having sort of "field-tested" them with a full band, as it was really supposed to be Nearfall's first album, so i at least had an idea of the arrangements and such. and frankly, some of how those songs turned out was because of how they ended up working when i was in Nearfall - the compromises i made on songs to make sure they would work for us ended up becoming habit. if nothing else, they had input from people who weren't inside of my head at all times (not that i am implying that there are people inside of my head at all times or at any times for that matter. in case you were wondering.)

and no, there wasn't an overarching "theme," if you will, for "Highland Park." it was basically a collection of songs that i had written and decided to release. i can claim a sort of musical story arc (like one of those ones we always used to use in middle and high school to chart a story's progression... the name escapes me at the moment) - i think there's a rise and fall of tension, kind of, on that album, or an attempt at it - and if nothing else, it serves as a unified collection of where and who i was in that time (late high school/early college?)

"A Preview of What Lies Behind Us," on the other hand, was deliberately an EP - i knew that there was no way i could tie any of it together. to some extent, i'm okay with that, but at the same time, i kind of feel like it was whatever i had that was just... "finished." and maybe there's something to be said for why certain songs were finished or why i was motivated to complete them as opposed to others, but you really can't claim any sort of raison d'etre that explains how all of the songs are connected... which is sort of why the release has the title it has - about half of the songs on there came from the time of Nearfall and just had never really been fleshed out, and the other half kind of show maybe what i'm capable of in general, so i guess it's a glimpse of the future and the past... you know?

i realize that for most people, this is relatively a small issue (this probably goes without saying... given that i am kind of the sole driving force behind my work. well, not true, but whatever. maybe the sole executive force. yeah. we'll go with that.) in fact, i'm pretty sure that i'm sounding like a pretentious "artist" as opposed to what i really kind of am... which is just a (to this point) relatively unsucessful multi-instrumental musician with a mediocre singing voice... who just happens to really care about this more than i think i can really explain.

at the moment, i've sort of lost my train of thought, but i've decided to put up some of my old writings from my freshman year at UNI... i know just getting this out on paper (MSnotepad?) sometimes helps more than i remember, and a certain webcomic i've been reading lately has inspired me to maybe not hold everything in as much. so we're gonna keep trying this.