At The Buzzer

My schedule at work suddenly changes drastically today and while I'm enjoying not having to be up at the crack of dawn or at very least having some time to myself before I go in, I have a feeling that today is going to suck. Lets find out!

Softly We Tremble Tonight

(This was written yesterday and I thought I posted it but apparently I just saved it instead. Still holds up tho.)

My finger hurts right now. Its doing that mild throbbing thing that happens after you smash it in a door or drop something on it. Its been like this since right before I got off work as I did in fact smash my finger under some metal pans. Nothing bad or anything that left a mark or anything, just a lasting and annoying pain in my finger. Someone else around that same time got their finger cut off in some freak accident. I don't know who or where, but the world is a big enough place that I'm sure it did.
To me in that little moment it was pain city at least for a few minutes as that calming adrenaline feeling washed over the pain after a few minutes leaving a shakey wobbly feeling before it finally just faded into a dull thud. To me that was not a detrimental thing, but in my world at that particular moment it hurt and I was thinking about it. It reminds me of a lesson I learned today.

When we are blissfully unaware of the world around us, our own problems seem huge and scary. Even if we are aware of our surroundings our problems seem huge and scary but that's just how life works. Everybody has trials and they are both great and small. Some difficult things for you might not be even a challenge for others and the other way around. Sometimes we are pretty much brought to our knees by things that are so difficult we curse the life and imagine that everything is just about to give way into complete destruction and to us in our own world it sure might feel like it. But... odds are while you can't compare your problems to those of others, just like the whole smashing your finger versus cutting off your finger, there is always something far greater of a challenge out there. Sometimes from people you know.

The point is occasionally being aware of the other things going on in peoples lives makes your own problems seem petty and small. That's how I'm feeling today anyway. The last 6 or so months have been my own personal hell on earth but after looking back into a friend of mine's life from the past few years I just felt bad for complaining so much about my own little problems and seeing that honestly they aren't as bad as they could be in life and much worse things could ever happen. Sure trials are relative to each and every person and you really shouldn't compare to other people but sometimes its hard not to. Or in this case just feeling bad for being unable to deal with the honestly light enough load that I've been given. It could be much worse. Not to still be talking about my friend, but it makes me think in more general terms. Maybe that's a helpful tool in the long run perhaps? A sort of "hey suck it up, get over it, and buck up." I dunno, just lost in thought today is all.

But Thats Not All

What a great weekend. Sometimes life hands out little happy things that make up for the bad ones. You just have to wait for them and I'm glad I did.

But I Won't

This week was the first time I’ve had more than one day off in a row in a long long while. It’s been pretty nice seeing that only one day off at a time never seems to be enough time. I’m not really sure why, it just doesn’t. Then again, waking up this morning was weird as I thought I had to go to work but was pleasantly reminded that I didn’t. Tomorrow is going to not have the same effect tho I’m sure.
As with any extended periods of time to myself, I think. A lot. A whole lot. Thankfully these thinking periods don’t leave me in a quivering mass on my bed anymore, well not as much anyway. This time I was thinking about news from a friend of mine that I had suspected for a bit, but never really got confirmation of till now. She had apparently reconciled with her ex boyfriend and it appears that they’ll be getting back together in some form or fashion pretty soon, if not already. That’s great for them, it really is. At first it was a bit of disappointment as well as maybe a bit of petty jealousy but it dawns on me that its not my story they are involved with, even if I kind of wanted it to be. That’s how it goes sometimes, no matter what moments you share with someone or how you think something may or may not go. You can’t really see that far ahead in life and sometimes you just can’t predict what will happen next, which leads me to what I was thinking about today.
I don’t seem to think about the far off future anymore even though I should. I went to a job fair yesterday and as I was looking around it occurred to me that I wasn’t just looking for a decent job, but I was looking for a job that I would be at for years to come, not a defined period of time, but just time. The time of here a little there a little is over and now it’s a more long term commitment sort of deal. Everything in my life should be gearing to that these days honestly. A friend of mine commented on his relationship with his girlfriend not too long ago saying “I’m not breaking out rings yet, but we’re getting to that age where its time to start looking more long term and not just for today and tomorrow anymore”. That’s pretty true. While we all don’t have any reason to settle in one routine at the moment or a stay put relationship, job, or place to live we do need to start thinking more long term. Maybe more thinking about years instead of months or weeks. Its just weird to me that I’ve stopped or maybe never started to do that. I know the reason why, but I don’t get why I’m still doing it.
Perhaps it’s the not really attempting to move on with my life completely kind of deal. Maybe its fear or maybe its just plain lazyness. Who knows. I mean sure I’ve taken little steps, been job hunting, there have been girls since then although nothing really serious, and have been making long term/short term plans to get me on track but I’m still doddling. Or maybe I’m not and its one of those stuck in the moment and can’t tell how far or fast you’re moving kind of deals. Life is full of those kinds of things.

So instead of thinking about them all, I played with my bass yesterday for the first time in awhile. Good ole Ren, you are a sexy sexy lady in my hands.

Its Funny To Me How You've Turned Into Such A Drug

So this past Monday night I stepped food into Juanita's for the first time in what feels like forever. Its always an odd feeling now a days when I go there and I'm not performing to be honest. But then again I get that feeling anytime I go to a venue that I've played at as a spectator rather than a performer.

Anyway, I went with a friend of mine to go see some friends of mine (belair)open up for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. That alone was an odd turn of events. When I first heard belair last year sometime my first thought was that they sounded like RJA and here they were getting a chance to open for them. Hooray! I enjoyed their set a great deal as always, every time I see them I get a little more into it and can't help but smile as they rock out in their own special way. Apparently it wasn't the best of days before their set and none of them seemed too terribly enthusiastic to be there. oh well, even with a few things that went wrong during their set, it was pretty enjoyable. Its also weird to go to their shows when not a lot of their fans show up. I guess I'm getting to see what it was like for us from the crowds point of view to play a handful of big shows with a ton of people, then slowly watch them stop showing up.

There was a second band that performed and while they were alright, all their music sounded the same and I couldn't understand the vocalist but that's the venues fault not hers. They were pretty enthusiastic and full of energy so that's a plus. When it was time for RJA to come out I kept thinking about the many times I've seen them before and how much fun it had been every time.

May 2006 - They opened the Forever Night Never Day tour with 30 Seconds To Mars in Nashville, TN. They had just barely been signed to a record label and nobody knew who they were yet, but they still got the crowd rocking out and having a good time. Plus I talked to Ronnie(vocals), after the show and he's a really friendly guy.

July 2006 - Saw them at the opening slot on the Warped Tour in Salt Lake City, UT. Now their album had been out for a few weeks and Face Down was just starting to take hold on the radio. Their crowd was still semi-small, but it started to get a little fierce, but still fun.

September 2006 - X96 Big Ass Show in Salt Lake City, UT. I thought it would be the same deal as before but no, far from it. This was the scariest experience in a concert ever for me. The crowd was so huge and the entire block from back to front was moving and swaying. I was mashed up against everybody in the crowd and when somebody in front of us fell down suddenly about 20 of us came crashing down in a giant heap. I thought I was going to die. Still a good show tho.

May 2007 - Rivervest in Little Rock, AR: also known as the Great Bottle War of 2007. The crowd was less frightening this time or maybe I just was a lot more aggressive, but it was a blast. The best part was the amount of little teenie bopper girls who were in the crowd because they've obviously only heard the non screamy version of Face Down and Guardian Angel on the radio and thought it would be a nice and easy show. Then from the first notes of In Fates Hands and the immediate screaming the crowd exploded and about a quarter of it ran screaming out of the crowd. Best day ever.

Then Monday at Juanita's it was different. There was no real pizzaz during their set, but then again I don't think they ever did more than just song, hello, song, hi, song, etc. It sure felt like a greatest hits sort of concert tho. They played a few songs from their independent EP release and one or two from their upcoming new cd, but mostly played songs from their first album and only one from their second. Odd, but I was ok with it for the most part. I just kept thinking of how full circle I've seen this band come. I watched them grow as a band that tons of people knew and liked and came to their shows to "oh hey I remember them." Not to mention the crowd was mostly full of 16-17 year olds who must have only been 11 or 12 when Face Down was big on the radio. Really? Oh I'm just feeling old now..

Flashes of Light

Last night I was driving home from Little Rock when I got caught up in another one of those crazy storms we've been having lately. Luckily this wasn't a do or die situation or even one with the torrential winds that we've been having lately either. No, it was just extremely heavy rain and a lot of lightning. Note a LOT of lightning. As I drove I settled in that awareness kind of feeling when you are not panicking, but you're not relaxed either. You're sort of in a happy medium that could get overly off balanced at a moments notice, but it is a calm and collective sort of feeling that you need to be in while you drive in bad weather conditions. Its what got me through the various trips to Idaho over the last few years, through a horrific blizzard heading from Salt Lake to Rexburg in the middle of the night, leaving the crazy events in Park City and now this. I think I drove at a max of 40mph on the freeway and thought about a few things as I drove.

First was my inability to see very far in front of me. I could see maybe a good 50 yards or so through the rain, but the rain that's kicked up by other cars as they pass or were in front of me made it a little harder. Also impeding my vision were the headlights of cars behind me. However, the taillights of the cars in front of me guided me to where I needed to be. That was the first lesson learned. Sometimes life is a rainy road and we're just driving down it and have no choice but to push through it. Its hard to see as is, but sometimes you have those behind you either in life, your past, or just people you don't know who are getting in your way, all making it harder for you to see ahead because they have their bright lights on behind you. Sure it may illuminate your immediate area, but it makes it more difficult to see very well. On the other hand there are those who are in front of you whom occasionally you get behind. They are taking the brunt of the storm and driving slowly sure, but are picking up the hard end of things. Because they are doing this however you can benefit by following the light they leave behind. Its slow going but it helps you see where you are.

The other lesson I learned had to do with the lightning itself. There was a lot of it and it was flashing roughly every few seconds. In retrospect that was not a safe drive to be making but oh well. The lightning always came from one side of the road or the other it seemed. Occasionally out of the corner of my eye I'd look at it, or if a particularly impressive bolt came down I would glance then keep glued to the road in front of me. More often that I was comfortable with there would be a huge number of flashes right in front of me that lit up the sky brilliantly. In any normal circumstance it would have been pretty and helpful to light through the darkness. However, with all the rain all it did was illuminate the rain and causing me to not be able to see hardly anything at all. Lucky for anyone driving, they have those lines painted in the road to guide you to where it goes, turns, and stops. Sometimes in life there are really flashy things that distract us to where we are trying to go. Sometimes we don't look at them, sometimes we take our eyes off the road to get a better look, and occasionally they flash in front of us almost in a tantrum for us to pay attention. When this happens it makes it very difficult to see where we need to go. Its a matter of where you focus your attention that will help you get through it.

Eventually I managed to outrun the storm and its downpours. The rain fluctuated from very heavy to sprinkling back to heavy to eventually being behind me. This is also true for life. Sometimes we just have to bear it and wait till it passes, sometimes we need to barrel through it and leave it behind. Either way, storms always pass eventually. It just takes a little know how, focusing your attention, and staying on target to get through them safely or not.

But Only For You

I for one am tired of this upward downward trend of things I've been feeling lately. Who knew the heart was such a fickle thing that has to say one day "meh I don't care anymore", then others go "oh wait.. I remember this or that"

I think I just need to move somewhere far away and try again or something.