I wish I could be a Whig - or - Glenn Beck ruined the word "Conservative"

Life is very hard for us Independents at the moment. "Fiscally conservative and socially liberal!" isn't a very effective rallying cry these days.

Assuming that there are two poles in politics – left and right, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, etc. – I would like to still believe in the existence of a bell-curve in relation to Americans' relative association with either side. Unfortunately, it increasingly seems like what is emerging is more like a valley – people are piling up near each of the extremes, leaving as few individuals in the middle as there are on the bleeding edges.

My hope is that what is actually happening is what has been the case many times before, which is that the people near the extremes tend to be the ones who get the most attention; they scream the loudest, say the most outrageous things, and generally make themselves more of a spectacle then the majority of people. You don't generally tell your spouse about the 10,000 competent drivers you encountered on the way home from work, you tell them about the two jackasses who cut you off. The difficulty is trying to remember not to extrapolate that to "people around here drive like maniacs".

If there's one positive thing that could be said for the political atmosphere of the 80s and early 90s, it's that "Conservative Democrat" and "Liberal Republican" weren't immediately seen as oxymoronic.

Hope?

So I missed a day, sue me. I'm still writing a hell of a lot more than I traditionally have, even if I missed my "every day" mark.

I can haz awesome new therapist! Not only do I feel better simply having some forward movement in my life, but I'm so impressed by my counselor. She's very insightful, incisive, and she really seems to understand me when I'm trying to put very complex feelings into words. Those are the most important things, but for some reason a couple of relatively minor incidents were what really shored up my estimation of her: I mentioned something about feeling lost in my head, which seems at times to be hopelessly labyrinthine including the occasional minotaur. She asked if I knew who Ariadne was (I didn't, though I knew the story), and told me that she was who helped Theseus escape the labyrinth by providing him with the string he used to find his way out - I asked if that was her, in this metaphor :) We talked more along those lines, but I was super impressed by her being able to reference Greek mythology off-the-cuff. Then later on when I was trying to explain a certain feeling, I wanted to reference an early Sandman story; I asked her if she was familiar with those graphic novels, and I was so happy when she said she was a fan. I realize that these are comparatively unimportant in terms of whether or not she's a good therapist, but it made me feel much more understood. Plus I love the fact that she's familiar with such eclectic subjects.

Oh, and I was incredibly impressed by Regina Spektor. I was totally converted to a fan - she is extremely talented, intelligent, and I love her phrasing and diction. She reminds me a bit of a young Tori Amos, and a bit of Kate Bush. Both of those are big compliments.

Almost missed day 2...

I have to admit that if I wasn't supposed to post once per day for this whole NaBloPoMo thing, there's no way I would be writing this. To wit: I have not too much interesting to say. Well, that isn't entirely true, but I don't know that I'm in a big sharing mood.
I'm at the Regina SPEK-TOR show. I totally think her name sounds like a Transformer, which is one of the main things I like about her, actually.
On a marginally more dour note, I got an email from my mom this morning saying that the son of one of her close friends committed suicide. She said that she dreads getting that phone call about me - that the combination of being so far away from me and knowing that I've been depressed for so long leads to a scary place for her. It made me feel terrible, to some degree because I know that has been a possibility for me a number of times in the past, and I know how devastating it would be for her. All the more so because my siblings are such fuck-ups :P

NaBloPoMo

My friend invited me to NaBloPoMo, with the stipulation that I write a blog post everyday for a month, and I've already missed Nov. 1st! HA! Stick it to the man! Or something.

Short list:

I got a new counselor, and she's awesome, and it's super-weird being back in therapy, and I'm so glad to be there. She agreed to a reduced fee from $90 to $50 per session; $200/month is still a big extra expense, but it's something I really need.

My roommate has a new boyfriend, and so I have spent a grand total of an hour or two with her over the last week, at least. I hold my tongue, as best I can. I had been comparing it to a relationship I once had, since it's practically a mirror-image, but they do seem much happier at this point then I was at the same point with that girl. I think they've been dating about five weeks, so if they make it one more it'll be longer than mine lasted. I did find it incredibly amusing when I realized that her boyfriend drives the same kind of car that my ex did at the time.

I have another month or so on my current work contract, so if I can't turn this into a permanent gig I'm gonna have to look into finding new work. I've been with Amazon for a cumulative period of about a year, now, so I'd prefer to stay here.

Speaking of which, I'm at work right now, so I should go!

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Now playing: Fever Ray - Coconut
via FoxyTunes

Review of "Crush" by O.M.D.

Since I spent the time writing an Amazon.com review, I figured I would also post it somewhere that a couple of people I know might actually see it...

Crush by O.M.D -

This album has a bizarre dichotomy of songs; so much so that it's almost like it's actually two totally different EPs mixed together.

There's the über-saccharine, extremely fluffy pop album comprised of "So in Love", "Secret", and "Hold You", the latter two of which are so sweet as to be almost unlistenable.

Happily, there's also the complex, genre-defying (and sometimes downright creepy) artistic album comprised of "Bloc Bloc Bloc", "Women III", "Crush", "88 Seconds in Greensboro", "The Native Daughters of the Golden West", "La Femme Accident", and "The Lights Are Going Out". Thankfully, this album has more than twice as many tracks as the other.

So stark is the contrast here that I'm almost tempted to think that what this really represents is three attempts at commercial viability, and seven actual songs; this theory is strengthened by the fact that "So in Love" and "Secret" did end up being released as singles.

OMD always suffered from inconsistency in album sales, and have admitted that in order to keep making music, they have had to make many concessions to their record companies for the sake of marketability. So while I certainly don't blame them for making the decisions they were forced to make (and some of the songs they were forced to create), I wish I could recommend this album without having to say "but skip tracks 1, 2, and 9."

"Especially 9."

[confession - when I was 14 I really liked "Hold You"]

Silly fill-in-the-blanks type post: 50 live music shows you've seen

I'm not necessarily proud of all of these, mind you, but they all have memories attached.

Facebook intro, via Julz:

"OK, here are the rules. Test your memory and your love of live music by listing 50 artists or bands (or as many as you can remember) you've seen in concert. List the first 50 acts that come into your head. An act you saw at a festival and opening acts count, but only if you can't think of 50 other artists. Oh, and list the first concert you ever saw (you can remember that, can’t you)?

Should you choose this challenge, here's what you do:
Copy my note. Click on “notes” under tabs on your profile page. Select "write a new note" in the top corner. Paste the copy in the body of the note. Make your list. Change the number at the top, and add your title. Once you've saved, don't forget to tag friends (including me) on the right."

1 (First concert) Michael Jackson - Thriller tour (mad cred, but sadly I was only about 6)
2 Depeche Mode (times 9, as of Monday!)
3 The The
4 Nine Inch Nails
5 Julianna Hatfield
6 KMFDM
7 Moby
8 Peter Gabriel
9 Front 242
10 Echo and the Bunnymen
11 Erasure
12 Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men
13 Smashing Pumpkins
14 Sigur Rós
15 The Kills
16 The Horrors
17 The Faint
18 Suzanne Vega
19 L7
20 Shonen Knife
21 Moist
22 Fury in the Slaughterhouse
23 Goldfrapp
24 The Presets
25 Cut/Copy
26 Chris Isaak
27 UB40
28 Korn
29 White Zombie
30 Filter
31 Beastie Boys
32 Sarah McLachlan
33 Goldfinger
34 God Lives Underwater
35 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
36 Editors
37 The Cure
38 Tori Amos
39 Crooked Fingers
40 The Orb
41 Jane's Addiction
42 Stereo MC's
43 Other Star People
44 Kenny Wayne Shepherd
45 Beausoleil
46 Christopher Parkening
47 The Pilfers
48 Belly
49 Captain and Tenille (sort of)
50 Blind Boys of Alabama

51 Eight ga-jillion shows I can't remember, many of which were probably way cooler than some of the ones listed here.

ow ow ow

One of my avatars is a detail from a painting by Van Gogh, called "On the Threshold of Eternity", and it is an extraordinarily effective depiction of extreme depression.



He didn't make it out of that, and never really stood a chance. I have to remember and be continually grateful for the fact that I live in one of the very first generations that do stand a chance to make it out alive.

It's so hard when it hurts, but when it doesn't, honestly, I feel like I'm kind of blessed to have been through what I have. One of my closest friends once got a fortune cookie that said something like 'the deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more capacity you have for joy'. It's something I've seen come up in different ways again and again, but it's so hard to hold on to when you're hurting. I think the most moving way I've ever heard that message was in a song written by another genius who didn't make it out of his depression, Ian Curtis.

The Joy Division song "Isolation" is all about feeling ashamed, lost, and utterly alone; about how depression disconnects you from the ones you love, and how futile your best efforts are to make things better. But at the end of the song is this amazing couple of lines that sum up for me the strange blessing that true depression and misery can bring:

But if you could just see the beauty, these things I could never describe
This is my one consolation
This is my one lucky prize

I have to learn from everything I go through, and I have to fight to take care of myself in all the ways I have available to me; not only for my own sake, but because I owe it to the memory of the unfathomable scores of men and women who died either because they were born too early, or because they weren't able to get the help they needed. Both those who were or are famous, like Vincent van Gogh, Ian Curtis, Mark Rothko, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Anne Sexton; and those whose lives touched fewer, but no less importantly, like my cousin Patrick, and my friend Sean. I owe it to all of them.

It's so hard when I feel like I do, but I try to think about what I would do (and have done) to help people I care about who were in danger of hurting themselves. I'm so non-judgmental, so understanding, and so willing to move mountains to help; surely I deserve at least a portion of that for myself.