and the band(s) played on ... and words and stuff

I decided today that I need to start another musical project that is a strict rock band. I haven't done it in a while, and I think I need to in order to get some things out and do some different kind of songwriting. Sappy country is near and dear to my heart, and the words flow freely there, but I need something simple to balance it out. One band capturing complex emotions is enough. Plus, I need to play some piano again, so, keyboards it is. Blame it on last week's introspection.

I'm trying to do things outside my comfort zone and have some more patience with and enjoy the things that may not currently fit there but are potentially transformational and transformable (both ends are a little selfish, I imagine). I haven't been so good at that, and I tend to push to force things to fit into my idea of what is good for me instead of letting them happen to me in the way they are supposed to. I think it turns me into a bit of a saboteur, because you just never know what something can be if you immediately put it in a neat (or messy) little box. Obviously I don't necessarily know what is good for me, so I need to shut up more and be more passive. So, here's to trying to do that from now on, at least for a little while.

And, that ends the "Dear Diary, Why so blue?" portion of the evening. Sometimes I lapse without knowing it. But at least it's better written than most ramblings about puppies and rainbows coming from other horrible nether regions of the Internet ... at least I consider them to be nether regions.

And, here is another piece from a novel I was working on this weekend. It's totally out of context, but I'm certainly not going to give away the store online, even if I die in artistic obscurity without anything published beyond some small business articles:


I'll tell you something specific and involving you. I try not to do that because of who you aren’t, but I will because I want to. I had a moment one Saturday in Chicago. We were sitting listening to Prince: "Starfish and Coffee." I was staring at the clearest blue sky, the skyline, lying on my stomach. I was in a world, thinking of other things, daydreaming about possibly nothing, but I was definitely not there. And you put your arm around me, clasped my hand in your hand. Ridiculous moment, but it meant something because I pulled you into me when I thought we were through. And nothing else mattered but the fact that we were two people making some sort of a connection, however brief. They just keep happening, changing, transforming, becoming more and less and more beautiful again. And it’s how the heart hungers for something that makes it beautiful.