So I don't know if you'd need to add a few numbers at the front of this to make it work, or even if they're genuine, but in case anyone feels inclined to say hi to some people whom I truly wish was dead (and there are surprisngly few people I would say that about. Despite how I normally may lead you to think, I don't take that sort of karma lightly....) here are what I am informed are a few key numbers for the Westborough Church, of Louis Theroux and 'God hates Fags' infamy:

(785) 273-0325 - Fred W. Phelps Sr., cell phone
(785) 272-4135 - Fred Phelps, Jr.
(785) 273-0529 - Benjamin Phelps
(785) 273-0277 & (785) 273-1080 - Shirley Roper
785) 272-8559 - Charles Hockenbarger
(785) 232-2485 - Fax for Charles Hockenbarger
(785) 233-4162 - Phelps Family Law Office
(785) 233-0766 - Fax for Phelps Family Law Office
(785) 969-9017 - Steve Drain

These will all most likely be in the relevant phone books stateside, so feel free to say hello to them all, or even pass them on to people who might also want to have a nice chat if they felt so inclined.

I think I'm going to give painting a shot. I used to draw a lot when I was younger, and I kind of feel the need to be visual again, in a more overt way (as opposed to being visual via creation of imagery using words). I don't know what's going to come out of me, but I'm excited to find out. I'm feeling shades of grey with streaks of crimson. Fuck off, amateur psychology.

Also, I want to buy a plant or two or three for my room. I don't really give a shit about animals, but just having a little bit of something natural around for me to try to not kill would probably produce some sort of sense of achievement every day, no matter what other crappy things happened to me since I woke up.

Don't let this painting and plant shit confuse you though, I'm still well metal, ok?

Good.

/stupid post.

Walking about this morning, in that brief window of time where your mind is still pulsing to the rhythms of the subconscious even though you are to all extents and purposes, awake, a thought crossed my mind. Well, it didn't so much cross it, as get halfway and remain stuck there for the rest of the day. The thought was this:

We look for the same things from music as we do from those we love.

(No doubt this comparison can be made between love and any other form of art, but for me, it has always been music)

Dramatic excitement at the same time as reassuring calm, a source of comfort doubling as a way to further the self. Familiarity, newness, validation, a constant source of wonder. At its finest, the eliciting of a sense of gratitude just for being alive.

There is no conclusive point I wish to make here, it's simply a thought I wish you to consider.

Music is my medicine (part two).

So a few posts ago I did a little compendium of some songs and what they mean to me, and I found it quite enjoyable, and promised/warned that I would do it again. Well, here it is:

Foo Fighters- Everlong.
I imagine a lot of people have a special attachment to this song, but that's understandable: it's probably one of the most enduringly brilliant, heart-wrenching songs of the past 15 years or so. My Everlong moment (and I think everyone has one, whether they know it or not) came in Hyde Park in 2006, as the band themselves played the song to close what had been a long afternoon of music. Over the course of the day, the large party of six or seven that I had begun the show with split up, until I was on my own.
I found myself at the barrier for the close of the show, and as the soft strums of this song began, there was the expected surge within the crowd... which brought forth the most beautiful girl besides me, pushed to the fore by the movement. Underneath the emerald green lasers which scored the night sky, she and I sang every word together, sharing the occasional 'isn't-this-amazing-so-amazing' glance and smile.
I never saw her again after that one song, or even got her name, but for those five minutes of my life, I don't think I couldn't have been any happier. Just finding and watching the video now, 4.07 still puts me right back there.
"And I wonder, when I sing along with you... if everything could ever feel this real forever? if anything could ever be this good again?"
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8zvOrvgI_Co


Misery Signals- The Year Summer Ended In June.
'Regular readers' may have picked up on a theme here this summer, of agonising decisions and torn heartstrings. Not to be indelicate towards the other parties, but it was essentially a few months of hell. Then I heard this, and the season had a sound.
(The song itself is actually about the death of some friends of the band, so I feel a little bad for appropriating it for my own ends, but I intend it as a compliment)
I'm in no mood to be enigmatic right now, it's not in the spirit of things, so these are the parts that really chained this song to my heart in the heat of the high season, and what they meant to me.
"This time was our summer. It was something no one could take from us." (A year of waiting could have ended in those months, graduation had filled me with a sense of bravado and daring, and I felt like the world was mine for the taking.)

"Hope that tonight things are fine. As I lay awake, the light cuts the southern sky."
(For all the separation, I never hoped you were regretting your choice. We were in different countries, but under the same stars, and that thought made me feel like you were still near somehow.)

"Waiting to see and be with you again. Wishing the best for you my lost friend. Man I swear I'd give the whole thing up for you."
(I'm still waiting, I suppose, and I still wish you the best, but I send my wishes in envelopes sealed with jealousy and regret. I would have given up so much for you, and you don't even know, but that is not your fault.)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CqRkYBTCv3Y

If I'm being pessimistic about it;

I've got nothing to go on for. No future. No drive. No motivation.

All my best friends are shaping to leave, move on, make their lives without me, and expecting me to feel great about it.

Ten thousand pounds worth of debt for an education that can't even get me a job answering phones, let alone a job it was designed to help me get.

I don't think it's going to work out with her, and it's neither of our faults.

Faith has been lost in everything.

New Years saw me sat alone on a beach with rocks in my pockets and tears in my eyes.

I like to imagine everyone leaves some kind of vapour trail throughout their lives. Like if you open the exposure on a camera for a long time and aim it at a single person, walking across the shot, their movements would be caught, and they would seem one long blur of motion? Well imagine birth as the opening of the shutter, and death as it's closing. And all that we do in between as being our vapour trail. Except it's not just all that we physically do, it's all we emotionally do too, to ourselves and each other. I like to imagine that they're all coloured, and the lives we lead affect the brightness of our trails.
Wouldn't the city be a more magical place if we walked it's streets leaving a bright and vibrant trail where ever we went, and if we wanted to, we could trace a persons steps to see how they've lived, how they've loved, the mistakes they've made, and hopefully how they made up for them?

A montage of lives. The camera keeps cutting.

-someone crunched up on the floor, pounding it with their fists as tears stream down their face, past their mouth as it silently howls.

-someone in a darkened room, sat in their chair looking at old photos despite how it breaks their heart with every snapshot of times that have grown better with age, yet more painful with every second thats passed between the click of the shutter, and the cold, lonely present.

-someone shuffling under sheets, asleep but not at rest: alone and missing their lover, trying to ignore the fact they're not coming back.

-someone shuffling under sheets as their body connects with another, having forgotten how they are never coming back to a restless sleeper who at that moment is asleep, but not at rest.

All this soundtracked by heartbreak, and its child, recovery.

NO.