It’s been 260 days.

Motion City Soundtrack - L.G. FUAD:

…
I wanna know what it’s like to be awkward and innocent, not belligerent
I wanna know how it feels to be useful and pertinent and have common sense.. yeah
Let me in, let me in to the club, cuz I wanna belong
And I need to get strong, and if memory serves
I’m addicted to words and they’re useless
…

Sometimes I still want to go out and get slammed. Stephen King describes his alcoholism well in his book “On Writing.”

I had forgotten the trick of being straight–and out of shame.

Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak. They drank because it’s what alkies are wired up to do. Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter.

He writes of a friend:

“How much do you drink?” the counselor asked.
My friend looked at the counselor with disbelief. “All of it,” he said, as if that should have been self evident.

I can relate. As so kindly pointed out by generations of alcoholics and their kin, alcoholism doesn’t end when you put the bottle down. Now I’ve got to learn to put down the pizza, the television, the HIMYM and Scrubs, the music, the movies, the books, the news.

Heck, while I’m at it maybe I ought to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow him.

Categories: Life, Lyrics, Religious, Writing
Tags: addiction, alcohol, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Motion City Soundtrack, Stephen King

Artist: Alexi Murdoch
Song: Song For You
Album: Time Without Consequence

Lyrics (from SongMeanings)

So today I wrote a song for you
Cause a day can get so long
And I know its hard to make it through
When you say there’s something wrong

So I’m trying to put it right
Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tight
And I don’t know even where to start

Maybe that’s a start

Cause you know its a simple game
That you play filling up your head with rain
And you know you are hiding from your pain
In the way, in the way you say your name

And I see you
Hiding your face in your hands
Flying so you won’t land
You think no one understands
No one understands

So you hunch your shoulders and you shake your head
And your throat is aching but you swear
No one hurts you, nothing could be sad
Anyway you’re not here enough to care

And you’re so tired you don’t sleep at night
As your heart is trying to mend
You keep it quiet but you think you might
Disappear before the end

And it’s strange that you cannot find
Any strength to even try
To find a voice to speak your mind
When you do, all you wanna do is cry

Well maybe you should cry

And I see you hiding your face in your hands
Talking bout far-away lands
You think no one understands
Listen to my hands

And all of this life
Moves around you
For all that you claim
You’re standing still
You are moving too
You are moving too
You are moving too
I will move you

Categories: Lyrics
Tags: Alexi Murdoch

The Weakerthans - Aside lyrics:
…
In love with love and lousy poetry
And I’m leaning on this broken fence
Between past and present tense
And I’m losing all those stupid games
That I swore I’d never play
But it almost feels okay
…

Categories: Lyrics
Tags: The Weakerthans

Artist: Vienna Teng
Song: Harbor
Album: Warm Strangers

Lyrics:
we’re here where the daylight begins
the fog on the streetlight slowly thins
water on water’s the way
the safety of shoreline fading away

sail your sea
meet your storm
all I want is to be your harbor
the light in me
will guide you home
all I want is to be your harbor

fear is the brightest of signs
the shape of the boundary you leave behind
so sing all your questions to sleep
the answers are out there in the drowning deep

you’ve got a journey to make
there’s your horizon to chase
so go far beyond where we stand
no matter the distance
I’m holding your hand

Categories: Lyrics
Tags: Vienna Teng

It’s another one of those nights. I almost wish I had a beer in my hand.

I don’t.

Instead I’m listening to Joseph Arthur’s album “Nuclear Daydream.”

I just finished watching “Saved.” It’s an odd sort of feeling, but I do like the movie in general. It does a good job demonstrating some problems with pop-evangelical-Christianity. But the movie has no solution or realistic conclusion. I think one of the things that weirds me out the most is the main character reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. At least in looks if not in other ways.

I’ve been playing a lot of chess online lately. For some reason, turn-based games have had a grip on me lately. It may have something to do with the game of Risk I played on New Year’s Eve and the fun I had. So now I’m playing chess consistently (if you want to play, let me know), and today I was introduced to the wonders of Civ 4. Now there’s a game with great strategy and designed to look and play well.

Sometimes I wish my life took place in a series of turns. It’d be so much easier to determine where I want to go and what I want to do if I had a week to think between making life-changing decisions. In the real world, though, some decisions take minutes. Some decisions never get made.

Each decision plays a role in the greater whole.

Even though I had a lot of fun hanging out today, playing Civ 4, and passing the time, I still wind up in the same place at the end off the night. I’m in my room hanging out with machines and inanimate objects. I’m in a room where the only being capable of love is myself, and I’m no artisan of love.

These are the moments I am weakest.

Artist: Joseph Arthur
Song: You Are Free
Album: Nuclear Daydream

Lyrics:

Time is moving on
You and me
You and me
Suffering is gone
You are free
You are free

I know I let you down
Those days are over now

I’m no longer who I was
No longer who I thought I was
…

Categories: Life, Lyrics
Tags: alcohol, chess, Joseph Arthur