Friday, September 24, 2010

Trite Trait Travesty

This is going to read like one big excuse mingled with petty justifications. Enjoy!


I'm told that if I want to maintain a healthy blog I need to actively engage my readers every day. It's a good thing I don't consider myself a blogger, because if I did I would be forced to deal with my ineptitude in this area. You'd think music alone would be enough of an outlet for me, but as it turns out it isn't. This blog has blessed with an outlet for my excess thoughts, for journaling and opinion and memories, and all the while it has saved me thousands in therapy costs. The fact that it doesn't resemble a healthy, active blog doesn't make me love it any less.


The reason I've been absent of late is because I've been busy with music. My primary job is music, and it's a good thing too because I'm terrible at blogging. Lately I've been working on producing/engineering/editing/mixing a band, playing weekend fly dates with my band, and all the while writing with whoever calls me up for a collaboration. It's been pretty much all "nose to the grindstone" and usually during these times when my brain is at capacity I have little to discuss other than the task at hand. Blogging is a back burner item and I only have the ability to apply mental energy to what is directly in front of me.


Let me preface this by saying that I do not put my faith in pagan symbols or astrology any more than I do the power of suggestion, but last weekend while we were in New England for a show we decided to read everyones horoscope. Not the daily kind, but the general "You were born during this month, so your personality might be like this" kind. My birthday is May 20th, apparently on the cusp of Taurus and Gemini. Maybe when you were born has absolutely nothing to do with your personality, but mine was eerily accurate. Even down to the whole "Taurus are prone to throat illnesses and are at risk of being overweight" and the "Gemini's tendency to fight losing battles for the sake of a "moral" cause." (By the way Justin is 100% an Aries!) I laughed at the whole thing, but it got me thinking, not about the mystical side of how these things can tend to be accurate, but about my strengths and weaknesses and how I play into them.


A trait that has always blessed and cursed me is my tendency to live 100% in the moment (apparently that's a Taurus trait). On the upside it allows me to truly invest in those in close proximity to me, on the downside relationships with people who I don't see frequently enough can suffer. I rarely call people just to chat. I'm fascinated by those friends of mine who call me up just to ask how I'm doing just to keep up with me. They like to call everyone they know around the country on a weekly basis just so they can keep them on their mind and vice versa. I'm very much out-of-sight out-of-mind, which has allowed me to get the most out of short-term situations and interactions all the while causing me to get the least out of long-term, long-distance relationships (save mine and Kristie's dating relationship, which sometimes struggled due to my incompetence in this area).


All this to say that I'm sorry I left you unattended, blog readers. A band needed me for their music and everything else took a back seat. This is not the thriving community it could be yet for that I'm somewhat grateful. It just feels good to casually chat once in awhile, you know?


It's funny though, neither the Taurus or Gemini horoscope said a good career choice was "musician." Maybe they were right. I'm still waiting for this "music career" thing to pan out!