Dodged a bullet, another one homing in...

Paid our landlord for what we owed for November and October...by forking over everything we both had in our accounts, plus some help from Cherie's mom. We get paid again next Friday. Everything from that is going right out the door to pay for December on time. The alternative: we go to court, we possibly get thrown out. We can't screw this up. Meanwhile other bills have to wait a bit longer to get paid, and I'm still deathly depressed, can't find the enthusiasm to do anything whatsoever.

I loathe life. Sometimes I wish it would end. I mean just end--BLAM! Dead. But that would hurt too many people. And I keep telling myself that would be just the latest in a whole series of stupid decisions I've made. I'm afraid of making any decisions anymore, because of the near certainty that whatever I do is going to end up being a mistake. I'm going to ruin myself more completely than I already have, and all anyone will tell me is that I did it to myself and must suffer the consequences, like a man, because this is THE REAL WORLD and LIFE'S TOUGH and NO ONE GIVES A CRAP WHETHER YOU MAKE IT OR NOT and THAT'S THE WAY IT IS AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. I guess that falls under self-confidence or self-esteem? Huh.

I hope the next therapist I see is mean, tough motherfucker who goes into my brain and wrings the crap out of it with a machete. I WANT TO BE HAPPY AND BELIEVE IN MYSELF AGAIN AND BE ABLE TO ENJOY LIFE AGAIN.

I wish I could go home and be with my family. But I can't.

Another closing shift

And another blog entry whose title begins with "another". In to work in an hour and a half, but I'd prefer another hour and a half in bed. Must shower. Rainy and gloomy outside, so once again my feet are gonna be wet all day from the walk across the parking lot seeping through the holes in my soles. I hope today doesn't drag too much.

Oh yes, the neighbors downstairs moved out this morning, fleeing New Jersey's grit and high prices for the sunnier, and cheaper, subtropical climes of Florida. Best of luck, amigos.

K3 fans: I just have to share this with you

My undulating filter sweep patch that has been so effective in making me relax:

Enter these parameter values into your K3:
parameter value
1 30
2 16
3 24
4 0
5 2
6 0
7 26
8 7
9 2
10 68
11 23
12 0
13 0
14 0
15 16
16 -
17 31
18 13
19 31
20 0
21 27
22 -
23 31
24 20
25 1
26 0
27 4
28 0
29 9
30 0
31 0
32 0
33 0
34 0
35 0
36 0
37 15
38 -10
39 2

40-50 -

Tape down the second octave G key.
Plug headphones into jack on front of synth, put on headphones, adjust volume.
Settle into a comfy chair, close eyes.

Everybody sing along! A-one, and a-two, and a...

The Godz are rock n' roll machines!
The Godz are rock n' roll machines!
The Godz are rock n' roll machines!
The Godz are rock n' roll machines!
The Godz are rock n' roll machines!
The Godz are rock n' roll machines!

How do you figure this?

Okay, so yesterday, as witness my blog posts, I was a blubbering neurotic wreck with extreme doubts about my whole position in the human continuum. I got like 4 hours of sleep or so and was in to work at 6:30 am.

Now--get this--my day actually went fairly well, fairly quickly, and I am in fairly good spirits. Just a few minutes ago when I was taking the dogs on their little early evening mini-walk, I found myself humming a Billy S.-trademark overdone rendition of "Any Way You Want It" by Journey (with a guttral Eric Moore* type voice) and framing imaginary artsy photos of the abandoned warehouse across the street which I'd be taking if only I still had that D80 that I sold. Whoa! My 1) unmistakable sense of humor, and 2) my creative/curious instincts, both bubbling within my brain at the same time...strong shades of my old self returning, if only for a fleeting few minutes! Hope is yet not lost!!!! Now I need to move hell and paradise to grasp it and not let it slip away.

*The lead singer of the seminal late '70s Columbus-based biker-rock band The Godz, of "Gotta Keep A Runnin'" fame (sample of Moore's hilarious, hick-accented, inebriated monologue-cum-rally speech: "Look at us. We're everything your parents ever warned you about....Some people say that rock n' roll is dead, [becoming increasingly strident] but Godz rock n' roll ain't dead...We can't see straight, we can't think straight...and someday there'll be thousands of us! Thousands of Godz rock n' roll machines!"). If ever there was a personification of my dear old North-side neighborhood when I was in grade school--literally, as my brother John tells me they lived on or near Tompkins Street, a few blocks from our house and on the way to my school-- it was this group of longhaired, tattooed, hard drinkin' white trash rockers. John fondly recalls himself and his junior high school buddies hangin' out with them at the bar after a gig at the legendary Stache's club (RIP). Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad produced their first LP (of which John still has five or six copies), they got some press coverage at the time in hard-rock rags like Creem, and then disappeared without a trace. And I have no idea why I wrote an entire paragraph reminiscing about an admittedly minor '70s rock footnote other than it provided a nostalgic respite for a homesick Columbusite.

One more thing...therapy

I asked Cherie's mom if she would ride with me to pick Cherie up, mainly because she's great to talk to when I'm feeling disturbingly depressed--she's been through it all and has a mountain of advice and encouragement. She gave me a business card for the county-operated mental health service provider she uses...a therapist for the talking and a psychiatrist for the pills, and they work with people of limited means and/or insurance. I'm gonna see about setting up an appointment or two when I have a weekday off (probably next week at the earliest since I work straight through Saturday this week...ugh, another insane weekend shift!). It will be nice to start seeing a therapist again. My last one was a really nice guy, but I don't think he was probing the right corners of my psyche where the real crud has accumulated. Hopefully these guys will help me get my brain flushed out real good and I'll start feeling like a real human being again. That's a lot to hope for, but I always have dreamed big.

At the end of the day, some real sunshine

I finally got in touch with my friend Melanie when I was out with the dogs. She's my very bestest friend ever, who I've known for over 10 years, I think, and who outside of my family is the person from Columbus I miss the most. I swear, talking with her brightened my whole day incredibly, put a smile on my face for the first time today, and made me feel like myself again, at least for the time being. Nine hours ago I was having a depression-fueled panic attack while curled up in a fetal position in my bed, and now I actually feel somewhat happy again. I'm going to make it a point to call her often, as well as other friends of mine if I can--Bob & Connie, Adam and Jason from Frollywog, Todd from Floorian (I'd call John too, but no phone number...maybe email would be just as good), maybe others. I've realized just how important it is to have friends and to stay in contact with them, because when you're otherwise free-floating through this hostile, uncaring world like an amoeba, they are the lifelines that keep you from drifting down the maw of oblivion.

Gotta be in at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so I'd better shower, shave, and sleep.

Current K3 setting

A kind of undulating drone consisting of two sawtooth waves, set to a dominant interval, with a sloow filter sweep (moderate resonance) and chorus. A G key is taped down. I've been listening to this for the last two hours or so, and the synth has been on since yesterday because I don't want to lose the patch and I don't know which patch slots I can overwrite.

Maybe the K3 isn't an ideal MIDI controller after all; I never liked that it doesn't have a modulation wheel and it's aftertouch feature is a poor substitute (although it would of course be a good supplement to a mod wheel). I'm a pretty dynamic mod wheel user myself--I love those vocal-like vibrato effects.

Another day off...

...and my eyes are rusting in place from looking at websites that in one way or other mention or relate to the economy, job market, what have you. Maybe I can re-enter the design world at some point. I definitely need to be practicing my design skills instead of sitting on my ass whining in a blog that nobody reads.

I had an idea: design a website devoted to satirical graphic design. Almost like a web comic or something, except using fake design pieces instead of cartoons to make its point. (Actually, the idea reminds me a bit of Mad magazine.) I doubt it would make me any money, unless I maybe expanded it into t-shirts or greeting cards (another idea I had), but it would at least give me an excuse to do design in a funny, enjoyable context. That is, if I can get myself in a humorous frame of mind. But then, I always hear that stand-up comics are some of the most fucked up, depressed people around.

walking the dogs with a thousand mile stare

Just got back a little while ago, and spent part of my walk in kind of a depressed daze. Yesterday was a cruddy day at work; they always get slammed on weekends, so I hear, and they were understaffed to boot. This is what I moved to New Jersey for? my downbeat mind nags at me. I feel exhausted.

Maybe I'm just having one of those flaps. Some days are better than others, I suppose.

YEAH!

Obama is in.

Now it's time to go get some sleep.

In other news...

I have a dead-weight headache just sitting there in the base of my skull.

I was watching a few synth-oriented videos on YouTube, mainly by a hipsterish looking Seattlean who calls himself AutomaticGainsay and has a buttload of yummy analog synths. I still want a SynthDotCom system, dammit. I know I have a Multimoog, but it's sitting unused in our broom closet, and at last use it sounded like it needed some tlc.

I also registered at Geocaching.com, reflecting another wanna-get-started-but-for-the-gear interest of mine. When I can afford a GPS unit, I'll be in bidness. Supposedly plenty of geocaches located in the area. Maybe someday I'll even be able to place one of my own! Whoopee!

Makin' history on my day off

One humble vote for Obama/Biden submitted by yours truly. Time to roll up our sleeves and flush the Republican filth out; by all indications this eight-year nightmare is about to end. Buh-bye, assholes.