you better get yourself together soon...

a few weeks ago, i found my copy of m. ward's transfiguration of vincent, which had been missing since, oh, i don't know...september maybe? it was a glorious reunion, between myself and the m. ward, and i have been listening to it ever since. it makes me that much more rabid for the new disc, which came out a few weeks ago. i am waiting for a slight bit of play in my disposable income to buy it. no, scratch that. disposable income is not a term that figures realistically into my life. i am waiting until i happen by the record store, where the draw of the m. ward will outweigh my need to pay bills. this will happen shortly, maybe even today.

the man behind www.slatch.com, whom i don't know personally, but who's site i have been reading daily for about a year and a half, has started something really cool. check it out at www.tinyshowcase.com

i go through this cycle, when it comes to writing, which i'm sure is familiar to most people who engage in artistic endeavors of any sort. the cycle goes something roughly like this: i get some inspiration, start working on something, feel like it's going ok, have a number of days where i feel like it's absolute bullshit, have a day in there somewhere when i recognize that i even if i feel like it's bullshit, even if it is bullshit, that i need to be writing it anyhow, if i ever want it to not be bullshit. and then i come across something by another writer, in this case let's use philip roth and portnoy's complaint, and i read the first page and am overwhelmed by the notion that never, ever, in a million years of my wildest dreams, will i ever be able to construct anything that could even start me on the path to being as adept a writer as the person who wrote those words. then all of my ideas melt back into bubbling, useless sludge and my brain shorts out and i have to shut down operations for a few days. but it'll all start over eventually. it always does. i'm just hanging in there for the day that there is a variation in the cycle, a variation of any sort.