#it's also just a fun time when we write together because our threads are fkn unhinged.

[oathguard]

me recently, somewhere far away from tumblr when i suddenly remembered that dram'szin grew up hearing in secrecy of his mother's wild adventures— some under, some above— through jezri, but can't recount any of their endings because she probably got too choked up to finish them for him.

[doctor-fancy-pants]

Finding pieces of yourself that you thought you'd lost

I have no idea why, but after several years of not doing so, somehow this year I started writing songs again. After shipboard karaoke reminded me that it’s not just Broadway While Driving, I can actually sing and people like it, I’ve been thinking about recording something.

That being said, I never developed the “ah this song is in this key and should have these chords” skill, as that was Shayne’s job as our lead guitar, and he was VERY good at finding the bones of a song if I sang him a melody line.

He’s a metal guitarist and has the requisite chops for that — mostly what I’m after is a folk/rock vibe, so we parted ways musically many years ago.

Meanwhile: I played bass and sang. I was… okay?

(I am much better now, vocally - but from memory this gig at the Old Bar in 2009 went pretty well. That's Grace the Bass, by the way. Easy action Ibanez that didn't brutalise my hands to keep the strings down. And yes, that is my hair colour under stage lighting. Rach has pretty much nailed it in my Sea Witch profile pic.)

I played bass because no one else wanted to and I figured if I was going to pick up a stringed instrument, low end and four strings seemed easier. Also bass riffs are super fun ("Baby, I got you on my mind...").

I set all that aside when the band disbanded and the PhD got painfully intense.

I never developed the skillset of figuring out the root-note-harmonic bones of a song - so I figured I was probably not a good songwriter. Like. At all.

But the songs have just come at me this year, and old songs I wrote that I’d forgotten about, and those I always remembered…

And this is the space between Xmas and New Year. This is the time between finishing the voyage and finding the threads of my terrestrial existence.

This is the perfect time to drag out my acoustic and my bass guitar, dig out my tuners, and tune them both.

A perfect time to pick up “what is a song I know that is easy to play” so I can learn enough basic guitar to help with songwriting.

(the easiest option for me would involve the piano, which I can actually play. Again, not a virtuoso, but I muddle through. However, my great grandmother’s piano is still up on the mountain.)

A perfect time to grab some bass tabs for songs I know because that will give me a jumpstart since at one point I could, in fact, play bass.

(side note: Adele is extremely fun to sing, but there are two songs on the first album that seem to be carried by bass lines, and that has my attention.)

A perfect time to do all this and not feel self-conscious because normally there’s a voice in my head that tells me not to do this.

That voice can fuck right the fuck off. I don’t expect anything amazing to come out of my songs. I just want to have a record of them. I want to be able to play it for someone and say “I made this, and I am happy with what I’ve made.”

That voice that tells me I’m not a musician and never have been…?Jesus fkn christ I can’t actually play guitar and haven’t tried in years and my fingers still found the frets for the chords I do know without even fucking trying. There’s something there.

And in terms of practice and physical skills, I think about playing Beat Saber, and how I’m fucking good at a rhythm dance game, because I’ve played hundreds of hours.

That reminds me I can acquire physical skills.

At least, I can when the voice in my head - the one that says I look ridiculous- shuts the fuck up. Because who the fuck cares if I look ridiculous? I might as well just lean all the way in and get somewhere.

I haven't done any Beat Saber bragging in a while, but I managed to get through BTS Not Today on Expert+ and score an S on the first try, which is not too shabby.

And I’m going for achievable goals: not aiming to be a virtuoso. I just want to be able to find the structure. I want to piece together the parts of the song I don’t have, and build it up the way it deserves.

Breaking that down further: I know I need interim goals to learn new skills. It’s why I had trouble trying to teach myself coding — I need an immediate use-case, and I didn’t have one.

So: I’ll learn a song I know.

Magpie (Mountain Goats) is a set of chords I already know - bam.

More immediately: Need a capo and some picks, because I have no idea where mine ended up. Fortunately those are very cheap items, and there’s a music shop in Upwey, very close at hand.

One step (fret? Semitone?) at a time.

-Doc out

[hide-v-seek]

Day 1

So I kind of always wanted to make a diary but was never bothered. Finally found myself some time to get it done. This isn’t my first blog, I used to have two about 3 years ago but they were just full of pictures that I liked. A bit about myself, I’m 17, I moved to a smaller city in Australia to study uni. I live by myself and haven’t managed to find any friends here. I try to think it’s because I like to study a lot but idk, maybe I’m just not approachable or out going. Anyways, the reason I started this blog was because I recently broke up with my girlfriend of 1 year and 8 months. I broke up with her and it was because I felt like I loved her enough. I had to devote a lot of time to her, especially because we had to start long distance 1 year into the relationship. To say the least, I didn’t find myself overly excited to devote time to her. I’d much rather be by myself at times. I did love her though, she was such a beautiful person, not a thread of hate in her heart, really cute and funny but idk, I thought about getting other pussy a lot and I could remember thinking once, if a really smoking hot babe wanted to fuck, I probably would say yes to it. With my previous relationship (the reason I started the last 2 blogs), I was so drunk in love and missed her all the time, even though the relationship was nothing but a stupid high school relationship. That drunk in love and needy feeling was always missing from the most recent relationship. I tried really hard to get it back; there were times I forced myself to think about her. I had so much fun with her when we were together, she was really a top gal. The funny thing is though that we were doing long distance really really well and one night, all of a sudden, I realized that I couldn’t find what was missing and just decided to end things. I know that she loved me so so so much and I really hate that I dragged her into a serious relationship, all to end it with the fact I never really committed. It broke her heart and I know she’ll be so sad for such a long time, she did nothing wrong and now she’s left in the shit, it’s so unfair I know. I’m afraid to open up to one of my close female friends because I know that she’ll think of me as a mean, selfish, stupid guy. I heard from mutual friends that she still has hope that I’ll come back, which in all honesty, I don’t think I will. The thing that sucks is that she’s going to let that hope guide her for many months to come and maybe for years. I don’t know what’s wrong with me and I want to understand why I didn’t feel passionate about her but I can’t make any sense of it. Is it too early for me to commit? Do I just want to fuck a range of girls and get my work done? I have so much other shit to worry about in my life. It’d be fkn amazing if I could find a girl that is smart, cool, sexy and horny so we could just fuck with not attachments, and get our work done. Not even joking here, I got a hard on from writing that sentence :’) But yeah, that’d be amazing. Anyways, back to the topic, the worst thing is that I don’t feel sad, I don’t miss her (not that I ever really did), I feel nothing tbh, except for feeling bad about how I made her feel, and also I’m scared to go back home because all my friends will know and all her friends will probably hate me, and the suck thing is that her friends are family friends with mine so I can’t really avoid them either. Ughhh more to come about this I guess. I just finished an exam that I studied hard for but only got 71% on :( and I need to go check out this place tomorrow because I want to move out of my current place. A hot chick lives there, pretty sure she has a boyfriend and is also 22, but far out, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could fuck casually aha! Damn, I just wanna try different types of pussy but I wouldn’t say I’m crazy horny. Maybe I just wanna feel something with a female. Lol, while I’m writing this, I’m thinking how someone could read this and think, damn, just another horny boy using females as an object but nah, I want it to be a mutual thing and I do care about friends a lot, not the type of guy to smash and dump. ANYWAYS, I’m going to sleep. This blog isn’t meant for anyone, especially not anyone I know, but I’m going to try and understand how I’m feeling (not just with the relationship stuff but in life in general) and this is the only place where I can truly say how I feel. I guess that’s the beauty of anonymity and talking to somebody who’s nobody. I’ve only really talked to one friend about our break up and even though we’re like best friends, I couldn’t tell him the complete truth. Just writing this was super therapeutic. I hope that if anybody ever comes across this blog, that it’ll help them understand something about themselves, people around them or just entertain/amuse them. Not really looking for criticism though aha unless you want to share something about your life. MESSAGE FOR ANYONE WHO SEES THIS: If you’d like to talk to me about your journey through live, message me, I’d love to hear your story. Anyways I’m out,

Laters dawg