Author: xen6

lemonade

as i woke up this morning my head was filled with new ideas and thoughts. not sure if i just slept well, or if i had some kind of inspirational dreams that i immediately forgot or what, but it’s a welcome change from the usual dread i have felt for a while now.

first things first, i need to start making lemonade, it’s not going to make itself. i have to turn some things around, and i think that has to start with my general outlook on things. for a long while now i have been hyper focused on the negative, i have to broaden my view. not everything is bad, not everything is doom and gloom, not everything is hopeless. no one is going to save me, so i have to make things better myself. i will fail, i will fuck up, i will make mistakes. that’s ok. i can learn from that. besides, there ARE good things in my life. i need to acknowledge and celebrate those things more.

next, i think i have put WAY too many expectations on a certain individual, and it is completely unfair of me to have done so. i don’t know if it’s just being too busy, if it’s disinterest, or something else entirely, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. i am owed quite literally nothing, and i can’t expect anything more than that, no matter how much i might want it. what exists currently is too precious to me to risk spoiling again. i am happy just knowing that there is some form of dialogue after all these years, and that has to be good enough. no, that *is* good enough. i regret the long silence, i regret the way in which i broke the silence, but i do NOT regret breaking the silence at all. i know you’re going to read this and i hope you don’t take my words the wrong way.

all that said, i clearly need to fucking talk. a lot. and frequently. this place helps, but it’s an echo chamber. i need more than that. i need dialogue. i need new ideas. i need some kind of tether to reality. i need distraction, i need to compare notes, i need to have some kind of symbiotic accountability feedback loop that works both ways. i am talking to a therapist now, but that’s once a week, it’s very one sided and honestly, i’m still not convinced this is for me. as far as other friends, j is too emotionally stunted, g is a ghost, e is too close, k is… well… that’s a whole other thing, t looks up to me too much. it seems i don’t have many good options at my disposal currently. perhaps i need to find someone else? i think? maybe? i know there are entire subreddits dedicated to making new friends, maybe i can start there? if nothing else, it might be entertaining for a short while.

at home i need to redouble my efforts. it doesn’t matter if there isn’t any kind of reciprocity. i need to do it for me. i need to prove to myself that i am the person i think i am, that i know i am. i need to swallow my pride, i need to show the example. it’s my job to fix this because no one else will.

lastly, i think i have been too hard on myself. i’ve been told that by a few people lately, and maybe i need to listen. this one is going to be difficult to overcome though. my go-to for as long as i can remember is self deprecation. if i can shit on myself before anyone else has an opportunity, then they are less likely to do so themselves. it’s manipulative and it’s cowardly. that’s not who i am. i’m better than that.

explorer update 6

ok. well… here’s where we’re at. i think i hate it?

problem 1. i did not do nearly enough prep work on the headstock. the finish on it looks… not great. i’m really hoping with enough wet sanding and polish and then having the tuners and strings in place will camouflage most of it.

problem 2. i did not do nearly enough double and triple checking of the masking job i did on the fret board. i did a bunch of touch ups already, and if you don’t look too closely, it’s not THAT bad. but i will never be able to unsee the imperfections. hopefully, with some scraping, wet sanding and polish i can smooth out a lot of it and make it passable.

problem 3. i did not do nearly enough careful thinking and consideration before i chose this color. i don’t know what i was thinking when i chose orange. for real. can i plea temporary insanity? there really isn’t much i can do about it now. so i guess i better just learn to love it. on the plus side, the finish itself turned out way better than i was expecting. i do also have a plan for the face of the body which will cover up the orange almost entirely… but i’m not sure i can go through with it. we’ll see.

before i can do anything else, this paint and clear coat need to completely harden. that’s going to take a while. maybe up to 2 weeks even. it’s hot and muggy in the garage. if i try to rush the sanding and polishing, i’m just going to make it a million times worse. so, now we do the thing i love most in life… wait.

lastly, i still need to come up with a name for this guitar.

listen – rory

i’m struggling to even put words down this morning.

through out the day yesterday and into last night i felt like i was in a sort of trance. going through the motions of daily responsibilities, not outwardly showing anything other than my normal self, but inside my head, things were anything but calm, cool and collected.

i was asked recently “what is it you actually want to happen?”, which of course sounds like an easy question to answer, right? the problem is, it really isn’t. and the more i dwell on it, the more complicated and unreachable the answer becomes.

the truth is, at least i think, i don’t really know what i want to happen. i feel like i’ve painted myself into a corner and what i want to happen is just no longer an important consideration. it’s a lose/lose proposition where it’s no longer about what i want, but what am i prepared to give up? what can i afford to give up?

moment of weakness

hey, why can’t i get you out of my head? this weekend i caught myself daydreaming a few times and it was entirely about you. i thought about little comments you made here and there that likely meant nothing at all to you, but my stupid head has decided to overinflate into some kind of meaningful sign or something. a compliment, a thank you, even just asking me about something that you knew was important to me. all over analyzed and picked apart in an effort to justify something that doesn’t exist.

writing this out, i clearly recognize the mental mountains i am making from molehills, like seriously, polite banter isn’t that deep. despite knowing and recognizing that, my less logical thoughts continue to betray me.

i wish we could have met under different circumstances. circumstances that would have allowed for something a little more normal. could we have actually been friends? do we have enough in common? do we have anything in common?

i want to believe so, but my judgement is clearly not to be trusted, so maybe i am just fooling myself again.

edit: i am so mad at myself right now. i did the thing i told myself i wouldn’t. it was only for a literal second and i feel like my chest is about to explode.

wheeeeeee!

what the heck is going on?

btc is having a fire sale. i don’t even want to open my wallet to see the balance.

it always stings a little to see that much money just *poof* disappear, but also i god damn LOVE a good deal and don’t know if i will be able to refrain from making some large orders to sit on… i’m kind of torn, lets see how things play out today when the regular markets open.

although i am personally not in any kind of danger, if you do have any crypto bros in your life… ya might want to check in on them today. i’m sure some people are getting wrecked.

also, this is not financial advice, i am not a professional, yadda yadda yadda. don’t buy btc, or do, i don’t care. whatever you decide to do is your own decision.

explorer update 5

shit. i think i fucked up. no wait, i know i fucked up. i sprayed color on it this morning and immediately had regrets, but the process had already started, so i just went with it and hoped for the best. 3 base coats, 4 clear coats. the paint itself is really well applied, but the color… oh god the color. so much regret.

i pulled the masking tape off the fretboard, and of course, to add to the injury of picking a color that has no business being on this guitar, i also fucked up the masking job and there is a big ol’ bare patch along the entire neck… aaaaaaaaargh!

i’m not even going to show a picture… this is a problem that i need to fix before i can share. it’s going to take like 5 days for the paint to cure, and so it will take at least that long before i can sand down the affected area and respray it. god dammit!

also the headstock looks… weird. i probably shouldn’t have painted the neck. at least to fix that i think i will just paint the face of it black. in 5 days…

next time, bolt on neck.

mmmm jam…

not feeling exceptionally inspired to write much today, maybe tonight that will change…

i do however really need to stop getting lambasted the night before band practice. oof. nothing like jamming at full volume with a raging hangover! brain splitting pain aside, practice was good today! p joined in for the second time, i think we’re all pretty much agreed that he’s part of the band now. unfortunately y choked at the last minute though… i guess it’s forgivable, he did just get back from portugal so he gets a pass. THIS TIME!

couple of new songs are coming together, we’ve almost got the pretender down, well other than the ending, that’s still a mess, but we’re almost there! we also played a few tracks from incesticide which we never jammed before and they all turned out pretty dang good.

j has big dreams about how all of this works too which is both adorable and annoying at the same time. he got all excited about recording our jams again, but he doesn’t realize that for every 5 minutes of recording there’s gonna be at least 2 hours of fuckery that *I* have to deal with to make it sound acceptable. none of these guys have ever even touched a DAW before, nevermind done any kind of audio engineering. i tried to explain to him how it works, but he didn’t get it at all hahaha. in his head it’s just plug the microphone into the computer thing and then press record, done! magic studio quality recording finished! god, i would love to sit him in front of cakewalk for an afternoon and watch his head explode, but i know he doesn’t have the patience for that. p actually said he would be interested in learning though, so maybe i can get some help there? we’ll see.

explorer update 4

crusty glue cleaned up, grain filler applied, sandy sandy sandy and finally some coats of primer going on.

for color, i picked something i was not expecting to pick.

i still need a logo or something for the headstock. so… if you are one of the very few who know of this blog’s existence, please help me. give me some ideas. i was thinking of maybe doing something with the whole sad mac theme i have adopted over the years, like the logo for this site. but the shape of it doesn’t quite lend itself to the shape of the headstock. alternately it could be a word, or something, but i don’t know what. maybe this guitar should have a name?

it almost feels like trying to pick a tattoo. of which i have none, because i simply cannot bring myself to pick something so permanent.

listen – dev lemons

i’ve seen a few of dev’s videos on her dev limes channel, in particular the ones where she tries to recreate popular songs, but with her computer on mute, and picking samples based on… well not much. as someone who has studied music production and who has dabbled in that world as a hobby for a long ass time now, what dev does is simultaneously hilarious and amazing all at once! her brand of humor is also right up my alley. i knew she made actual serious music too, but only decided to listen to it tonight, and i am blown away!

i’ve not gone through all of the songs yet, but plan on doing so tonight. you can check them out on her dev lemons channel.

here’s one song i really like so far