"I like the look of the golden hour"

Confused again. It's okay though. You can't always know what's going on with yourself. No one is that consistent. I see it as part of a series, a cycle, a landscape of movement and stillness, of vertical significance and horizontal translucency, of undulating seismic psycho-relations. I am still wandering in my territory, in some shaded indistinct corner. I got food poisoning a week ago, and even that I somehow made sense of, managed some kind of basic orientation and dignity, though a wisp of blood still lingers in my eye. That counts for something, I think.

I'm also a bit distracted. Predictably, by a girl. I think this would be the first time I've ever courted someone online ("i-curious", I tell myself), though who the fuck knows if my "like" or her "like" carries any significance. We live in clouds of weightless nano-gestures, like pollen misting off trees. Sometimes you can't tell if you're feeling real emotions, smell a faint something, or just have mild allergies. I think we had a genuine missed moment at the last punk show, though, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just fumes or that disgusting Old Fashioned. I'll find out more soon enough.

I haven't been entirely unproductive. Been trying to be steady and regular with drumming, taking to the practice pad in spare moments, in preparation for a few days of recording in a proper studio -- very excited to be engineering it, too! It'll be my first recording session outside my practice space since I moved to the Bay, and I'm determined to prove to myself I know what the hell I'm doing, and make it toe-curlingly lovely. Otherwise I've been going to a seemingly endless string of concerts and films, sometimes 4 to 5 nights a week, which I happily digest, doze off through, and mentally critique. I've been turning the same three or so songs over and over, trying to find a way through them that'll satisfy me. When you're picky it takes time. As a recent Harper's article puts it, good art is a criticism of life. I'm not sure exactly what I'm critiquing -- probably just myself and my perceptions. I want my songs to abrade me a bit as they come out, else it doesn't seem healthy, though I also can't help but swoon for the gushy, beautiful classicism when I find it.

I'm slowly making my way through Hip: The History by John Leland, which is fascinating and smartly focused. He really does bring a meaningful definition and socio-historical context to the notion of hip. It's helped me better understand my own feelings on racial identity and cultural consumerism, and define the tension that occurs between what you want to understand and explore, and what you were born into. The book stands in stark contrast to Retromania by Simon Reynolds, which similarly tries to pin down something vague, and I so badly wanted to enjoy, but just infuriated me with its zig-zag, buzzword digressiveness. I had to stop before I finished it. I'm also reading Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden by Steve Coll, partly spurred on by Adam Curtis's Bitter Lake documentary that explores the same narrative, and the congressional report on CIA torturing I downloaded but haven't the stomach to read. This is me trying to be accountable as an American in the absolute smallest way.