i am up late again listening to roman candle by elliott smith, and then i will listen to snail mail's valentine demos, which have inspired me to take up songwriting again. among other recent creative pursuits.
i don't feel good at this, you know. months later, i always seem to find myself editing these back. it's like i know what thought i was trying to express but couldn't seem to get out. i can go in circles trying to draw lines in the sand about what my writing is and is for, but i know that's all just semantics. when all the music i listen to is miserable, when i want to be close to that awful feeling if only to create something with, it becomes hard to just talk about my day.
to say much more than what i had for lunch though is only conjecture, just another assumption about myself or someone else. it's hard to accept that that's how it is when all the writing i do is to some end. just a point of catharsis that often times ends up unfulfilling because i'm always circling back to the same three topics and their same three answers, namely "i don't understand". sometimes it feels like in the process of writing a piece that looks for answers, i instead create a piece about being lost and confused. sounds samey doesn't it? i'm still choosing to make that distinction. :-P
it makes me sort of glad to be getting back into songwriting, though in all honesty i'm not so sure it's a practice i am returning to so much as finally giving a proper go. it's not horn tooting to say that i have been known to make songs on the spot, i've just always had an inclination towards music though i struggle to be consistent with the skills required to make music. i'm no good at the guitar i bought when i was 17 hoping i could get a late start to my songwriting, and that was 4 years ago with not much progress made.
i picked up a casio pt-10 at an estate sale a while back and the thing is my prized possesion (i have many.) it can't play chords and the different synths it comes with all sound dated at best and at times i struggle with the slightly wonky keys they're in, but concept aside the thing has reinvigorated that vision to paper tactile curiousity that makes you want to take on a new skill. i have no trouble at all putting melodies to keys with just about any song i feel the need to want to play, and it's an amazing thing seeing visually how songs are composed without following a hot cross buns youtube tutorial (my go-to's are milk by sweet trip and same to you by jejune, for whatever reason in regards to the latter.)
i am sure someday i will write about the labor day weekend 2026 new york city numero group popup shop and how it rewired my brain chemistry but that is a story for another time. but i will say that poring over all the booklets that came with the box sets i added to my collection has only further exacerbated my recent creative spark, though i'm still taking my time making good on it.
work was real hard today, and yet good too somehow. i'd like to have a little more cash to my name but i am not so sure that i can handle much more than i am already doing. my messy bedroom feels like an exhibit at times, i've never been too good at being normal about my possessions. those fortune cookie stubs i can never seem to find a place for, the nearly finished packs of cigarettes that seem to imply a habit i don't have and never really have. electronic junk i can't seem to part with but need to desperately.
there are never enough pictures on my walls either, and film only seems to be more of an expensive hobby every day that passes. it seems to be all the things that i've got this intense hunger for that seem to be so out of reach nowadays, and lame as it sounds and is, my creativity seems to feed off of it well, and creating things doesn't cost a damn thing, after all.
today the walk home smelled strongly of summer, it made me feel a bit better than i've been. i am sure this mood that i'm in will pass in a few days. is it wrong though that i feel like it's more than that? that the mood may pass but the feeling will stay, i guess that's the problem with certainty. i am certain that it changed.
6.30.26 -- 4amp.s, you should sign my guestbook. it's on my about page, which you should have gone to already...