All I have

This last week could be divided into two distinct halves. We could start by calling them the "nice" half and the "any number of descriptive words which are the binary opposite of nice" half.

I'm grateful, at any rate, that there is such a distinction to be drawn, and that it hasn't all fallen into the latter category.

Work, anyway, has been stupid, stressy and miserable. The balance is such that, although I'm trying to address such issues, I'm now feeling that the answers no longer lie within the organisation. The more I meet with senior figures to sort things out, the more I feel like a turkey asking a chef to help resolve matters.

Onto the nice half of the week: despite feeling like my energy and motivation has really been sapped, I've spent significant portions of each evening working on music. After a fairly humdrum couple of sessions early on in the week, I've been progressively feeling like the drive and the momentum have returned, and that I'm beginning to turn a corner. The different ideas I've been working on have all felt rather disparate and scattershot - and that's been a purposeful thing - but now I seem to be reaching a point in which they're starting to reveal a common thread in some ways, and that's rather exciting.

Nice also to want to get home and get stuck into working on such things, rather than the times when I feel myself putting up barriers to any engagement with creative processes. Plus it's good to be at a stage where I can get into specifics: this particular track needs this to be done to it.

I can't afford to make excuses for not engaging with it any more, because really it feels like it's all I have.

Disparate thoughts in different colours

So I got back to my music last night, after a frustrating period of inactivity (well - not entirely frustrating. Thanks to the nice weather I have many more bike rides under my belt).

I worked on a new idea, revisited an old one, and tinkered around with a couple of fairly recent ones.

They all sounded shit.

This is a good thing, since it serves to compel me to make them stop sounding shit. Also since it makes me less precious about all the work I have in progress. Perhaps a few weeks away from the stuff hasn't been a bad thing, but it feels imperative to regain a sense of compulsion (which happens to consist of a large amount of enjoyment) and push the whole thing forward again with the kind of momentum I was previously feeling.

I may have a couple of gigs coming up in the near future - nothing definite yet, but confirmation would certainly up the ante.

Tomorrow I exercise my democratic right, for what it's worth: local elections.

I hope the weather is good. Somehow it feels right to go along and vote on a beautiful, sunny Thursday evening. Voting is one of those few things which makes me feel like a grown-up. I wonder if this is true for anyone else who I see when I go to vote. I like the sense of purpose I have when I stroll down to the polling station.

I'll let you know if I spoil the ballot paper or write none of the above across it.

One post I never wrote last year was to mention my favourite lp of 2010. This just occurred to me as I was listening to it a little earlier. It's called Latin, and is by Holy Fuck.
It's one of those few lps which can make me feel like shouting COME ONNNNNNNN and dance and jump about and whatever else, which is no mean feat.

Oh and I will visit other blogs soon, I promise.

Clockwork

My neighbour, like clockwork, leaves the house at 6.30am and gets back home at 8.15pm. You could set your clock, such is the steady reliability.

Today, he left at 6.44am and returned at 8.29pm.

Maybe it's just because it's the Bank Holiday, maybe because he slipped a little, I don't know. When things are so routine, you notice the difference.

Whining and dining

I've been neglecting my poor blog, haven't I?

It's just that my attention has been elsewhere and, as I mentioned in a comment on my last post, things have been a little out of balance. Nothing life-shattering or dramatic, just a little trying and draining. Witness the fact that I have to go off and do some work today and Monday just as I did on the bank holiday last weekend.

I know that a large amount of people will have to work over all the weekend, and put in far more hours than me; that such is hardly a violation of my human rights or tantamount to being thrown into a pit or a dungeon and made to eat pins while everybody else parties: it's just a little tiring when I feel that I'm denied a certain amount of respite that I could really benefit from, especially in my line of work.

Ho hum.

The other thing is that, since we've had decent weather for most of this month, I've spent as much time as possible (when you factor in the amount of energy I've had available) out on the bike, out into the rural areas. I bumped into some friends yesterday who described me as looking jaded: I said that I think a bike ride is in order, so as to de-jade me.

You know what? It worked.

Soothe sayings.

I've taken advantage of the fine weather this week. Two bike rides in as many evenings, which have been very cathartic and necessary, as well as enjoyable in their own right.

10 minutes and I'm out of the city, a further 15 minutes and it's positively quiet and rural.

Thanks to the warmth remaining well into the evening, I'm aiming to squeeze every last beneficial drop out of the good weather today. Apart from popping back in here to post this, I'm sat on the yard and soaking up the calm and the outside air, watching the sky change from evening hues to dusk, watching the shapes turn to silhouette.

It's very soothing.

I like soothing.

...

Still no words to post at the moment, so I thought I'd post a link to "Come On In My Kitchen" by Robert Johnson, since it always stops me dead in my tracks.

Recommended late night, quiet listening.

Misreading the signs

Denial Floss