Below are the most recent 12 friends' journal entries.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009
amw	7:30p	into the blue T posted a picture the other day of sunset over the ocean, and it reminded me of a thought i once had about the west coast - how i always felt it more romantic to watch the sun set over the ocean than to watch it rise. That odd little fragment of a memory lit me up with a smile, i love when whims flit back from the blue. I didn't see a sunset tonight - it's overcast and we are finally getting dusted with snow that's sticking. We may wake up to a white Christmas yet. Sunsets here are wholly different again to the west coast of the US or the east coast of Australia. It's very flat around Toronto; there's such a big sky. At twilight it turns coral then cinnamon, scratched by jet contrails and wispy clouds. Driving on the freeway sometimes i can think the city away and imagine riding across the plains, before the land was settled. It's odd, being so far from the ocean. This is the furthest inland i've ever lived. I never particularly cared for the sea - even when i lived close i'd rarely visit - but somehow in the sky i can feel a difference. It seems cleaner; more calm and less wild. Perhaps that's good for my soul right now. I still have the lake - vast and blue. Now, just after the solstice, the sun must be setting over it to the south... i will wrap myself in a bundle and go watch one evening. There is a spot where my mind can breathe. Tonight i am home with J and we will eat Chinese and watch Die Hard. Tomorrow we will make latkes and schnitzel for her and serve dates and prosciutto and mandarins and brie for me. Hopefully Santa will bring me chocolate in my stocking. If i get to make a snowman i will squee. But mostly i just want peace for Christmas, a break from the chatter, to have my mind rest and my heart glow. It's been so long. Current Mood: listless (Comment on this)
amw	12:29a	open frito-lay! It really chaps my ass when friends comment on my Facebook or reply to my monthly update emails saying how we totally need to get together for drinks again, completely ignoring everything else in my life. It makes it even worse when they talk about how night such-and-such was one of their best nights ever and they really miss partying with me. Knowing that trashy me could be sociable, entertaining and entirely hilarious kinda pisses sober me off, because i know i have so much more to offer now. I'm as much a dork as ever, i can still be charming and funny, but i also have passions and goals and stories and it frustrates me that a lot of my friends don't seem interested. I know the people i've made the effort to stay in touch with aren't the shallow ones, so it scares me when their fondest memories of me are when i was fucked up and that that's the only way they can connect now. That's what happened with M and i after we broke up too, and it's like... wtf. Did anyone ever really know me? Current Mood: bitchy Current Music: MC Solaar - Nouveau Western (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 21st, 2009
amw	12:57a	writing now to remind me later I like to play my keyboard but i never record any of it. Going to drumming classes this year has improved my "finger rhythm" a lot and it's actually pretty fun to bash out melodies now. There are all these little riffs in me that could turn into songs if i just recorded them and built on them. I used to get scared that if i didn't record my noodlings i'd lose them, like there was a finite number of tunes in my head, so i tried to notate everything. As i got older i learned music goes on forever, you can use the same patches, the same keys, the same chord progressions, but something is always going to make each song unique... I think that knowledge made me lazy. Now i jam and jam and never play with direction. As usual i have too many concepts in my head and i don't want to settle on just one thing, but if i never settle then nothing will ever finish and every time i pick up an instrument i'll swirl and rush and put it down unsatisfied. I think what made my drum performance so cathartic was actually focusing on this single piece. I should bring that into my other music. Current Mood: energetic Current Music: CeCe Peniston - Finally (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
jsbowden	12:52p	To borrow from Aaron B: The Snowpocalypse is upon us: This video is a couple hours old now, and the snow is still coming down ridiculously heavy. Current Mood: ecstatic Current Music: The Hiss of Falling Snow (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 18th, 2009
amw	4:36p	Why is it still so hard to keep my shit together when my brain is frantic and screaming non-stop and i have to look after a sick partner and a million other things? (Comment on this)
jsbowden	3:20p	Um... The snow that's not supposed to get here till midnight? Twenty miles south. The latest NWS forecast is calling for 14 - 21 inches by the time it stops early Sunday morning. I just don't believe it's going to take nine hours to move from Potomac Mills to here. Current Mood: thoughtful Current Music: 10,000 Maniacs - Like The Weather (4 Comments |Comment on this)
jsbowden	7:26a	Every time the NWS updates the Winter Storm Warning for our area, they increase the expected amount of snowfall. We've gone from an upper bound of five inches accumulation to an upper bound ten inches in the last twelve hours. Bread, milk, eggs. Make sure you actually have some, because you KNOW the grocery store shelves will be denuded of them by nightfall. Current Mood: amused Current Music: The Wallflowers - Three Marlenas (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
amw	1:56p	random babbling I just got a text message from DJ Pierre and got thoroughly excited for all of 5 seconds. Then i realized all my Facebook and MySpace messages get texted to me and he was just spamming his new single to all his fans. I was curious because back in the darker days of the internet i got an unsolicited email from him due to my site coming up high in AltaVista searches for acid house. He and Bob Moog remain probably the only two semi-famous people i've exchanged email with. I'm not much of a groupie and actually feel kind of awkward when i'm put in that situation. I'm not sure if i mentioned that when i saw Miles Maeda in 2007 the promoter grabbed me at the beginning of the party and dragged me over to say hi and i said some stupid shit like "i have this online friend who always talks about how good your mixtapes are and deerrrr"... I think i still have severe social phobia issues when i'm forced into interactions i'm not prepared for. I've been very patiently waiting for a job before i go clubbing in Toronto because with cover charge, water and taxis i could be looking at $50. I never used to care about a $50 or even a $100 night, but now that's a quarter or half a term of school blown in one night. I miss dancing so, so, so much, but i've had enough other things going on it didn't seem too bad - or not until i got the text message that Ron Trent was coming to town. I'm not much of a DJ nut, but he is definitely on my top 10 list and i would love to make that my first night out here. Unfortunately he's coming worst night of the year - New Year's Eve. I hate New Year's Eve. Hate it so much it actually makes me mad just to think about. Everything is busy, everything is expensive, and every suburban tool decides to go places they never go and take substances they never take and fuck everything that's good about clubbing in the process. Going out is always shit. But when i haven't gone out, way too often i have stayed home and gotten trashed in ways that start entirely entertaining and end pitifully depressing. This year i'll be happy to hide from the bitter cold outside and just watch the ball drop in sobriety. J originally wanted to take me out to some straightedge top 40 party hits gig, but that would've made me physically ill. Sometimes i wonder how i ended up with someone whose taste in music and idea of a good night out is so far from my own. Music and dancing are two of the most important things in my life but J and i always end up struggling to find a middle ground. We usually settle on some generic pop, and she can totally keep her pub scene and karaoke and local bands. Oddly the exact same thing used to happen with M too, even though we met in the rave scene. It's become a bit of a running joke with J and i that we are destined to never go to each other's gigs. I don't mind having my own thing, actually. I'm not exactly the most sociable person when i'm clubbing anyway because i just stay on the dancefloor and only leave to refill my water bottle. It's a wonder i ever met anyone when i was out. So, no Ron Trent for now. No Osunlade either. This weekend instead of going to Derrick Carter on Friday or Miss Honey Dijon on Saturday, i will go to J's uncles' Christmas/Hanukkah party. How do i contain my excitement? And just two days later we will get to prepare another huge ass kosher dinner with her mother and sister. Color me merry. It's almost enough to make me want to start drinking again. You see, this is why they say holidays are the peak time of year for suicides, relapses, violent crime... Or in my case perhaps just anxiety attacks. And dreams. Wait, that happens all year round. Whatever. I have work to do. Current Mood: silly Current Music: Nomumbah - Ela (Yoruba Soul Mix) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
jsbowden	10:36p	Things y'all should know... I have a very happy boy right now. He's really looking forward to playing again next week. Assuming you'll let him. He did pretty much own us all. Current Mood: amused Current Music: How The Earth Was Made (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
nightyv	11:57p	That was interesting So last night I danced with the ModRom Dance Collective at Cafe Bellie it was nifty. However, earlier in the day I think I quite nearly gave myself a heart attack. Before getting in the shower I'd decided I should probably go ahead and iron my skirt since it had been packed in my suitcase since the last time we danced. I got everything all set up and smoothed my pretty burgundy skirt over the ironing board , which by the way happened to be a tabletop ironing board that I had on the floor, so yeah there I am kneeling on the floor all la la la and I put the iron to the skirt and hear a sizzle while watching a GIANT HOLE be burned into my skirt! Ok, maybe it wasn't giant but it was about the size of the bottom of a coke can, quite big enough thank you. This was then followed by a lot of panicking and the making of LOTS of phone calls trying to find someone not dancing that night but who might be going to borrow a skirt from. And there was the clincher, that right there was what had me breaking down in great big sobs. Yeah, it seems that phobia about making phone calls was still in full effect. Jeebus In the long run I found a way to fix it so it wasn't visible and I had a lovely night and all that. It was all rather harrowing for my little psyche though I must say. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
amw	4:27p	boy oh boy Nerd that i am i decided to go back and tag a bunch of old memes. As i flicked quickly back to 2005 i realize what must have been going through my head in 2002 when i deleted a year's worth of journal entries. What a fucking horrible trainwreck. It's embarrassing. God, i hope i don't flick past 2009 in a few years and just shake my head in dismay. What scares me is that at the time i thought every fucked up stupid thing i did was something incredibly liberating and important i had to do for my personal development, when really all i was doing was pissing away several years achieving nothing at all. This year too, i have been focusing on me, being "selfish", so how do i know it's not going to be more wasted time? I have to come out of this break on a path that's leading somewhere i feel good about. If i don't then all my navel-gazing will end up no more productive than an orgy of escapism. J is pushing me to do the "smart" thing, to go back to IT, to get a job where i can earn a ton of money and maybe down the track study something different... I know i can live a really comfortable life that way, but there will always be something missing. There's something missing now. Friday night for the first time in years someone referred to me as an artist and i can't even put into words how good that felt. I haven't created shit in i don't know how long, but for out-of-the-blue someone i barely know to intuitively see that in me... It brought back a lot of hopes and dreams i buried so long ago, and it brought back a tiny bit of that emotional and spiritual support i so carelessly tossed away in 2005. I need to rebuild my life, take a hold of it and make it mine again. I need to reopen that part of me because it is crying behind glass right now. My pragmatic side keeps saying i don't want to be a starving artist, i don't want to fuck up my chances of moving to America, i don't want that lifestyle, whatever. Sometimes i forget there are voices that have to sing. Oh wait, am i sounding manic? Never mind. See, that's the curse. Current Mood: determined (2 Comments |Comment on this)
amw	2:34p	annual meme time 2009 Meme, stolen from jer_s and scatterbeetle. 1. Was 2009 a good year for you? Yes. 2. What were your favorite moments of the year? Seeing dad again, leaving Australia, my drum performances, walking through the streets surrounded by Christmas lights. 3. What was your least favorite moment of the year? Getting our wedding photo proofs, the post-wedding shower thing, most of the other big family events i had to go to. 4. Where were you when 2009 began? A park in Melbourne. 5. Who were you with? J and a bunch of her friends. 6. Where will you be when 2009 ends? If i want to brave the crowds then at Ron Trent, otherwise home. 7. Who will you be with when 2009 ends? A bunch of random ravers or J. 8. Did you keep your new year's resolution of 2009? I don't think i had any. 9. Do you have a new year's resolution for 2010? I want to stay out of IT so badly. 10. Did you fall in love in 2009? Not with anyone new. 11. If yes, with who? N/A 12. If yes, do they know? N/A 14. You regret it? N/A 16. Did you make any new friends in 2009? I'm getting there. 17. Who are your favorite new friends? They're hatching. 18. What was your favorite month of 2009? This month has been pretty good so far. 19. Did you travel outside of your country of residence in 2009? Yeah, to the US. 20. How many different states/provinces did you travel to in 2009? Victoria, New South Wales, California (briefly), Ontario and New York. 21. Did you lose anybody close to you in 2009? Yes, both grandfathers. 22. Did you miss anybody in the past year? Very much. 23. What was your favorite movie that you saw in 2009? Drag Me To Hell was pretty awesome. I also liked Sin Nombre, Adventureland, Brüno and The Hurt Locker. There are a bunch i missed that i still want to see too. 24. What was your favorite song from 2009? These are from 2008, but what come to mind are Kid Cudi - Day 'n' Nite and Empire Of The Sun - We Are The People. 25. What was your favorite record from 2009? I haven't been able to afford any new music this year so who knows, though i'm curious about the latest albums by Owl City, Kid Cudi and Don Omar. 26. How many concerts did you see in 2009? None, unless you count Frankie Knuckles or the free gig at city hall last night. 27. Did you have a favorite concert in 2009? Frankie Knuckles, if we're including club nights. 28. Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2009? No. 29. Did you do a lot of drugs in 2009? None. 30. How many people did you sleep with in 2009? One. 31. Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year? No. 33. What was the worst lie someone told you in 2009? I hope no one did. 34. Did you treat somebody badly in 2009? I hope not. 35. Did somebody treat you badly in 2009? Not really. 36. How much money did you spend in 2009? I could probably tell you this down to the last dollar considering all i spent was what i had in savings. Much less than the last 5 years, that's for sure. 37. What was your proudest moment of 2009? Performing on stage with my drum class. 38. What was your most embarrassing moment of 2009? Eh, there's always plenty. Any time i open my mouth and don't think. 39. If you could go back in time to any moment of 2009 and change something, what would it be? I would've gotten a real wedding photographer. 40. What are your plans for 2010? I don't know. Be happy. Whatever. 41. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Visited new places, experienced new traditions, pushed my physical limits, a ton of stuff. 42. Did someone close to you give birth? No. 43. Did anyone close to you die? See #21. 44. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? A bit more money and better contact with friends. 45. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 3 because it's also etched in my ring so i don't forget :-) 46. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing serious, but all the usual annoying colds and bumps/sprains. 47. What was the best thing you bought? My dumbek. 48. Whose behavior merited celebration? "Celebration", really? No one. 49. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? J's family, though appalled might be putting it a bit too strong. 50. Where did most of your money go? Rent and food and lawyer. 51. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Leaving Australia, going on stage. 52. Compared to this time last year, are you i. happier or sadder? Happier. ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner. iii. richer or poorer? Poorer. 53. What do you wish you’d done more of? I wish i'd spent this time to make more art, though perhaps i needed the downtime before i could get there. 54. What do you wish you’d done less of? Family events and more specifically having anxiety attacks about them. 55. How will you be spending Christmas? At home with J, Charlie Brown, Michael Bublé and yummy food. 56. How many one-night stands? None. 57. What was your favorite TV program? Ugly Betty is still my favorite, though i've enjoyed a lot of stuff this year. Community, Modern Family, Bored To Death, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Stargate Universe... 58. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I don't hate anyone. 59. What was the best book you read? That's another thing i wish i'd done more of - read. I'm enjoying Paul Theroux's latest travel book. 60. What was your greatest musical discovery? That not all 00s synthpop is boring and derivative. 61. What did you want and get? Time off work to think and grow. 62. What did you want and not get? There's still time. 63. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I think J and i had dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant-slash-tiki bar. 29. 64. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? More money would have been nice, though hardly immeasurably more so. 65. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? Jeans. Tank top. Hoodie. Adidas. 66. What kept you sane? My shrink. Drumming. Boxing. 67. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Salma Hayek, though i don't think she appeared in anything i watched this year. 68. What political issue stirred you the most? Gay marriage getting defeated in Maine and New York. Fingers crossed for New Jersey and DC. 69. Who do you miss? People who aren't here. 70. Who was the best new person you met? My coach. 71. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009: You have to accept that some currents you can't fight so just breathe and let them carry you where they will. 72. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: Towns that i've passed through / I've got to have a memory / Or i have never been there Current Mood: okay Current Music: Rockets vs Raptors (Comment on this)