I’m sorry for not updating this thing. What I thought would be the start of a prolific creative period has been almost the exact opposite, and I haven’t had much to say otherwise.
The move went well enough, although the first week was a test of my will to even want to survive. Couching for a couple of days wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was having my shit arrive an hour after I had to be at work, even though I told my mom to turn around and just bring it another day. The bad part was coming home from a long closing shift to a room so crowded with unpacked stuff that it took me almost three hours to get my bed set up so I could go to sleep. The awful part was coming back to Columbia and realizing that most of my friends moved away while I was gone, and I hardly recognize this place anymore. I’ve said before that I’m sure that there’s nowhere I want to be, and that my choice of residence is based entirely on proximity to people and projects. That’s been completely re-enforced. Some friends have places they love and feel tied to. I wish that was the case for me.
But things are looking up. My room mates are wonderful. The Nonreturner mechanations are starting to whir back to life with micro-practices while we wait for Logan to come back to us. If all goes according to plan, we will be releasing a second album this winter, and maybe this time it won’t inspire a collective “sigh whatever” from the fickle, disinterested locals. At least some people in Berlin like us, I guess. Maybe I’ll move there someday. I always did talk about wanting to study in das Vaterland.
I wish that I had a camera so that I could have taken before/after pictures from my total Martha Stewart style home makeover. It’s a topic often brought up by people who haven’t seen the place since I moved in, and I’m really proud of myself. I’m nothing if not anal retentive and overly sensitive to clutter/disorganization/displeasing room aesthetics, and after all of that, this house feels like a home to me at least for a little while.
May is the most insane month at my job, from what I hear, and then things slow down quite a bit until the fall. I hope all of this is true and that after Memorial Day I don’t feel like I’ve had the life force siphoned out of me. Then maybe I’ll get some songwriting done, and finish those other albums, and finish the books I’m 3/4ths of the way through and stalling on, and and and… yeah um right whatever.
Please Don’t Kill Me,
-Zach
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“The awful part was coming back to Columbia and realizing that most of my friends moved away while I was gone, and I hardly recognize this place anymore. I’ve said before that I’m sure that there’s nowhere I want to be, and that my choice of residence is based entirely on proximity to people and projects.”
I just typed a bunch of Grass is Greener shit and deleted it, but I know that doesn’t help much at all. Just realize that if you have even one friend, things could be much, much worse. Having at least one friend puts you in a position to meet their friends, and even if you hate 95% of those new people at least you’ll probably meet at least a person or two you enjoy. Starting from zero (and staying at zero) is really, really fucking hard.
But yeah, I know that little paragraphs like that don’t help very much.
I know you’re right about things not being as bad as they could be, and honestly I’ve met a handful of really cool people even having just lived here for a little under two months (which is especially nice since I was here all the time for shows before that, and met a few really awesome people even then… they aren’t in that short a supply, but I guess it’s typical to miss ones really close old friends). Part of the problem might be that I used to think this place was a lot cooler than it really ever was in the first place, or maybe it turned into something less cool when I wasn’t paying attention.
I’m happy to be anywhere that isn’t Farmington, and I didn’t mean to come off sounding so ungrateful for the admittedly pretty good situation I’m in now.