November Thoughts

Good day early morning readers. 

Here I'd like to jot down some ideas that I've been thinking about lately or within the last time of writing. First, is it just me or has American society become and/or has always been like a pay-to-play subscription? Hear me out. You have to pay for rent to live in a place if you don't own it, you have to pay for food, you have to pay to go to work if you drive there in your car or even take the bus, you have to pay to go out to bars/clubs if you want easy cheap entertainment, and if you're a homebody you will most likely spend money on streaming services, movies, and/or video game computers and/or systems. So where exactly is America, home of the Brave, right now?

I would say not in good place. Think about everyone you have ever interacted with on a personal level, how are they really doing? Would they be mad to hear that you're doing better than them? In this sort of climate, it's hard to even define what a better life would even be. For me a better life would be playing music in bars, making money off it, and not working a day job. Or perhaps becoming a day writer and somehow writing novels that somehow sell millions of copies. Or even running a small record shop in China or Japan, being the only black guy in a small area. Or, this would ironically be the easiest one, to marry a wealthy girl and still pursue all these other things with her. 

But it seems most people I know or have interacted with on a personal basis are not doing good. Neither am I really. I'm living but I'm not thriving. At this middle age of life, I should be doing a lot more and thriving. Oftentimes, we know what we should be doing but we keep getting distracted in life by various things, people, work, family, and friends that we forget the reasons why we are living and what we should be doing and we're not pursuing our true goals. It's like going to a job, it's good because it provides you money in order to pay rent and buy food but overall, a job isn't going to make you reach your goals faster, in fact, its going to be a hindrance to it. For me, working jobs has slowed down my growth and lowered my ability to be creative and think outside the box. Working, ironically, has become a hindrance to me.

It seems the more people you know now and the more people you knew in the past, the more you know about people, their lives, and their goals, and how and if they go about achieving it. Some people inspire you and you can grow with their help, but only for a little while. Other people are sinking more and more into the abyss, even girls you really like. It's hard to figure out where you stand and everyday is a struggle in order to figure out who you truly are. 

It's hard to figure out if anyone is even real or authentic anymore these days, online especially, but even people you know personally and see day to day, a lot of them are living a lie. I've had a few strange off occurrences that make me truly believe than even some of the people around you who you think are really good people are actually working towards and/or trying to hurt you, defame you, or ruin you behind your back. This is kind of dark but last year I was laid off from my job and when I called the work union about it I told them my situation and they told me that so-and-so, a female manager I worked for six years before this incident, had called them and said something to them about my case, even though she wasn't there, and there's no telling what she might have said, it could've been really negative, thus encouraging them to get rid of me. I only say that because when I asked what she said about me, they said some negative things about it. 

There's a darkside to the soft underbelly of Los Angeles. Like sometimes, people from your past, like past jobs or old friends and acquaintances will want to keep tabs on you but not for good reason. They'll ask you questions about what you're doing, what job you're doing now, and that you should be doing this and that instead, and this and that. And you're just wondering, why does this person want to know all this stuff about me? And it makes you wonder who they're reporting the information to. There's this funny black youtuber I've watched and as he says, "We are trying living in the worst times of history, people showing their horns, its like you're truly alone."

I've seen the darkside of the Los Angeles valley over my entire tenure out here, although technically I'm just visiting from the Midwest. I will probably leave when the time is right. But back to the darkside. I was a part of a small friends group where the leader of the pack, my friend, was sort of going off the rails. He lost his girlfriend, was about to lose his apartment, and pack everything up to leave to go live in a different city, kind of far away. He was doing coke and lsd and weed/beer and just in general very scatterbrained, paranoid, and crazy. I mentioned this to other friends of the group and they told him and he instantly came at me hard and said we can't be friends anymore. This is a guy I was friends with for like ten years. All the guys in the group were friends for at least ten years and when he broke the friendship with me, he must've told them to stop talking to me too, because after that none of them ever responded to my messages and calls, except for one guy in the group. Looking back on it, I think I did a good job warning the other guys that he was on a crazy binge and that they should be weary. If I was a spiritual person, I would say that he was a sort of demon, or possessed. Ironically, I was sort of glad to be rid of him, because being around someone like that isn't fun because they're always only seeing the negativity of life and making you see through their demon-infused lenses. 

I'll leave you with another weary tale. I was at work at this clothing shop gig and this guy called out to me in the storeroom that somebody had taken down the clothes off a manakin [it might've been him]. The guy manakin has like a little junk pouch, so I had to put some pants on it to cover it up. The guy took a picture of the naked manakin and he said, "I'm going to send this to corporate." I said, "Okay," calling his bluff. Then I took some pants and put it on the manakin and he took another picture of me doing that and said "look at this picture, I'll use it to blackmail you," I called his bluff again and just said, "Okay," nonchalantly. Then he proceeded to tell me about how he wanted an item off a manakin and an employee told them they couldn't have it until the manager takes it down at the end of the month. And how he had to go through hoops and make a lot of phone calls to get the clothing off the manakin. Okay, so you get where I'm going with this story. This is a possibly psychotic individual, maybe he's even under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, because usually people don't get to this level of pettiness without being altered by substances. 

Why am I writing about all this? It's mostly a cautionary tale. Not everything is a coincidence. And believe it or not, there are people who are out to get you. I'm not afraid to leave my stoop or anything but I do realize that most of the people in my inner circle that I was actively engaging with and talking to, hanging out with, and meeting with at bars/clubs were in fact bad actors. They might not have been straight up demons [demons are mostly people who don't know you personally] but they had bad intentions, and being around them so often dimmed my light. Not that I'm a saint either, but generally I have a much better more positive attitude than everybody I've ever met. It's nothing special, it's innate. 

Lastly, I guess I write this to say, yeah, we're in dark times. Remain in light. 

Jazz Guitar Trio Improv

This was some jazz guitar trio improv with my friends from earlier tonight. Everything we played was straight ahead jazz except this one piece, this one stood out. It has some more classical and rock influences on my guitar parts. 

https://soundcorset.com/r/YlFIOSV3nZ?fbclid=IwAR2wQfW53rEVL4hwi1DXkCfAdsKyX_MByS1G8fJUTfsyuGouxgUC4aZ9EVg

Featuring Orlando Figueroa on guitar, Jason Tomas on alto saxophone, and Feather Robley on drums.

das Erntedankfest 2022

Hello loyal blogspot readers, 

How are you? It's been a minute. Things have been up, down, topsy, turvy. Here I'd like to jot down some notes on what life has been like this Thanksgiving week. 

First, I've been working nonstop since the summer. I've requested a week off for a vacation week every month since September and I've been denied every time. C'est la vie. On top of that, I only had Tuesday off this week so I'm working hardcore. 

Here's an empathetic experience for you. I was listening to classical music on my last ten minute break tonight and this cute girl I work with came in and talked on her phone for like two minutes, probably with her boyfriend. Then she just sat there and cried. It was super awkward. I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything. But I was listening to a great classical piece without headphones so she heard it, and it seemed to soothe her, especially the last major chord ending the piece. Quite an experience. Did I mention she's cute?

Second, although my job is grueling, it is pretty easy. So although I get mad when I'm there sometimes, in reality, I can't complain too much. Pushing carts in the cold is harder work and I've done that too. I stand there and take cash and throw things in the bag. It helps to have a personality but the job doesn't require you to have any kind of personality whatsoever, so if you don't really want to talk, you can just say the bare minimum. 

Third, this holiday season has been especially rough on the low level employees and the customers. The only way you can really enjoy this holiday season and have a lot of fun is if you're some kind of superman or superwoman. Most people that come to my line have nothing but complaints about this, that, the other, or prices of most things. I could care less. Nobody seems to be happy and you know what, that's not going to change. You know why? Because they simply lack the capacity for happiness. 

Fourth, what is the capacity for happiness? The capacity for happiness is the ability to find happiness within yourself, in and outside of your own makeup and psyche, and being able to see it and fulfill it within others. When you are happy, you are smiling, even if not physically, your spirit will be shining bright, and when others see that, theirs will be too, ad infinitum. 

But again, not to be rude, but most people can never be completely happy because most people simply lack the capacity for happiness. Nobody in the universe, not even God, or Christ Himself, can make you happy. You have to make the leap on your own for your own good. Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. It easier to smoke pot or get drunk or do hard drugs. 

Lastly, I've been talking about this idea for years on this blog. Here's a blog from 2020 even entitled Capacity for Happiness, you can read it here. When everything is going well, it doesn't really matter if your happy or sad or in the middle or whatever. But it's times like these, where the world seems to be falling off the hidden cliffs of the abyss, staring back at you, that's when you need to have practiced and gained the capacity for happiness, training within it and without it, your entire life, ad infinitum.

image ai generated 

Lebensmitteleinzelhandel

Gute Abend, 

Here I thought I'd share a post about what it's been like working the retail grocery store, this far in the game, two years into covid, after working there for nine years. Buckle up, here we go. 

Okay, so let's start with the good. After busting my ass working hard for nine years, on the ninth year I finally got promoted to full-time status as a full-time cashier. I no longer have to push carts, take out trash, do carryouts, or open the gate for the truck driver. My pay went up slightly but it's really not all that and a bag of chips by any means. 

Now for the bad, get ready for chapter and verse. 

For starters, my management has become more aggressive and intense towards me. One of my managers has formed an active dislike for me and yells at me across the front end to shut up, and threatens me that she will talk to my store director unless I actually do shut up. So that's a new one. The other managers let me do my thing most of the time, one of them actually puts me in charge and he goes on about doing his own thing the entire night. 

Second, my overall eight hour work days have become much more intense. We lost a lot of employees. The ones that get hired quit once they see how hard the work is. Not many of the young bagger kids want to be promoted to cashier because they know dealing with the customers is tricky and difficult especially in combination with dealing with the sales managers, front end manager, co-director, and store director. Consequently, I end up doing a lot more work. 

Most of my shift now includes running seven self-checkout machines by myself for eight hours, usually from three-thirty pm to twelve am, five to six days per week. I get two ten minute breaks and one thirty minute break. The machines are glitchy but I've already figured out some ways to speed up the machines manually if things get too busy. When you're helping one person, another person needs help on another machine, then another, ad infinitum, per eight hours. 

So there's the machine I have to deal with, as well as the customers themselves, as well as the money and cash handling. I've done the work piece meal here and there over the years but I was only part-time and wasn't working many hours. In comparison, I used to work about 28-35 hours per week for many years, and now I'm working 42-48 hours a week, sometimes six days a week. I never thought I would become a shopkeeper. The joke is that I've become petite bourgeois. 

Third, more good. I get to meet many new and different people each day. My money addition and subtraction skills are instant. I can read people now. My customer service skills and dealing with the public has improved. My paychecks are larger. My job has stayed the same but the same old has surprisingly become better. I got a snare drum, cymbal, and two guitars from customers. And not only that, but the other day, a neighbor, who's a customer gave me a ride to guitar center.

There's always two sides to the coin. Retail is very intense and unforgiving, but me, being the person I am, surprisingly I've made it work all these years and I've been at the company since 2013. In 2023 it will be ten years and I'll get a small pension out of it. 

Lastly, there's one critical element that we're missing. Can you be happy doing something like this for employment? 

For me, yes you can. Because, using the free time I have between shifts, I've been able to become a better musician [I now can sing, play bass, piano, and drums], and I've even become an intellectual [I've read the western canon, philosophy, history, and learned languages]. 

But it's still a tough job. In fact, the first five years were brutal and I had to do a lot of life learning to get past those first five years. But now, I'm older, tougher, but yet fundamentally still the nice guy with the gift of gab. 

In terms of covid the stores are doing much better but I'm still wearing a mask for personal safety.

Happy holidays!

image ai generated 

FTO Trio

Gute Abend, 

I got my friend Feather, a death metal drummer to come over and play my snare and cymbal drum with brushes for a jam session. And Jason Tomas, a wonderful, amazing saxophone player played with us, with myself on seven-string guitar. This is the results. 

If you like what you hear here, check out my youtube channel, where you can hear Jason and myself do a lot of straight ahead jazz as a saxophone guitar duet. 

Thank for listening and keep on rocking in the free world. 

[recordings listed in order performed, two improvisations and standards include autumn leaves and blue monk, recorded on android phone with soundcorset app, a free application]

https://soundcorset.com/r/loxu0bkA6x?fbclid=IwAR19ncfwUhAPRHhJhzF5JcXgzhBzFiF0j0CostYR8uDkoASJSLle2B7YeXA [fto trio abend blues]

https://soundcorset.com/r/sTe3vZfK4B?fbclid=IwAR0FlAGsRgq6ZpqK8MDu3yD2aMdj-mJUM7BlMB-efe1QWhj6-HW8hZHxJ2E [fto trio autumn leaves]

https://soundcorset.com/r/8ag85zyfBx?fbclid=IwAR2k7I5_Ps5i6WHw4DcySuFgvXDgCzlA3kJbwlIUmKdYABfOApiLd6Yy9NQ [fto trio blue monk]

https://soundcorset.com/r/82j2b4mJRp?fbclid=IwAR1bMo9lp2VPPyMAjuWl29KtbzLb2pVUPfqBF9OUHw7dpAtrdZ0h0GkwqVQ [fto trio schlaf gut]

https://soundcorset.com/r/CFSBQa8QrM?fbclid=IwAR1LB3ilFAtkYma1p81PJrWA5fYhjhv3h0-rU1AaL39uJhu7AdzjhWite7A [Drum Solo No.13]

image ai generated 

Thanksgiving Covid 2.0

Whew! Wow! We made it past Thanksgiving! 

Retail work at the grocery job during Thanksgiving Covid 2.0 was intense. Out of all my years at the company since 2013, this was the hardest Thanksgiving that I've ever worked since I started working retail back in 2009 back home. What made it so different from every other year? Not enough staff, not enough baggers, management constantly mismanaging employee breaks, no social distancing, no limit or cap on number of customers or any of the items they buy. In short, it was a circus show. But that's okay, that's life, that's work. But is it though? Is it something we, as workers have to become accustomed to? 

Covid has unquestionably made an eternal impact upon the world of retail grocery. It cannot go back to the way it was before-albeit still poorly mismanaged by upper and lower management, but Covid has unveiled something much more menacing-the dark heart of human nature in the workplace. I can always take time to look at what's truly there but hidden, the dark side of human nature.  

As bad as Covid in the workplace has been for us at my store, what has arguably become much worse is the attitude and mentality of customers, and lower and upper management. I've increasingly seen over these some ten years that they are the ones hurting the employees the most. 

Now that Covid has been raging for two years, the customers at my store have become more unruly than ever. This might be the height of American retail ignorance, the worst I've ever seen. They aren't willing to listen or take other considerations, instead their go to is to become aggressive and/or start yelling like a child when they don't get what they want. 

On the opposite spectrum lower and upper management have become so cold to employees to the point where it's become obvious that they don't give a shit about what's going on, what's really going on behind the scenes. They aren't ignorant, rather they're negligent, unforgiving, and just generally don't care. 

I work for the Local Union 770 and I can tell you this much, our union doesn't do much to help the morale of the average UFCW worker. These employees are left to fend for themselves, fighting for scraps of whatever little hours they can get per week. The sad irony is that in the past these jobs used to count for something because they were reliable and were supported by a much stronger more influential union. What we have today is a shell of that stable job and strong influential union. However, I must admit that I'm pro labor union and pro employees despite what may be written here. 

Going back to this Thanksgiving week. This has been one of the most brutal holiday work experiences in my lifetime. During the first year of Covid it wasn't this bad. Which goes to our original question, how did things deteriorate to this level? The easy quick answer is antipathy, utter lack of care from management, which begs the question, will work become a lesser entity within our lives as Covid progresses through its many stages and mutations? Will work not even matter at some point? Will money become a much more valuable commodity because less people will be working and/or quit working these types of jobs? In the end if everybody stops caring about work, will the quality of work and jobs in the different fields naturally deteriorate to a low base level? 

The value of work and labor is up for grabs. When you see the working conditions at my store you will very easily be able to understand why most of the staff have quit, why they can't get people to stay at the store and continue to work for very long, in essence why they can't pay someone enough to even care about anything that goes on there. They can't pay them enough to even care. 

Which makes it very easy to see why record numbers of Americans quit their jobs in October. In addition, even office workers are getting fed up because under Covid conditions they're expected to be on the clock 24/7, even installing apps on their phones so that their upper management can keep tabs on them and force them to keep undergoing training modules. 

Is this the future of labor in America? If so, America has ultimately failed its citizens and my entire generation. It's no wonder that Americans have become fools, getting wasted on alcohol, drugs, wild parties, hazing, fast cars and fast women, growing fat off the bourgeois comforts of America, not caring about their jobs or quality of work, only to realize that the abyss is staring at them in the morning as they head off to work or clock in at home. 

Live Music Session 11/11/21!

https://www.facebook.com/orlando.figueroa.3150/videos/1062070257878268

This was recorded on November 11, 2021, on my phone. Featuring myself, Orlando Figueroa on guitar and Jason Tomas on alto saxophone. 

We've been practicing together for about a year during the pandemic. We've done a few open mics but mostly we jam and record everything like a jam band. We play standards but also just do jams based on jazz chord changes in a straight ahead context. 

When performing today, I was thinking a lot about filling up the space with lots of strums, and give Jason complete melodic control with his horn. Like a drums/singer sort of combination. 

During a lot of this session I was thinking about playing in terms of a modal sort of style. The straight ahead jazz sound signature. 

I used my Jackson Dinky 6-string with a floyd rose whammy. The tone selector allows a plethora of sound options from thick full bodied tone sound, more typical of a jazz box sound, as well as allowing the other option for more clean bright chord sounds, typical of blues, funk, and rnb. Although I initially bought the guitar to be a heavy rock and roll machine, it's also come to be one of my best guitars for jazz improvisation. 

Gracias por escuchar! 

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Virus pt. 10

It's 2021/11/9 evening. Covid is still running strong after nearly a year and a half of divisive health guidelines from doctors and politicians, and misinformed idiot citizens who don't want to be vaccinated. Our government is run by two parties, one of which denies climate change and has rallied the Trump demagogue to vote Republican, no mask, no vaccines. Jobs are hard to come by, good pay and benefits have gone up in an era where its a struggle to get people back on track on a working career in their respective fields. Climate change and global warning is a hot boiling point issue but the worlds powers can't seem to get it together. A billionaire nerd plays with the idea of ending world hunger. 

Is this what I thought being an adult would be like when I grew up? Is this some sort dystopian fiction novel? No, but indeed there are some similarities. Here I want to get into more of the nitty gritty on life during the pandemic, working in a grocery store, and how I've been dealing with the pandemic on those terms. 

Life during the pandemic has been an easy transition for me. I wake up early in the morning, I go to work, I come home, I have recreation time for reading, guitar, and friends, and I rinse and repeat. It's quite the good life, as I pretty much get to do whatever I want, provided I make sure to get to work on time in the mornings. Evenings are always free to do whatever. 

Work has been more intense than home life. Working on the job has its stress but the added traffic of extra customers since the pandemic has given most of the staff more than they can handle. We have limited employees at any one given time and on top of that, there's high turnover, and it's been difficult to get new hires to stay and/or keep hiring more new employees. It really is a conundrum getting people, anyone, to work these grocery store retail jobs these days. The peoples who usually stay are young people who live with their parents, young people who go to college, and middle aged people who have been in retail their whole lives. In short, we don't have enough help and can't keep the help we do get.  

My personal role at the store has become more streamlined and my job itself has become a lot easier. So in that sense I can't really complain too much.

How have I been dealing with the pandemic? I read a lot of books, I listen to a lot of music, I play a lot of guitar, writing more blogs now and then, and I text and hangout with friends occasionally. To be honest, it's an amazing life and I'm really lucky I get to do these great things I love to do. My job surprisingly gives me a lot of freedom in my recreation hours to truly become inspired, come alive, and be myself. That won't happen in the world or retail. You have to make the time to build and develop an interior life outside of the working hours on the job.

Weather it's through my guitar playing, reading, or writing, I can truly say that I'm never really bored. There's always something new to learn, something new to explore, new avenues to travel along. This gift of curiosity has led me to learn jazz guitar, listen to the classical music canon, and read the western canon.  

In a time when people are really struggling I'm thriving, for now, praise be to God. When I look back at this time in the future, I can say that I had a great life during covid. Amen! 

Also check out my covid plague journal! http://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

Jazz jam session 11/4/21!

https://www.facebook.com/orlando.figueroa.3150/videos/474208377194713

Here's footage from my jam session today. Featuring Jason Thomas on alto saxophone and Orlando Figueroa on guitar. 

Jason and I have been jamming for about a year now. At the moment we've been playing on my balcony and attracting all the neighborhood with our duo instrumental straight ahead jazz sessions. We play once a week for an hour but its been consistent enough for us to develop together musically. 

My jazz guitar style has improved a lot, and I've learned a lot about chord voicings, taking solos, and how to tell a story with a solo. 

In addition, another aspect of the music that I've been adding is the nature of the feelings of the moment. The time of day is a factor, my mood or attitude is a factor, Jason and his feelings are another, these sorts of variables that have been added to the music is something I've learned from other kinds of improvisational music, like world music, especially Indian ragas. 

At this point in the pandemic things have become much more strict. At Starbucks today, I had to show my vaccination card to sit down and dine in. I've decided to quit playing video games and spend my time focused on guitar, reading, and writing. 

Gracias por eschuchar. Bonne Nuit.

Holiday Season Covid Edition

The holidays are upon us! Welcome to the holiday season covid edition.

Here's a little what's up on what's been going on in my life. 

I'm still working but very few hours per week. Due to covid my job has given out the least amount of hours within my tenure at the company. I'm still working and getting a steady paycheck but it ain't what it used to be, especially during the early holidays every other year. Consequently, I've tightened my belt and my wallet. All the extra free time from work has left me open to a lot of other activities.  

I started playing the piano hardcore. I've been practicing for two weeks straight and I've only taken off two days of practice so far. Dedication! 

In addition, I started learning Espanol [Spanish], yo hablo Espanol paquito mas todos los dias. The internet said I wouldn't be able to understand Spanish fluently for 8 months, but after two weeks straight I've already been able to understand the basics between coworkers at work. 

This holiday season will be like no other. There will be no large gatherings, no grand parties, no big meals with the family and extended family. This is a holiday season where we must bundle up inside our homes, quarantine, wear masks wherever we go outside, and stay respectful of others by practicing social distancing, especially for the elderly and susceptible. 

In short, this is a holiday season where we have to put our consumer spending habits in the backline, and put humanity, love, life, and the pursuit of happiness in the forefront. 

My job has become a ghost town. The market has never been so empty in my entire retail career. Tonight I spent most of the night reading a Spanish grammar book and toying around with Google Translate, because there was no customers, [hardly any], and there wasn't much to do. It was nice, but I'm seeing that because of covid, people have less money to spend on groceries, causing them to shop less at the market. Some of them are so broke that they can't even go to the market and buy food, and instead, they go to free food banks. Let that sink in. 

I get to live the happiest life of a bachelor. I get to read great books like Ovid's Metamorphosis and look at the artwork of Howard Pyle in his Arthurian Legends book. But for many hard-working, working class Americans, the struggle has never been harder during this pandemic and this quarantine. 

Instead of buying your kid a Playstation 5 this holiday season [or if you have the money to spare, go ahead and do it anyways], think of the working class people that are struggling right now. Donate to a food bank. Donate clothes to Goodwill or a shelter. When you order take out, tip well. When you take a Lyft ride, tip well. When you go to the market, be kind and courteous to the employees and the cashier. Tip your bagger if they help you out to your car. When you talk to your acquaintances, family, friends, and coworkers, don't quibble about everything, instead, just relax and see the good in everything around you. Relax your mind and let it float upstream.

Let peace and love flow through you and all your loved ones this holiday season. 

Peace and Love

Ruminate on that

A day in November

Keeping up to date with this vlog style posts I thought I'd write another update lifestyle piece. Life has been kind of grueling lately. I haven't had quite as much time for myself, friends, or music. This has left me with a lack of self-expression. What I have been getting in time for is my intellectual pursuits, reading, although my writing has slowed down quite a bit. 

I usually write a lot of book reviews but lately, I haven't had time to do them. So instead I've been doing these vlog pieces. My life isn't very interesting but I find solace in writing about it here. I have been able to find time for a lot of reading. In fact, I've been on a reading spree for the last couple of years, very intensely. 

I just finished reading The Outsider by Colin Wilson, the 1960s view into the outsider in literature, art, music, philosophy, in modern society as well. The book gave me a lot of insight into selfhood, and my own feelings, which are definitely outsider friendly. I feel like an outsider myself in most social situations, a painted bird if you will, but that's a tale for another post. 

Work has sort of been taking over. The more you work the more you can see why the ideas of the outsider are so important. "Escape from the weight of your corporate logo," as Frank Zappa said. The money is good but will it save my soul? Of course not. That's why reading, writing, music, and friendships are so important to me. The more I work ceaselessly, the more I crave to enter into selfhood, into self-reflection, and meditation. To escape into the self.  

This time of year I get these sorts of flashbacks from the Midwest. From my past. Most of it isn't very pleasant but the coldness is something that I enjoy. The cold weather, not the cold feelings that occasionally arise. The cold air in the valley, the brisk, hard winds, remind me of Chicago and Wauwatosa, a simpler time. When I think about the past I don't know what to make of it. I just can't seem to forget it. Perhaps a bit of melancholia? The neverending work doesn't help. It brings it out more.

I plan on spending more time on creative endeavors to get out of this funk. More guitar playing, keyboard playing, reading, writing, music listening. Hell, I might even play video games again or something just to do something different. I finished a novel about my life not too long ago. It took me over a year to write. And I do plan on writing a second novel as well. I plan on actually having an outline and mapping out this second fiction novel, unlike how I wrote the first one, a nonfiction story about my life, a memoir. I haven't done anything with it because I wasn't quite happy with it, and am unsure if it would ever be ready for the real world, let alone my friends or peers.

"There must be some kind of way out of here, said the Joker to the Thief."