It is 11:14 AM. I am at a doctor’s appointment for an ingrown toenail; I know this is gross information, but it’s true. I’m trying to get in all my important doctor’s appointments before my insurance potentially expires due to me (probably) leaving my current job in August. I used to be a housekeeper at this clinic, and it smells like it always did - a very nice clean smell. I have a lot of fond memories of cleaning this entire clinic, listening to LibriVox recordings of old Russian Novels (all the Russian classics). That’s the only thing I used to do was work and listen to Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, etc. Anyway, I work in a different building nowadays but it’s nice to stop by every now and then. Doctors’ offices make me nervous as can be.

On Monday, nothing much of note happened. I listened to the songs I recorded with Erik the other day. One of these songs is called “R06.83 - Love in the Time of Learned Helplessness.” This song is about me and K’s breakup, which I won’t delve too much into but at the time of me and her’s breakup I was just getting into the ideas about self-improvement and the fact that most good advice has already been said and I found phrases like “nothing gets better,” to be extremely distressing. Now these ideas of “nothing gets better,” and other extremely negative ideas are developed through learned helplessness itself, and extreme psychic Pain and I won’t be expounding a lot on what the song is about in regards to me and K’s first relationship, as I say it in the song. But what I’ve come to think about on why that song is in the new album which is mostly about death and sad things is because I’m starting to think that some breakups are a sort of death. A better, less dramatic word would be cessation - but breakups are a termination of social interaction where you essentially tell a person, “I want to stop talking to you and/or I want to stop talking to you in this specific way.” And whilst me and K did a lot of changing (her change/mental growth being a lot more significant and positive than my stubborn cynicism) over that year me and her weren’t together. I think subconsciously I wanted to be with her again and it only came out on the day me and her started speaking again (See Blog #2) that K is someone that I want to talk to and I believe in and that as I have come to learn in these past few months, love. Anyway, that’s what I thought about while driving to work. I also thought about Michael Haneke’s film, Amour, which is fitting.

On Tuesday, I got a phone call from someone at work named Tyler from a medical supply company (also known as DME (Durable Medical Equipment) retailers) asking about parts we didn’t have. The guy was nice and had a southern accent. He sounded like my friend Tyler, and I thought it was Tyler until I remembered that Tyler overdosed 3 years ago. It was a rough feeling remembering that. I remember my friend Tyler going on a family vacation, and I remember we shared a room and I remember him snoring while I was watching Rick and Morty for the first time in 2017. I hope he is doing well wherever he may be.

I also saw K on Tuesday, and me and her had a nice date where we went to Hobby Lobby and Michael’s Craft Supply and it was a great time. Me and her got some Qdoba and it was very good and I went home at about 8:30PM.

On Wednesday, I worked and I had a little adventure in the world. I went to Kroger’s for my antidepressants and then I got some flowers for my mom since it was her birthday. I bought this collection from the Sweet Pickles Bus card activity series from the 1980s for my mom. She was very happy and thought it was very sweet. From here I worked on a new Doorspring guitar that looks pretty cool.

On Thursday, my mom went to Mount Airy - which is the filming location of the fictional town in the Andy Griffith Show. I watched my dog Tazia and I played Minecraft and continued to work on my guitar. I began watching Blue Velvet before passing out at around 9PM, I fell asleep to some Davis Morgan videos.

Friday was the 17th, which was the debut of the Deaththreads Full Band with Dave and Caleb. I had been waiting for this day for a long time. I worked until noon on Friday and I went to Qdoba, which came to haunt me later. I came home around 12:45 AM and hung around the house until 3:40 PM when I left to pick Caleb up. Me and him (Caleb) talked about The Boys and Invincible and we headed to Silverdale. Once at Silverdale, Dave was already there so we all set up and had a really good practice. After practice, I picked K up and she was a little nervous – she had a rough week. Me and her got to the Studio and a bunch of us Silverdale folks (Specifically my buddy Will) talked about movies and it was a lot of fun. At some point I began a conversation with my buddy River, who is a 16–18-year-old feller who is really into photography and creepypastas. He’s one of those kids (like my buddy Sam) who can have a conversation with anyone and find something to enjoy in anything. But I told him about listening to Creepypastas and what it was like to listen to Borrasca when it first came out and all that different stuff which he found very interesting. It was shortly after me and Rivers’ conversation had concluded that Erik Woods began to play.

Erik’s set was very good and I really enjoyed it, although I was rather consumed by my own thoughts and nerves, but the set was very good and Erik’s vocal timbre (which reminds me of my own low, tenor timbre while singing hymns at church (which seems very fitting considering Erik’s music’s lyrics’ themes.).) and his guitar sounded very well. Erik owns this cool looking acoustic guitar that fits him very well. Erik ended his set with “I Study,” which is a very beautiful song that I think resonated with the younger audience that Silverdale had on Friday. I believe the younger audience was because of interest from Emo Nite and the All-Ages mention on this show’s flyer and Caleb/New Jade’s popularity.

After Erik’s set, Dave, Caleb, and I set up for our set. We began our set and we played Fear and Loathing in Chili’s and Dead Bart. It went very well and I did pretty alright at stage banter. Our set went pretty well and Hiermonyous Bosch alongside Mike and Molly were our highlights. I think towards the end, specifically with my overly sentimental and poorly articulated speech about Dave and Caleb being great fellers lost some audience attention, but this was okay. We all played “I Fought The Law” and then “Bea Aboo,” which went very well. At the end of Bea Aboo, I played a door spring guitar and throw it in the air and then smashed the guitar on stage and then threw up my Qdoba outside. As I was puking outside, my buddy Sam said goodbye, which I thought was funny.

After my set, I watched Seth Aker’s play which was very good. His entire set was fully realized and I really enjoyed it. I’m excited to hear his full album. After the show, we all hung out briefly and I talked about The Dirties, which is my favorite movie. Dave said he wanted to watch that movie once we got the new album released. Matt Johnson is a great director and I enjoy his work. I left the show around 10 PM and dropped K off who was going on vacation the following morning.

I arrived home around 11 PM and I stayed up and finished Blue Velvet and relaxed until 1 AM, where I fell asleep to some of Slimebeast’s videos.

On Saturday, I relaxed and read. I have become interested in syntax and its’ relation to my songwriting, and I’ve ordered a ton of syntax books from ThriftBooks.com. One of these books was The Deluxe Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon, which I finished on Saturday. I started one of Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s other book, “The New Well Tempered Sentence,” which is solely focused on punctation. I also received another book called “Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style” by Virginia Tufte in the mail – which I am very excited to read. From here, I fixed up the door spring that I had destroyed on stage the previous day. I also ordered two books from ThriftBooks.com since I had earned a free book reward from my previous order – I bought DFW’s Undergrad Thesis (so I can hopelessly compare to my own essays) alongside E.B. White’s Elements of Style. I finished Blue Velvet and tried to watch Gaspar Noe’s Vortex, but I did not finish it. I fell asleep to some videos recapping the TV Show “The Boys.”

On Sunday, I went to church and went to the first Blue Shell practice since Emo Nite. It was a very good practice and we all went to iHop after our practice. I ordered the Mexican Tres Leches, which I mispronounced, and everyone had a good time. I came home and I was very, very tired. I fell asleep to a video entitled, “TOP 10 BEST CREEPYPASTA 2020,” which brought about a great amount of nostalgia from when I first got out of military school.