Why Do I Feel Blank

Yesterday I had this great surge of creativity. Tonight, not so much. But Kylie Minogue songs get stuck in your head almost more so than do Lady Gaga songs....
Anywho, I have not the patience to write about TJ tonight. I feel like someone told me something deep today - but I managed to forget it. What I did learn today was that there is always more information. Someone, somewhere knows more, or has more contacts, than you do.Which can be most valuable. So watch out for these types - get to know them, and be cruel. Take advantage of their knowledge and find yourself a network, a spider web of people to interact with.
But I remembered what I was going to write about. I was going to write about witches. Three days ago a witch came into to our World Religions class and as a wicken since 1984, had quite a bit to talk about. When I first walked into the class, the man's physical appearance was like - oh dang - its a witch! But after only a few minutes of speaking, this ritualistic pagan had proven himself a very estute and eloquent individual and I was more than willing to sit down and listen. I would not say that I'm in an unstable religious situation - I'm pretty glued to my faith - but exploration of introspective rituals...that's the good stuff. I don't often do so, but meditation is the best. As I've told quite a few people - its all about starting out thinking of everything, absolutely everything, at the same time. And then gradually, beautifully thinking about nothing. Peace streams in and out of every pore and its just gorgeous. So the witch came in and answered and hour and a half of questions from TJ kids, after giving a brief introduction of pagan religions and their origins, evolution and current state. There was a certain eerie taint to his whole discussion, i.e. when someone mentioned the unfortunate stereotype of witches controlling werewolves, etc., he said, 'Ah, but you have assumed that that's a bad thing,' which immediately told me - heh - yeah the tries to play with those things, he's a witch! So, I mean, I'm not going to become a witch, but becoming in touch with deity with some kind of ritual - prayer, meditation, woods dancing - nothing especially dark like wigi boards - I"m all good with that. This trance state, this pure state is what I hope to achieve more and more often as I attempt to write songs, with or without words. In the rare moments I'm not barely keeping my eyelids open or doing some form of math or language I am able to absorb simple, beautiful notes...it's so euphoric when this happens. If you're a melody person, than the words melt away, simply repeating in your head without being processed, and you jive with each of the notes in sequence. Lyrics - that's for poetry lovers - which I am - but in a different time and place. Also - this is the best time for inspiration, which you've probably already concluded. The creative juices flow in and out and all about and your feelings and thoughts melt onto the paper without having to worry about restraint. Whatever this process is actually called, it cures writers block.
One of these moments happened today on the bus, which was tasty. I was slumped in my chair, totally zoned out, but not entirely asleep, and the song American Boy, by Estelle, was playing. It is not worshipped for its lyrics, but the melody is simple and catchy, and while half-asleep, thinking of nothing else, devoid of emotion like a psycopath, it was most excellent.
That's another thing - the phrases and sounds we pick up from our friends are so much. Many people tell me to go away because my 'Drewisms' are invading their speech patterns. I've even noticed that I've picked things up from my friends speech patterns, although it seems I'm the one with all the strange phrases. I shall not enumerate them here, but there are enough to cause change in others speech patterns I guess.
Lastly...lastly....my new favorite ice cream is Heavenly Hash. Chocolate ice cream, marshmallow swirl, small chocolate chips, and small bits of almond. If you get the right brand - i.e. Bloom brand - it is so terribly delicious. Although I cannot finish an entire half-gallon of vanilla bean ice cream, I can definitely finish an entire half gallon of that in one sitting....its so good. So go out and buy some.

-Cheers,
    Aramyil

What I've learned by rejecting the clock

The clock is a strange thing. It tells us what we should do and when we should do it, when in reality we don't always have to. Take, for example, this weekend. All-nighters along the bank of the Potomac River are basically the biggest blasts to reality possible. Now the next day was something entirely different, but if under my own jurisdiction completely, I would have simply slept from 8-2pm and then started the cycle all over again. Their is something mystical and revealing about the night that cannot be appreciated in the light of the full sun. It does not have to be sketchy; but discussion becomes more vivd, emotions heighten, and knowledge and information flows like warm honey. The water nearby also flows like warm honey. Fires and beverage also have a key role in helping things get going, but 50 mph wind does not. If I ever parcipitate in one of these again I will be wind-proofing the surrounding area.
Besides this short eclipse about the most random part of my weekend, I would like to continue to bash iTunes. Now for someone who is not OCD about music categorization accuracy, iTunes is awesome. Easy-to-use, so many help threads out there, pretty boss selection, iffy pricing - but hey- legal digital downloads are on the downward trend like crazy this last year. But if you'd like to know exactly what kind of music you are listening to, screw iTunes all the way. Go spend a few days on Wikipedia and absorb the collective knowledge of the nerds. The people of awesomesauce. After a few mellow days, you begin to pick up clues in the songs you are sorting through until you've got the genre-placing down to a science. Acoustic guitars and strange melodies, with yodel-ing voices and off the track lyrics send you to Folk Rock or something Indie. Synths, beats and other, otherwordly lyrics, with mixes of screeching and guitar riffs send you to something more like Symphonic Rock. Its a somewhat subjective art, as you get to decide which of the many genres listed you choose for your iTunes, but hey, its better than having part of your Pink Floyd be Alt Rock and the other half Singer/Songwriter, mislabeled by iTunes careless editors. That is all.
Tonight is a song night. I can feel it. I've got some strange new stuff to jam too. Lots of inspiration and mind freedom, and plenty of time to contemplate the state of the hail falling around me.
Cheers

Is it worth it?

When I was a young child I wondered at the incredible musical fluency of my father. You'd say a few words, but he'd be singing a song that he knew with the same exact words. I envied the ability, but now that I have it it occasionally overwhelms me. I can't not hear a song play in my head. But - I love music. For the last few days I've told myself inside and out, 'music is everything! you can write it! you can make it dude!' It would seem it is nothing more than a lack of sleep at this point; and a general trend of senior slump, but I have a strange irritability surrounding music right now. I gave up and started writing a song during math class today. I've been sharing my strange and 'trippy' lyrics with people, but what does this actually mean? Am I self-absorbed? Am I pretentious? I'm sure the answer is yes to both of those - but how much? If the answer is so much, than I'd rather not continue, but if the answer is just enough to seem thoroughly caught up in what I'm doing - trying to compose, letting my thoughts and feeling pour out with rhythm and melody, then is it worth it? If I can only exist to think about love, friendship, sun, feet, water, more love, synthesizers, college and TJ - what's going on? Haha...I think I've answered my own question while writing, but it certainly doesn't just automatically change. And this is where sleep comes in. If I sleep, my soul closes up. I can focus, I can be practical, I can be realistic. But do I want that? Sitting down in my chair with my 'scalvenged' notebook each night by the light of a lamp and thinking with a pen on paper has been awesome. It has certainly revealed to me what I spend most of my time thinking about - its not calculus that's for sure. But it should be, shouldn't it? I can search out all the indie music I want, but there will always be another most triumphant song that I don't have. Maybe the next post will be about iTunes. Because they are the worst at correct classification and album covers and I'm the worst for having songs that I never listen to on my account. Anywho, I think that there must be a line. A line where on one side lies restraint, focus and practical thoughts and decisions. On the other line lies unrestrained levity, freedom and randomness. I want to walk on the line. I need to be 2-D so I can function.
Whatever path this blog takes - its for the best - and the worst won't matter to me.
I could write for hours just sitting here (song starts going - suck my soul right out of my head, as I lay here, awake in my dirty bed)....but I shall save my eccentric ideas for another time. And I shall be sure to do a brain jump listing here in a few posts.
Gutennacht!
-Aramyil