Well, I don't have all the symptoms, but I have the sneaking suspicion I might be depressed.

Again.

After having just gotten out of a major rut last week, too.

Yesterday, as my blog touched on, I was having trouble doing stuff. I did all the "mandatory" things, but all the extras? Nooooope. I just kinda sat at the computer and did nothing. Except chat with some people a little bit (text-chatting), which I suppose is something, but not really.

That, when combined with how my appetite has been virtually nonexistent today, has made me extremely suspicious of the likely culprit. I mean, this time, most definitely did not ask for it or want it. But I think that it might be there anyway. Not really much I can do about it except power through. Especially considering tonight's family night.

Sometimes, being me kinda sucks​. I think I'll survive, though.

It's not yet midnight, I have had a day where I could talk about stuff, including a story idea, but...I'm just not in the mood to do anything except waste a little time and go to bed fairly early, sorry. A bit disappointed my flurry of blog entries suddenly comes to an anticlimactic halt like this, but...it is what it is.

Today was square dance meeting. Same place as last time: silver lake, I believe it's called. Unlike last time, where I was fine the entire time, this time, I kinda...sorta...may have...oh...gathered...one or two (by which I mean, five) "souvenirs" on the trip.

As per the norm, stories got written about them. They're actually a bit of an unusual bunch. The first object I found was a...thing. A component in something. It's very hard to describe. Narrow, long shaft, with at the end, a huge circle and big screw-like thing where it feels like it's meant to be fastened onto something, and inside of there is...oh! As I was typing all of this, I just figured out what it was.

It's for inflating things. Describing it jogged my memory of the devices you use to inflate soccer balls. Well, it's the tip of one of those, without the attached hose. The second was one of those standard wrappings that you find on all sorts of things. The same sort of material that was the inspiration for the blood staff, only silver instead of black.

The third was...what are those things called? A quick google confirms it's called a ziptie. These make all great sorts of weapons, depending on their shape (kind-of like the above wrapping-things with the wire down the center do), and in this case, it was a cut one, aka, the claw-weapon formation.

The fourth was self-created: the "grappler" type weapon, with the shield and imaginary-hook that I create by looking at the tip of a stereotypical can tab, one I took from a sprite bottle I drunk. Finally, I found a white wrapping (same as the silver one in material, except it looked a bit sturdier), which was pre-wrapped into an interesting shape that just screamed 'scimitar', so there I have it:

A mace/gun, a spear/staff, a claw/shockwave inducer, a grappling hook (more intimidating than it sounds!), and a berserker scimitar.

This was dealing with armies of them, rather than individual soldiers, though I was focusing on "champions" of each side involved.

Didn't fully work out the details, but it was beginning to form as we were leaving at least.

In my last blog post, I shared with you that I was sacrificing potential time with others for the sake of working on making my dreams come true. I didn't tell you which of my two dreams I decided to pursue, though, mainly because, well, I, uh...didn't actually know which of them I was gonna do.

Ultimately, it ended up being my novel. I quickly glanced at Inkdeath and Harry Potter. I feel like if I gave a better look, I might be able to get better dialog, but at the same time, I kind-of feel like at this point...I might actually need to walk my own path. My quick look at what they did with their dialog told me this: "Hey, at least on a cursory glance, yours is something that looks vaguely similar to what they did!"

Now, I'm sure extensive analysis would cause that to fall apart. But I don't think a quick look will change anything anymore. Maybe an extensive analysis, a thorough readthrough, but that's about it. Basically...it's hard to find the words, but I think...more or less, my thoughts are, "I'll be okay by myself. Maybe not perfect, but good enough that it's not cringe-worthy."

I'm looking, and I still have the slight fear that it's info-dumping. That being said, I actually don't have that much concern for it. Though it is a worry of mine, I think that it's not bad, and it makes narrative sense: it's a character teaching another character. Furthermore, I feel like if it's bad enough, all it'd take is a minor change to the descriptors, and suddenly, instead of being info-dumping, it more reveals an insight into the characters' minds.

I don't want to tweak it too much right now, but what I do want is to keep continuing. It's...kinda hard. I started working at...oh, something like 4:30 or so? Something like that. Soon after my last blog post. It's now 7. I only have so much stamina to work on a project at a time, and I've basically run out. (Which is why I stopped working on writing and am now working on this blog post.)

In that time...I've written just about 3 pages. Maybe closer to 2.5, if I do a more precise calculation. (This is off of a quick viewing of where I started and where I am now. Not an exact science.) So, about a page an hour. For a book that's probably gonna be 400+ pages long (potentially even 600!), you...can maybe get some idea for what I've gotten myself into.

But I'm not going to complain. No, I refuse to complain about it. If this rate were to continue every day, then the third draft would be finished in 200 days. That's hard work, very hard work, and being honest with myself, it's probably not something I can realistically maintain a pace of. There will be days I do more, and many more days I do far less. (NaNoWriMo will be a boost come November, of course!) But I will keep going. I will not let my determination waver. I won't say, "It's too hard", "It's too painful", "I can't do this".

It's hard, it's even painful, but I CAN do this. I trust myself. I know, that sounds like a horribly stupid thing to do. How trustworthy am I? Traditionally, not very! But I still think...yes, I can believe in myself. So I will. After all...if I don't believe in myself...precious few others, if any, will. So I must.

So the site I play mafia on is currently down. This is a little inconvenient, since I was about to do some work on there. (I was not going to play games on there. That's something I do later at night. Other work, not playing-games work.) There's a backup shelter I can spend time on, so I have a choice: spend time bonding with fellow members on there, or use the time for something productive.

Now, tonight, I don't have Tae Kwon Do. That means, I have the whole day to myself. And I think that this might be a little bit of a cosmic coincidence. So...what am I going to do? I...well, the thought of bonding with others is nice, and it's not something I get to do often, but...I actually...really think that this is the universe's way of saying, "get to work, girl", so I don't want to waste it.

I really hate that I have to choose which path to walk in times like this. What I'd love is if I could bond with them, while drawing, and while writing. All three are important to me, after all. But it's physically impossible to do so much as two at the same time, yet alone, all three.

Ultimately, I'm weighing several things when making my choice, but they all tip the same direction. For a start, I sort-of bonded with a bunch of people on Saturday, when I admitted how stupidly weak I was. In my weakness, others came to me, and from that, I feel I grew a bit closer to the community. In contrast, it's been at least a month since I've done any truly productive work.

Then, there's what I've just been blogging about. I want to make my dreams a reality, and for me to do that, I actually have to work hard for them. If I'm not doing any work on them at all...then I'm not going to get them to become real. Keeping people in my close circle is part of my dream, sure, but as I mention above, in a sense, I am still doing that, on a near-daily basis.

So while I'll lose the unique opportunity to bond with some of the peculiar perks of the people around me on there, and that does make me sad, what I gain is a chance to work on my dream at its core level. And honestly, given the timing of my blog post, and the timing of this downage, I really do think it's the universe sending me a message. (Which means, by proxy, I'm telling the members of that site they can blame the downage on me!)

It's going to give me regrets no matter which path I choose. I know this. But I want to keep making my dreams a reality. So I'm going to fight for them. And for the members of that site who read this (probably about 80% of my readership, at minimum)...I do apologize that I'm making this choice. It's...not an easy one to make. It's not even the "right" choice to make, but I don't think any of my options are.

That's one of the downsides of life. Yet I will try and make this experience be worth it. I promise I'll try to give it my all.

Lately, it's hard to get the manga IS out of my head. I keep on thinking about the life of Haru, and basically, like a few characters in the story, I keep on saying that I want to be like Haru, in more ways than one.

I want to be able to bring happiness to others. I want them to see me, understand me, but first and foremost, I want to be able to have them smile, to make them feel good. Haru's example is an inspiration to me, on how I want to live my own life, and increasingly, I'm being filled with that energy.

I want to share with others the happiness I have had. I don't want to hide my emotions. I will always have moments of sadness. I will sometimes face emotions such as anger. I don't want to suppress them. But I don't want my life to be defined by them. I want to be happy, not simply because it's something everyone deserves, but because in my happiness, I want others to be happy. I want to have others be inspired by my example, to try and live their lives to the fullest as well.

So I want to share my dreams with the world around me. My dream, ever since I was a teenager, has been to share with the world the wonderful ideas I have in my head. It has manifested in different forms throughout the years, be it art, attempts at making games, music, or most prominently, writing, but that desire, that passion, has always been there, even now.

I know the road I've chosen to walk down is not an easy one. There will be hard times. Even in the best of moments, there will be times where I will still be suffering. And in the worst of moments, it may even seem I cannot get by. I may not have the strongest of support groups, so there will be times I feel lonely and isolated.

...But I am not going to give up. I am determined to make my dreams reality. I want to touch others. I want them to feel what I have felt. I want them to have their wounds be healed as they simply experience what I have given them. I want to be that force, that can make them experience all the emotions they should experience, from the sad to the glad, to feel it and know it.

So I am going to continue on with my life. I am determined. I know that my strength will waver. It always does, readers of my blog saw how low it got on Saturday, and that will happen again. But never will I fully let it conquer me. I will find a way to continue on. I will work hard. I will fight. And eventually...I am confident I will succeed.

It might not sound like I have things worked out. And it's true. I don't have my life planned out, not nearly as much as would be ideal. But I don't think this is a bad thing. Because with it, I can live in the moment, be it a good one or a bad one, and have the richest, fullest experience on my life. Not dwelling on the past. Not obsessed with the future. Just trying, one step at a time, to make my dream come true.

I think that's the best way to live my life. And that's what I'm going to do. I'll show the world my writing. It will be tough, but I know, from the bottom of my heart...I can do this. And I think that everyone who knows me well enough knows the same thing: it can be done.

So without further ado, I'm concluding this blog post. I've got a few morning errands (well, afternoon; I started this at about 3 PM) to attend to, but then I'm buckling down on a couple of projects I want to work on.

This one to express a moment of "...huh!". Not with a question mark (though it was before I looked around a bit), with an exclamation mark, as a kind of "Well would you look at that".

In this case, for the manga IS that I began to read. I had read its wikipedia page, so I knew it had been completed quite a while ago. I thought there were only 71 chapters, and 15 volumes. But then, I got confused. I saw an end-of-volume note at around 69 or so. And...it said volume 16 started then. But there wasn't nearly enough material for a 16th volume, and there wasn't an end to the story.

So I checked around, and found that nowhere had those extra chapters that I could find. But, looking at the wikipedia page, I saw that the manga listed 17 volumes. 17, and at 71 chapters, I had only just begun to see volume 16! But then I looked at the date of those releases. The original manga may have finished in 2009...but these scanlations?

Chapter 71 on one site was release on May 18th, 2016. On another, May 17th, 2016. I even found a blog post, written in 2014, that was apparently written by a person working on the current scanlation, which I could tell was accurate because they said "I can't speak for the first 8 volumes, which someone else did, but I have been working on this series since then and I can say it's good", more or less.

Two years ago, just working on the scanlation, with the latest release being back in May of this year. That might seem a bit scarce, but going by the release dates (apparently chapter 70 was released in February, and chapter 69 in December), the manga's scanlation updates at about one chapter per two to three months.

Yes, it's a completed manga, but only in the original language; apparently, in scanlations, it's still very much an ongoing series.

So I'll wait for more. And I do think that more will be released. I was a bit worried, panicked even. I always figured that the story could have a non-ending, ending. But this didn't seem like it. (There's also the worry of it having a depressing ending, but I don't want to find that out for obvious reasons until I read it myself.) I was far more concerned about the possibility that, instead, a far worse thing had happened: the continued scanlation had stopped, and nobody continued after chapter 71.

But seeing those release dates, and their frequency, gives me hope. I'm obviously not gonna know for sure. It's always possible it won't finish. Yet I'll keep on hoping, holding on, to the belief that it's still ongoing, and eventually, I'll be able to read the conclusion of Haru's story, whatever it may be. (Even if it is either a non-ending or a sad ending.)

So we finished fireworks, and my sister left for Bellingham and my brother left and my dad's getting ready for bed, since all three of them have to work tomorrow, meaning not exactly a family night tonight. We skipped a movie. It's 11:30, so I don't have much time to describe the whole thing, and even if I did, there's so much tradition behind my family that I would never be able to give it all.

But basically...dinner tonight was a very nontraditional selection: hot dogs that were cooked over a charcoal grill. I mean, that's probably a time-honored tradition of American families everywhere, but it's not something WE do, but it was nice all the same.

I forget the exact order, but it was about this time we did the parachutes. Usually, the small parachutes misfire notoriously often, resulting in high "casualties". This time, all six went off! Well, half failed to fully deploy, but almost all of them were caught anyway. It was the four big parachutes that we had trouble with this year.

After that, we experimented with a few fireworks that, ah...let's just say originated from South Dakota. When we live in Washington. We actually got some cool effects from smoke bombs, by sticking a colored (purple) one in a milk container. We also blew up a few soda cans, among other stuff. Was fun.

Then came corn on the cob. I don't have any because I like mine with melted butter and was already full from three hot dogs (mostly, anyway), so I didn't have any, as per the new norm, but the rest of my family did. Then, we had the family tradition of charcoal-grilling smores.

Now, as per recently (as in, just about Memorial Day), we've broken a tradition: we bought metal forks to put our marshmallows on rather than hunting down sticks to whittle down with a knife and burn on the fire to sanitize. Still, the basics remain, where we always try to avoid the 'honor' of "first to burn". A title usually rewarded to me, though I've gotten better.

Without a movie to watch, and time to kill, we needed to wait until 10 to start the fireworks, so we discussed activities. Video games were briefly discussed, but we don't have four controllers except when my brother brings his. (Plus, at least half the controllers would be dead anyway.) So instead, we opted for card games, and tried out a new Star Trek Uno deck...and found...surprise! New cards, with new rules.

My older sister and I both won the first four rounds (a 2-2-0-0 tie), but then my younger sister pulled a darkhorse victory by winning three games in a row. I did well in most of those. For instance, my brother in the first game had two cards left. Bother were legal plays. By playing the reverse card, he let my sister win. Had he played his normal card, I would have won.

We, uh...play pretty competitively and are fairly nasty. We all are on the hardcore level, but of us, my brother is the most casual. (Which is why I like to be next to him in the rotation!) My younger sister and I are about tied, with my older sister being the nastiest. (Which is why I like to sit diagonal to her!)

Anyway, after the humiliating defeat, it was late enough to get started. Soon after we began (we purchase about $150 per year in fireworks), it began to rain. This did not put a dampener on the night. We stashed the fireworks in a more dry area, most of us layered up, and we rushed through as quickly as we could, though at one point...we heard a squeaking noise.

And at that point, we paused, to locate it. And what we found was...the sound was coming from a baby gopher. (Who was probably scared.) We weren't exactly sure what the best thing to do was, but ultimately, we decided to put an old sled over where the gopher was. This seemed to quiet the poor thing, and probably will serve as a method of protecting it until it finds its way back to the hole it came from. At least, that's the hope.

It was a nice display, faster than normal, but handled well.

So that's the quick rundown of our Fourth of July. It's not a perfect description, lots of little moments here and there lost that you'd just have to be there to understand, but all the same, thought you might appreciate the insight into my life.

Was surprisingly easy, since I believe the cover version I listen to miiiiiiiight be more famous than the original version.

At least, reading the wikipedia article for the song, it seems that way.

Anyway, got onto the desktop...after literally three hours of waiting, so...liiiittle bit tired, and got a LOT of work to do. So, this entry's a bit short, but not every entry I make can tell a long story.

So my mom's back home right now, which means she's on the desktop where I would prefer to do this sort of work. Under normal circumstances, the blog post I'm about to write would take...oh, probably about an hour or two on the desktop. I mean, until yesterday, didn't really do much blogging ON my desktop, but that's about how much content and time spent I'd probably do on there for this particular blog post.

Now keep in mind I'm on my laptop. And through a combination of age and various forms of neglect, it runs slowly in various different ways. Memory can get into the high-70s easily (though, surprisingly, it's actually low right now, at 50%), and mind you when it says 80% memory that is around the point where it begins using physical space on the harddrive I believe. CPU is rarely if ever below 80%, even when I'm not doing anything. (It's constantly running at 100% right now.)

The computer is slow to wake up. It's slow to do actions, like recognizing my typing. This, just on normal things. When it comes to internet-related things, it's even slower. I do mean it when I say my computer probably will not last that much longer, considering it is on the older end of its shelf-life. I remember reading that the average lifespan of a laptop is somewhere in the 3-6 years range, and that laptops older than that are prone to failure in multiple ways.

Well, my laptop's pretty much that old. And I am not taking the best care of it, either physically or mentally, if you consider physical to be hardware and mental to be software. Mentally, my computer's probably more messed up than I am, which is itself an impressive feat. (I do love my computer, it's just that...if a laptop were a child, I would not be good parenting material. All the love in the world doesn't mean I can suddenly have a perfect view of what I do, and do not, need to do for my computer.)

Anyway, the point I'm beginning to make here is...this blog post will...take a long while. Long, long while, since videos are involved and if there's one thing my computer absolutely hates, it's videos. Crashing is a very, very real risk, so I'll be saving this blog often as I work on giving you the blog post that I was gonna give originally.

So with this unplanned prelude now finished...let's talk! Listening to The End on Sunday mornings is the highlight of my week. I may or may not have said that before, but it's always been true, and always been something I've at least wanted to say if I haven't said it already. The music they play for Resurrection Sundays is usually top-notch. All the songs they play are usually good, and the best part of all?

The songs I know I can happily dance to, since it's so rare to hear them. (Sure, some still play, but those are the exception to the rule on Sundays.) And, as a bonus, it's the ONLY time of the week The End plays songs I don't actually know. Now, mind you...this is not actually, as your first inclination may be to assume, from my listening habits. Namely, that I listen exclusively to The End, nothing else, and often for multiple hours a day.

By that logic, you'd think it'd be obvious that I'd know all the songs being played, but actually, it's more like a small jab at their current absolute lack of variety and severe favoritism of softer and/or major-key songs. (Mind you, I don't know the difference that well between major and minor key, but when discussing songs with my SISTER, she can help point them out. Most of the better songs The End plays are minor.)

I still like the station. They have some awesome parts. The love I have held for them hasn't disappeared. (I believe I made a very long ramble about them at some point? I know that, prior to the creation of this blog, I certainly had a LOT to say in favor of them, at the very least.) I like the music they play. Aside from one or two songs, nothing they play is actually bad. And they have some really, really awesome songs, like Fire, River, and such for current favorites. So overall, they play songs above mediocre in quality, and when combined with other perks like short commercial breaks, DJ personalities, and whatnot, I still willingly listen to them.

It's just...that if you listen to the station for so much as three hours (give or take an hour), you've pretty much heard their entire playlist for the entire day. Even if not, you've probably at least heard pretty much every artist that they'll have playing for that day, with maybe one or two rare exceptions as they pull from their library a list of popular hits that they momentarily revive. (My sister likes to point out a different station's promise. The End has a "2 minute promise" for commercials: never more than 2 minutes at a time, and half the commercials of any other radio station. She prefers JAQ FM's promise: "no repeats for a full day". As in, they never play the same song twice until a day has passed. More like 12 hours pragmatically, but the point stands.)

So, that's why when I say Sundays are the only time I don't recognize everything, that's quite the big thing. For their normal playlist, I can identify most songs by name. I can often identify the artists by name. It's almost never that I can't do at least one, and often I can do both. If the lyrics are clear enough, I can even sing along with the song. Sometimes even if they aren't clear enough, I still can. (Granted, my version will always have inaccuracies because what I hear may not necessarily be what the actual words are.)

Resurrection Sunday? Not so much. Because I listen to it every week, it's gotten to the point where I vaguely recognize the majority of the songs they play, but not intimately, and even then, I still get some new ones every once and a while. Even if I hear a song, there's never a song that is on literally every week; it may appear two weeks in a row, but it'll eventually get out of the rotation, and come back later.

Sunday Morning End Sessions, AKA, The End Unplugged (among other names), is also good. They have variety, and are awesome to hear as recorded live versions of songs. They're different from the norm, and yet, still familiar. Some awesome covers only exist as end sessions, too! Plus, as an added bonus, while I do recognize most songs (or if not, can usually guess the artist), there's still plenty of songs played each week that I don't know.

...But as of the time I'm writing this down, that's not for another 5-10 minutes. (Yes, this was written at 9:50ish.) I started writing this for my blog, mostly to talk about a song I heard on Resurrection Sunday. In this case, it's a song that does occasionally still play on the radio, albeit very rarely. It's an old favorite of mine and another tune to my life.

In this case?
Steady As She Goes.

...Not even gonna try to play that video on my desktop. If it's the wrong video, I'll just edit it to the right video once I get to the desktop. (I know, I don't like to edit blogs, but as you're about to see...for this blog post, I'd be willing to bend that rule a little.) Anyway, in case the video is correct (looks correct, but can't know for sure), yet for some reason the embedded version won't work, this is a link to the video.

The reason this song speaks to me shooooooould be obvious enough, but I thought I should post about it all the same. Now, granted. I've never once looked up the official lyrics, and even if I had, haven't looked up the official meaning. So maybe the lyrics weren't meant the way I choose to interpret them, but hey...that's the absolute beauty inherent to music: it means what you WANT it to mean.

So in my case, the song speaks to me in moments of panic, where I'm an emotional wreck. Whenever my life wavers, whenever I doubt myself, whenever I am in a moment of weakness, be it emotional or mental, this is one of my staple songs to get me back on track. (It also helps that it's an awesome song, too!) It helps bring my focus inward, allowing my resolve to come back. It says, Go Steady, young lady. Live your life. Set your path, and be at peace with yourself. Which is a very strong message.

While we're on the subject of songs that hold meaning to me, I'm going to go on a tangent, compared to the rest of this blog which overall shares a different theme, to talk about another song where I choose to interpret things differently. I don't know if I said this before, it's possible I have and that I'm repeating myself, but this is something I've wanted to blog about...well, pretty much since the moment I thought about it at work, when listening to the song.

And in this case, I'm talking about Pretty Woman. (Well, technically the full title is "Oh, Pretty Woman", but same thing.) Pretty typical...60s?ish (don't actually know the age of the song, just know it's old rock and roll)...song about a guy chasing after a pretty girl, right? Longing to have her by his side. You can find dozens upon dozens of songs longing for, desiring for, that same thing, in just that age, yet alone, across all time. It's an age-old wish: have that beautiful lady as 'yours'.

Yet let's look at those lyrics:
Pretty woman, walking down the street
Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet
Pretty woman
I don't believe you, you're not the truth
No one could look as good as you
Mercy

Pretty woman, won't you pardon me
Pretty woman, I couldn't help but see
Pretty woman
That you look lovely as can be
Are you lonely just like me
Wow

Pretty woman, stop a while
Pretty woman, talk a while
Pretty woman, give your smile to me
Pretty woman, yeah yeah yeah
Pretty woman, look my way
Pretty woman, say you'll stay with me
'Cause I need you, I'll treat you right
Come to me baby, be mine tonight

Pretty woman, don't walk on by
Pretty woman, don't make me cry
Pretty woman, don't walk away, hey...okay
If that's the way it must be, okay
I guess I'll go on home, it's late
There'll be tomorrow night, but wait
What do I see
Is she walking back to me
Yeah, she's walking back to me
Oh, oh, Pretty woman

What's so special about those lyrics? Well, one of my desires as a musician has always been to make a "cover" of the song...but with the slightest of changes to the lyrics. Let me show you what the power of selective editing can do:
Pretty woman, walking down the street
Pretty woman, the kind I like to be
Pretty woman
I don't believe you, you're not the truth
No one could look as good as you
Mercy

Pretty woman, won't you pardon me
Pretty woman, I couldn't help but see
Pretty woman
That you look lovely as can be
Are you lonely just like me
Wow

Pretty woman, stop a while
Pretty woman, talk a while
Pretty woman, give your smile to me
Pretty woman, yeah yeah yeah
Pretty woman, make my day
Pretty woman, say you'll stay with me
'Cause I need you, I'll be you right
Come to me baby, be fine tonight

Pretty woman, don't walk on by
Pretty woman, don't make me cry
Pretty woman, don't walk away, hey...okay
If that's the way it must be, okay
I guess I'll go on home, it's late
There'll be tomorrow night, but wait
What do I see
Is she walking back to me
Yeah, she's walking back to me
Oh, oh, Pretty woman

I made only the slightest amount of changes, and this was a five-minute effort quickly thrown together without even listening to the song. If I spent time really, really thinking about which words to substitute where, the message might be even more clear, but as-is, try reading the above and see what the song says now. With only the slightest of modifications, instead of being a man chasing after a woman out of his league, it instead takes on a fully different meaning: someone (presumably male) chasing after the chance to be that woman, thinking solemnly that maybe it'll never happen, but gaining back hope near the end.

Before, that song was just a random oldies song to me. I heard it all the time, I liked it, and along with many others danced to it just fine, because it's a good song and they just don't make music that way anymore. I was raised on it, I like it, not much more to say...until I made that slight connection in my mind. With my way of interpreting it, with my choice of how to see the song, suddenly, it gained far more personal weight.

And on that note...there's actually a trio of songs I mentally run my head through when I get into the kind of place I was yesterday. It doesn't always work, but whenever I can string these songs together in my mind, the message can become immensely powerful. Each of these, by itself, would be telling a complete story. But by telling them in this selected order, they gain even further meaning, just that extra layer, where a full story of my life suddenly begins to play out, in musical form.

Making a cover of these three songs, back to back, has also been one of my dreams as a musician, because I feel like if I nailed the presentation of them back to back to back, the end result would be a...hmm, what are those things called? Not singles, not albums, I think the word starts with an e? One of those mini-albums, essentially, that's also sort-of like a group of singles. Somewhere between the two. Well, it'd be one of those, and a VERY powerful one at that.

So let's get started!

In case the embedded version doesn't work, that's Believe, by The Bravery. Now, what does this song start with? A very, very poignant delivery of the issues in life, and how things are not working. I'm not gonna quote the whole song, but in particular, one lyric above all others can help convey the most important part: "So give me something to believe, because I'm living just to breathe".

There's a lot more to the song that resonates with me in my low points than just that line from the chorus. The whole of the versus, the chorus, and whatnot all say important, relevant things to my life. If you listen to the song (and also to the tone of the singer when he is singing those lines!), the importance of this becomes evident. It's a song that helps highlight all the things in my life that are wrong...and with me being unable to fix them. "I know there's a problem. I am not moving forward. So...what now? What do I do?" That's what the song is asking.

The answer doesn't come from that song. At least, not in this narrative. Instead, we move onto the second act:

Again, in case the embedded version doesn't work, that's Drive, by Incubus. I link this one to Believe, because to me, it is the natural follow-through. The beginning of Drive deals with the same subject: drowning in a lack of direction. "I don't know where to go." But the song progresses. You can see it with lines like "take the wheel and steer", and "hold the wheel and drive". It's a song about taking control of your life. Of gaining that direction. "I am going to make a deliberate effort to steer my life in the direction of my choosing, rather than let it be".

The future is still uncertain. ("Whatever tomorrow brings".) But I will survive. ("I'll be there".) I will keep an eye on opportunity, I will keep an open mind, but I will be the one with the ultimate decision on how to live my life. ("With open arms and open eyes".) Again, like many other songs that I am referencing, maybe this isn't what the band intended the song to mean. But that is what meaning it has gained to me: "I haven't had direction. But now, I am going to gain it. The future is uncertain, but I will continue to try."

The final song in the trio is a reinforcement of Drive, progressing to the next step: where I've already begun the process of reforming my life, but it's a bumpy road. So, I begin to play through this.

And once more, in case the embedded version doesn't work, we're now seeing The Middle, by Jimmy Eat World. (You might note a common trend in these songs so far, with the exception of Pretty Woman. There's good reason for that!) Literally every line of this song speaks out to me. The video, by itself, would stand as an important message. (Well, I actually have never seen the video. The song does, though!)

But when you throw in the previous two, it becomes even more important. This is for when I am reforming my life, in the final stages, and yet the road becomes bumpy. Rocky. So I need to tell myself a few things. Do whatever I can. Do my best. It doesn't matter what others think. It doesn't matter what others are like. It doesn't matter what others say. On my own, pursuing my own path, live the life I want to live. It'll be rough: it'll take time, there will be ups and downs, but ultimately...everything will be alright.

I'm almost directly quoting, word for word, the lyrics from that song. No, seriously. I feel special need to emphasize this, so unlike the previous two, I will just quote the entire dang song's lyrics here.
Hey,
Don't write yourself off yet
It's only in your head you feel left out
Or looked down on.

Just try your best,
Try everything you can.
And don't you worry what they tell themselves
When you're away.

It just takes some time,
Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride.
Everything, everything will be just fine,
Everything, everything will be alright, alright.

Hey,
You know they're all the same.
You know you're doing better on your own (on your own),
So don't buy in.

Live right now, yeah,
Just be yourself.
It doesn't matter if it's good enough (good enough)
For someone else.

It just takes some time,
Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride.
Everything, everything will be just fine,
Everything, everything will be alright, alright.
It just takes some time,
Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride.
Everything, everything will be just fine,
Everything, everything will be alright, alright.

Hey,
Don't write yourself off yet.
It's only in your head you feel left out
Or looked down on.

Just do your best (just do your best),
Do everything you can (do everything you can).
And don't you worry what the bitter hearts
Are gonna say.

It just takes some time,
Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride.
Everything, everything will be just fine,
Everything, everything will be alright, alright.
It just takes some time,
Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride.
Everything, everything will be just fine,
Everything, everything will be alright.

...Bonus points: it's addressed to "little girl". Guess what I see myself as in times of emotional turmoil? This song is absolutely perfect. I've always loved it, and it makes the perfect finale to the sequence of songs, on rebuilding my life. Because in one song, it manages to wrap everything up and say everything that must be said: it's not that bad. Life isn't nearly as scary as I think. If I keep going, then no matter what...it will work out eventually. I just have to tell myself this. I just have to keep it in mind. And then, no matter my troubles, I will still stay on top. (Again, helps that Jimmy Eat World is an awesome band.)

Of course, there are other songs. Normally, I don't tie them to others in order to tell a story, but I felt like mentioning some of the biggies anyway. Have more youtube links!

This one's Paradise, by Coldplay.

A bit of a bittersweet song, I've always thought of this song as being, "Hey...that song perfectly describes me!" Even before I knew I was trans, when I heard the song I was like, "That song is me, aside from being a girl!" (Well, little did I know......) It perfectly encapsulates my inner depression: I see the harsh bits of reality, and I retreat to my dreams. Sound familiar? It should. It's not exactly a unique occurrence in my life. That zone, that dream, which is far out of reality.

While we're on the subject of Coldplay...

That's the titular song from the album Viva la Vida, the final track (I believe? It's the last one which would play when we put the CD in the computer, anyway, which, yes, we did do because back then we actually bought hard copies of music), Viva La Vida. I think no better song has ever been written to perfectly encapsulate a fall from grace. The saying, "Oh, how the mighty have fallen" can adequately describe the sentimentality in the video, and it reflects my wasted potential.

At so many points in time, I could have done great, but through many various situations, most of them my fault, it all crumbled away, and the person who once was so full of potential, so full of life, who could have legitimately earned the respect and love of others...was left with nothing, because of stupid mistakes on my part. Of course, detractors could say I never had that ability, but I'd argue...yes, I did, I just...never harnessed it, because my emotional state got in the way, more or less.

Then we get three others I want to show you.

You'll recognize the band as The Bravery, same band as for Believe. But this time, it's An Honest Mistake. It's actually in a largely similar vein to Viva La Vida: I could say this in, ah, less vulgar terms, so do pardon the language, but I think that using the word in this one case should be okay, given the nature of it: this song is more or less what I think when I think, "I've fucked up my life". Now, me being me, curse words don't actually come naturally to my mind. So when I think with that kind of language, it's a rarity among rarities, and is usually a sign of just how bad I've gotten, thus the line.

I make mistakes. I mess up. I mess up really, really badly, but I still want to try. I still want to live life, in spite of screwing things up, in spite of constant muckups. I just generally think that it's a song that says so well what I mean whenever I'm in a situation where I have to sincerely, fully, and entirely say, "I'm sorry". Because pretty much the only time I would ever need to say that, and have those two words (well, two and a half, technically) carry their full meaning, is if I have severely screwed things up, if I was responsible for things going catastrophically wrong, and always...always, I KNOW it was me, and I find it hard to forgive myself.

So the first video here is Boulevard of Broken Dreams, by Green Day. Even in just the name of the song, the relevant meaning to me is conveyed. This is a song I play in my mind when I feel isolated and lonely. I have often felt that I walk without companions down the road I've chosen in life, and have seen countless opportunities wasted. I feel lost often, I don't know where I'm heading, but I'm alive. I'm a bit messed up from it all, but I still survive, trudge on, carrying my weight, as I continue through life.

The second is Zombie, by The Cranberries. The lyrics basically refer to an empty shell of a person, who has nothing left inside of them. Every time I enter a depressed state, I come dangerously close to being like that, of just being a zombie living life while not actually being alive.

Now, I mention those songs, because in actuality, they can be chained together into a combo of ten songs, for a full album. This is not a precise thing, because I worked this out while at work, so no ability to listen to them all to see if it thematically fits. But basically...know how I have the trio of songs that tell a story? I can expand it to include all the videos I have linked to, including the one I did yesterday. It works like so:

We start with me at around 14, maybe 15 or 16: I'm beginning to move out of childhood. I'm a naive little girl, who dreams of the world. Enter, song one: Paradise. Because that's where I wanted to be, in paradise, in my dreams, yet the harsh reality of the world slowly encroached. So at this high point, about in the 2007-2010 range, things were good, and potential for greatness was there...and then I crashed. I burned. I hardcore lost it.

Enter Viva La Vida, song number two, where the world I once felt so on top of has crumbled around me, leaving me an empty husk. This is when songs three and four (order doesn't matter too terribly much), Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and Zombie, enter. Rock bottom of my life. I'm miserable, with nobody to blame but myself. So then, I begin to see the error of my ways. I, for the first time, tell the truth to myself, about what I am, about what I've done wrong. So enter, An Honest Mistake: I've recognized that I've messed up, but I'm still wallowing in that self-pity, so to speak.

No progress is being made...but I want it. I want to move forward in my life. I hate having to hate myself, my actions, my stupidity. Enter, Mess of Me. This quickly transitions into Believe: I have the desire to better myself, yes...but how do I do it? I want to get back my life, but what can I do to get my life back? I've still not found direction. So that's where Drive comes in again, because, yes, now I know where I am headed, because I am determined to make my life be mine.

This is where Steady As She Goes fits into the picture, because that song is more or less where the idea ("I'm going to take control of my life") becomes a plan of action, where instead of just saying what I want, I instead say how I will get what I want. This difference sets up the critical change, which again climaxes with The Middle, where the effort to keep going is challenged, and then reinforced by the challenge.


Honorable mentions, which stand on their own but which didn't make the story: Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve, Mad World (at least, a cover version of it), and Wizards in Winter by the Transiberian Orchestra.

...One of these things is not like the others, I know. But to talk about each of them, Bittersweet Symphony takes a lot of my beliefs and puts words to them, about the nature of life itself. Mad World, the version of that song I listen to anyway (I'll make another blog post when I find it), by itself, is capable of saving my life, by perfectly verbalizing some of the things about the world which are very frustrating to me and reflect my life. The last one (the only one The End does not play)? Well, more of an internet thing. Youfail.org has long-since been taken down, but back when it was running, that was the song playing, and its tune is now forever associated with that phrase. I'd listen to it for hours, as it constantly looped, and it reminded me of my shortcomings.

Now, I'm sure that there would be more songs that fit this theme if I thought about it and searched for things I've listened to. In particular, on the tip of my tongue, I have a feeling that two or three Linkin Park songs would come in and help define this list even more, since they entirely fit the pattern too with what their songs are about and mean to me. That's just one band; there'd be many more if I put thought into it. But I'm not, this is just the list I made from memory.

Now! Would you believe all of what I said above was just a setup for me talking about something else? If you know me...of course you would! This has all been one continuous note, on the title of the blog: the power music has to heal wounds, to soothe the soul, to make things right in an otherwise wrong world, the power of creation made tangible.

So it only makes sense...that I did all of the above, to talk about one of my own things.
In this case...I wrote half a song, more or less dealing with what I've gone through as of yesterday. The thing I like about what I've written is that it doesn't define person: not first person, not second person, not third person, left to interpretation. I didn't finish the second verse (or even start, only got ideas), but I did work out this much:

Everyone has lows and highs,
Where they're weak and have might.
Times of feeling so blind,
Times where they see a light.

The ups and downs of hope and despair,
The rollercoaster of quite good and not fair,
So given all there's one final dare:

(This is the prechorus)
Do laugh,
Do cry,
Everything will be fine.

(This is the chorus, it plays twice)
It's okay,
It's alright,
All wounds heal in time.
Be strong,
And be kind,
Live a wonderful life.


I think that the chorus in particular makes for a wonderful mantra: things will be okay. Eventually, everything will work out. In whatever ways you can, you can be strong. Show compassion, and have a good life. It's a good message to send, and I really, really like it.

Oh...and speaking of Fire, and End Sessions? This section was made at 10:30, and guess what? I heard an End Session version of the song. I didn't even know there was an end session version of the song! Suffice to say, it fully delivered. Barns Courtney is a DEVIL. (Pun fully intended.)

This one made at 11:30! Having heard him before, I'm now like 99.99% positive I heard a second Barns Courtney song for the first time, as an end session, an hour after the first one. Between the lyrics similarity, the voice, and the instruments, I'm basically positive it was him, with a new song, well, probably not new to anyone who listens to his music but new to a person who knows him only from the radio and his only current single on there.

I got the feeling that this second song, when played as a studio version, wouldn't quite be as attention-grabbing as Fire is, but would still be rather good, so it's official. That guy's a genius.

...Now if you don't mind, I'm going to post this blog because it's getting insanely long and my computer could crash any second from having written it.