I am moving next week for the first time since 2004. This is a happy thing and an exciting time dampened only by the humiliation and judgment that accompany accepting financial help from a family member. Otherwise, yay! For the first time in my 42 years, I will own a single home. Bonus: I'll be sharing it with someone I love deeply, his son (at least in the months of December and July), 2 cats, and a dog. So, we are packing.

This is difficult for me, a person who is sensitive to surroundings, comfort, and having my "things" nearby. The disorder, disarray, and extra dust flying around have me and my partner sneezing and snapping ever-so-slightly at each other. The furkids have a constant expression that can be interpreted as, "Please don't leave me here," "Please don't put me in a box (dog)," or "Please, put me in a box! (cat)." 

In acknowledging the stress this packing and moving process puts me under, I am hoping to contain the more irrational and emotional reactions that tend to be my defaults. Success varies by the hour. In the midst of packing hell, I did smile at a surprise last night: when cleaning out the contents of a low corner cabinet into which things seem to disappear (Honey, did you know we have a food processor?!?!?), I found the lid to an adorable little plastic container that fits a perfect cup of ..... whatever. The lid has been missing for sometime; turns out it was there all along, just waiting to be rediscovered.

I have always wanted to see what it looked like inside.

The Pink Building--or more properly known as the Scottish Rite Cathedral--at the corner of Paseo de Peralta and Washington has been there, thankfully unchanged, my entire life. Iconic, mysterious, pink. A Santa Fe landmark that I've driven or walked by a million times. On Saturday I finally got a glimpse of what lies behind those pink walls when the temple was opened to the public. The Moorish-Revival style building has been around as long as NM has been a state (1912), modeled loosely after Spain's Alhambra, and is home to the Scottish Rite Freemasons.

Inside it's as though time has been suspended, from the most lush ornamentation to the plebian workaday features. I'm drawn to vintage, so I noticed little things like the push-button light switches, 50s atomic-era bathroom sinks and faucets, gorgeous metal radiators. Furniture, from the 1930s era oak chairs to the 1950s era lamps and tables. The door handles. A lavish auditorium. A to-die-for costuming room. A light-filled ballroom. An enormous kitchen. Narrow staircases. Wide staircases. Closed doors. Rooms and rooms and rooms. Just...so much. It was a lot to take in.

One reason why I wanted to go, besides getting to peek inside at last, is that I hoped to learn more about my great-great grandfather, who immigrated to the United States from Latvia in the mid 1850s or so, ending up in Texas. He was a high-ranked and highly-involved Mason, according to his obituary and the newspaper articles about him that I've been able to find. Maybe if I knew more about Masons, I thought, I would know more about him. And indeed that is how I now feel. I came away from Saturday's experience (listening to an introductory lecture, speaking one on one with several Masons who were there to answer questions, wandering around the place) with a lot more than just having my curiosity about this building satisfied; I now think I know a lot about what kind of a man he must have been, and I feel even prouder to be his descendant.

I can't seem to figure out how to get my vertical photos (taken with cellphone, not The Real Camera (I should have brought it)) to post vertically. They all end up sideways. This first post of mine here is a test anyway.

So, until I figure it out, please to enjoy this vintage postcard of the outside of the building. It doesn't even begin to capture the Pinkness of this place.

We played a 15-minute gig to open up the Homey Award Show on Friday.

Jill was awesome, and I say that with as much objectivity as possible. She nailed it. Me, I was eh. Made only one "mistake," really, and it wasn't major (of course, I nailed it in rehearsal). But I wasn't particularly on - I was a little too self-conscious to really play.

But I've certainly been a lot worse, and on those occasions I never gave it any more thought than "hey, they can't all be your best show" or "sometimes your fingers have minds of their own" and other musician clichés. For those who've never seen us, there's a lot of "act" in our act, which gives us a little cover, making it easier to fake-till-ya-make. So a flub here and there is no big deal, right?

Well, maybe it's because we were in a room of fantastic musicians, or maybe it's because my panic attack last week was the first strike of a deep-seeded, long-planned Revolution of the Brain, but my first thought after taking our bow (to a semi-standing O, no less) and running off stage was, and I quote: "I am a fraud."

Not "I  kind of sucked tonight," or "that was disappointing," but "I am a huge fucking fraud, and everybody knows it."

Not exactly fair, brain. 

                                            You used to be cool, dude.

Look, those aforementioned clichés are true - little flubs happen, and no one cares. I'm experienced (read: old) enough to know that although my guitar acumen is just barely strong enough to justify my presence on a stage, my strength is in performing, in connecting with the crowd, in being Kage to Jill's Jables. But when we tell people "what we lack in talent we make up in cheap theatrics," we're only joking about one of us. I can write, but I lack the performance skillz; cheap theatrics is all I got. 

Before I go further: this post is not a plea for praise and attention. That's not why I'm sharing this, I promise. In fact, I fear such responses, well-meaning and sincere as they are, can sometimes make my problem worse.

So to be on the verge of tears of humiliation after an ultimately successful, borderline triumphant gig - especially considering how few people in the room were even interested in live music - is to know that some neurotransmitter ain't transmittin' right. And to have that "FRAUD" feeling only triple in size and volume after winning the "Best Live Act" award means this might ultimately be a job too powerful for Xanax. 

Speaking of: after we won that trophy, I texted this to Joe Trainor (who was happily sharing our table): "I seriously cannot shake the feeling like I'm a fraud" (apparently whatever synapse zapped my confidence was also responsible for grammar). He walked up next to me and gave me a "what the fuck!?" look, telling me the show was strong (I trust him to be 100% honest about that) and I was being ridiculous. I explained the feeling the best I could, asking him if he'd ever felt that. 

He thought about it for a bit, and said "not really. But I think I'm objective enough to know that I'm a good player and singer, and subjective enough to really like and believe in my songs. So, fraudulent? I've had moments where I felt like I wasn't performing up to my own standards, but I never felt fraudulent. Disappointed? Sometimes. Disillusioned? Definitely."

He's right - he's one of the few musicians/actors/writers I know with an accurate assessment of his own talent, which is a rare but vital skill for those of us in the biz. But I think I'm pretty good at that too, and that's not an entirely comforting feeling right now. 

I dunno. I got over it before the night was over (one Xanax! Two Xanaxes! Ah, ah, ah!) and ended up having a great time. Our performance earned us at least three potential gigs, and I could not be prouder of Hot Breakfast! and all we've accomplished. And even though I'm writing this on maybe three hours of sleep, leaving my filter filled with holes, I'm still having a hard time conjuring up that "fraud" feeling I keep talking about. So maybe it was fleeting, and this, like All Things, must pass. 

But still, I'm gonna keep one eye on my brain for a little while. Just in case it's up to some old (and new) nasty tricks. I'm too happy for this nonsense. 

I got sick two Tuesdays ago and was sick up until Wednesday of this week. That's two solid weeks of sick.  I was supposed to be teaching in Indianapolis last week and by the grace of jeezas my flights out got cancelled so I couldn't go. Seriously-- someone from The Great Beyond was lookin' out for me, because it gave me a week to be sick. I spent that Sunday through this Wednesday in bed. Thursday (snow day) was the first day where I felt like maybe I was better. Friday was the Homey Awards Ceremony/Concert at which we were performing for our peers so the stakes were high, and thanks to adrenaline, we did a good job (and even won "Best Live Act" which was the only award we really cared about).  Today (Saturday) we were in the studio all day and had an event in Arden that we had to cancel because my body just failed. We didn't get to lay down lead vocals on the new tune in the studio because my throat was too sore, and we knew there was no way we'd be people-worthy tonight in Arden. I felt bad for canceling, but nobody cared really, and I've gotta fly tomorrow (Sunday) to Indianapolis again. My throat feels like I've swallowed glass that's been coated with Sriracha sauce. Talking hurts unfathomably. I need to be better.
Looking forward to 12 hours of sleep starting NOW.
(x-posted to xtingu.livejournal.com)

This morning, I was really, really angry. 

Last night I worked on the podcast, and I got a lot done, but I was feeling very, very dark. 

I planned to work on the podcast some more this morning, but I was angry. I read this article about this rich guy who bought himself the right to have his play professionally produced at a regional theatre in a major city. I also read about Larry David's new play on Broadway. 

I was so angry that I got an image in my head, and I started writing a play about how theater is not a meritocracy, and how it's okay to suck if you have enough money. 

Eleven pages later, Vince came home and took me out for lunch. 

I just finished revising it and condensing it down to ten pages. On its surface, it's now about the fashion industry. I'm taking it to a playwrights' meeting on Sunday. We'll see how it goes. 

I haven't had a writing day this good (balls-out, spark-to-completion)  since probably last May. 

I don't know if it's good, but I like it. 

Thanks, Matt!

yesterday afternoon, I wrote longhand at The Last Drop for 3 hours. It was productive, but almost not. 

There were two men sitting next to me having a coffee date. One looked to be in his mid 50s and the other seemed like late 40s-early 50s. They both set off my gaydar, but lightly; you could tell they were men who'd lived in the quadrant between Vine & South, Broad and Front since maybe the 90s. Both of them had high-quality clothes and silver in their hair. I tried to ignore their conversation, but it was difficult.

They were talking extensively about properties they'd bought and sold, properties they'd bought and wanted to sell, properties they were trying to buy, properties they owned, in the city, in the burbs, how the city had changed, and all of this in a way that indicates money was not an object. Some of their details seemed fuzzy, like they weren't sure about whether or not certain businesses still existed or not. I know there's a lot of turnover in Philly's real estate market, but it was as if they were out of touch with real life.  Still, I got the sense that they were guys who'd bought property in Center City back before or in the early days of the Street administration, taken advantage of tax breaks, and done well enough to now look down their nose at newer housing trends.

"It's nice. It's trendy, but not hipster. You know, not like... Fishtown."

"Remember back when Old City was nothing but us and Mulberry Market? We were pioneers. Pioneers."

The ease with which they talked about buying things was off-putting. I finally put my earbuds in and cranked up Pandora to block them out. After an hour or so, I took a bathroom and coffee refill break, so I took out my earbuds. When I came back, they were still talking about real estate.

"Oh, I LOVE New York. You know what I really want? I want to be able to have a place here, and then have a little place in New York."

"Huh. A little place? Like, two thousand bucks a month for a cubicle?"

"Oh, well, yeah."

"That's what a friend of mine has. He pays two grand a month for a room. That's it, just a room. It's like a hotel."

"Well, sure, but if you're out all the time, what do you need?"

"It has two windows. That's it."

(I wondered if the residents shared a bathroom, like in a dorm.)

"But you're out, you're going to museums, eating in restaurants, the art, the culture-"

"Oh, sure, sure."

"I'd just go up there on Thursday, stay there all weekend, come back on Monday, go to work."

I wanted to take notes on their conversation, and I wanted to dig in my purse for my emergency orange earplugs. I wanted to tell them that if they're so nuts about art and culture and able to work only 4 days a week, they should be throwing their money around here instead of spending it up there. 

On the one hand, for example, I think it's great that The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time and The Audience and Hedwig are playing on Broadway. I think it's great that there's off-Broadway shows that are unusual and cool and might even star someone you've seen on TV. But their proposed system makes you not so much a master with two servants, but a tourist with no home. If your own city doesn't seem good enough, maybe it's because you didn't invest in it. Maybe if they quit looking for happiness and money elsewhere, they'd find it were they are. Click your damn heels, Dorothy.

and, as Jarvis Cocker said, everybody hates a tourist, especially when it's all such a laugh and the chip stains' grease will come out in the bath.

The guys decided to leave to have cocktails at about five minutes to two. in the afternoon. cause, what the hell. first they thought about going to Dirty Frank's, then Woody's (wondering if it still existed), and then Uncle's. They finally settled on Dirty Frank's.

I hope they remembered to bring cash, because Dirty Frank's doesn't take American Express.

I'm still working on my game project. The AI programming language has kind of grown, though. I have become rather enamoured of it and am making it more of a general purpose language. Once I can rewrite the game engine itself in SAI (which is what the language is called) I will return to it.

Right now I'm working on interoperability with Javascript, which is the hosting language -- SAI code is transpiled into Javascript code that does the exact same thing, which can then, because it is Javascript, be run just about anywhere.  

I don't know if I can really justify what I'm doing. It seems these days everyone's got their own framework or preprocessor or whathave you. I'm doing this mostly for me, and mostly because whenever I go to use Javascript I become extremely frustrated not only at its syntax but at the abuse that other people perpetrate upon the language and other programmers using it.

It's like Javascript is just this wide open sandbox of "hey you can redefine anything anytime go nuts!" and then people do, and suddenly no one knows what the fuck is going on any more because all the fruits mean wibble mustang dope run-on sentence and good luck charlie. Kapisce?

I'm not saying I'm locking it down, but I am saying that a little bit of rigor and formalism would not be inappropriate. And if defucking the syntax further encourages clear and straightforward coding, then maybe it will be a useful tool for others too.

This is a public service announcement. Or something. What it isn't is your author bragging about some mental disorder. I promise.

I had an anxiety attack today - my first in a couple years. I was grocery shopping and had an overwhelming, all-encompassing, and utterly irrational urge to stock up on paper plates immediately. "If you don't purchase paper plates right now," my brain explained, "everything is gonna fall apart. Lives will be ruined, the time-space continuum will shatter, Limp Bizkit will release another album." This was serious. I was fixated, I was in a loop, and the only prescription was more paper plates. 
​

                                  This guy knows what I'm talkin' about.

I put several packages of paper plates in my cart and strolled over to the tea aisle, figuring that was the end of that. But while searching for Red Zinger, I realized I my pulse was racing and my breathing shallow - I was as tense as an unarmed Ted Nugent on a Disney Animal Kingdom safari ride. Now Red Zinger can be tough to find, but it's hardly worth that much stress. That's when it hit me. "Holy cow," I thought, as I'm apparently a character in 50 Shades of Gray. "I'm having a freakin' anxiety attack. Where the hell did that come from?"

At first, the I found the dichotomy hilarious - after at least 18 episode-free months, here I am panicking in the Safeway! I texted Jill "xtingu" Knapp to let her know what was going on, but she didn't have her phone handy, so she didn't get the message (if she had, she would have immediately walked to the supermarket and driven me home over my objections, because she's Jill). So I stuck to my task of buying up our snow n' ice storm supplies, even as the supermarket started to take on a nightmarish (but still amusing) funhouse-type atmosphere. "I'm buying butter during an anxiety attack," I thought. "I'm buying Fruit Loops, honey, Peppermint Patties, Bugles, and James Dean Pancake Batter-Wrapped sausages while I'm having an anxiety attack. This is kind of punk rock."*

But soon, it was more GG Allin than The Ramones. Consternation replaced my good humor. The tension in my spine, my quickening pulse, my utterly distracted mind, and my rising apprehension made shopping - and especially being around people - more and more impossible. This wasn't funny anymore. I finally stashed my cart in the corner where no one goes (where they store things like raisins, Lunchables, and balut**) and ran out to my car, where I listened to 50s doo-wop for 30 minutes or so and breathed deeply, desperately trying to bring my epinephrine levels down.

Okay, this post is gonna get even duller if I stay on this "and then I..." path. Suffice to say, the Diamonds and the Five Satins calmed me enough to get back in the store and finish shopping (ice cream > panic), check out (thank Cthulhu for those self-scan checkout stations!), and drive home. I unloaded the groceries, hung up my new sports jacket***, and said hi to Jill, who took one look at me and said "To the bed. Right now."​

            She still hadn't seen my text, but this is pretty much what Jill saw.

A dose of Xanax later, I thought I was doing on the mend. I was still physically tense - it was a struggle to get myself out of the fetal position - but my mind was calmer and perspective was returning. I was having rational conversations (for me, anyway) and joking about the whole paper-plates-as-mashed-potatoes-in-Close Encounters fiasco. Plus, a couple hours had passed, so I smiled and sat up - 

- and then came the waterworks. Uncontrollable shaking and crying. 

Bottom line: four hours passed between that first text to Jill and the last of my tears. A short time after that I was perfectly fine (as fine as I get, anyway), ready to conquer great viewings of YouTube and maybe scratch out another verse in a new song probably I'll never finish. But four hours is my longest attack yet - they used to be 90 minutes, tops. 

I don't care for morals (clearly), but if there is a moral, it's this: these things happen, and it's not shameful or necessarily tied to unhappiness. Something misfires in the brain and next thing you know you're stashing your cart and running out to your car in the rain. Granted, these attacks first started when I was unhappy, when my life was a mess and getting messier and my attempts to find happiness were becoming increasingly damaging - they were outlets for emotions I refused to deal with. And when I finally did start dealing with them and tried to get my life back on track (with many stumbles and mistakes, of course), the attacks grew less frequent. And now? I'm deleriously happy. I'm not sublimating, I'm not swallowing, and while not everything is perfect, I'm living a wonderful life, and I'm madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with someone who brings me more joy than I ever thought possible. Sure, I have problems and issues, mostly (but not all) health-related, but the good far outweighs the bad. Shouldn't these episodes be in the past?

Nope. That's not how it works. Today, there it was: a tough little anxiety attack waiting to absolutely blindside me with a poke to my brain.

I swear I'm not trying to aggrandize myself as a courageous figure who must carry a monumental burden. Not even close. My worst attacks are quite mild compared to what many people experience - for them, panic feels like massive, paralyzing, terrifying heart attacks. In my case, it's a more of a glitch, a little misfire, a mini-zap to the brain that finds me no matter what my state of mind. It's no one's fault, and according to many informal surveys, it doesn't make me deep and interesting. ("Hey, am I deep and interesting because I -" "No." "Can I even finish the question?" "No.") But it sure can add a little excitement to a mundane day. 

If this has ever happened to you, please, please tell doctor. When these episodes began, I hid them for months before finally, reluctantly, shamefully admitting to my doctor's PA that I was too weak to face these attacks down and probably needed therapy and pharmaceutical help. She said something wonderful: "Stop beating yourself up. People get sad, they get overwhelmed. You're a human being with emotions, and it isn't a weakness to feel emotions. It's a strength." I do my best to remember that when I need to. Life is beautiful, but sometimes it's a lot harder than it should be, and if a tiny dose of Alprazolam and a good cry can help you through the rocky moments, make it so. And let yourself marvel at what a piece of work is the brain and the body.

By the way, if anyone can use a few paper plates, we've got enough to cater a Duggers' family reunion. (Which I will never, never do, because fuck those guys. I hope they never get to experience anxiety attacks.)

* QUIT JUDGING OUR SHOPPING LIST. It's...for the homeless, okay?

** If you're having a fine day, do not Google "balut." All will be lost. 

*** What, your supermarket doesn't have a Men's Clothiers section? Right next to Haberdashery and Shepstery? Weird.

My house is so still. One child has gone to work, one still sleeps and the other is in his room quietly doing his math. 

I can hear the hum of the fridge. The pur of the outdoor spa. I I hear the dial tone on my neighbours phone, the relentless beeps as she dials and redials a number no one ever answers  and the sighing  as she gives up trying to call whoever it is she is reaching out to. I can hear the key in the door as she locks it behind her and the car splutter to life as she heads off, wherever it is she is going. Noise travels well in stillness. And next door, they are raw, pulsating noise. 

This morning was the shrill screams of a 12 year old not wanting to brush his teeth. The snippets we hear, the language, the fights, makes me think that perhaps these children have some kind of issues that create the daily multiple meltdowns. We've even had soiled toilet paper thrown over the back fence to land in our yard.  You could say these neighbours of ours are what the rest of Australia would derisively term as "Houso's". 

But it's the stillness of these moments, when my children are quiet and hers are at school that I hear pieces of her. The persistent cough she seems to have had for the past four weeks. The constant dialing of a phone that is never answered. A kinder person would go over there, introduce themselves, ask if she was okay or needed a hand. I am not that kind. I just listen. And I know when the working week is done, there will be cars parked all over the roadside and more noise and extra people and more rubbish that finds its way onto my lawn. 

I like the silence, even if it does seem tainted with a kind of sadness.