the words were written wrong

i'm all confused lately - i'm loving life, but i'm confused. i'm starting to get into the habit i need to be in for my own physical and mental health (playing frisbee/soccer most days). i'm starting to get into the thesis writing habit (giving it 1-2 hours of each day), which is absolutely necessary at this point in my game. i'm loving spring as i always do. teaching and classes are fine. i think relationships with people are going pretty decent. the only big decisions in my life involve figuring out where to live this summer and where to live next year (and how to plan vacations). but some things in my life just seem confusing. unable to sort out. and i guess that's fine - i can live with ambiguity. confusion is probably a better word here.

so i'm being mysterious and vague, huh? unfortunate really, but it isn't likely to change - if i don't know what i'm confused about - if i don't know what's on my mind, how can i explain it? you can deal with it the same way i can. i'll concede that i'm busy. and i'll concede that there are a lot of things to worry about. maybe that's it.

but really the truth is, i have really good friends - i have good activities - i have good life goals - i have good family stuff - i eat well - i get to sleep - i feel quite fulfilled - so why do i say i'm confused. it's probably some inherent part of my life - i've never been without it. i just need to go with what i got rather than trying to figure out what could be different in my life. yeah, i'll do that. you should too if you feel the same confusion over good things in your life.

when i was younger, i developed a bunch of strange habits - many related to my older brothers (either in reaction to how they treated me or to do cool things that they might think were important). i developed high pain tolerance and lost my ability to feel pressure points. breathing became a conscious activity. and it wasn't all that bad. but there was a short time when i tried to get so i could sleep with one or both of my eyes open (i think - and i was told this a couple times at least - it's not really something one can know for oneself without the feedback of others). i learned how to sleep with high levels of awareness. actually, now that i think about it, i'm less sure this had anything to do with my brothers at all. but i tend to relate things back to them. kind of funny.

when i was trying to get rid of my case of insomnia in high school, i started doing controlled breathing exercises - it helped me to relax, and that was good - it didn't help me sleep however - i just went into a different state where i felt like everything was pretty relaxed except for my head - so it allowed parts of me to rest, but not really the part that needed the rest the most. it took me realizing how much i liked dreaming and the stuff that i could figure out while sleeping for me to finally start sleeping again. then first year of college hit, and i had a high stress roommate - i would usually go to bed at 10pm or 2am just because i couldn't go to sleep when he was trying to go to sleep - often i couldn't go to sleep while he was in the room. he just radiated stress. i started sleeping with a pillow over my head and became so accustomed to it that year that it took me most of the next summer to stop sleeping with a pillow over my head. habits are strange.

i'm still trying to figure out what i think this song is about and more importantly what this song means to me. the group is great - it was an acquired taste as is often the case lately. but the song - i like the instrumentation and the simplicity of the music. it combines with a pretty complex story i think - the simple enough read is that it's about being in a theatre group, but that has some surface/metaphoric content. i like the openly understood fakery inherent in the song - being fake is real here. i think that's something we can all learn from, whether it's this song, the most recent movie i watched (closer), or reading deconstructionist views of reality. okay, so i've went way too far in connecting things up when i shouldn't, especially when all this is bordering on nonsense - just remember that the only good parts here are the memories of my life and the song lyrics - head straight for them. but if you want an emo-ish song, go for this one.

all our vice by the new amsterdams

It's a clandestine arrangement that we never could get to stick.
Every night under the table with the sick and the fits.
Never cast as the romantic lead but somehow on our feet.
We're waiting to be received and the whole scene sighs relief.
Somehow everyone functions with a barely visible scar.
Know the length we'd go was so far, so far.
At nights I see the sun come up but don't remember where it went down.
A realist whose time has come, it feels like I'm the only one.
Obstacles to overcome, but now I don't trust anyone.

So, here's to all our vice and our secret double life.
I'll sleep with one eye open and maybe you'll save my life.

Another cool assed show under the table on the ground.
Keep the floorshow up to sound and the light show up to specs.
If we drown until we're exhausted it's what nobody expects.
Nothing left to lose.
Everything to prove.
Nothing we can't do.
Not anything for you.
The words were written wrong.
My life imitates your songs.
On and on and on.

Here's to all our vice and our secret double life.
I'll sleep with one eye open, maybe you'll save my life.