2/3 Ain't Bad (By Complete Accident This is a FOB Reference)

The Fall Out Boy song I've accidentally reference is "I'm Like a Lawyer With The Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off". 

I've been feeling the good side effects of being medicated. My anxiety is pretty much down from its constant overpowering state, and I haven't had any of the usual listlessness and constant lack of energy of the depression. 
    What I do still have however, is ADHD. 

    On one hand, it's really nice to not have the other 2 things weighing me down. I'm the least stressed I've ever been in my life, which is saying a lot from the guy who's basically been living his life in stress, and having small but consistent things to look forward to is really good for me. I've been feeling relatively productive for once in my life. I even bought myself an agenda because it turns out they do make agendas for school terms, and not just for elementary school children. I would've loved having a batman one or something though. 

    All things considered, a pretty big upgrade from last year. But I have been feeling the full effects of my ADHD. I've been exceptionally scatterbrained---just ask my girlfriend how long it takes for me to lose my phone---and while I'm able to work on things without 30 mins to an hour of stressing about it, it doesn't actually mean I can get myself to work on things. I'm no longer stressing about it, but I'm not much better at feeling like I should do it. My attention feels fleeting at best.  

    I'm definitely doing more work more consistently than I was last semester. Well kind of. I only have one class monday and then none on tuesday, so after to monday class I just kinda blob out and do nothing after a weekend of assigning myself work to do and kind of doing it proper. I'm still getting everything done that I need to, at least for now, but it still doesn't feel great to be doing it like this. 

    At the very least everything else feels pretty solid. I think I've gained a little weight over the summer so now all my clothes that fit perfectly are a little small, and all the clothes I had that were slightly too big are fitting okay, but not perfectly, and I'm barely concerned with the weight aspect, I'm just annoyed the closest I've been curating for myself is slightly uncomfortable now. Some of it is probably going to come off of me during the school year, but I was also practically starving myself for some of last year so I hope it doesn't become that severe. 
    I've also been back into practising bass! I really need to be. The first band meet is slowly approaching, which is interesting for a band that's only been talking online until now. I really hope we aren't ass in person. I really hope. Oh man. I mean with time things will come but oh man. I expected that if I ended up in a band, it'd be a punk band mostly doing shows at DIY venues. But we're not quite in that lane, and from the talks of it, everyone's got the sights on consistently playing actual venues. It is a little insane how committed our defacto band leader is. I mean I'm all in on this too but bros really delved into the actual logistics of this all. I'm very glad to have a professional music major leading this group. Like seriously though there's an extensive list of local promoters and venues and labels in a google doc we share. It feels kinda crazy.

Getting Killed (Unfortunately not like Geese)

 New bass is in, older basses are out. And gone for much lower than I was expecting but its fineeeee.

    I feel bad because my new bass has just been sitting there since I'm being hit with the landslide that is all of the projects I'm getting assigned literally the first week. My major aims to kill.

    In better news though! Turns out my meds with a longass prescription was actually wrong. It was supposed to be longer! Apparently my dose was supposed to be higher and I was only taking 75% of that dose; and oh my stars its insane how much of a difference that last 25% did to me. I've just been calm. Just calm. Overall chilling. I might be chilling too hard, the ADHD is still very much hitting me, but I'm just chilling. 
    Doesn't mean I'm completely free of anxiety. I feel an understandable amount relating to working on projects, and I had an anxiety attack during my class that felt like it came out of nowhere. But I'll take that trade over being generally anxious. The days leading up to the start of class were hell for my anxiety, so it feels really nice to be starting the year incredibly chill.

     On the topic of my bass, I've been writing more songs! Unfortunately our lead song writer is also busy as hell with school so not too much is happening there. Or at least not fast. They did end up sending an acoustic demo for an incredibly sappy love song I wrote about my girlfriend. That first listen was so difficult because hearing someone else the deliver the words I wrote just felt overwhelming. Like cringe but not in a bad way. Again like, embarrassed but not in a bad way, it was just a lot. 
    I don't know how I'll fare if we ever play that live.

    In other good band news! We do now finally have a band instagram. Nothing posted to it yet but it was about time that we made one. And we have our first band practice coming up!! So far I've met our lead songwriter and lead guitarist but I still haven't met the drummer. That practice is also gonna be a first time meeting in person for the rest of them, so that'll be interesting. 
    The only reason I met the lead guitarist is because I went over to his house to help clear out his garage so we could have a band practice. It felt really nice to move heavy things around. Big fan. 

Anyways. I'm gonna go sleep as long as my body lets me. Man I need it.  

BASSBASSBASSBASSBASS

NEW BASS!!!!! 

Ignore the mess behind it. and the straplock circles on top of it.

 

It is a changing time and with that is a change in bass. The lead songwriter of my band really likes to write in multiple different tunings, including tunings lower than E and I. cannot be arsed to have to tune multiple times during a hypothetical show. So obviously I needed to get a 5 string bass. 

    I actually bought a 5-string bass around July. However it was. Just okay. The neck was kinda fucked, and it wasn't anything special. I was honestly unattached from the moment I had it. Glossy black body and a blackish neck-- it looked objectively pretty cool, but as soon as I held it I knew it would be temporary. It worked for what I needed it to; I got used to playing on a 5-string bass and worked on recording things ad writing things with it. It's lined up to be sold tomorrow. 

    The harder thing to part with is my first bass. I've been debating selling it since I got my first 5 string. I'd had it for a year, it's what I started with, its what I learned bass with. But after watching it sit on the side of my bedroom for the 2 months I had the 5 string, I knew that I wouldn't return to using it. I felt bad just seeing it collect dust, so while there's sentimental value to keeping it, I don't think that outweighs my guilt of wanting it to continue its life. It's lined up to be sold next week. 

    I think this new bass is going to carry on the name of my first bass, Brandy Pete. It feels right. This one just feels like my first bass but a little grown up. A little bit sleeker, a little bit rougher, same reddish body but a little darker. Its like the Folie a Deux to the original Brandy Petes From Under the Cork Tree. Not in any way that I just described but that analogy makes sense to me. I put the same strap that was put onto Brandy Pete mark 1. 
    It feels a little nostalgic. About as nostalgic as it can feel for someone who's now only been playing bass for a year and a month now. But a lot has changed since then. Like seriously goddamn I'm in a band now that seems like its actually going to happen. That feels crazy. The best I thought I'd get to before was playing at open mics with a buncha people I've never met. 

A lot has changed. I'm terrified for whats to come. But I have a bass I love and an excitement for something that I haven't had in a long time. I've got to believe it'll be better.  

 

My Girlfriend Bullied Me Into Writing This

I jest I jest, but I am doing this again bc she made a joke about how dead my blog has been.

I don't even know the last place I left off and truthfully I'm not bothered enough to check. 

The impending dread of school has been getting to me. I'd say it's been creeping up but considering how I cried it out this morning for like an hour, its more truthful to say its been hitting me like a truck.

In good news, band progress has been great! We've got a buncha demos in the works-- we've pretty much got enough for an EP at this point, but we also haven't all met eachother in person yet. That is also the funny part about it, the fact that I'll be meeting the people who've known about my existence and accepted that we'll be collaborating in some way. Though I will say I haven't really gotten to know em all too much. Everyone's got jobs and are busy and I've been mostly bothering out lead songwriter about stuff. 
    I've kinda been calling them the lead songwriter, yknow, because they are, but they didn't realize that until I pointed it out to them. While multiple of us contribute to the music, and they don't consider the band to have any single main songwriter, they're definitely our lead. They're the one that's really pulling things together and creating a musical foundation for everyone else to riff off of. 
    Which is so much fun, hooooly. 

I feel like I've leveled up in songwriting a bit, where I'm now able to more or less write whole songs instead of just snippets. My current strat is to just write a buncha notes and ideas as they come to me, and then when I have a stronger idea of what I want to write, or have what feels like a strong idea to write around, I start forming it into something. It's definitely a lot easier to put together a song when you've already got some of the pieces, and now its just your job to put it together and pad it out. 
    I've written 2 whole songs that way! Or at least 2 whole blueprints that I'm shipping off to our lead. The current workflow is that I give bro lyrics and whatever chops of melodies I have and then I hope bro takes any of em and goes with it and fleshes it out. Got at least 1 actual demo out of it, and most likely 2 more on the way. Like seriously its been 2 months and we've got like 5 demos, 2 on the way, at least a handful of things that could become songs. Crazy shit. I have no clue the regular rate for writing songs is for bands but no matter what it just feels crazy to me that these things exist. They're all sitting in a google drive and I can listen to em. I really hope we actually get to play them live. 

I think the biggest thing I've thought about with this whole project is "where do I want this to go?" It's really easy to say that I hope we become big enough to tour and fill stadiums but I fear I'm too realistic for that. I've also lived 20 years (happy belated Bday me) of dreaming the biggest dream and hurting when none of it comes to fruition because I've made it too hard for myself to just start. Truthfully, I just want what we have to exist in the world. I want people to have seen us play, and release an album so I can point back to it and say "I did that." Whether or not we make it big is irrelevant in that dream. Obviously it would be cool, but I'm really proud of what we've made so far and no matter what I don't want it to rot in a google drive forever.