This Yellow Taxi Cab In Which I Ride

Today has been the type of day in which taking multiple deep breaths does not seem to result in anything other than hyperventilation. I wrote this song lyric a few months ago and haven't been able to do anything with it, but it pretty much reiterates what I just wrote: It's been another one of those long days the kind that break you take your breath away I've been sprawled out on my bed since work trying to decide if I'm hungry enough to bother making food, thirsty (?) enough to go get a beer, desiring enough to watch hockey at a bar, or in need of socializing with drunks enough to get food/beer/hockey at Partner's Pub. I may just type out this blog, hit submit, and just roll over and go to sleep. I could get into the specifics of my work day, but that won't really make me feel any better about it. The bottom line is that I have gone a couple of years at my current position without having a conflict of interest between my job duties and bureaucracy. That ended v

Eleven o'clock. Friday. I'm still in bed, but I'll be getting up shortly. I'm starving and I've rested enough. Big night coming up! It's the Garage to Glory Finals. Truth be told, I'm nervous/anxious/etc. Actually, I'm not sure if it's an anxious feeling or an excited feeling... maybe it's both with some nervousness added in. Tonight is going to be wild... the event itself is going to be full of much more than just songs. There is a host who will be chatting with people on stage. There is a person doing interviews after performances. A TV crew. Multiple cameras. It's going to be wild. Part of my nervousness is coming from all of the production. I've been telling myself that I just have to focus on me and doing what I do, which is playing my songs. If I can convince my body to stop freaking out about everything else, I'll have no problem. I've played for big crowds before. And I've played in new/unfamiliar places. I've play

Catchy title, eh? It all makes sense in my mind... I can't sleep. It's only just about my bed time, but I'm logging on now to blog because we all know that I'm going to end up here eventually anyway. (Insomnia) I have trouble sleeping in general. I have extra trouble sleeping when my mind is running in circles about one particular thing or another. I have extra, extra trouble sleeping when I'm excited about being voted into the Finals of a songwriter contest that I entered. Not to mention it's rather stormy out at the moment. (Storminess) It's the first thunderstorm of the season (not exactly sure which season since -- technically -- it's spring, but today was so warm it felt like summer) and the wind is whipping and wind chimes are... chimming (leave it to my neighbors to have wind chimes out already). During the last storm (a winter storm) that we had, many tree limbs fell and littered my yard. One particularly large limb fell in my front yard and acro

It's late ... early ... dark out on Sunday night. I just got threw watching a movie called Monsters . I had seen a preview for it months ago and then read reviews that it was poorly made. The premise of the film is that there are alien beings tromping around in an area in northern Mexico near the United States border. According to the poor reviews, all of the scenes that actually had the aliens in them were shown in the preview and there were only pieces of the aliens shown. In other words, everything is happening off screen. This was pretty much true of the movie. The aliens were often "off screen," but this didn't take away from the movie at all. It was quite similar to Cloverfield , which I absolutely loved because it focused on the characters and their plight rather than the monster. Similarly, Monsters wasn't at all about the, er... monsters. The aliens were in the background throughout the film and really just provided a reason for the two main characters t

Do you ever wonder what happens to the people who disappear from the face of the planet? Not the missing person, FBI is involved, people. The people who you text and talk to on the phone and hang out with on some regular basis, who suddenly stop texting, talking to, and hanging out with you. I have quite a few people in mind, who -- over the past year or so -- came in to my life for one reason or another, communicated with me regularly for a period of time, and then disappeared... I like to think that they are all in some purgatory-esque land together where they spend all of their time talking about me... Girl A: "Whoa... wait a sec. Where am I?" Girl B: "Hi there. You must be a former of acquaintance, friend, lover, etc. of James Frederick. Welcome to 'James Who? Land.'" Girl A: "How did I get here?" Girl B: "Simple. You either stopped returning James' calls or stopped responding when he texted you. There is even one girl here who pretend