Reflections a year later.

I'm feeling good. My stress level isn't as high as it was a few days ago, which I attribute to me being given less stress in my day to day work environment after being laid off earlier this week. It's a sunny Sunday morning, and I'm loading Pro Tools to start mixing K Nacole's next track. In general I feel good.

It's been one year to the day since Sarah moved out. It was a Saturday, and it was snowing like crazy. I was at work, and I came home to an empty house with very little furniture in it. It was a numbing day for me, but one that cut to the bone. 12 years, gone in a day.

But today, I'm feeling well. I'm just a little bit down thinking about it, but I'm over it all. I'm only really down because I'm remembering the emotions of that day, and that's never fun. But I'm doing OK today. I've got a full plate today, full of audio work and homework. I've got a plan for where I wanna take my life. I've got a beautiful woman that I'm planning a lifetime of companionship with. I've got a 5 year plan in place to guide me to where I wanna go. I've got business ideas in place that I'm implementing. I've got a lot of aspirations. I've attacked my financial insolvency head on while I had a steady income, and now that I don't, I'm ok for the time being.

I've matured a lot over the last year. I've stressed myself out a lot in recent days, but that's falling to the wayside as I distance myself from my stress-inducing job. I still have an underlying sense of panic with the uncertainty of my finances, but I know that as long as I stick to my budget and put forth a real effort, I can manage what i have.

I've traveled a long and emotional road over the past 12 months, and even in the 4 months before it when Sarah started showing signs of changed feelings regarding our relationship. But I feel that today will be an important milestone, as it's now been one year of post-Sarah events. I only mark it because I feel I should for my own mental health. Knowing that every special occasion that will come up over the next year will have been preceded by that occasion without Sarah the year before will help me really be able to just live my life and not focus on the past anymore.

Laura says that I focus on anniversaries of events, which I find completely true. So the fact that this one is passing leaves me to feel that I can now fully just let it all go and move on in every way. I'm feeling somewhat freed by that knowledge.

So here we are, one year later, and I've weathered a mental hurricane. But I've come out on the other side, begun to repair the damage, and am now a happy and confident person again. I'm now excited for the year to come! Bring it on world!

Misteps.

Well, the train has been derailed again.

I fudged a calculation on my budget spreadsheet, and now I find that I've not only overdrawn my bank account and will be incurring an unfair NSF fee of $46, but may not be able to pay off the credit card this week as I originally planned. It's embarrassing, but here we are. I'm trying to find ways to bring in more cash flow to the house, but I'm also limited by work hours for the holidays......

.......yeah, it's January 10th, and I'm limited by work hours for the holidays. At my Monday-Friday 9-5 day job I've had December 26th off, January 2nd off, and will have January 16th off. This means that for 3 out of 4 weeks, I'm getting 30-32 hours each week instead of 40. This is a big deal for an hourly employee, and I'm kind of pissed that we would have so many holidays off in a row. It makes this whole thing even tougher to manage. I'd have been able to avoid the NSF I now have if I had worked a full 40 hour week over the last two weeks (......or if I had been more scrutinous of my spreadsheet calculations), but I'm starting to get to a point where I can't afford the income of this job if they don't start working me a 40 hour week. At this rate, I won't have regular 40 hour pay checks again until mid February.

The Enemy By Mourning record is finished, and now I can book other clients to bring in more cash flow to the studio, but I don't have any concrete bookings. I'm recording Jovy on Saturday, but that's for my label, so there's no cash coming in from that session. I'm possibly working with an artist on Sunday, but they haven't responded to my work agreement, and until that has been responded to it's not a solid booking. So that's not a guarantee. And now that I'm off of my day job Monday Jan. 16th, I'm trying to get studio bookings that day at a discounted rate. So far, no bites.

Obviously the only income I can project on my budget spreadsheet is the income from my day job, since studio bookings are virtually non-existant at this time and overage checks and tax returns are not a constant. The only way that I can see right now to keep the bills paid that I need to pay and keep myself from being in perpetual NSF with the bank is to not pay off the credit cards this weekend, which makes me feel like a huge failure and a dissapointment to the family members who gave me money to pay on them last fall (quick recap....I paid one off, and then needed brakes, so it was maxed out again after 3 days. The other, I needed the cash for other bills. I pledged to pay them off in January with money I was recieving, but here we are........).

I have a balance from a good faith client that needs to be collected. I've unsuccessfully tried to collect this on a few occasions, but the client has always paid toward his bill so I can't collect this aggressively. Better to have the client happy and paying in increments than to collect aggressively and cut off the revenue stream. In other words, on a business sense, it's in my best interest to not piss off this client and keep the revenue stream open.

Other than that, it's been tough. I fight, I budget, I cut out the fast food, I don't spend frivelously, but each month it's within single digits of not making it. It's cutting it too close. I've taken up ramen noodles again as a cheap source of food, though not on the same level I was eating them at after Sarah moved out. Now with winter gas bills at play in a large energy sucking house (I really need to move, but that takes MONEY!), I'm just thankful that we've had a reasonably warm winter in Ohio so far, although my gas bill is still tough to pay.

I've resigned myself to bundling up like crazy, and when I cook using the oven, I leave the oven open when I'm done to allow the heat to fill the house. Why waste the heat? I have a dishwasher that hooks up to my kitchen sink, and instead of using the hot water tap I use cold. The dishwasher has a heating element inside of it, so why should I pay to heat the water twice? I use an electric blanket at night, allowing me to turn the house thermostat down to the mid 60's, which in this house is more like the mid 50's. I budget, I scrimp, I try to save......

I think the thing that really pisses me off here is that money has been so tight, I can't get more coming in, and the amount that is coming in has been decreasing due to holiday time off. If i could just get more coming in, I'd be ok. I was ok in October before I got depressed after my cancer scare and let my spending habits get out of control again. I know I can do it. But the problem is that I've been paying for Octobers irresponsibility since then, and there's no end in sight. The thing that really pisses me off about that is that I didn't do anything really drastic then! I didn't track my spending, but I didn't go out and spend a lot of money either. But I was spending more on junk food and fast food (comfort items since I was stressed), and had time off of work that I simply could not afford. Then there's the medical bills (don't get me started.....). I drained my savings to keep my rent paid, and now I have almost nothing saved and can't get back on top. I plan, but there's always something that derails that plan. I do not want to live a life of perpetual poverty, so something drastic has to change.......NOW.

I realize though that I'm stressed, and that I shouldn't allow that to prevail. I just need to keep it all in perspective. I'm infinitely better off than I was over the summer, when I was unemployed and borrowing money to keep a roof over my head. But I'm on the rim of the fabled canyon, and could go over at any time. I have so far to go to get to my 5 year goal, and when things like this happen in the beginning it makes it seem like I'll never get there. I just need to try to remember that the things I'm putting in place now will make it easier to achieve that goal in the future. The baby steps that form the foundation show the least visible results, but are vital in building the house.

.....still, I may be digging the pit for the basement, but I wish I could be painting the shutters by now.

.....The next chapter.

You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.

I think I've finally come to the point where I'm ready to close the 2011 chapter and move on to the 2012 chapter. This means moving on once and for all from dwelling on what I've gone through, and trying to focus only on building my life from this point on. This took some time to achieve, and included some mental anguish (during which my blog posts sounded like the rantings of a whining emo jerkface), but over the holidays I turned a corner and now feel that I may finally be free from it all.

I had something brewing under the surface in the weeks approaching Christmas, and it was causing a nervous tension between Laura and I. We both noticed it, but neither of us brought it up. A few days before Christmas, I was really tense and I was trying to just ignore the fact that Christmas was on us. I was approaching Christmas as minimally as possible, feeling that if I could just get past this holiday without involving Sarah, I'd be reclaiming that part of my life forever. But I was unable to isolate why I felt that way, and unable to isolate why I was feeling so withdrawn. It was having an impact on my interactions with Laura, as I was noticably more withdrawn and somewhat numb. Then on Christmas eve, she finally broke that ice.

She brought it up, asking what was going on, and that forced me to examine it. I realized that what I was upset about was the fact that I wouldn't be spending the holiday with a sect of what I consider my family simply because of Sarah. She wanted me to come over to her house for the holiday, but I needed this one to be Sarah free so that I could move on. However, this meant that I wouldn't see her family, who I care about and have adopted as my own family over the last 12 years. This was what was upsetting me beneath the surface, and when I finally was able to isolate that, I felt a huge weight lift off of me. This tore down the wall I had been building, and made me realize that it was ok that I wouldn't see them this year. I needed to be Sarah free for the first Christmas since 1998, and that made me sad that I'd be missing seeing certain people I cared about. I was still sad about it, but I was aware of that now and able to process it and move on from that sadness.

In that realization, I turned a corner. I now am feeling that I can finally put all of this whiny emo bullshit aside, and move on with my life. I'm looking forward to 2012, as it will symbolize a brand new beginning for me. It'll symbolize the proverbial slate being wiped clean, and it'll be a celebration of the new life path before me. I'm back on my budget, I'm working hard at my musical and business ventures, I'm in school, I have an income, I have a car, I have food in my cupboard, and I have a beautiful woman who loves me. I'm thankful to be so blessed, and I am ready to stop bitching about what I've lost. I'm ready to start living my life unincumbered by the suffereing I went through in 2011, and am ready to start living my life as a happy, mentally balanced adult who appreciates what life has given him.

With that, 2012 will be the year I turn my life around and live it finally on my terms. I'm in an ass kicking, take no prisoners mindset. It's time for happiness to prevail in my life yet again.

Understanding.....

With time comes understanding, and with understanding comes healing, and with healing comes the ability to close the doors and move on.

I think I'm nearing the understanding phase of my divorce.

Let's explain.

Sarah and I were together from July 4th, 1999 to Christmas Day 2010. (Wow, one holiday to another, weird coincidence). That's a long time. So on one hand, it's understandable that our split would cause some inner turmoil and emotional issues that I would have to deal with. But I feel that what I've gone through is above and beyond that, and if the split had happened in a better way things would have likely been better for me emotionally this year.

There was no easy way to do what Sarah felt she needed to do, I get that. I do feel that the split itself could've gone better, but it is how it is. Eventually she did what she needed to do and just got out of the house, but that was 6 weeks after she dropped the bombshell on me, and 4 months after she implied that she was losing interest and started avoiding me at all costs, while trying to distance herself from me and making me sleep in the lazy boy in the living room.

I realize that she didn't know what she wanted to do and hadn't made up her mind, but I feel that on her end it could've been handled with more grace to spare me some psychological damage. If she hadn't avoided me at all costs, ignored my phone calls, tried to pretend to her friends that I wasn't living there anymore when in fact I was, and made me feel like I was something to be ashamed of, it might not have hurt (as bad anyway) on February 5th when I came home to an empty house.

I'm not blameless in how my year went after that. I hate many of the things I've done this year to Laura in my emotional aftermath of hurricane Sarah, and she didn't deserve any of it, yet she put up with it and tries to offer as much understanding as she's capable of offering. Still, I'll always hate that Laura came back into my life at that exact time, because I fear the damage I've done to her as a result of the hell I was going through. That said, I'm so thrilled to have her in my life, and I don't ever want that to change.

But I'm starting to realize and understand that my year has been hell because of the damage done to me by this messy split. I mean, when you drop the bomb "accidentally" on Christmas Day that we're no longer together, how can you expect me to look at Christmas the same the following year? It's not a fun holiday, for the first time in 12 years. When you leave me feeling like I'm second class and not worth your time, it's natural to expect me to have some identity issues and confusion about what I wanted in the aftermath. When you leave in general, it's natural to expect me to be angry about it, and when it's been 12 years, it's natural for me to be angry and feel abandoned for a while after that.

Long story short, i've been damaged by the way it went down. I've gone through hell to come out on this end, nearly a year later, and now I'm starting to see why I was so damaged. It was the shitty way this breakup was handled.

So now that I get it, my hope is that I can just move beyond the anger and move on with my life. I've moved on in many ways, I'm in a new relationship after all. My life with Laura is awesome, even though I feel terrible crippling guilt a lot of the time for how I treated her when I was going through all of this and sorting myself out.

So now that I understand it all more clearly, one hopes I can just get past it and focus on moving on. I think maybe it's time for that to happen, cause quite frankly, I'm growing weary of bitching about this all the time on this blog. I feel like anyone who reads it will think that all I do is sit around and mope about this hell of a year I've been through. I feel like I'm hesitant to even post these whiny blogs to facebook anymore because of that. Whining isn't all I do, but it's naturally going to happen. So when you yourself are getting sick and tired of your own bitching, you know it's likely time to get over it and move on. That's the beginning of the healing phase, and I think that I'm getting there at long last.

Image lifted from aroundtheworldineightyyears.com

Merry Christmas......

It's now Tuesday, December 20th.

Weird to type that and have it feel like just another day in just another month.

I'm not taking much stock in Christmas this year. There are plenty of reasons, and one of them is that I have no money to buy anyone a present.

But other than that, I also don't have someone living with me making me feel all festive. it's easy to get excited about a holiday when the other person is excited about it too. But after 12 years, that person is gone. This is my first christmas in 12 years without her, and I don't know if I'll even see her over the holiday.

Kinda weird, but also, kinda not at all.

After all, there were deep wounds cut this time last year. That's gonna take some time to heal, and it's still going.

But this isn't just another long winded rant about how hurt I feel about the separation.

Actually, this is more of a statement to the fact that I don't think Christmas is really all that important.

After all, why do we hold so much stock in a commercialistic holiday designed to line the corporate pocketbooks by promoting good will in the form of a pretty package?

Ok, sure, it was started as a religious celebration of Jesus's birth……but come on. Only a small handful still celebrate that aspect of the holiday now. The rest of you are waiting in your long stupid lines on black friday to plow your fellow man over in order to get this doodad or that doohickey because the corporate machine has you by the balls……but I digress.

If you take away the commercialism, and you take away the religious aspects, Christmas is supposed to be about being with those you love and those that truly matter.

Forgive me, but after last year's disastrous Christmas, is that person really going to be Sarah? I'm not so sure. I know it'll be Laura, and my family, but where Sarah fits in…..I'm not sure.

And if I'm not celebrating the religious side of the holiday this year, and I'm not celebrating the religious side of the holiday, then buying presents and hanging lights become useless practice…..especially when I have no money for either.

So I'm just going to let Christmas be what it is……another day on the calendar. I'll spend it with family, and I'll be glad to see them, but it'll not be quite the spectacle that it has been. Because of that, I'm just letting it slide by this year almost unnoticed.

Maybe I'll get back in my holiday spirit by next year……who knows.

2011.

There's so much I wanna touch on. I don't honestly know where to begin.

It's 1 week before Christmas 2011.

On Christmas Day it will be 18 months to the day since we drove out of Conifer Colorado in the moving van……

……it'll be 1 year and 2 months approximately since Sarah first hinted that she was having second thoughts about our 12 years together……..

……it'll be 1 year exactly since she let it slip on Christmas Day 2010 that our relationship was in fact over……

It'll be 10.5 months since she finally was able to move her belonging out of the house, and transformed from my best friend into a major source of stress and despair in my life.

I'm over it. I've indicated this. I've moved on, and am now with a woman who loves me, respects me, has faith in me, and who I doubt I'll ever be able to let go of because of those reasons…….and because of so many more.

But the fact is that I still have a lot of anger and resentment. It's bubbling up like crazy right now, and I need to get it out.

For instance, I've made no secret of the fact that I was in love with the Rocky Mountains. It's approximately 18 months now since I've last laid eyes on them before slipping away like a thief in the night. If you read this blog, you know how big of a loss that has been for me. But just when I thought it was getting better……….it got worse.

Over Thanksgiving this year, I went to Atlanta Georgia to visit my family. This was my first road trip of any significance without Sarah, and it was a much needed experience. I wished that Laura could've been there, but I made the most out of being in the region. On my way back, I stopped in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.



I'm not sure if this was a great trip, or a big mistake.

There I was, completely in awe and completely in love with the landscape. It was like having the Rockies in the heart of the Plains. I was geeking out, taking photos and videos at every turn. I went to the top of Clingman's Dome, even though it was covered in a cloud bank and I couldn't technically see beyond 30 feet. But it was covered in conifer trees, and I was breathing the cool thin mountain air, and I honestly felt like I was at home again.

It was something my soul needed…….

…….but now I can't stop thinking about home. I can't stop getting hourly flashes of the landscapes I left behind 18 months ago. It's a constant reminder of everything I've lost, and it's driving me nuts. And note that I am not exaggerating when I say that it occurs hourly.

I'm planning a return trip with Laura in June, and it'll be nearly 2 years since I left, but it won't be enough. I have too many places I'll want to see when I'm there, and I'll have too many people to want to visit, and I'll never want to leave. I know this will be a great trip spiritually, but then I'll leave again. I don't know how I'll handle that.

I know I'm getting all emo about a bunch of geological features that really hold no significance to how I live my life, but there's nothing like this place that I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't imagine anywhere more beautiful, and when I lived there for two years I'd constantly be out and about looking at my surroundings. They gave me peace, and they were a spiritual escape.

………and now they are gone. Now the relationship that defined me for 12 years is gone. Now the business opportunities I had begin while living there are gone. Now, after everything I've given up over the last 12 years for one person, I had to start from scratch in every way this year.

That infuriates me.

I remember one year ago this week. Sarah's brother's birthday is on the 23rd of December, and we'd usually head for Wheelersburg around that date. But Sarah and I would have our own Christmas celebration before opening gifts with family. I remember doing what I felt was a symbolic measure to show her that I was changing and going to be acting more responsibly, which was a great divider for us. I remember getting her mother, brother, and her brother's wife, to pitch in for a laptop for her for Christmas. This was to replace the one I'd dropped and busted just before we moved from Colorado. After getting her a laptop, I also bought her Mario for her Wii. These were both items that she wanted very much, and I got them for her as a symbolic gesture that I was going to be more responsible and take everything more seriously.

She loved the laptop. She loved the video game. She was ecstatic………and she seemed to appreciate the note in the Christmas card attached to the laptop that said that it was a symbolic gesture.....but 5 days later it was all for nothing.

January came, and I was begging her not to move out. It would be a financial nightmare for me, cause I wasn't sure if I could afford this house on my own. I was showing her that we could pay off our debts if we stuck to a budget and be in a better financial place if she'd just stay in the house and not increase our individual monthly expenses by adding on her own set of rent and utility bills. I begged and pleaded, and she seemed interested……….

But then on February 5th, I came home to a nearly empty house.

I kinda feel that if you're gonna leave someone, and they didn't want you to, that the least you could do is leave them some fucking furniture. I kinda feel that if you're the one to leave, you forfeit that stuff. You're leaving the person behind after all, so are you really gonna take away most of the possessions that you both shared as well? I don't think that's fair. She left me with my studio gear, a TV, a couple of end tables, and my grandfathers old easy chair that I had been sleeping in for the past few months.

I still feel abandoned. I still feel cast aside. I still feel like I wasn't important to her anymore, and she was making no secret of it. I still feel like she lost faith in me long ago, and despite the fact that I was legitimately willing to change my ways to be a more responsible person, she'd heard it enough and didn't give a fuck anymore.

I'm still angry.

This is my cross to bear, but it's still here. It won't go away. It's been fucking with me all year.

Couple that with the fact that I'm now separated with the place that I literally was in love with, and seeing no easy way back to it………..

………..but though it may not be easy, it will happen. It won't happen as soon as I want it to, or I'd have never left. But it will happen. It's just going to take some time now to put a few things in place first.

The things in life that are worth it are worth fighting for. I'm about to bring a reckoning to the pattern my life has seen for it's first 30 years. Ohio has tried to put me in the ground this year, and it doesn't want to let me leave, but I'm waging a war. I will not settle for less. There is no reason I should, because there's no reason I can't have exactly what I want. Period.

So what do I want?

Refer to my 5 year plan to get an overview of what I'm trying to achieve by New Years Eve 2017. There are a few things I've started since writing that blog that weren't mentioned, such as my new record label that I've formed, or my efforts to go into artist management. If I can take one of the artists I have full faith in to another level, then I have earning potential from that and it'll be easier to live life on my terms……

……because as I said, I refuse to compromise.

So let's summarize. I want dual residency between Denver and Columbus. I want this for two reasons. 1 is Laura. She's got ties here that I won't take her from, but I want to live life with her in the Rockies. So this would be a great way to keep her with her family, while getting my mountains back. 2 is for the business possibilities. I'm establishing the label here in Columbus, and I'm establishing the studio here in Columbus. I'm hoping to make those viable income streams while then establishing myself as a national producer who is hired around the country to produce records. Denver makes sense, because it's a major music market. The Flobots and The Fray are both from there. Denver would be a great music industry hub for me.

This is going to take a lot of work. I have to get myself out of debt in the next 5 years, build several businesses into profitable enterprises, reach out to a nationwide artist market as a producer, and create financial independence, all while being a full time student with a full time day job at the moment. It's a bit overwhelming at times. But for the last 1/3 of my life, I've put myself on hold for someone who ultimately cast me aside. I felt that was worth it, because I was happy. Now I'm 30, have nothing saved, and have been through hell in the past 10.5 months.

It's time to change the game. It's time to stop compromising on what I want. It's time to reach for it with every ounce of my being. FUCK EVERYONE who stands in my way. I WILL have EXACTLY what I want, and I will not settle for anything less.

To the one who cast me aside, I'm still angry. Deal with it.

To anyone who wants to hold me down, or who doesn't believe that I can do this, go fuck yourselves.

To Laura, the woman I love with all of my soul, thank you for your undying faith in me. I promise to give this everything I have and build a better life for both of us.



To the music industry, look out for me. Here I come.

To Colorado, stay beautiful for my return.

Why I owe my new music career to Pomplamoose.

This was the video that did it for me. Let's start from the beginning.

I was in a band from the time I could be in one, up until I moved away from Columbus in 2006. I had been in a relationship at that point since 1999, when I was 18, and Sarah was going to grad school in Bloomington Indiana at IU. So I left the band, left my broadcasting job that I loved, and moved to Indiana. I was 25. I never really looked back to music for the remainder of my 20's.

By 2010, I had started a podcast about recording metal music, and made some friends in the podcasting community. I was also perusing a career as a recording engineer in Colorado. I was in love with the mountains, and I thought that after 11 years that I was happy with Sarah. But she wasn't happy, and looked for ways to change her situation to make herself happy again. That landed her a job back in central Ohio, so I closed my studio in Denver and moved back to the buckeye state.

Cue Pomplamoose.

Back when Pomplamoose released their cover of "Telephone", I saw my friend and fellow podcasting colleague Big Al Wagner post the video on (i think) twitter. I watched it, thought it was clever, but then moved on. I still lived in Colorado at the time. I thought it was cool to see the instrumentation they were using to create the music, and liked their quirky sound, but didn't give it much thought beyond that. I wasn't familiar with the original, and I just let it pass into the ether.

Little did I know…..

Fast forward 7 months after they release their "Telephone" cover to October of 2010. As you may have read, my life as I had known it for years began to come undone. Sarah began to express that she was having doubts about our relationship after 12 years, and I had moved away from the Colorado Rockies back to my birth home of Ohio. I started looking for distractions for the mental chaos that was going on, so I turned to recording podcasts to learn about more recording techniques, and I turned to youtube to watch people's studio sessions.

I think I'd have to credit Big Al Wagner again for posting something that caught my attention this time, but I honestly can't recall exactly what it was. But I found myself watching "Another Day" by Pomplamoose. I remembered seeing them months before when I was in my control room in Conifer, Colorado and passing it by after a brief watch. But this time, "Another Day" was the song that hooked me. I started watching, and watching, and watching, and digesting all of it. I was watching, and geeking out on the audio production tips I was gaining from the videos, I'd also be laughing at the goofiness that I'd see. I think part of my fascination was that it was obvious Jack and Natalie had a connection, and I was losing the one I had for 12 years. It was kind of like obsessing on what you were losing by looking at people who had what you were losing. I became rather obsessed with it for a brief period, I would watch the same 3-4 pomplamoose videos over and over, including Another Day, If You Think You Need Some Lovin, Mister Sandman, and Nature Boy. While watching, I'd get cues from the looks Jack and Natalie gave each other, and although that reminded me at times of what I was losing, it also helped in it's own way. So that helped make my fascination grow stronger.

By Christmas, I was watching a lot of other Pomplamoose videos, and had stumbled upon "Always In The Season".



Sarah and I were really big into holiday celebrations, and we were that sickening couple that would play christmas music in july because we enjoyed it. So this song became an instant favorite of mine.

Come January, I'm still in full distraction mode. I see Big Al Wagner post (yet again) on twitter "New Pomplamoose!" So I rush over to see their newest video for Achin Heart!



The holidays had passed, and Sarah had let it slip that things weren't going to be fixable. She was gearing up to move out, which she did on February 5th. But in January, I was still obsessively watching Pomplamoose videos. Being enrolled at Ohio State University taking business courses, and owning a recording studio in Central Ohio, I started taking notice around this time to a few things about their business model. I started noticing that they hardly played live, but they were being themselves and making pro videos that were gaining a following on youtube, which was driving their sales on iTunes! I started consuming it more feverishly now, watching for any business tips I could pick up.

Sarah leaves in February, and I start picking up my guitar again for the first time in almost 6 years. My former band mate from Day Nine, Josh Zeise, had started to come over to jam, and we started talking about forming a studio band. When the words "studio band" were uttered, it was like a light bulb going off. I realized that I wanted a chance to do what Pomplamoose were doing, and this was my opportunity. So Josh and I formed a band called Project DIVIDE. The approach I wanted to peruse here was to incorporate the same videosong concept that Jack and Natalie were using so successfully, and use it for a rock band. We began to talk about it, and decided to start working on a 4 song EP that would have videosongs. So we got to work. It's been kinda slow, but we're wrapping up work on our first EP (full time student with 3 jobs……cut me some slack).

In March, I was asked to perform at a show with an old friend as an acoustic act. I agreed, and decided to dust off my old collection of songs from 8 years prior when I was playing solo rock sets. This would be the first time I was on stage since 2006, and it made me decide to also peruse a solo career again. I decided that my solo career would also use the pomplamoose model, but I'd do live solo acoustic shows to generate a local fan base as well.

About this time, I got hooked on Jack Conte's solo career. With my own background in hard rock, Jack's solo style just seemed like a more comfortable fit, although I still love Pomplamoose. But Jack's song "Impression" remains one of my absolute favorites to this day.



I start consuming everything I can on the current state of the music industry, picking up where my industry geek-ery left off back in 2006. Some things had changed, but the basic principles were the same. So I decided to test the waters with my first videosong……



I chose the Buffy Theme because it was quick and simple, and would let me experiment with whether or not I was cut out to make videosongs. I like the results, and it's gained some small traction on youtube. I posted it to twitter, and Joss Whedon re-tweeted it! That was a MAJOR geek out moment for me……..



……and it was also a revelation that I could pull all of this off. If I could get Joss Whedon to repost it and increase my views exponentially in a matter of hours, then I could build a buzz about my own music. There was no looking back.

So with my new excitement for a second chance career in music, and my massive amounts of research into the industry (thanks Bob Baker, Making It In Music, and the millions of other resources I've found to re-educate myself…..) I started looking for new opportunities for a career in music. It even got to the point where in October, I had an idea to start a record label. We're working on starting it right now, but I'm using a lot of the knowledge I've regained after years of stepping away from the industry to carve my own place in the music industry. I now own a recording studio, am a member of Project DIVIDE, have a Solo career, and am Co-Owner of a record label that is currently in formation!

NONE of this would've been possible if Pomplamoose hadn't been there to get me excited about music again, and to help give me something to focus on when my life was going to hell in a handbasket. NONE of it. I'm now a rabid fan, and am stoked to find Pomplamoose on Spotify. I also have my own Pandora station dedicated to both Pomplamoose and Jack Conte.

I doubt Jack and Natalie will ever read this, and I'd be extremely flattered if they ever did, but if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be persuing my dreams again. So if you do ever read this on some off chance, thanks Pomplamoose. You've made a difference here.

P.S. - Who else can say they actually did something BETTER than Michael Jackson?!

September

Oh great.

it's September 5th, and it's quite evident that fall has fallen on Ohio.

So what's the big deal? Leaves changing? Cold weather? Holidays?

Well, to be honest, it's a combination of all of those, plus a little history of what happened to me last fall.

Let's attack these things one by one. The cool weather at night is just throwing me back to Colorado summer nights. It's quite obvious that I miss my mountains like crazy, and now this chill in the air just makes it worse. I can almost feel myself driving up 285 up into the stratosphere after dark with the heat on in the car, just looking at the cross lit up on the mountain side as I pass.

Making this one worse is the fact that this weather, and my remembrance of Colorado, is flooding my head with Paramore's Riot album. Earlier this year, that album helped me make sense of a lot of confusion, but before that it was one of my favorite albums while I lived in Colorado. Their song "Decode" from the Twilight soundtrack was what hooked me on the band, and it's in part due to the video for the song. The band is surrounded by beautiful landscapes and conifer trees, and I would watch this video at our house in Conifer Colorado and look out the window, marveling at how the scenery looked similar.



I got into Twilight because Sarah was the head of the YA department at the Evergreen branch of the Jefferson County Public Library System. When the movie came out, she took me to see it, as well as the two sequels that followed. I bought her the movie, and on the DVD was the video to Decode. So in a way, this all ties back to the relationship, and I wouldn't have even BEEN in Colorado to experience that beautiful scenery if it weren't for her. I'm not sad by that right now, that's dead and gone and I've moved on. It's an interesting parallel to what I've lost though, and a great segue into the next part of what's wrong with the weather turning cold.

So here I am listening to Paramore, feeling the cold air on my neck from the open window behind me, and missing my mountains. So I start watching videos I'd posted on youtube that I shot around the time that I moved from Colorado to Ohio. They are as follows:







This got me thinking of the move itself, and giving up my mountains for the promise of cheaper cost of living and hopefully turning the relationship around. Sarah had been hired at a new job, and I was to attend Ohio State to get a business degree. I was going to put my life in order, and we'd be happy together.

But alas it was in October of last year that Sarah first started showing signs that she was looking for a way out. I started sleeping on the EZ chair to give her space, and even moved out for a few weeks until I realized that I couldn't afford to do that and had to move back in shortly after. So for me, this fall is the first time that the weather has matched the time that my life as I knew it began to crumble away. The foundation cracked when I lost my mountains, and when Sarah started to show doubts it was like putting stress on an unstable structure.

This will all lead up to what I predict will be a difficult time for me, and I hate that. I love the holidays, and especially LOVE Halloween. But the last Halloween I went through was very unpleasant. Sarah and I had a tradition of carving pumpkins and watching a horror movie marathon while eating all the candy we bought for the kids who never showed. Last year was shaping up like any other Halloween, we even went to a pumpkin farm off of 40 that we used to go to every year when we lived here before just so we could buy pumpkins to carve. But then she started showing her doubts in the relationship and started asking for her space to figure things out. Those pumpkins sat on the front porch till Thanksgiving and were never carved. I eventually threw them in the garbage, and they had rotten in the frost.

It's not that I long to carve a pumpkin again and watch a horror movie. It's that the holidays in general were a special time for the two of us. We had our traditions. It'll be hard to fathom doing things differently this year, but what choice do I have? It's not that I even want to do those things with her anymore, but the entire holiday season is shaping up to be a huge reminder of what I've lost. From the relationship that I thought would never end, to my holiday traditions, to my ties to members of her family that I considered my own family, and even to my mountains. I've lost all of that in the change of a mind.

So for me, the cold weather coming back, and the talk of Halloween, it's all just a giant flashback to everything that went wrong over the last 18 months. I'm looking forward to making new traditions in life and moving on, but I'm not looking forward to the constant reminders of what I've lost plastered all over everyone's houses in the forms of Halloween and Christmas decorations. I'm looking forward to seeing how I weather this oncoming storm, but I'm not looking forward to the wind and the rain.

Under the tree this year.....

This holiday season will be much different for me in many ways. This year, instead of having a steady income, and a 12 year tradition of overspending on one person, I'll have a low income and no tradition of spending because this will be my first holiday without Sarah since 1998.

So here I am at the end of August, with my new life still in it's infancy, and all I can think about is what I've lost.

Not WHO I've lost, but WHAT I've lost.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I have a growing need to be in the mountains again. It's getting worse every day that I'm away from them. It's like falling in love with the most beautiful person in the world, and being separated from them against your will.

So here's what I want for the holidays this year. Gas money. A place to crash out west for a few days. An escape from Ohio with a beautiful lady. Enough money to justiy taking a week off of work unpaid so that I can not worry about how I'll put food on my table when I get back.

If you want to make me happy this year, put a trip under the tree.

The 4th of July is finally upon us……

These are my unfiltered thoughts.

Well, today is a first for me. My first 4th of July in which I'll likely not see nor even speak to Sarah since July 4th, 1999!

I anticipated that today would be a tough day for me. That is why I was planning a road trip over the 4th of July so that I could make my first 4th after the "divorce" into a grand event and make a whole new batch of memories surrounding this date. But then I got laid off………and that road trip was history.

So instead, I was planning to have a huge BYOB bash at my house in Marion today. But the problem is, as I've posted many times here, that I live in FUCKING MARION! I have no friends in this town, and I'm 50 miles from the friends I do have. I only had two people interested in coming up, and 1 of them was under 18. Not that there's anything wrong with him, but inviting a minor to a BYOB party could open a huge can of legal worms if anything went wrong, and I don't really want to spend the 4th of July in Jail. So there's no party today.

Instead I'm sitting in my house, drinking beer, and mixing Enemy By Mourning's CD.

I got a call earlier that I didn't see come in. It was from Sarah. She left a voicemail wishing me a happy 4th of July, and said she hopes I get to see some fireworks. What she doesn't understand is that for a while, my plan was to either run from this day or pretend it didn't exist. I can do neither. It's like the Grinch on Christmas when he found out Christmas morning that Christmas still came, even though he tried to get rid of it. The 4th of July is here, and today would have been my official 12 year anniversary with Sarah had she not left me in February.

I'm trying not to get down about it. The fact is that most of the time I no longer am mourning the loss of the relationship, today included. I hope and believe that I'm over it, it'll have been 5 months tomorrow since she moved out! But then again, how long does it take to get over nearly 12 years of being happy and spending every day with one person, then losing that person? It's like I suffered a death in the family in some ways, and I mourned my mother's death for 10 years before I let it go! I don't think this will take that long, but who's to say that it should or should not take a certain amount of time? People try to put calendars on things like this, but there's no way to know how long it will take a person to get over something. Only time will tell.

If I mourn anything still from the relationship, it's me mourning the magnitude of the losses I've suffered. She left, I moved on, but it was a major loss to endure that flipped my entire life upside down and threw it around for a while. It's not been pretty at times.

I know that I mourn something, because I can feel it in the back of my throat. My throat is a little tight when I think of today being the 4th of July. I refuse to allow myself to reminisce because I don't know how I'll handle that. Needless to say, for some reason, I can feel that I'm on the razors edge today. I try to ignore it, but I know I'm there.

So now here I am. it's the 4th of July 2011. I'm trying to decide what to do with my day. I was going to avoid Red White And Boom anyway Friday night, but lucky for me I had a migraine anyway that kicked my ass for 16 hours. I've been ignoring fireworks or any mention of the 4th of July because I'm afraid of what it might bring up. Is the best course of action to ignore and bury? Doubtful. Likely the best course of action is to forage on into what I fear and try to get past it. But do I have the strength to do that today?! Would it be smarter to just let the 4th go past me and ignore it, knowing that it would be another year before I'd have to deal with it again and I'd likely be ok by then?!

I don't know what I'll do. But I know one thing. I never thought I'd be where I am now.

Happy 4th of July.