An open letter to Jeff Mangum.

I wish we could talk.

That's hard, as you're a hermit.

When I look at your lyrics, when I read them, they're so alien. They mean so little. they're odd, nonsensical. They look like the ravings of a madman. And you've been accused of worse.

But then I hear them, and I realise that I've never heard anything that I have been able to so strongly relate to. I don't know how. But I adore it. To be able to understand your stream of conciousness, to empathise with your worries, it comforts me. It feels so... personal.

Sometimes, I don't listen to you for months at a time. Partly so I actually listen to other bands.

Mostly for how it feels to have an old friend return after departing for so long.

I'm looking at my iTunes, and I own ~2 GB of Neutral Milk Hotel songs. About 80-90% of that are bootlegs and demos I'd downloaded. I've been making it a personal mission to listen to them all over the past few weeks. Properly listen. Sat alone, eyes shut, headphones on, listen. Today I finished.

I downloaded them because I wanted more. Because you stopped so suddenly, so harshly.

But I also downloaded them to hear you. to hear you talk with the crowd. To hear you stutter and swallow away your anxieties. I wanted to hear you try so hard to explain what you were trying to say in your songs, before you broke away so upset. No one present understood. I didn't even need you to tell me.

I wanted to get to know you. To understand why you felt and thought the way I do. I wanted to wish myself to a small club in '97, where I'd stand silently, trying to take it all in. I wouldn't talk through your set, and make Neanderthal noises and heckle you with requests. I'd realise I was in the presence of a true artist.

Your music came at a difficult time for me. Frankly, it was the only difficult time I'd ever had, and for many many people it would've been a fairly mediocre time, if that. But you helped. I'll never be able to first listen to "King of Carrot Flowers" or "Aeroplane Over the Sea" happy, or in love (oh, how music sounds when you're in love). But they got me back to happiness, to optimism, to living.

I can't thank you enough.

Just paying the bills, folks...

So apparently Digeus System Optimizer is a thing (I wish they'd spelt "Optimizer" with an s). Having a quick browse through the features, it brags a "Duplicate File Finder", tweaking for your Media, Security and System Speed and at least three different ways to clear out the garbage that easily fills up computers. As someone who is scraping the last 5 GB of his hard drive, I'd say it's definitely a worthwhile investment. Plus, it comes from the good guys at Digeus, whose software I've reviewed before, and it's been goog, solid non-spyware (which is quite refreshing). So for anyone running a pc junked up with disorganised downloading, I'd give it my personal recommendation. More info here (Safe link, I haven't been hijacked by a spam-bot).

I'm in that kinda mood.

[As deciphered from my spidery scrawlings)

The mood where I want to write, but all I have to write is definitely too raw for the blug, but happens to be just raw enough for my Moleskine (Which I adore). Hopefully, writing in here should allow me to temper my pointlesses into something that carries a little meaning and coherency. My only fear is to inhabit my Moleskine entirely and end up never post anything on the blug.

I like to believe that everyone is a person. In that, I like to believe that everyone has unique thoughts and feelings, and explores their own universe in a way that is alien and beautiful. I try and persuade myself that everyone has moments of profoundness. That everyone thinks. All the time.

Which is why it really shakes me when I see people who aren't. It really upsets me. People who keep themselves alive if only to witness a tv programme, people who live for Facebook statuses. People who replace being human for the emotions pimped out by 2nd rate writers and directors. People who need scraping off of the floor. It really scares me.

There are people, acting like they are normal people, and they don't even have an imagination.

At the time of writing, I'm blinking back tears.

How can this happen to someone? How can you exist and live in a world like this, and not care about things, wonder about whys, worry about ifs? These flat, colourless blobs are everywhere. They're sat on buses, watching their children with matte eyes.

They huddle and hive together, pretending they're feeling.

They don't know what they aren't.

This used to be about Maths.

Her name was Jenny.

HOW META

It's not like I have nothing to write

But when I write something, it's typically taken from some sort of inspiration. And, usually, that inspiration comes somewhere from my life. At the end of the day, this blug has been a small collection of very vague feelings I have amassed over a short period of time. Which, in honesty, is disgustingly lame. But we have what we have, and if it gives me guilty pleasure, and others some good snickering material, maybe that offsets the fact that this blug is but another in the sludgy mire of similarly poor journals of angst.
However, I normally attempt to at least abstract whatever clumsily autobiographical emotions I'm feeling into something at least partially accessible. But I've just felt so... specific, recently, if that makes sense. Ignore that it sounds like a phrase Miller would use. So, I'm going to resort to my usual last line of defense- bullshitting.

When I was out today, I couldn't help but see the Jehovahs out and about, dolled up in their most trustful clothes. My sympathy goes with their children, paraded as tools of guilt. I can't wait until I have my own place, when I can answer the door to these intruders, pull out some deck furniture, perhaps take out a chilled jug of juice, and spend an entire morning debating with some very well dressed brick walls. Use their own tactics against them. And at the very least, waste enough time to take a bullet for the neighbourhood.

I feel I've been living far too decadent recently. Late nights, later mornings, bad eating, swinging from recluse to domestic tourist far too erratically. But that's Easter holidays. I can't wait until school starts up, and my lapses into slothitude feel justified, if not out-and-out deserved.

After I feel I've received all the tuition I'll ever need for Bass (Tuition for Bass? PSH! You and your talentless ways, Minnear!), I'm going to learn how to sing. I sing (badly) far too much, and if the world has to put up with it, I should find someone who can chip my voice into something tolerable. I can't even imagine the realms of pleasure attainable from even barely passable vocal expression.

I also need to learn the *tiniest* amount of acoustic guitar, enough to make pretty sounds, not enough so I play anything vaguely-professional sounding. I've had a bunch of ideas bouncing around that rely on a Buffay-esque sound, so my musical shitocity may come in useful. Of course, on websites, I'll call it "unorthodox". But it does mean "amateur".

Listen to more Decemberists. Can not overstate this. Very accessible earlier stuff, incredibly indulgent recent stuff. Smart, eloquent and an audial delight. Also obscure enough to earn a good number of indie points, if you're into that.

I may have to up sticks employment-wise, which upsets me. I need constant and More substantial pay, which may not occur in the summer, which is apparently when business slows down, and they don't need the extra help- i.e. me. They're not dropping me, of course, but I'm non-contracted, meaning they're not going to call me in unless they need me. This is all a huge bummer, as the people I've been working with are simply fantastic, and so friendly, and I can't help but feel like I'm letting them down a little if I left (despite the fact I'm a terrible waiter). I'll miss them terribly. But employment's a selfish thing, and I need financial backing if I want to drive, and go to Uni, and teach, and live the life I want. Of course, this then brings in the dilemma that should I even be employed in "The Best Years of My Life"? Am I squandering away prime youth? Which, of course, you don't get to find out until it's far too late.

Although.

The life I yearn most for isn't the partying, or the traveling, or anything typically associated with youth.

I literally can't wait for teaching, for marriage, and parenthood.
*DISCLAIMER* I'm not gonna get married and have a family of five at 19 years. Just to put it out there! That is a long way away, and I'm very aware of this! I do in fact understand I am nowhere near responsible or emotionally mature enough for that, and won't be for at least a decade.
I can and will wait.
But I can't wait.