Hope?

I am strongly inclined to execute a pretty drastic and likely negative, however honest action in hopes that something better will come as a result. When I think about it, the inclination to stick it out and be positive comes to mind. The see-saw of this particular situation is levelling. There can be no perfect balance though. Either story will play out as an honest and manly decision. The question, I suppose, is whether I'd prefer the idea of a girl who has really done a number on me to wind up a friend or a fading memory in the worst case scenario. The positive action would win me the friend, but honestly, I have a bounty of friends I was smitten with, and they all hurt me severely and frequently.

Christmas

I don't know if I'm just venting or reaching out or what, but I'm just stuck in that ol' holiday depression. I love my family dearly, but I can't do this anymore. I think I get lonely around this time of year, when togetherness is the big thing going on. When I'm with the ones I love the most, it really stands out in my mind that I don't have someone special. I'm not someone's special someone. I'm nobody's daddy or boyfriend. I'm an uncle, friend, and bandmate, which are all great, but I'm nobody's world, and I have no world. Believe it or not, I don't usually get to feeling this way. I do write about it when it happens though. I wish people could understand why I'd like to opt out of the holiday celebrations. I wish someone would just say "ok" instead of trying to tell me how much it would mean if I'd be around. Maybe I should retort that it'd mean a lot if they'd respect that this ruins me every year.

Butterflies

I really wish I could convince myself that the feeling in my gut had something to do with my diet. I'd possibly prefer it be sickness over what I know it is. I like a girl, and there are several life conditions that make the situation... less than optimal, I guess? Sometimes I feel like she likes me too, and is as subtle about it as a parade with a fireworks display. Other times, it seems like, at best, my being around doesn't bother her. Unwarranted optimism has been the lurker in the shadows for me forever. I've often said to the kids I babysat "You know better!". I feel like I should listen to my own words. I'm not lonely. I enjoy my alone time. I'm productive on my own. But dammit, I get really happy when she's around. I've been happy anyway, but this is the kind of happy that eats away all the bad feelings, and will never be sated. If emotions traveled in herds, this kind of happy would thin a person's emotions into the strongest, most solid phalanx of a herd imaginable. Do I know better? Something like that would leave tremendous, slow-healing wounds if it ended. I'm pretty learned about that. I'm not known for my ability to bounce back from that kind of thing. I'm running pretty efficiently at the moment, and every time I trust someone with my heart, I put my entire life machine at risk. What am I supposed to do? Be a rock n' roll monk? Am I playing it too safe if I let this one go? If I don't? Does it really matter, as long as I live and learn? I only get to live out my own story, I suppose. What would the audience like? What would make my story a bestseller? I'm going to drown these butterflies.

Important Announcement

I'm really happy with me at the moment, and I think I owe a lot of that to being single. I'm officially raising my standards to a ridiculously high level. Every girl I've dated before has been above and beyond what I felt I deserved or wanted, so I'm mentally constructing a woman of unachievable beauty, intelligence, and badassery, with an ass that is not only bulletproof, but sends incoming missiles into orbit, who won't underestimate the methods of my madness and dump me for someone with a conventional career.

This would be a difficult choice, but I realize that it takes being single for me to be this satisfied with my life. Only perfection will do. The only risk is all the girls who are so damn good at faking it, but usually they go for guys cut from the same cloth.

Inbreeding is gross.

A Need for Society

I was happy sitting at home, doing computer shit, clearing email alerts, and ultimately coming across a number of old messages which quickly sent my brain to places darker than the inside of my skull usually is.

The Reverend Horton Heat is playing tonight, and I'm going. It'll be nice to be around people, as they're a great distraction from the magnetic memories and what-ifs I'm far too inclined to give in to in solitude. I also expect, unfortunately, to end my venture into the public focusing on the fact that the friends, great as they are, will only intensify my want for something deeper and the lack of a girl that sets me on fire.

Thanks, email, for the unneeded dose of pessimism.

Happy Birthday

Said it.

A New and Uncalled-For Bump in the Road

Aaron Freeman is retiring his alter ego, Gene Ween. He recently released an album, which I previewed, and it is great, but I'll never see a full Ween show.

Life has been great lately, and I refuse to let this break my heart, but I am upset about it. Sometimes great things must end.

Goddammit, God...

I just ran over a raccoon on the freeway. I love raccoons. Yeah, maybe it was rabid, and would have bitten a small child tomorrow if it had survived, but I don't know that. If my good karma lets me do a heroic deed, it sure picks a funny fucking way of cashing itself in. At least my brakes worked earlier today when two small children, about 7 and 4 years old ran out in front of my car.

This day was almost entirely good.

Perspective Disrespect?

I was just thinking, which I don't recommend, and it crossed my mind that I've been to restaurants that my friends have told me were the best, and walked away wanting. Usually, these restaurants are very good, sometimes I assume I ordered the wrong thing, but the vast majority of the time I'm simply underwhelmed, probably due to hype.

I started writing this entry several days ago, and decided to reread it and further decide whether to finish or delete it. I'm entirely confused as to why I wrote it and how drunk I must have been. I am entertained by my current state of confusion, and am therefore publishing this entry as is.

New Nephew!!!

My brother John and his lovely wife Jill are now the proud ass parents of this amazingly beautiful little boy, August Noam Hooker!!!

Life Lessons

I suppose you either always or never learn the valuable life lessons at an opportune time. Maybe not "or", but "and"...

I think I learned recently, largely tonight, that you should never let the worst of you get the best of you.

Home, for a Moment

Got a show tomorrow here in Beaumont, then it's off to Austin AGAIN for my brother's wedding. The Wolves will be doing shows in Houston and San Antonio without me, which is good because we always want more exposure, but sucks because I wanna play, and if I can't play, I wanna see Vinc play the bass and Boar Lord, from Diesel and Dixie, sing my songs!

Oh well.

Really, I think what sucks is that the tour, for me, is over and I don't get to relax at home. As soon as I get here, I gotta go to Austin again, which is a constant panic attack for me. My brother is worth it though. It'll be a good time with a lot of family I don't get to see often. Then I get to come home and make some money and play guitar.

At least I'm inclined to find those silver linings people talk about.

Out on Tour

And as would likely be expected, the Universe found a way to test my emotional fortitude. For once, I'm doing pretty well.

We're having a blast.

That is all to report at this particular juncture.

Ka, Like a Wind

Not my most gutwreching Austin trip. I wound up sleeping in the van after cancelling a show that would have been our second of the night. I think we've only cancelled once before, and that's because we had killed 2 vehicles trying to get there. Last night, the traffic was so bad and poorly rerouted that we couldn't get to our venue. Yay, Southby!

I must say, the weather was gorgeous! It must have rained really well for the first time in years. There was green everywhere, and it wasn't too dry.

On the way home, our van died.

We go on tour in a few days, and we start in, wanna guess? Austin!

Pleasant as it was, the crowd was too much for me, and there's always the factor of my really wanting to see someone and being scared to death that I'll see her. I think she tactfully avoids me. We have enough mutual friends that she can easily find something cooler to do, way across town from me. I still wish I knew why things happened as they did...

Anyway, a random friend from Beaumont happened to see us on the side of the road in La Grange. He bought a trailer hitch and towed our trailer back to Beaumont for free, even bought Drew and me some rad BBQ, and wouldn't accept a cent from us. I feel I have the strangest brand of luck.

I still feel like a dick because Vinc and Zach stayed in Austin with the dead van, but they don't have the same damage as I do about that place. I hope they're having fun. I often feel like I ruin their time in Austin because I wear the feeling in my gut on my face.

Dang.

Falling Down the Ladder of Positivity

And hitting every negative ass rung on the way down.

A song I heard last night got me feeling sentimental, and lead to the gamit of emotions including paranoia, sadness, anxiety, anger, and nostalgia.

I'm about to be in Austin twice within the next few days, and I've done well to not let that bother me until about last night. No matter what happens, my gut will be in knots the entire time. I'm just glad the Wolves' tour starts there. Everything else will be a breeze, unless I run into some worst case scenario type action or information.

Adding to my sinking mood, I've seen a certain model of car about 5 times today, and heard a certain name a few times, and been reminded of some particularly fond memories. Then, I go to meet my mom for lunch, she has to cancel because the courthouse where she works was on lockdown. A guy who was to be on trial today for sexually assaulting his daughter, who I've heard was mentally handicapped, apparently ran his daughter over with his car before going into the courthouse and shooting 4 people with a rifle, killing one, and I believe another died afterward. (It's been a while since I posted this, and the idea that I almost got my mom shot won't leave my mind. She'd have left 2 hours later if I hadn't rescheduled our lunch.)

Kinda hard to stay exclusively happily excited about the upcoming tour and my new guitar being painted, but it's a start.

I am finding sense in acting as a libertine to numb myself and replace my hopes of something I've always wanted, but will doubtfully ever achieve.

I Like You

Whether or not we know each other well, whether or not we've argued or fought, whether or not we ever had or ever will be lovers, whether or not we ever met, I'm aware of you, and I like you.

A Quick Note

I have fallen more in love with guitar. And bass. And Italian jazz.

Oh Yeah...

I had a dream I killed someone! It was nuts! At times, I knew it was on purpose, and other times I thought it was an accident. Eventually it drove me insane.

Anyway...

Harvesting Wealth, in the Jake Hooker Fashion

I'm about to have orientation at my new job, then I'll be on The Danger Zone, an internet radio show on xprtradio.com. I'll soon co-host another radio show on the same station. Tomorrow it's back to bussing tables for a couple of days.

Four sources of income, not including a band that pays me cash and a band that is ultimately my career band. I'm about to not be broke anymore!

They say familiarity breeds contempt. Yeah, maybe. I think that's been the basis for my problems with coping with breakups. Sure, even after a lengthy relationship ends for mutually acceptable reasons, I can become sentimental, but I can pretty easily get over that and resume laughing at fart jokes and mindlessly gawking at gorgeous celebrities.

The last couple of relationships I let myself believe existed were long distance, and therefore lacked familiarity. I tried to stay in touch, to some degree, but unintentionally sabotaged myself by acting on emotions. Had I been less emotional, I feel I would have become familiar enough with the women involved to actually realize, instead of hopefully assume, that despite all the fun, we weren't going to be happy together. But alas, I did as I do, and though I'm generally happy and optimistic, I still find myself awake at 1:51 am, writing blog posts about obsessing over some girl who very deeply and passionately doesn't give a rat's ass how I feel, so long as our mutual friends don't know for sure that it's her I'm referring to.

Why'd she give me a chance in the first place?

I know I'm not perfect husband material. The fact that I won't quit my band to be perfect husband material is proof that that is true, and it doesn't really bother me. That doesn't mean that I have any appreciation for some heartless fling.

Bedding

I'm not the dude that makes his bed, unless I've just washed my sheets, which means it's either July or December, so when I stumble into my room, the pillow is exactly where it should be.

So why, in the name of whoever strikes you as important, would I grab the pillow and move it over?

I flail in my sleep, sure, but when I wake up, I have to leave the perfect position, the position for which I've flailed all night. Does it not stand to reason that my pillow is motherfucking as it should be?

Why, pray tell, do I move my pillow when I get into bed? Furthermore, why can I never remember a comfortable position?

Whoa.

I had a dream that I died of natural causes at an old age, but still feeling spiritually young. I wasn't afraid, in fact, it was the most awesome experience ever.

After a moment, I awoke in another life for the first time, but with a full awareness of my death of this life. In that later life, I died in the strangest possible plane crash. Still not afraid of death.

Again, I awoke in a different life. I was with my mom, the one I have now, at a flea market of sorts, and I was shuffling through some comic books, specifically the Wolverine and Tupac Shakur mini-series that Mike Molina had (in the dream) been raving about, and the Punisher/ Walking Dead/ Predator series that was taking the world by storm. In that life, I had a conversation with my mom about my previous lives and deaths, in which I was truly excited to have the opportunity to live and die again. I remember clearly saying that I really loved this life I have now, until my moment of death, which woke me up in a good mood.

The only grim thing was in the third life, my mom explained our minds to me, and I realized that we are all computer parts, existing only to help run things for the efficiency of a higher power. I was still happy though.

The Thick

All is well, but sometimes something slightly more substantial than a memory comes up and grips your soul by the balls.

I'm about halfway to having my dream guitar built, and I must keep my vision of the final product clear in my mind's eye, as it is a goal and a symbol of my happy and productive path through life.

New Revelations

I reluctantly went to a gentlemen's club last night with a couple of friends I hadn't seen in a long time, and unexpectedly found myself in the right mindset for the venture. I admit I'm far less interested in this kind of thing than most rock n' rollers are supposed to be, in fact, the industry often depresses me. Anyway, a couple of the entertainers reminded me of some works of art, which inspired me to research Frank Frazetta and Alphonse Mucha, which has inspired me to draw and paint more and also to celebrate women more. I also realized that I am instinctively more attracted to healthy, curvy girls than petite girls, and at least one of my comrades seems to be in agreement.

Hooray!

Update on the Rescue of My Brain from the Clutches of Madness

Not a lot to write about at the moment, just wanted to report that I'm still sustaining happiness, and have enjoyed a philosophical mental journey for the first time in many years. I imagined the possibility that my perception of actuality is entirely unique to me, and everyone I interact with is momentarily visiting it, as I will for them when I'm dreaming, which I equate to astral projection. Strangely, anyone who attempts to prove me wrong can be perceived as an agent sent to keep the mystery intact, likely for my own sanity. That's a brief synopsis, I actually thought very intricately about it. Anyway, I've let cure the concrete of my being of a sound and focused mind. Fear and depression no longer weigh me down, and I am truthfully hopeful for the future. I can't entirely shake the fact that I still miss someone, but that's okay, I've missed someone or another my whole life. I am blessed with a certain lack of concern for many a mental and emotional ball and chain. I recommend everyone everywhere live in a fantasy, otherwise the universe will lose all color, and flavor, and become entirely bland.

A Debt of Gratitude

It's been on my mind lately that everything I was depressed about for the past 14 years has really been for the better. Very recently, I was moving towards being a husband and stepfather, which would have been the end of my life's work towards being a particular kind of musician. I have no business trying to be a family man, or any brand of adult. I've known that my entire life, but I was so enchanted by the woman that any other source of happiness seemed unreal. She was right to call things off with me, even though it really hurt at the time. A mother's instincts are truly powerful, and undebatable. Experience has separated me from who I was when I was truly happy, but I'm now using all I've learned to figure out exactly what's important and how to achieve being who I need to be. Her intuition that I'd never really care about health insurance and financial security was pretty damn accurate. It's no discredit to her that she's looking for that kind of thing, it's about the wellbeing of her child, not some golddigging scandal. I'm grateful to her. I'm grateful to every good woman that left me with the opportunity to realize that I was happy once before, and I have every reason to be that way again. In fact, it is my duty to the world to prove that following your dream is key to the survival of all that exists. Maybe when I'm 50 and wealthy, I'll slow it down and support a family. Maybe not.

Waking Up

It's been a day of good omens. Twice, the number 1998 appeared. That was the last year I remember as having been largely enjoyable. I was prompted to ask myself what made it such a good year, and I realized that it was a time where I was immersed in my own ongoing pursuit of happiness. It rarely bothered me at all that I was single. In fact, I loved that I was, and avoided any risk of losing such a status. Granted, I hadn't yet lost my virginity nor had any lengthy relationship with a woman. It was this that gave me the freedom of will it takes to realize what actually makes me happy, which is being artistically productive and being aware of my ability, and therefore, sharp and focused with what I had. 14 years later, I have experienced much. Enough to realize that I was right in thinking I had it all figured out. Much of last year, I spoke to myself about how that wasn't the case because I was in pursuit of an idea that I thought would be far more spiritually lucrative and satisfying. In hindsight, I was miserable the entire time, enjoying a future that would never come to be. My New Year's Resolutions are to be entirely honest, fearless, and present so that I won't wind up living in some lie, figuring out how to trick myself and everyone else into believing that the world is great, but instead, actually making the world great. I resolve to own responsibility for my own happiness.

New Year

I had all kinds of neat shit I've been meaning to post about, regarding the English language and several inspirational quotes and such, but another holiday has sent me home feeling awful. I really just want to mark, at this moment, that this 2012 year has been rung in as completely horrible and disappointing, not the least of which is due to being ditched by a girl I really like, who I'd have been happy to be in the same building as. I've had very short recesses from depression, which were quickly taken care of by unexpected full page pictures of the last girl to incinerate my heart and things of the like. My hopeful statement for the year, be there any, is that there is so much room for improvement that if I look back on this moment, I can easily call this year the best since '98.