My ears must be tuned differently lately:

Top artists this week:

Harvest of Soap

Got my ticket last night! Sooooo stoked! Not just for the bands, but just exploring St. Augustine, and getting out of Orlando in general.

2 weeks.

Will it be anything like this?

What We Worked For.

I cannot express how excited I am.

Details later.

Stoked

...for Harvest of Hope Fest. I really am looking forward to getting out of town with one of my best friends and hopefully my brother for a few days to see some great bands. The line-up hasn't even been complete yet but recently Worlds AND Religious As Fuck were added. Geez. On top of that, Against Me! is playing...which of course makes me happy. Hopefully seeing as the rest of the bands playing are relatively lesser-well-known than they now are, they'll have the sense to play a bunch of good old songs that I've yet to hear them play live. On top of that, I love St. Augustine and can't wait to explore the town more than I did last time I was there. Only problems - still don't have my ticket, and transportation isn't certain yet. Elliot will be driving whichever car we end up using, probably, which will also likely serve as our weekend lodgings. I need to put together 50+ dollars before then, I figure - 40 for the weekend pass and 10 to contribute to gas, at least. I'll also need money for food, merch, and whatever else I find around there, so I'm going to attempt to spend absolutely no money until then. Good luck, Dylan.

Also to look forward to, coming up sooner - tomorrow is the usual Friday night dinner with my friends, and we've also rented "The Uninvited Guest", which looks cool. I haven't seen any good movies in a while. Saturday is Valentine's day, which is really just an excuse for Hallmark to sell cards, but I'll be spending the day at the Orlando Folk Festival with Elliot. Monday is (uuuugggh) President's Day - no school. Which means I'll be helping cook breakfast with Food Not Bombs. EXCITE!

I give up.

Seriously.

Something, change. Anything.

I was actually getting kind of hopeful this time.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

Fuck it.

Gloomy weather casts a shadow on my mood today, but as in any work of fiction or literature, it also sets the tone for an unfortunate happening. This morning, my grandma, who I have never once met in my entire life because she lives in Thailand, passed away. My understandably depressed dad told me the news when he picked me up from school today. What was I supposed to do? I had never met her but for a reason I felt very sad...as anybody would when someone related to them passes on. The most disheartening part, I think, was that I never met her, and that really sucked. Then I thought about all the other family members that I've yet to meet, all because of distance and the cultural barrier that seems to have been set up. It really depressed me, so I went for a ride downtown in the rain on my bike, blasting Om in my headphones. Rest in peace, Granny, wish I could have met ya.

Other things seem to be falling apart too, even quietly. I hate how my family feels the only way to connect is through buying each other things and any other efforts have to become just that - an effort. I've also had this terrible feeling of loneliness dragging me down for several weeks, and this terrible feeling of wanting. I don't want to want anything, I just want to be happy...and for the most part, I am. There's just these things that put me off or distract me from wearing a smile all the time.

Fuck it.

How's you day pal?

I hate Sundays. I am pretty sure that I've began a Sunday-posted blog or two like that before.

I've spent the past few days in a strange funk of nostalgia and loneliness but also in a strange state of wanting to be more self-sufficient and productive. Friday was both nice for the most part - the usual Sushi night (as every Friday) at Sushi Hatsu, but one of my oldest and closest friends for who knows how long, Jackson, joined the usual Cy, Elliot, and I. Lindsay also joined and so did a friend of hers named Bennet, who seemed like a pretty cool guy. The amount of people though made me feel a bit exhausted, but then again my brain can hardly focus on more than one person at once. Saturday, I finally got my bike fixed and am now back to ridingn aimlessly. I hung out with Fischer and Heath for a while and then later that night hung out again with Elliot. We got this crazy idea to walk downtown around 11 at night wearing these pink and blue sunglassses, and I wore a big cowboy hat-ish hat. We got to Lake Eola only to discover a "by pass only" Pat Benetar concert that seemed like the lamest thing on earth other than the fact Pat Benetar was singing "Love Is A Battlefield" when we got there. I would have much rather seen Amebix. Dammit. TOOOODAAAAYYYYY, I did the usual trip to the farmers market and ride around aimlessly (as previously stated) and ran into my favorite out-of-town punks Mark and Jennie, who once again had ended up back in Orlando after travelling around Florida a bit. I talked to them for a bit and wished them luck, I look forward to seeing them again. Now I'm home and actually wanting to be in school as opposed to being at home doing nothing. I suppose the "American" thing to do would be watch the Superbowl.

Haha. Fuck that.

Art.

Very very stoked and mystified by the work of Zdzislaw Bekinski...check it out here.