I don't think I'm wrong...

Ever have one of those days where you get one of those great moments of self-reflection, step back and realize your life is awesome? I know, not too many people get those anymore. We're all mired in our own self-doubt, too busy grasping at higher awareness to recognize that our time is now, that this is the moment we're alive and we'd better stop and damn well pay attention before it gets away.

In the last two weeks I've written a treatment for a music video, a full script for what will become a web-televised short, and lyrics for several songs to be used in the same campaign. I had an interesting conversation the other night in which I was told I'd never make it as an artist as long as I kept being a -- I believe the quote was "corporate shill" -- and that I'd never find true happiness as a writer or a musician if this is the work I'm producing. But the fact of the matter is, this is what I do. Some people might call it bullshit, or near-art, or selling out. I don't take those people to heart, because I already know it's bullshit, near-art AND selling out. And I don't care. Because I love what I do.

Let me put it another way -- if what you love to do is make things out of wood, as several of my family and friends do, then what does it matter if you're making a table, or a cabinet, or a sculpture? The movement is the same. It's a movement of faith that drives us to create -- faith in what? Better men than me have tried to answer that question and continue to come up short, but it's faith nonetheless. Making a table with the same artistry and craftsmanship as you'd make a sculpture makes the table a sculpture, in my opinion. In fact, there's a school of thought that says the table is actually worth more because it's useful, and not just to be stared at. It's the same thing with words. I could do what's often been suggested to me -- go back to school, get my Master's degree, continue to study other people's words in the hope of one day passing them on to somebody else. I could go the route I've considered myself -- go back to school, get my Master's degree in creative writing, and be a writer as my full-time job.

But that's what I'm already doing.

I know too many people who got specialized degrees in fields of interest and, either by their own volition (or lack thereof) or by fate, wound up doing bullshit jobs for no money, never using their skills in their day-to-day. The best of them continue to pursue those passions on the side, but they're endlessly frustrated by the fact that they're doing meaningless work in the interim. Others are what the politically-correct among us term "lifelong students" which to me translates as "too shit-scared to give it a real shot so we'll stay in academia where it's safe and graded tangibly". I get tired of hearing artists piss and moan about never making a living at their art when they don't try. The ones that do make that effort (whether or not it's successful) get my full respect. But the ones that truly give me indigestion are the ones who suppose that I won't -- or can't -- "make it" (whatever that means) as an artist if I'm willing to do a job like what I do.

As far as I'm concerned, words and music are a priori tools AND products of artistry. I can look at the writing I do one of two ways, based on that premise. The lyrics I've been writing are supposed to be set to a "rap-rock" musical vibe -- not something I dig very often, and certainly a genre that's faded from popularity. I can either choose to look at what I've written for this project as shitty lyrics (which from my aesthetic standpoint they are), or I can look at them contextually and as a priori tools and products of artistry, and realize that, for what they are, they're perfectly suited. That I can alter my style to suit a genre I've no interest in, basically at will, doesn't make me a corporate shill or a sellout in my estimation -- I'd say it makes me a good craftsman. If you want me to build a table for you, I have to build the table you want, to your exact specifications. It doesn't matter if your specifications denote a shitty table -- if I can make that exact shitty table, I've done my job and I've done it well, and I can walk away with the understanding in my own mind that I've used my craft to make something that's pleased someone else.

Tell me, artists of the world, am I completely off my rocker here? Because I think I'm rather on to something. It's too late at night and I'm too burned out to expound on aesthetic philosophy, but the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", not "beauty is in the eye of the jaded, full-of-shit-and-ego creator of the object".

I'm an actor because I act, but I'm a happy actor because I act and get paid. I'm a musician because I make music, but I'm a happy musician because I get money to make music. And I'm a writer because I write, because I have to write, because it's what I do, but I'm a happy writer because I get to eat the fruits of my writing. I do these things for a living, and I do these things for a life, and I think that makes me a blessed individual.

Self-reflection kicks ass.

Older Chests - Damien Rice cover

Here's a sampling of my YouTube channel, since I haven't had the time to write anything of substance lately. Check it out; I've got a bunch of stuff up with more coming. Real blog coming soon.

T Minus 3 Hours

Realistically, this is the first show I've ever played live, solo and for money. I don't know why I've spent the day being this nervous – it's something I've done a thousand times before. I know these songs like the back of my hand, because they're a part of me, and maybe that's the problem. There's more invested this time around.

This isn't some hole-in-the-wall coffeehouse in a backwater Ontario town, or a house party full of my friends who don't care if I'm almost too drunk to play but I can still weasel my way through Year Long Day well enough for the point to get across. This is as close as I'm likely to get to the “big time” – it's a venue that has been played by numerous big acts, in a city that's about as metropolitan as you're going to get in Canada. There's a cover at the door, and to get paid I've had to ask the people coming to mention specifically they're here to see Alexander James. I updated my Facebook music page today and saw that I have crested 90 “fans” – I'm actually uncomfortable using the term demarcated by the little blue box on my screen, because at the end of the day, who am I to be thinking of people gracious enough to dig what I do as “fans”?

It's different playing cover shows, you know? I can get up and play The Gambler or Sweet Home Alabama or whatever, all night, every night, until I drop dead of boredom, and it never feels like this. I've invested something into these songs; the set list I've come up with for tonight consists of some of the songs closest to me. All the same old bullshit runs through my head – what if I'm no good? What if I fuck up or break a string at the wrong time or forget words to my own damn songs? And even if I play to the absolute best of my ability, even if it goes off without a hitch, what if the people who come out who aren't already my friends (and thus biased in my favour) hate what I do? I've invested so much into this music thing: personally, emotionally, financially. To say it would be a shame if it didn't work out is something of a gross understatement.

I love what I do. I love to perform. Being onstage is the only place I want to be. I want to touch people, make people feel things when they listen to my music. And in a landscape coloured by thousands of musicians both better and worse off than I am, I desperately fear mediocrity. I either want to be great, or I want to hang it up. And I think I could be great, but I fight with my ego all the time. One part of me wants to believe, the other part is afraid of staining the art with arrogance by thinking I'm better than I am. Maybe that makes me a better artist. Maybe that makes me an amateur. Probably it makes me a little of both.

I spent the day talking to friends about my concerns, because I'm lucky enough to have friends with whom I can have that kind of dialogue, and they all did their best to reassure me. I didn't feel better, not much, but it did help to talk about it. But there's really only one person whose opinion truly colours my perceptions deeply enough to change my mood, at least on this topic. So I emailed my father.

From: Alex Krueger

To: James Krueger

Re: show tonight

So tonight is the big night; I'm going to go over to the Reverb with Sean around 8 to see what needs to be done as far as setting up goes. I have the song list in order and I think I'm ready to go. The humidifier has helped the fretboard issue somewhat (it's not perfect, but it's much better than it was) so I'll see how it is today (humidifying for the day).

On some level I'm a bit nervous as it's the first solo paid show I'm doing -- I really don't want to fuck anything up because this may be my chance to attract decent attention to start getting other shows, but on the same token I'm very excited -- I have really internalized your advice about being "real" and I think I can do that better when I'm onstage performing for a real audience. My biggest concern is the weather -- it's pissing rain down here and is expected to for the rest of the night, so I have a feeling that will affect the turnout, but really at the end of the day if I get to play a live venue I could be playing for the few friends who show up and it would be all right.

Any last-minute words of advice from a veteran bluesman?

Shortly after I received his response.

From: James Krueger

To: Alex Krueger

Re: show tonight

Approach every venue like it is your first time, and play every show like it is your last....keep the facial expressions to a minimum, and engage your audience no matter how small....you will do just fine if not better. Break a leg.

I ruminated on that for most of the day. I think what my father was trying to express in his typical quotable way was that I need to be honest and not get a swelled head , but also that I need to believe in my ability to connect with an audience through this medium, and to do it with as much passion as I can muster. It's probably the best musical advice I've ever received, and I'm going to do my best to take it to heart.

In my heart I know I was born to do this – or something like this. The only thing I've ever really been any good at is writing, and songwriting allows me to take that to the stage in ways that theater or comedy never could. I know I am a decent songwriter, a solid guitar player and a passable singer. I know these things, and I believe these things, but it's sometimes hard to translate that into the moment.

But when I think about being onstage tonight; when I step up to that microphone and introduce myself to a room full of strangers who are probably there to see someone else, and when I play the first strains of a song I wrote about leaving a nowhere town to do just this very thing, I know what I'll feel.

I'll feel the heat of the lights, and see the silhouettes of the audience, and I'll run my fingers over the frets of my new guitar, and even though we haven't gotten to know one another very well, I'll know it will do its job. I'll breathe deep, slide up, hit the right note, and it will all fall into place, at least for me. And if I can't do this for me, I don't have any business doing it for any other reason.

I'm going to take a long walk on a very short limb, and damn the consequences. This is what I do; this is who I am.

10:50am on Saturday, just woke up from the longest sleep I've had in two weeks, and I walk out into my front room. I like the way the inset bookshelves along the east wall are filled to the brim on one side by Greg's extensive movie collection, even if I never have any desire to watch "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Hockey" or the third season of "Friends" (to be fair that one belongs to his girlfriend), and on the other side by my personal choices of the "best of the best" of my library. Clearly the shelf isn't close to being big enough to house every book I own, but there's enough space for a few dozen, so I picked carefully.

Don't get the wrong idea -- I'm not a character from a Martin Amis novel who has to carefully consider what he displays in his lodgings out of a desire to subliminally charm and woo women. Other than Greg's girlfriend and my sister, women don't come to this house all too often. No, I made the decisions I did because I sit in this front room a lot, maybe more than I sit in my room, because lately I've taken a liking to sunlight and open windows, and trying to organize that in my room is a logistical nightmare due to the placing of my furniture. So I sit out here, on our glorious couches, and I like to let my eyes wander over the titles and remember what I was doing when I first read this or that book; why I bought it; who gave it to me or suggested the author. If I come across something out of place, something I don't read anymore or am embarrassed to ever have owned, it interrupts my reverie, kills my buzz as it were. So I'm meticulous.

Four prevalent themes stand out: music, philosophy, science fiction and classical literature. The Victorian-era classics I'll admit I mostly ignore -- reading Anthony Trollope or the Bronte sisters once is kind of enough for me. I don't deny their talent with words, and I do enjoy some of their works, but generally speaking I simply can't identify with their characters. They're either desperately poor beggars and street urchins, or else they're fabulously wealthy and live in cottages in the countryside and their time is spent determining suitable husbands and wives for one another's children. That's not a narrative conflict, that's a tea party in the Hamptons. Sorry, not for me. Highlighted memory: reading Robert Johnson while lying on a couch at my place at Yonge and Sheppard with last night's rum still running strong through my veins, desperately trying to prepare myself for an examination in a class I'd attended maybe a half-dozen times throughout the year. Everytime I fell asleep I dreamed I was Robinson Crusoe, stuck on an island entirely populated by U of T graduate students. It was the most horrible dream I've ever had.

The rest of the classic stuff is historically important, so I include it. I've got everything from Alghieri's Divine Comedy to Tolstoy's War and Peace, and I've read all of them at least once (except for the aforementioned War and Peace which I'm still trying to get through after ten years of chipping away at it). Mark Twain might be one of my favourite writers ever -- I need to buy more of his stuff, because at the moment I've only got his seminal works. Man, what a smart guy. There's a cat who knew the beauty in simplicity, in honesty, in telling a true story (even if it wasn't true). But I digress. Highlighted memory: I was first introduced to Dante Alghieri by an old friend of mine who fancied himself a poet, and once upon a time he was one. We were standing in Chapters in Newmarket and he asked if I'd ever read Inferno. When I said no, he immediately bought me the entire set. I read it in a week and it changed the way I thought about narrative poetry forever, and would later help to inspire my stage play.

The philosophy stuff is where people start accusing me of doing the Charles Highway "literature-makes-me-look-cool" trip. But the fact of the matter is, to be frank, I took as many philosophy courses in university that my degree requirements would allow. I know on some level it's all bullshit, because it's all a circular argument with no answer, but the hell with it -- I'm foremost a rhetoretician, so bullshit is more or less what I do, and I have nothing but the greatest respect for writers who can twist the words of an opponent's argument to suit their own purposes. Also, some of these guys had really interesting ideas about the world and the existential questions that preoccupy me most days. Kierkegaard's knights of infinite resignation and of faith spring to mind; the idea that you must believe beyond your capacity to believe in something in order for it to be true or virtuous; Kant suggests something similar in his theories on morality. One of my favourite thinkers is still Friedrich Nietzsche, because he made one of the simplest, most beautiful statements regarding his own writing I've ever seen of a writer: "Vademectum, vadetectum." From The Gay Science, it's Latin. Translation: "Follow me, follow yourself." He wasn't taking credit for his ideas; he was acknowledging them as universal truths to be discovered by everyone. That is at once the most humble and most arrogant assertion I can imagine, and I love that crazy old eugenecist for it. Highlighted memory: Christmas, 1998, we were having a friendly get-together at Kym's parents' house, and in the interest of fairness and frugality Kym instituted a Secret Santa policy. My "secret" benefactor was another old writer friend who kindly thought to get me a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. I was fourteen that year, and the first time I read it all the way through it blew my mind and changed the way I looked at life. I read it for a second time ten years later, and it blew my mind again.

Ah, science fiction, perhaps my oldest literary friend. As a child I had my head crammed in books all the time, and because my public, social life was so stilted and misformed, I sank further and further into fantasy worlds, usually built in this or that imagined futuristic universe. My favourite was the galaxy as it was envisioned by Gene Roddenberry in Star Trek, but as I grew older my tastes in science fiction grew far past that single imagining and embraced other, more complex takes on humanity's progress. My current bookshelf is stocked with the three heavywights of "hard" science fiction -- Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. This is not Star Trek or Star Wars folks, this is serious science fiction -- take Asimov's Foundation series, which deals with the concept of psychohistorics, in which prevailing social trends viewed over a period of time and as though they were the expressions of a single organism, can be used to predict upcoming prevailing social trends or macrocosmic actions -- in essence, a scientifically-provable way to tell the future. Heady stuff, man, and not for the Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk circuit (though I'm not knocking either of those immortal characters). Sci-fi isn't really in my lexicon anymore these days as I focus more and more on existential prose and music, but I still like to go back and read Childhood's End or Starship Troopers now and again. Highlighted memory: my dad introduced me to Clarke when he got tired of hearing me drone on about this week's episode of The Next Generation. I read Childhood's End for the first time when I was still a little too young to understand the implications of what Clarke was trying to say with his story, but it hit me years later when I realized just how much modern science fiction has aped off his ideas.

I know I make a big deal out of music -- and it is a big deal, don't get me wrong, maybe the biggest deal in my whole life. I love music; I love to perform, and the more I do, the happier I am. But at the end of the day, when everyone has gone to bed and the guitar gets put back on its stand, I will go back to my inset bookshelf and visit with the friends who have been with me since I was old enough to delve into their world. I'm a writer, first and foremost, and writers will always be the artists to whom I feel closest. I'll never read everything I want to read in this life -- human history has advanced to the point where I could read eighteen hours a day, every day for the rest of my life, to the exclusion of all else, and not even scratch the surface of what's been recorded by people in history and what continues to be recorded to this day, and sometimes that bothers me. But at least I can pull any book off any shelf every day for the rest of my life, and bask in the words for a little while. It's the words that matter, you know. It's always been the words that matter.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Musicus Updatus

Apologies all around for the lack of recent blog activity; my day job has seen me editing and updating everyone else's blogs to the detriment of my own, and I've been busy with my own projects as well. That's sort of the point of this post.

I know the last post I made was light on content and heavy on self-plugging, so I'm going to try and fill in some of the blanks I've missed recently. Of the personal projects I'm at liberty to talk about right now (there are more coming that I can't really discuss until they're ready to go), the music stuff has been top of the list. Those of you who know me and follow my online activity are aware that I recorded a rough demo of original songs under the name Alexander James at the end of 2008, entitled The Yonge Street Sessions, with my good friend and sometime producer Adam Grant. The recording quality wasn't great; we recorded vocals and guitar on a single track through my little board and into Garage Band, so we couldn't really do much in post and unfortunately the only mic I own (a gift from my ad-hoc P.R. agent Maggie Chu) is fine for live performances but isn't terribly suited to high-definition recording. However, the point of recording the demo was to send a big chunk of my best original work to the Songwriter's Association of Canada for registry (to copyright my work with a reputable organization, so in the event someone else steals it and makes a fortune, I can sue for rights and presumably win), so I was happy with the final product for that reason. The Yonge Street Sessions has been distributed to friends and family for word-of-mouth proliferation and as a thank you to their continued support of my music, and the feedback I've been getting has been largely very positive, despite the shaky sound quality.

I've mentioned before that I work in advertising (sort of), and as a result a lot of the people I work with are talented artists of all stripes, many of whom are musicians or at least music afficionados. Circulating TYSS around the office has led to a number of new musical opportunities, one of which was realized this week. Our company's resident sound engineer, Aaron DeGroot, is only in his early twenties, and already he's an extremely talented music producer with a real ear for detail and a passion for creating extremely high-quality work on a very small budget. TYSS reached his desk and he expressed interest in doing some work with me, especially because the downturn in the economy has led to a deficit of hours at our day job (read: he's bored and wants a project). On Tuesday of last week we got together at the studio he operates out of his home and re-recorded two of my favourite tracks from the demo that hadn't turned out as well as I'd hoped, namely Year Long Day and State I'm In.

I have worked on multimedia projects with Aaron in the past and I already knew we worked well together, but I was pleasantly surprised to note that, despite coming from very different musical backgrounds, we shared the same vision for the production of these two songs. State I'm In is a roots blues-rock number I had originally envisioned as being played with a full band, but given that most of my shows are played solo and acoustic, I had to tool the song to that effect. For the new recording I borrowed Aaron's electric and threw down some fills in addition to the acoustic rhythm, and thanks to the glory of multi-track recording, the track turned out great.

I'm told by friends who dig what I do that Year Long Day is probably going to end up being the "single", so I agonized some over what to do with it. I ended up keeping it essentially as it was, but recorded some harmonies to include on key points of the song. Unfortunately, my inexperience with multitrack resulted in my accidentally upping the tempo, changing the song from an alt-folk ballad into what one friend termed "a lost Barenaked Ladies track"; also, while the harmonies worked technically, it sounds very strange to loop my own voice over itself. As a result, YLD is still a work in progress, but despite its nitpicky problems, I still rather like the way it turned out.

The truly cool part about working with Aaron was that I found it very natural. I am not an experienced studio musician (probably 95% of everything I've done has been live) but Aaron made it very easy to learn about the process. It's going to take some work on my part and just time and experience in general, but I'm very excited to learn more about how to actually MAKE music and not just come up with and play songs. His advice on composition was also very helpful -- he made prescient points without being overbearing, and from what I understand that can be a rare commodity working with independent producers. I was honoured to work with such a talented guy; I don't know if he has anything resembling an online portfolio for his work, but once I get some links together I'm going to post them here. You should definitely check him out.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the support and input of my good friend Randy Burlton, who originally showed up to watch a soccer match and wound up making some great suggestions on both tracks. And he carried the beer.

If you happen to be interested, you can hear the new versions of both songs at my Myspace music page. For some reason, Blogger has issues with embedding Myspace URLs, so here it is again:

www.myspace.com/alexanderjamesmusiconline

So that's part one.

Part two of the music projects actually has its roots in an unusual, six-degrees-of-separation kind of friendship that is already several years old. Back in 2005 I was living with a close friend and her fiancee, who introduced me not only to the aforementioned Adam Grant but also to another buddy of his, a talented guitar player from Port Perry called Sean May. The first time I hung out with this guy I had no idea he was a musician, but I was struck by his off-beat sense of humour and his acute musical knowledge. We hit it off and eventually it came out that we both played guitar.

I was far from being a disciplined player at the time, but when I heard Sean play for the first time I realized it wouldn't have mattered -- the cat is a killer musician who would have blown me out of the water even if I was at the top of my game. We started jamming together whenever he was in town, usually for a party or get together hosted by Adam, and eventually it became a bit of a tradition that people would ask us to play this-or-that song while we were fooling around.

A year or so went by with he and I playing more and more regularly at parties, and by this time the idea of forming an official two-man acoustic band with the aptly nicknamed Guitar Sean (I knew a lot of Seans at the time and had to differentiate between them somehow) was beginning to surge to the forefront of my interests. Sean introduced me to a genre of music with which I was unfamiliar -- in some circles it's called filk, though I prefer the term Sean and I have since coined: nerd folk. It's exactly what it sounds like -- folk-oriented music whose lyrical content is in some way influenced by what a lot of people would call nerd culture: science fiction, fantasy, gaming and the like. I wouldn't identify myself as a classic nerd (though I have interest in some nerd topics), but Sean definitely fits the mould -- the only thing keeping that boy from taping his glasses and wearing a pocket protector is the fact that when he plays guitar it's like audial sex.

At any rate, after some discussion we decided to make the band official and dedicate ourselves to developing a unique style based on the nerd-folk premise, so to that end I came up with the somewhat obvious name "Nerds With Guitars" (mostly because I thought the abbreviation N.W.G. was a cute homage to early rap artists N.W.A. because we're basically their polar opposites). The name stuck, and before long the parties at Adam's started to morph into pseudo-concerts featuring "Guitar Sean" and "Big Al" (a nickname I picked up due to some serious weight gain around the same time). We developed a small word-of-mouth following that has been steadily growing since then.

To date, almost all of our recorded work has been cover-based, though we do try to put our own spin on the cover songs we play. More recently we have finally found time to start writing our own material, based on the original premise of nerd-folk. Believe it or not there's a huge subgenre of people that are really into this style of music, but sticking strictly to nerd topics isn't quite enough for Sean and I. The result of our efforts is turning Nerds With Guitars into a filk-ish outfit with a healthy dollop of guitar comedy (the likes of which can be seen in artists like Stephen Lynch or Flight of the Conchords, two of our major influences). The combination of nerd-folk and guitar comedy opens doors for us that would otherwise be closed -- "regular" musicians would be out of place playing at a comedy club or comic convention, but we'll fit right in. With Sean planning a move to Toronto this year, it looks like this project is finally going to start taking off, and I couldn't be more excited. Currently, N.W.G. plays monthly at Adam's "what month is it and what excuse can we come up with" house parties, but as we're working on original material we hope to start playing out and about in the coming months.

Once again, if you're interested, you can check out some of our stuff at the other Myspace page:

www.myspace.com/nerdswithguitars

Everything up right now is live and as recent as February 2009, and while most of it is pretty standard cover fare, if you listen closely you can see where the humour comes in. Like I said, there's really a lot of stuff coming down the pipe in the next couple of months with this project, so hopefully I'll have more to report soon.

If you've read this far, you deserve a medal. In a lot of ways this was just a really extended link-whore post, but honestly, this is where my heart and soul have been going the last few months, and where they're likely going to stay for the next while, so I felt it deserved some fleshing out. I'm really excited about expanding these music projects into the professional realm, and I finally feel like I'm starting to get somewhere on that front. As it stands right now, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for solo venues because Sean doesn't live here yet, so if you know of a good place to start looking or if you're aware of a like-minded band looking for an opening act, please feel free to let me know. You'll get a shout-out when the record goes platinum. No, seriously.

Thanks for reading; next time I post I'll try to write something funny or otherwise engaging. Promise.

In brief (link whore session)

Sorry, I'm linking and running here because it's almost 1am and I'm still not quite fixed after this bout of head cold I've been writing about the last few days. I've been beating my head on the wall trying to learn CSS and HTML and whatever the hell else you need to know to make a halfway decent webpage, and all I've come up with so far is a monochromatic Myspace page with a couple of songs posted. But, if you're interested, you can check it out at www.myspace.com/alexanderjamesmusiconline. I really didn't want to go with the Myspace page because after six months of this job I can safely say Myspace is the worst social networking site ever, but it seems as though every other two-bit musician has one, so being as I'm also a two-bit musician I bowed to peer pressure.

Conversely, my Facebook music page is still up; unfortunately it has a URL that is not at all conducive to business cards. So click that link instead.

And, finally, there's nothing up on it yet save an introductory video, but I plan to post videos of covers and originals on a dedicated YouTube channel I've set up as well. Yes, this is LinkWhore Central today, and I apologize, but I promise to have proper content back on this page soon. Besides, if the big redesign of the blog hasn't tipped you off, I kind of like to play music. Maybe you'll like it too.

Thanks for your patience; I'm going to go die now, and hopefully be resurrected in time for work tomorrow.

More Head-Cold Philosophy

There's something about the little sicknesses that seem to qualify time. I'm not talking about the big stuff – clearly there's nothing positive to be learned from a stint with cancer – I'm talking about the little ones. The colds, the sinus infections, the stomach flus. Not enough to harm you, though you feel like you're ready to die some days, but enough to polarize things you normally take for granted.

For the last two days I have felt like somebody's trying to scrape a divot through my sinus cavity into my brain with the sharp end of a hypodermic needle. It's a fascinating sensation, if you try to isolate yourself from the pain and irritation of it and really feel it for what it is. I have always been able to imagine (or imagine I imagine) the feeling of intense physical trauma – some part of me wonders whether or not I didn't have a limb cut off in a previous life, because sometimes I dream about sustaining disastrous injuries and I wake up absolutely certain my arm's gone. I remember the pain, which is bizarre because I've never experienced anything like it. It's like that with the imaginary needle in my nose – clearly, nobody has shoved a sharp piece of metal into me recently, but I believe this is exactly what it would feel like. So it's interesting to ruminate on a little bit, and it takes my mind off the fact that it hurts like hell.

The other thing mild sickness seems to do for me is make me step back a little bit and realize how good I normally have it. Major sicknesses are debilitating and they're allowed to be. Nobody's going to criticize you for missing work or failing to produce any new songs if you've got a tumor the size of a tangerine slowly eating its way out of your skull. Minor sicknesses are debilitating too, because it becomes completely impossible to focus on anything for more than a minute or two unless you really channel your energies, and then you're exhausted much more rapidly than you'd be under normal circumstances. But nobody gives you slack for a head cold or a chest cough. In fact, I'd hazard to say most people will tell you to suck it up and get back to work; I know this for a fact because I've said it to employees and coworkers and friends often enough myself. And it's tough, and it's not fun. And I'm not whining about it either, because I'm trying to make something constructive out of my tiny misery.

It's those little moments in between needle-scrapes, when your head clears and you can breathe through your nose for a minute or two and your eyes stop welling up with sick-tears because you perpetually feel like you're going to sneeze. Those moments, when you remember what it was like (because it feels like it's been weeks) to be able to function like a regular human being, without having to manually navigate your thoughts through nebulae of mucous and whatever other fluids collect and spill whenever your body's fighting a bug. Those moments make you realize that under normal circumstances, things are pretty damned good after all. Sure, you might be kind of broke and your pantry is looking a little sparse. You can't afford to hit the bar after work with your friends for a beer, and you shouldn't really justify that pack of cigarettes you're planning to buy (even though you will anyway). But all in all, you're not doing so bad, right? You've got your faculties about you; your thoughts are clean and precise and not sticky at all; you can talk to people without running watery phlegm all over your lips and chin; you're actually saving money on tissue paper; your eyes can see across the block without little blotches obscuring your view of that falcon who's been visiting the apartment building across from your work on a daily basis. Things are All Right, and you can't really complain.

Then the faucet which used to be your nose resumes its clockwork drip, your sinuses seal up like an airlock on a space shuttle and your eyes start leaking like you're watching The Notebook whilst chopping barrels of onions. You're back in your little misery, and all too quickly you forget the brief moment, the same one you should take away from any troubled time.

My intention, whenever I manage to kick this stupid nagging little virus, will be to remember those brief moments, to not take for granted my day-to-day, which is Pretty Good, Considering. I'm supposed to be all about the truth, and this is just one more truth I get to discover. Hopefully I'll learn it and be a better person for the experience.

But in the meantime, I'm going to go put a healthy dollop of vodka in my Soothing Raspberry tea, because if I'm not going to get better anytime soon, I'd rather be too drunk to care I'm sick.