Reccordion

Today was pretty good. I decided to make Saturday a work-day and just devote the entire day to writing a paper.

The start of a paper is the hardest part. It's like flying, if you're a bird - you have to flap really hard but once you're up in the air, you can just "ride the thermals." (not that I know from experience.. I used to read Animorphs.)

I did get a bright, sunny drop of recreation though - Loverlies recording!!! I got to play the accordion into a funky shaped mike and do a million bajillion takes. Haha! Actually, it wasn't that much... but I felt embarrassed because a friend I hold in high esteem was in charge of recording and he was listening...

If you're ever friends with anyone who is too cool to be friends with you for any reason besides charity, then you know the feeling of trying to hide the fact that you are uncool, and there's that inevitable moment when you blow it and you know they're thinking you're an imbecile...

Still - I've discovered a certain stress-relieving principle when it comes to social interactions. It's to have everything out in the open. I tend to be passive and keep things inside and pretend things are alright when they aren't. It's silly, but I have a tendency to test people, to see if they really care about me.

The other day I was about to pull a "passive-agressive" stunt when I remembered how wonderful the relationship was between me and G-d was when I had everything out in the open and confessed all my sin. And I thought, why shouldn't it be the same for other people? I confronted the person and even though it was embarrassing, I told them about my tendency to be passive and that I really just wanted to know that they loved me. And they did and now it's fine. It was great.

So I was feeling super, super stressed out in front of this person I really held in great esteem and I realized, the way to kill the stress is to just let him know. So I told him up front that I had nerves and he was like "don't be nervous. The only person listening is me." and I said, frustrated, "EXACTLY!"

But it went great. The songs are sounding great - even the scratch, first-take vocals sound nice. Everything sounds nice (I'm biased)

If you take something from this post besides that I'm doing super-splendid, then remember, be up front with people, be honest, but kind and loving about it. It's okay to tell people how you feel and if you're hurt. The only thing you have to lose is your pride, and we should be trying to kill that off anyway =-)