2004-02-24 - 1:15 a.m.

I recorded a song today.

And now I know I can do it.

It didn�t come out exactly the way I wanted it to, but that�s okay. I know that the equipment works and that I know how to use it well enough to make recordings as good or better than the one I just made--I can try it again and it�s not going to cost me a fifteen dollar ZIP disc.

This is a huge step for me and I�m not looking back.

I had a good Monday off. I got the recording monkey off my back and it actually only took a couple of hours for a song, and I�m still getting used to it.

I also finally went down to the frame store down the street from me (there are two locations for this store--Newbury Street and down the street from me) and got some more stuff removed from the checklist.

I also went to Target and got exactly the right adaptor I needed to make the Playstation that Julianne gave me work on my TV, which was made before the people who invented Playstation were born. I was absolutely amazed that I found this. One reason for the amazement is that often when I�m given a gift (and this was a gift), I have to complete a seemingly endless series of impossible tasks in order to get any enjoyment out of it. This was just handed to me--I got a thing, realized what I needed to make the thing work, then I went to a place and got the thing I needed to make the first thing work. I�m not used to that happening. Two? I haven�t had regular access to video games since high school. I know I own a computer, but it�s not the same. It just isn�t the same. I�m going to try to find a good site for used Playstation One games. I want a Baseball game and maybe a Final Fantasy game (is that just Nintendo?) game I can play in secret. I�m still amazed by the graphics on models newer than the TurboGrafx-16. Oh, a big can of worms has been opened and it�s up to YOU to stop it.

Moderation is the key. Moderation is the key.

I also used the nice metal piece I got in Kenmore yesterday, and believe you me, it�s an upgrade.

Also, headed to Kendall and plundered the Garment District for their first day of having brand new clothes. I�ve had problems with liking the store but also never finding anything I like, but I entered the dressing room (!) with six things I liked, and left with one thing that worked. Which is insane. I beat my personal odds.

The Garment District is also one of my favorite places to shop for CDs in that I have to search through thousands of CDs and end up, literally an hour later, with five CDs that I�m willing to take a chance on and I�ve spent twelve dollars. I also have a tendency to come away with a gem (I got a Hayden CD last time around). (There�s also the amusement factor of finding the same BMG music sampler that I actually owned in 1997 over and over and over and over and over again--the same kind of comfort I feel in any other used CD store finding Respect or Perspex Island by Robyn Hitchcock.) This time, I got five CDs for five dollars--they were all a buck each, so I took some chances. Here�s the chances (I haven�t listened to any of �em yet):

The Troggs: Don�t You Know for obvious reasons even though it�s a CD single, but Peter Buck plays on it.

Kustomized: At the Vanishing Point because I was curious and for the localness of the band.

Prefab Sprout: Machine Gun Ibiza--another CD single, but again, curious.

Medium Cool: Imagination--because Alex Chilton plays on it. We�re talking a buck here. Alex Chilton for a buck? I�ll take it.

Okay--here it comes. Sharon Stoned: License to Confuse. I almost passed up on this (I mean, the Roommate is waiting and I have to go through the thousands of CDs quickly), but the coincidence of the title really overcame the there�s no way factor, so I came back to it and checked out the inlay. Who plays on it? Why none other than Sylvia Juncosa, Evan Dando, and Lou Barlow?

Low Barlow? With nobody manlier to keep him in check than Evan Dando? This is going to be one of my favorite albums. Ever. I think. Again, I haven�t heard it yet.

I didn�t shriek when I found it, but I definitely made a sound audible to a crazy skinny punk guy. Whether from envy or contempt, he hocked a loogie in the corner. I�m convinced that this was a direct response to my immediate presence.

But that�s okay. He didn�t get the Lou Barlow album that had probably been passed over millions of times.

Weird.

Also, I�ve been stopped by people in cars about eleven million times over the past few days. It�s really weird that homeless people avoid me �cause they know I�m not going to melt for them, but that strangers feel comfortable enough with me to constantly approach me to as me for directions. And I give flawless directions, too, but why me? Seriously. I want to know. Why do pretty girls almost never give me looks, but I get stopped in the weirdest places and get asked for directions from Union Square to Everett by a carfull of teenage girls, from Union to Lexington by a wicked and thankless rich lady at 1am on a weekday, from Union to Union by a really confused guy in his car, from Union to Boston in a Burger King, and that�s just from Union over the past couple of days? I do not mind--I want to be very clear about this--but why?

Oh, and I devised a new way to arrange the furniture in my room which makes more sense the way I�m living now.

The great thing is, I think, and this is just my biased thoughts (as always), but this--what�s been happening--isn�t a solution to something negative that�s happened. These great things that have been happening lately--they�re just things that are happening. I mean, sign me up for more and all that, but I�m not doing anything differently to get there or reacting to there in a way I promised myself I wouldn�t. And it�s not like before where I was coming from a horrible place. And by horrible place I don�t mean to knock anyone--things inside of me were horrible and that�s the price people like me pay and I know it when I�m paying it.

But good things have been good for a couple of weeks now and it�s starting to scare me, and I�m waiting for the other shoe to drop, and part of me (the smart part that looks out for the rest of me, mind you) is starting to think that maybe it�s all okay and that things are better than I thought they were and if I could tread water and be happy there, I can swim laps here and win medals.