Under the weather

"I have two problems with the Christian faith: Christians, and faith".
- Anonymous friend, 2008

... And that pretty much sums up how I feel about having to practice on a regular basis, and not just be able to sit down with the guitar and write a hit song.

The past two days have been emotionally turbulent, and it kicked off with me waking up in a pissier than pissed mode on Wednesday, hating everything and everyone. Add an empty fridge, powerless sockets, and a stalker poodle, and you might realize I was not a fun person to be around that day. Since practicing is of such importance to me (not really) and I'm gonna have to practice day and night to feel like I'm enough prepared for Guitar-X (God dammit, I used to get soo good at things in just a week as a kid), I had no choice but to hunt down a working socket - which I so happened to find in my gran's bedroom - and drag all my gear down to her apartment. An hour later I was so sick of myself, my worthless playing and my evil fretting hand (It's cramping up just to spite me, that fucker) I all but threw the guitar out the window. Trying to reason with myself is also like fighting an already lost battle. While there's one part of me that's convinced there's no point to keep practicing when I can't focus on anything but being mad, there's a stubborn voice inside my head that counters with an incessant nagging about how Robert Smith never would have put the guitar down just because he was having a bad day, or how Freddie Mercury would have gone on stage to sing even if he had just had his tonsils removed. Finally, I end up becoming so anxious I just shut down for the rest of the day, wasting all those precious hours doing absolutely nothing.

Luckily, my thursday started out slightly better with the arrival of my Welcome pack from TMS. Though it was missing the Guitar-X catalogue (which I kind of assumed would be included, since it's a welcome pack and all), it gave me some joy to leaf through the pre-course information and fill in all the contracts. But as I sent off the last contract, I was hit with nothing less than hysteria. It all suddenly became so frighteningly real, and all I could think about was how I'd never managed to finish anything in the past. I worried, and worry, about absolutely everything - Not being good enough, getting kicked out, not making friends, not finding a place to live, failing my exams, getting hit by a bus (Do you also read the "look right" on the street and automatically look left?)... The list is endless. And since me and my "parents" aren't currently (or ever) talking, there's really nobody I can discuss things with.

Ever since I graduated from High School and became "stuck" at home, unable to get a job, I have been on the verge of breaking down every single day. I feel worthless, useless, like I'll never be able to accomplish anything, and most of the time, I want nothing more than to get a chance to move off and start my own life. And now when that chance - the right chance - is lurking just around the corner, I feel like a little girl who wants her mommy. I'm terrified that I'll let myself and everybody else (nobody really approves of this course - they think it's stupid and a total waste of money, but still) down.

I CAN'T FAIL. Not again. It has to work out.

It just has to.

Why girls shouldn't play guitar

The Copystrats (Ville to the left, & Sarah's Burswood to the right)

Although I'm aware that a Fender Squier isn't the most valuable instrument, my boy Ville has a great personal value to me. After I had finished practicing yesterday, I so decided to give "Ville" a quick clean, and since I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the strings back in place were I to remove them, I attempted to clean around them, which worked just fine...

Until I took a look at the guitar an hour later and realized that a piece of the nut was missing.

I admit it, I totally freaked out. I blame this on the fact that I have no experience with having my guitars repaired (aside from that one time when they told me at the store that repairing any guitar worth less than 500 bucks was a waste of time), and that practice is of such importance to me right now. If I can't practice, I can't go to Tech Music School: If I can't go to Tech Music School, I'll be forced to continue living at home and put my dreams on hold: If I have to put my dreams on hold any longer, I'll have no choice but to enroll at the local university to become a... I dunno, social worker or something.

And I swear, I feel like I'd rather die than have that happen to me.

Luckily, the situation worked out after a couple of hours, thanks to my best friend Sarah agreeing to lend me her guitar until I could buy myself a new one or have Ville's nut (add an "s" and it'll be hilarious!) replaced. I went over to her place today and picked the guitar up, which was in good shape, some dirt and a missing high E string aside. I spent the rest of the night polishing it up, and then I decided I'd try to remove the high E-string from Ville and put it on Sarah's guitar instead. This worked out great as well, until I tried to straighten out the part of the string that had been wrapped around the tuning peg and broke it off. This resulted in the string becoming way to short, so now I have to head into town tomorrow and pick up not just one, but two new strings.

Sometimes I kind of hate myself.