Random

July 16, 2020:

Do you ever get those random thoughts (not the evil ones), that just pop into your head and then fade away before you have a chance to do something with them, or in my case write about them? You might be in the middle of something and figure you’ll get back to it later only to forget. Or, maybe it’s the reason why you went to the grocery store (for something specific). You get home with several items in the bag that you could easily have done without only to find that the one thing you really needed, the reason why you went to the store in the first place, had been overlooked.

Sometimes, it’s hard to focus. So many distractions that take you away from your objective. The world is filled with these little traps designed to disorient you and nudge you off track, not unlike arbitrary items placed at eye level used to entice you into buying something you truly don’t need as you're heading for the check-out counter. It’s a detour in your mind that’s so subtle you don’t even realize you’ve been side-tracked until maybe some other diversion jars you back on course.

Writing is bad for that. In the middle of the night I’ll be staring at the ceiling unable to sleep and like everyone else I’m sure, my mind will be as active as a treadmill. Creative thoughts and ideas haphazardly flitting in and out of my brain, similar to a hummingbird moving from one rose pedal to the next (no, nothing to see here, better move on). When I do think of something worthwhile though I’m too lazy to get up, so I’ll lie to myself and say, “Don’t worry, you’ll remember it in the morning, because it’s too great of an idea to forget”. Well…guess what?

It’s particularly frustrating when I’m playing a song on my guitar, one that I’ve performed entirely fine a thousand times, but then just when it matters most, I’ll forget a chord change or a lyric. Imagine what it might be like if I never practiced at all. I put a lot of pressure on myself that way and I’m not really sure why, because in the grand scheme of things forgetting something as minimal as a note in a song really shouldn’t matter, but for some reason still unknown to me, it does.

Occasionally, when I can’t sleep, I’ll start thinking up names for our band. We're currently called No Fixed Address, but I thought maybe we should change it to Black Hole (representative of what’s going on in my brain sometimes, or so I’ve been told), or how about Sweet Ginger, Hardwire or maybe even Toe Jam. What about Popcorn, or perhaps Burnt Enz? That’s a play on the band Split Enz from back in the eighties (I’ve got to stop dating myself, but I keep forgetting). I am hopeful though that by writing these names down here, if they’re ever taken, I’ll have some proof that I came up with them first, because I’ll never remember them.

It’s unfortunate though that I have a habit of recalling the things that don’t matter (which can cause me unwanted grief), and yet sometimes still overlook the things that do matter (which could bring me a sincere sense of satisfaction). Proof however that my mind isn’t a black hole after all, because there’s still a big hard rock stuck right in the middle of it. Maybe, over the course of my retirement I can chisel away at it bit by bit. Only sometimes, I think anyways, a chisel isn’t going to cut it. It might take something a little more potent like say a nuclear weapon. Just a random thought.

And here's a random song for no real reason. Every Rose by Poison.

Until next time.

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