I love music. I don’t know where I’d be without it, honestly. One thing the iPhone (iPod) does really well is music. I use Smart Playlists to sync songs all the time, love my iPod.
And there are some great music apps for the iPhone, too. Thought I’d share a handful of my favorites with you.
Moodagent is a really cool app I discovered not long ago, and best of all, it’s FREE. It profiles the music you have on your iPod and then lets you automagically create playlists based on your mood. Yes, your mood. You move five different sliders around. Based on the five sliders – Sensual, Tender, Joy, Aggressive, and Tempo – you figure out how you’re feeling, make the adjustments and then Moodagent does the rest.
The result is a playlist of 25 songs that all match your mood, like so.
You can also save and load playlists you’ve created with Moodagent. And if you’re not feeling the slider thing at the moment, you can click on the Search (magnifying glass) icon and hand-select any song on your iPod. Moodagent will then adjust the sliders accordingly for that song and create your playlist based on the song.
Very, very cool. Plus, it integrates with your iPod, so you can start a playlist, then exit Moodagent, and have your music still playing. (Unlike most music apps. At least, until Apple allows multitasking.)
Been using Last.fm for years now. It came before Pandora did. It’s a social music site. You sign up, create a profile, and it keeps track of your favorite music for you. That’s the basics. You can also use it like Pandora…enter an artist or song, and Last.fm will create a custom music station based on your selection.
Last.fm tracks all the songs you listen to. In fact, my favorite thing about Last.fm is what they call “scrobbling.” Thanks to a small download, every time I sync my iPhone through iTunes, Last.fm scrobbles all the songs I’ve played and uploads them to my account. It organizes everything…how often I’ve played each song, etc.
And my “neighbors” (friends) on Last.fm have access to my library, too. They can listen to MY “station,” which is a great way to find great music. Another great way is to listen to your “recommended” music. Based on the music you’ve scrobbled so far, Last.fm finds recommended artists and puts them into a special station for you. Rocking service that I think everyone should be using.
Simplify Music 2 is another great app. I got it for free a while back; now it’s $7.99, but it’s worth every penny.
Simply put, Simplify 2 lets you stream all the music in your iTunes to your iPod/iPhone. Now you don’t have to worry that you can’t fit all your music into that phone of yours…you have access to your entire music library. Provided you have iTunes up and running, of course. It forms a network connection between the Simplify app on your phone and the Simplify app on your computer.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Pandora, but rarely use it these days, thanks to Last.fm and Slacker Radio. Slacker is very similar to Pandora – you create custom music stations based on songs/artists you like. Again, it’s a great way to find new artists.
The difference, to me, is that I think Slacker puts together a more organic sounding mix based on my selection. They put songs together that I’d never think to put together, but once I hear them together they click and make sense. Love, love, love.
Plus, I can select from musical genre stations. Sure, there’s your typical “80’s, 90’s, and Today” station, but I can choose from Reggae or Blues or any number of genres I want to hear. The only caveat is the occasional 15-second commercial (unless you buy the premium subscription, but it’s not required).
I can even listen to stand-up comedy. For instance, Steven Wright. Creates a comedy station just for me. Nice.
How many times have you heard a song on the radio, or in someone’s car, and wondered who sings it? Look no further.
Load up SoundHound, tap the TAP HERE button, and let your phone listen to that song. SoundHound is remarkably accurate and should have your song for you in a matter of seconds. You can even hum or sing a song yourself and get results!
From there, you can Bookmark a song, Share it (Email, Twitter, Facebook), and even Buy it. It also looks up the lyrics for you, and corresponding Youtube videos.
GREAT app that will never leave my iPhone. I was lucky enough to get it for free way back when, but again…worth every penny.
Listen to most any radio station around the world, people. Add in Weather radio, police and fire rescue scanners, accessibility for subscription satellite radio (Sirius/XM), and you have Wunder Radio. Damn cool app.
Find stations based on genre (talk, sports, pop music, new age, rap, etc.) or location (Great Britain, Australia, wherever). Listen to police scanners from your old neck of the woods (provided they’re in the list). Sometimes I tune in to some Dallas radio stations, just to hear the ads for my old hometown. Or British radio, same reason.
Streams great over 3G or WiFi.
There you have it…great apps to help you stay in touch with your favorite music, maybe even find some amazing NEW stuff to listen to.
You’re welcome. How about you? Have any fave music apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch?
I’m often asked what apps are on my iPhone, and love turning people onto new ones. This time, I think I’ll do a quick rundown on 5 games I’m currently playing. These are some of my faves right now, though I have many others.
Popcap, responsible for other great games such as Bookworm, Peggle, and Bejeweled 2, comes out with their version of the tower defense game. Better yet, it involves zombies, one of my favorite game themes.
You start slow, of course. You’re defending your house from the zombie apocalypse and it begins in your front yard, which is divided into a grid. In each patch of lawn you can plant a, well, plant. Different plants have different abilities…some offensive, some defensive. After each successful level, you earn a new plant (ability).
For instance, the peashooter – that green plant in the top left of the screenshot above – shoots one pea in a straight line. You’ll need it to take down the zombies. A sunflower generates extra sunlight, which you need to purchase new plants. There are cherry bombs, which blow up all the zombies in a good-sized radius. Or there are magic mushrooms…when a zombie touches one, it becomes hypnotized to fight FOR you and attacks other zombies. LOTS of different plants.
When you build up enough plants in your arsenal, you’ll be asked to choose which 6 (or more) varieties you want to use for the upcoming level. Like so. This is where the real strategy starts to come into play. You don’t get access to ALL the plants you’ve earned, you have to pick the ones you can use each level.
Very addicting game that ramps up in difficulty at a decent pace. Some levels are in the day time, some are at night (which provides a whole new playing dynamic, since there’s no sunlight but what you generate with plants).
This one will have you playing at least 15 minutes longer than you planned on. I’ve played a lot of tower defense games (Fieldrunners and StarDefense both rock), and this is my current fave. Brings new life to tower games, in fact.
There’s a free version you can try before you buy, but if you like word games, I think you’re gonna find it a worthy $1 to spend.
It’s a very simple game. You make words, placing one letter tile at a time. And you make new words by altering words you’ve already played. For instance, the word “pig” above…it WAS “pin,” then I got a “G” and made “pig.” On and on the game goes.
You score points for each word you play. Like in Scrabble or Words With Friends, different letters score different points. The “V” has a 5-point value, whereas an “A” only has a value of 1. And the longer the word, the more points you score. If I got an “S” above, I could make “pigs” by placing the “S” after the “G.”
You’re thinking it’s too easy, right? Heh. Well, if you place a letter and do NOT form a legit word, you get a Twaddle, which LOSES you points. Plus, you can get Moxies, which happen when you make a word that happens to be on the Moxie Word List. I’m playing the Animal list in the above game, so “hen” and “pig” both scored me Moxies, worth an extra 100 points.
You start looking for possible chains. I could make the word “dog” and get 100 points…then, if I get an “H,” form the word “hog,” that’s another 100 points. Course, if you make a 5-letter Moxie, that’s 300 points.
The one thing Moxie lacks is the ability to challenge friends. But no matter, this is one of my favorite games, anyway. It’s casual, there’s no time pressure, and you can save your game at any point and come back where you left off.
Free version available here, too. And again, I’m pretty sure you’ll want to buy the full version after playing.
This is a match-3 game like you haven’t played before. Far more addicting than Bejeweled, Paradise Quest adds a new twist: as you make matches, the board moves up, down, left, or right, depending on where you match the 3 tiles. It’s hard to describe.
Let’s say I match three tiles near the top of the board. Then the whole board scrolls down and I can match tiles that were out of view a moment before. This means you’re making matches in certain areas of the board in order to navigate toward the “frozen” tiles and amulet pieces you’re trying to get to.
That square sun tile in the center of those dark brown tiles, that’s one of the goal pieces. You have to make matches to break up the dirt surrounding that amulet piece…then you free the amulet, and can move on to the next piece elsewhere on the board.
There are power ups, and a map you need to navigate (which also helps show you where the amulet pieces are).
See that little gold dot on the map, in the lower right of the rectangle? That’s an amulet piece. The 1/5 in the lower right of the screenshot shows that I’ve got 1 out of the 5 amulet pieces on this level. You can jump around to different portions of the map to expedite grabbing those amulets. There is a time clock, but I have yet to grab all the matches before the clock runs out. And no worries, the game keeps playing if you don’t beat the clock.
You also earn resources as you make matches. Those resources (water, plants, vegetables, etc.) allow you to add new lakes and plants, which in turn brings new wildlife back to the island.
There’s a lot going on in this game, and I think after one level, you’ll be hooked.
Some of the best 99 cents you’ll spend on a game in the iTunes store.
You’re an air traffic controller and the goal is to land as many aircraft as possible. Starts out slowly and ramps up to crazy difficulty levels.
Flight Control is a game that wouldn’t work without the touch-screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch. You tap an aircraft, then trace a path between it and the appropriate runway. Once you do, the aircraft turns white and you’ll see the thin white path it’s flying along to its runway.
There are red planes, yellow planes, and blue helicopters, each with different traits and speeds. Match the red planes to the red runway, etc. And you’ve got to make sure that all the flight paths don’t criss-cross into planes colliding…because that’s GAME OVER.
You can select from four different airfields…the aircraft carrier is a real bitch. Highly addicting, great fun. And you can play your own music while playing, too. I’ve lost a lot of hours on this game.
This one is from Snakehead Software, run by a friend of mine from high school. Fun shoot-em-up game that gets pretty hairy and keeps you coming back for more.
You’re defending against enemy troops in Afghanistan, both in the air and on the ground. Two different weapon types – machine guns (for aircraft and parachuting troops) and mortars (for those ground troops trying to blow you away).
Wherever you place your finger is where you shoot. But don’t think it’s an easy game just because the game mechanics are simple. You have to switch back and forth between machine gun and mortar, sometimes rapidly. Timing is everything.
One of the newer games on my iPhone, I keep coming back to this one because I can play a few levels in pretty short order. Give it a shot, it’s FREE, and last I checked, it was ranked #2 in the iTunes store for free games.
There you have it…five games to check out for your iPhone and iPod Touch. And if you lose track of time, and family and friends are bitching at you for disappearing, don’t come blaming me.
Watched half of the last “Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” before bed last night. Funny, funny shit. Conan is funnier than I’ve ever seen him. I can relate. I often find that I’m near the top of my game when I’m in crisis mode. Not lately, mind you, but other times.
His ratings the last couple of weeks were up by over 60%. And NBC is still ditching him because, well, NBC is being run by rabid monkeys. Clearly. I mean, it makes sense. Jay Leno did so fantastic in prime time (*cough*) that anyone in their right mind would want to move him back to 11:30. Cue the Jaywalking and Monday night Headlines…comedy gold, people. *cough*
I don’t know who the fuck thinks Jay Leno is still funny, but the monkeys sure seem to dig him. Something tells me that Letterman’s ratings are gonna stay ahead of Leno’s now that this shit has gone down. But we’ll see. Either way, I’m back to not watching NBC late-night.
It’s like “Dallas” in the 80’s. That time when Bobby was killed, but a year later he wakes up and realizes the whole last season was a dream? Yeah, that’s the shit NBC is trying to pull.
“Just pretend the last 7 months never happened. You never saw Conan in the 11:30 slot. See? Jay Leno is host of ‘The Tonight Show.’ You must have dreamt the whole thing.”
Er…right. I was just imagining that “The Tonight Show” was finally funny again.
So. Back to me.
I slept last night. Finally. For about 6-1/2 hours. My brain finally shut off, thanks to classical music. And a beer. And a sleeping pill. And exhaustion.
Music has always been there for me. It’s critical in my life. But lately, naturally, music is trying to kill me. Every song that plays on the radio or my iPod (even on Shuffle) has lyrics that are speaking directly to me. Yes, music is trying to make me have an emotional breakdown.
Normally, I go to sleep to music, whether it’s my iPod or this retro 80’s radio station called The Point (101.5). But with me in manic mode, everything I see and hear is just more stuff for my brain to chew on. Actually keeps my brain BUSIER when I’m trying to relax and sleep.
So the classical music last night (thank you, WunderRadio! ) did the trick.
Yes, you heard me right a couple paragraphs ago. I think I’m manic right now. It definitely explains a lot of my behavior of late. The racing thoughts have really been out of control lately…far worse than usual.
I have a hard time explaining racing thoughts. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about them:
Racing thoughts refers to thought confusion which occurs in manic episodes, hypomanic, or mixed episodes. While Racing thoughts are most common with patients with Bipolar disorder, they are also common with Anxiety disorders, such as OCD. Racing thoughts are also associated with use of amphetamines. [1]
Racing thoughts may be experienced as background or take over a person’s consciousness. Thoughts, music, and voices might be zooming through one’s mind. There also might be a repetitive pattern of voice or of pressure without any associated “sound”. It is a very overwhelming and irritating feeling, and can result in losing track of time. Sometimes racing thoughts are accompanied by an elevated pulse, including drumming in the ears.
Generally, racing thoughts are described as an event where the mind uncontrollably brings up random thoughts and memories and switches between them very quickly. Sometimes they are related, as one thought leads to another; other times they are completely random. A person suffering from an episode of racing thoughts has no control over his or her train of thought and it stops them from focusing on one topic or prevents sleeping.
I think of racing thoughts in cartoon form, because I really try to relate most everything to cartoons at some point. Cartoons explain things so much more simply.
You’ve seen Pinky & the Brain, right? Imagine the Brain, mulling over his amazing Take-Over-The-World schemes. He’s sitting there – while images of da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man, chemical compositions, quadratic formulas, Acme Rube Goldberg device blueprints, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, quotes from Andy Warhol, and giant Pi’s go swirling over his head. Tons of different ideas and thoughts surrounding him, consuming him.
It’s like that in my head. Most all the time. As if my reticular formation is malformed…or nonexistent.
For most of my life, I thought that was how EVERYONE’s brain worked. I was stunned to find out that wasn’t the case in the 90’s. Stunned, I tell you.
It’s astounding, really, knowing what I know now about bipolar disorder and racing thoughts, that I was a straight A student throughout the bulk of my academic career. But somehow I managed to compensate for the mess inside my head.
Growing up, my parents always called me “a dreamer.” But not in a good way, really. A “dreamer,” as in someone who daydreams all the time and gets nothing accomplished. And I always just bought into that. It’s not as if they had any understanding of bipolar disorder, or depression, or any of the other mental shit I’m afflicted with.
My problems were easily explained. Karl is a dreamer, his head is always in the clouds. Karl is lazy. Karl is very smart BUT doesn’t apply himself. Etc. etc ad nauseum. These were the things my parents were dealing with, and I can’t blame them for not knowing the warning signs or symptomology associated with BPD. It was the 70’s. Back then, divorce was still a “taboo” word, kids could go trick-or-treating unescorted by parents, and we still thought that shag carpet was a good idea. Our collective conscious was obviously afflicted.
One of the more prevalent threats I used to get from my folks when I’d misbehave was this: “Do you want us to take you to a psychologist?”
“Noooooo!” And I’d start to cry and beg for them not to take me.
Jesus, I wish I’d said yes. My life might be totally different. But back then, a shrink was a very scary threat. Shrinks were BAD, and proof that *I* was BAD. A fuckup. A loser. Crazy. Irreparably Broken.
Now I know better. Shit, I know a LOT of things better since I started going to therapy and psychiatrists. Not that I don’t often see myself as irreparably broken, mind you. Those negative tapes are still prevalent between my ears. I hear them at full volume a great deal of the time. It’s why, whenever I make a mistake, the first thing I say in my head (and usually out loud, too) is, “Gah! I’m an IDIOT!” Because I am literally hearing that shit in my mind, as clearly as I hear the television or a real-life conversation with a friend.
I tell you all this, about the racing thoughts and some of the other shit inside my brain, so you have maybe a little better understanding about the stuff I have to constantly compensate for. And because yesterday I had an appointment with the Matrix Therapist.
It was basically me blurting out 10,000 things all at once. For an hour. Mom fell on the ice. Now I’m her caregiver 24/7. I almost killed myself TWICE last week. I’m sleep-deprived. I’m losing relationships. My car “Service Engine Soon” light came on during my drive here.
I. CAN’T. TAKE. ANY. MORE.
And I told her I’m pretty sure I’m having a manic episode. She agreed. She’s gonna talk to the shrink and see about adding more meds. Now that we’ve seen me at baseline, and we know the Geodon isn’t enough. I’ve been taking (most) all my meds as directed since January 1.
I need more. And fast.
So she’s working on it. And that’s a good thing.
As for my diabetes, my sugars are running a lot better. Still high at times, because I’m not taking EVERYTHING until we get the meds adjusted. I am, however, checking my sugar 4 times a day (except for yesterday, when it was a very full day), using the regular insulin when I’m way high, etc.
This morning, I tested a 171 straight out of bed. Not bad, considering I don’t take nighttime insulin at the moment. Too scared. Last night, after two slices of pizza for dinner, my sugar was 294. That’s not good, but for the time being, I’d rather be high than low. Sure you can understand why.
My doctor went home violently ill yesterday, so my appointment with her is rescheduled for Monday. That’s when we’ll go over my blood test and make med adjustments. This isn’t a bad thing, since it’ll give her 3 more days of numbers to look over before we change things around. (And thanks to Glucose Buddy I have graphs and numbers galore.)
Mom’s surgery went perfectly. They went in, removed all the little kneecap fragments, reattached the tendon to the remaining kneecap, and it went without a hitch. She’s in a LOT more pain now, though we are staying on top of it with the pain meds.
She goes back to the doctor Wednesday for a follow-up appointment. We’ll know more then. For now, what I know is this. Six weeks in the knee immobilizer. Then 6-8 weeks of physical therapy. That puts us well into April.
Which brings me to my next point. TequilaCon is out for me this year.
It kills me, but quite frankly, I’m seriously considering everything being out for me this year, including BlogHer. I wasn’t kidding about not feeling the social media thing lately.
That may change, of course. As I progress through the Year of Resolutions, my attitude may change. But I have yet to buy my BlogHer ticket for this year. And at the moment, the only must-do as far as travel goes this year is visiting Bubblewench for her birthday.
In fact, I may adopt that for any traveling this year. Just visit friends in intimate gatherings, instead of attending the big blogger gatherings. That does not, of course, include Avitaween, which I can’t see skipping.
We’ll see. I’m not making any rash judgments. I think I’ve made enough of those in the last couple of weeks. And now that I know I’m manic, I know I need to keep the impulsivity in check and try more heavily to rely on my logic, as opposed to my emotions.
Emotions come and go, people. Acting on them impulsively, without any thought whatsoever, is foolhardy at best. And that’s something I’m trying to avoid.
I HAVE decided upon my February Resolution. Will be announcing that February 1. But the other 10 Resolutions for 2010 are still completely up in the air. So keep those suggestions coming.
I’m a natural Glass-is-Half-Empty person. Jaded. Cynical. Even petty. I’m trying, with the YOR, to do a 180 and move to being a Glass-is-Half-Full kinda guy.
It’s a bitch, believe me. My first instincts are always to point out the bad shit. Making a conscious effort to make NOTE of that Negative Nancy tendency – as it HAPPENS – is quite a workout. Those negative self-tapes and all that shit.
But I’m trying. And my friends are helping a lot with that effort, pointing out to me (in the moment) how things could always be worse. And I am trying to be gracious about it, even if in my head I’m hearing, “Fuck, I can’t say a single thing without it being criticized.”
Perhaps, though, the first step is controlling what comes out of my MOUTH, regardless of what’s going on in my head. Fix that part, then we can backtrack a little and start trying to fix the words that AREN’T coming out of my mouth.
Change what I say, then change what I think? I dunno. I could just be totally full of shit. I’m winging it here, people. This shit is all new to me.
1. Open your music library (iPod, iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every stage of life, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new stage, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…
The stage of life is in bold, followed by my 2006 answer in italics and my 2009 response in bold:
Waking Up:Instigator by Kaci Brown (Instigator): Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen (Wayne's World OST) First Day at School:Dance of the Seven Veils, by Liz Phair (Exile in Guyville): The Letter, by Natalie Merchant (Tigerlily) Falling In Love:Jumpers, by Sleater-Kinney (The Woods): This Modern Love, by Bloc Party (Silent Alarm) Fight Song:DQ Blizzard, by MC Chris (Life's a Bitch and I'm her Pimp): Talisman, by Air (Moon Safari) Breaking Up:When I See You Smile, by Bad English: Comfortably Numb, by Scissor Sisters (Scissor Sisters) Prom:Naked in the Rain, by Red Hot Chili Peppers (Blood Sugar Sex Magik): For Whom The Bell Tolls, by Metallica Life:Fire, by Ladytron (Light & Magic): Runs in the Family, by Amanda Palmer (Who Killed Amanda Palmer) Mental Breakdown:Saving Grace, by Tom Petty (Highway Companion): Teenagers, by Hayley Williams (Jennifer's Body OST) Driving:The Sweet Escape, by Gwen Stefani (The Sweet Escape): I've Had the Time of my Life, by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes Flashback:NYC, by Interpol (Turn on the Bright Lights): Addicted to Love, by Robert Palmer Wedding:Shake a Leg, AC/DC (Back in Black): Beds are Burning, by Midnight Oil (Diesel and Dust) Birth of Child:Feathers, by Kidneythieves (Trickstereprocess): Wild Thing, by The Muppets (Kermit Unpigged) Final Battle:Hold on to the Night, by Richard Marx: Smile Like You Mean It, by The Killers (Hot Fuss) Death Scene:Too Much to Ask, by Avril Lavigne (Let Go): Torn, by Natalie Imbruglia Funeral Song:Wind It Up, by Gwen Stefani (The Sweet Escape): When You're Gone, by The Cranberries (To The Faithful Departed) End Credit:Red Hooded Sweatshirt, by Adam Sandler (What's Your Name): You Belong With Me, by Taylor Swift
Great show last night with Matt. You can listen to it on the 2HRadio page, or click on the iTunes button in the sidebar to subscribe to the podcast.
I’m near a breaking point. Not THE breaking point, mind you… *A* breaking point.
It’s one thing for me to hurt myself. But I’m hurting people I love. And it’s because of my Blinders.
To break it down simply, when I’m this fucking down, if you’re not in my direct field of vision, I don’t see you. It’s nothing personal, it’s the way my head works at times like this.
If you walk right in front of me, then yeah, suddenly I see you. Email me? I see you. Call me? I see you. Text? Yes. If a tweet of yours happens to scroll through Tweetdeck for one of the 4-minute chunks where I’m in front of Twitter, then I see you.
Otherwise, everything NOT in my immediate sight is faded away into the background. And that doesn’t sit well with some of my friends, which is understandable. But I hate the thought of hurting the people I care about.
I’m overwhelmed. It’s an ordeal for me to make the morning coffee, let alone do dishes or laundry or try to earn a living. I feel myself pulled in a multitude of directions. And so my brain puts these Blinders over my eyes, as if to say, “Dude, do what you can do. No more, no less. Only worry about the stuff right in front of you.”
Perhaps that’s pragmatic. But lately it’s also quite inconvenient, and it’s the Blinders that are making people upset.
I am not reading blogs, people. I tell you AGAIN, I’m not reading them. No, not even YOURS. Not even my best friends’ blogs. None of them. So I’m not up on what’s happening in your life unless you seek me out and tell me. Or maybe I see something on Twitter, but again…I’m hardly on Twitter.
Here’s how I approach Twitter. I’m on for 3-5 minutes at a time. I play around, crack some jokes, interact a little…then I’m gone. Distracted by something else for 45 minutes or so. Till I come back to Twitter for another 3-5 minutes, when I respond mostly to @’s. Then gone. Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.
I don’t spend HOURS on Twitter at a time, even though Tweetdeck is open most of the day. I don’t use Twitter like many of you do. So please don’t assume that just because you’ve tweeted something, I’ve seen it and know what’s going on with you. That would be a really poor assumption.
Hell, most of the time on Twitter lately, I only see people if they’ve @’d me.
What I’m saying here…no, what I’m ASKING of my friends is that you wave bright, shiny objects in my face to make me notice. The brightest of those objects are emails, texts, and phone calls.
Please don’t be upset that I haven’t heard about your baby getting colic, or that you and your spouse are separated now, or that you’re moving into a new house, or that you got into a big spat with a mutual friend.
Or that I haven’t called you or written you. Or if I’m distracted while we’re on chat because I have 15 other tabs open and I’m multitasking while I’m waiting for you to type a response. Or that I answer the phone while we’re on chat. Or that I missed a phone call or forgot to respond to a tweet or an email. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, none of it does.
Right now, I’m myopic. I recognize that. I need everyone in my life to recognize that, too. I’m sure that won’t happen, but I need everyone I care about to know…it’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I’m doing what I can do right now.
Everything for me right now takes a great deal of energy. Especially the things which involve me having to form complete sentences that actually make sense.
I’m tired. All the fucking time. Drained, exhausted. Like I’m on a perpetual marathon run.
And on top of that, life inconveniently refuses to put itself on PAUSE while I try to work my shit out and regain my breath. Loved ones are annoyed, irritated, even angry with me because I’m not paying attention. And that only serves to drain me more, because now I’m putting energy into reparation…energy that might have gone toward getting my ass out of this stupid recliner so I can try to take a shower once in a while.
I want to just say, “That’s it. I’m done. Finished. Yes, I suck as a friend. I give up.” Then spend three weeks unconscious and REALLY forget about the world. Not an option, unless I find a way to harmlessly slip into a coma.
I need a 2-hour massage. Body aches, everywhere. Brain, too.
Like a pressure cooker that hasn’t been vented, I feel like I’m about to blow. Except that pressure cookers aren’t expected to socialize.
I see the Matrix Therapist on Wednesday, thank God. The bitch better never take another vacation again. I’m OK, really. I mean, I don’t FEEL okay in many ways, but that’s nothing new to me. Depressed is normal when it comes to me. I just don’t let that side show very often, unless you’re a very close friend.
Last night I went over to Mindy’s and Sarah’s place and we watched some of the first season of “In Treatment,” a great show on HBO. Believe it or not, it really helped to listen to a bunch of people in therapy that are more fucked up than even I am. Mindy is good for my mental health.
But enough about my boring depressing bullshit.
Tonight, I begin a second weekly episode of SecondHand Radio! Nothing like that to help raise me up out of the doldrums. (That word, doldrums, always reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books, “The Phantom Tollbooth.”)
My guest is blogger and author Shauna Glenn, the genius behind the blog “Is It 5 O’Clock Yet?” I’m not all that familiar with Shauna’s blog (’cause I suck at reading blogs lately), but I’ve been told she talks a lot about her girly bits in great detail, so I know I like her already. As it turns out, I talk about girly bits in great detail, too. So it’s like Kismet or something. Just with more cootchies and tits.
I like her even though Shauna is another blogger trying to make me look bad by actually finishing a manuscript and getting it published. She’s written a novel called Heaping Spoonful. We’ll be talking about that, for sure. And maybe I’ll slip her some truth serum and pry her agent’s name out of her. I have a few novel manuscripts (and an autobiography) in various stages of non-completion. I just don’t have the wherewithal to complete them, apparently.
Come join us tonight. You’re all welcome to call in and talk to Shauna and me. There’s a chatroom available during the show, which opens 15 minutes before show time. Always pretty active.
NOTE: I am fully aware that Talkshoe is problematic for some of you. I’m going to attempt to do Thursday night’s episode on Blog Talk Radio. There may be a test show before then just to see how it goes. If it goes well, I may switch back to BTR.
Tonight, my guest on SecondHand Radio is none other than the beautiful ChurchPunkMom, who sometimes goes by the odd name Megan. I met Megan at BlogHer ‘09 in Chicago, but we’ve been friends on Twitter for a while now. She claims to be married to some dude named OnlyAman. I’m pretty sure she’s faking, though. It’s because she’s terrified of this all-consuming love she has for me, I think.
She’s a mom of FIVE kids, home schools them all. She’s geeky and cool and funny. And wears specs, which is hotness x10.
And she’ll be talking to me tonight, live, at 10 PM EST. Don’t miss it. Go check out the 2HRadio info page, download the Talkshoe client, and prepare yourself for fun chatroom action mixed with live conversation…where YOU can call in and talk to Megan and me.
GIVEAWAY!
Plus, tonight I’ll be giving away a free copy of the new iPhone/iPod Touch game, Texas Tea! Thanks to my buddy Gerald at Snakehead Software, I have a free game code to give away for iTunes that’ll automatically have you downloading Texas Tea. That’s a 99-cent value!
I don’t know how long he’ll keep it at 99 cents, but I just downloaded it myself and I can see messing with this game a lot. It’s pretty addictive. Hope you’ll try it out and support one of my old high school friends. Y’know, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch. It’s only 99 cents! Did I mention that?
From the press release: “If you like games such as Bejeweled, Jewel Quest II, Trism, Yahtzee and Poker, you’ll love Texas Tea™. It’s an addictive game!”
I’ll be randomly selecting a winner from the chatroom tonight. Not sure how yet, but I’ll probably ask who amongst you has an iPhone or iPod Touch and then randomly select someone to win the game code.
It’s a big, big day, SecondHanders. Tonight I do the first bit of filming for next week’s Birthday Dares Spectacular. My birthday is a week from tomorrow and I have a lot of filming to do in the next 4 or 5 days. Even more editing.
First video will go live on Monday. Then there’ll be one video a day, with the big finale on Friday…my 43rd birthday. Yeah, I’ll have to change my blog bio. *sigh* And 42 is such a great number.
I’m just praying that a few calls I have out there for some of the dares come through in time. If not, there are alternate dares, backup alternate dares, BACKUP backup alternates, all of them prioritized in a top-secret list I have on my iPhone…which does have a passcode protection on it, so if you’re thinking of hijacking my phone to try to sneak a peak, fugettabout it.
Grace and I hit it off like gangbusters. Well, to be clear, I don’t technically know any gangbusters, but I hear they all get along incredibly well. We spent a couple of hours together in Chicago and, for two people who just met, it was like we’d known each other our whole lives. Nearly instantly. That’s pretty rare. Yet another reason why I love BlogHer. These sorts of connections tend to happen during those magical 48+ hours.
She’s a dynamic force, Grace. I dig her immensely and yet, somehow, we haven’t spoken on the phone since Chicago. That shall be remedied this evening. Charming, witty, down-to-earth, smart as hell…yeah.
Full Schedule of Guests can be found on the INFO PAGE.
And I’m looking for guests for the soon-to-come Monday night episode of SecondHand Radio, set to launch (hopefully) Monday, September 21 at 10 PM EST. Know of anyone who’d make a good guest? Let me know. Even if it’s you. Thanks.
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