joffi's (mwm's) posterous

I'm tired. I am not suicidal. I am, in fact, much less depressed than I was 4, 8, or 12 months ago. Depression isn't the issue (though, it is often a factor). I am just tired of it all. I've been dealing with this second life of me altering chronic illness since Dec 1995 and it is wearing me the fuck down to the nubs.

I am tired of missing events with family and friends. Of being unable to simply spend time with others, outside of the most of the time necessary, controlled environment of isolation. I am tired of not being able to think of the word I want to use, nor a similar word which would help in finding the wanted word, multiple times a day and even in the same thought. I am tired of not being able to sleep more than 3 hours at a stretch without my body needing to be repositioned. I am tired of being unable to be the physically active, quick witted person I was.

I'm sure I'll get myself in a place of hope soon enough; I always do. But right now, I am just so tired of it all.

Ane_Brun-Undertow.mp3

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Ane_Brun-Undertow.mp3 (10.95 MB)

I've been trying
So hard, I've been out here so long
I've been trying
So hard, I've been swimming so long
I'm caught in your undertow
I'm caught in your undertow

Take me out to sea
Away from you and me
Let me float
Lead me out to sea
Let me go
Let me rise towards the sky
Let me take in this light
Let the shore disappear from sight
Courtesy of lyricshall.com
I'm caught in your undertow
Caught in your undertow
Caught in your undertow

I'm so tired
I must get up for air
But I can't find it
What's up or what's down out here
I'm caught in your undertow
Caught in your undertow

Take me out to sea
Away from you and me
Let me float
Lead me out to sea
Let me go
Let me rise towards the sky
Let me take in this light
Let the shore disappear from sight
I'm caught in your undertow
I'm caught in your undertow
Undertow
Undertow
Undertow

Weeping_Tile-Westray.mp3

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Weeping_Tile-Westray.mp3 (6.23 MB)

There are strange things done under the gun by the men who moil for coal
Eastern gales of howled out tales that would make your blood run cold
Lighthouse eyes watch us spies and they put a word out on me
That night you and I got lost on the drive up the coast of the Northumberland Strait

You'll know in a little while if this was meant to be
Are you afraid of you?

There wasn't a breath in the land of death and I hurried, horror driven
Was it something I said, somewhere in her head?
I just asked for the answer given
20 minutes up the road, just off the great highway
I won't be around here for long, I did not come to stay

You'll know in a little while if this was meant to be
Are you afraid of you?

And one year later it has yet to come clear
No one's doing anything cuz they're scared of the way that they might appear
They're ignoring all the signals they could not afford to hear
Private investors in public fear

My hopes exceed my expectations
My hopes exceed my expectations
My hopes exceed my expectations

You'll know in a little while if this was meant to be
Are you afraid of you? Are you afraid of me?
You'll know in a little while if this was meant to be
Are you afraid of you?

Dear USA,

I avoid most talk about this day. I avoid television news and the talking heads completely. And those like them on internet as much as I can, as well. I avoid these things for a couple of reasons.

One, I am not a loud griever. It does not mean I do not grieve. I am more solemn and thoughtful when it comes to loss. If I share it, it is with those close to me and then is still mostly solemn and quiet.

Two follows that line. Hearing other's wailing is difficult, but fine. However, on display as spectacle, no. As blustering indignation, no. The time for that is long past. The decade of constant war should have burned that much away at least.

What should be asked is the same two part question as was shouted down by those blustering with indignation and rage ten years ago: why? What were they trying to accomplish and, equally important, what brought people to do such a thing? The first gets it's superficial face time now and then, and then often made to look like crackpots for asking. The later is likely to still get me condoned as "un-American" by some for it's unpopularity.

To understand what can bring such a series of acts about is to enable addressing the core issues so it doesn't happen again. That is human behavior, sociology 101, how society is able to be built. Yet we seem too embarrassed to look at ourselves as a nation with a discerning eye. We seem unable to reproach our own behavior. I get it; to call ourselves out on most of 60 years of meddling, to use the most mild of terms, would mean taking a small amount of the blame. We demand such accountability of schoolchildren but dismiss it in this because it would be "unpatriotic".

To understand what they wanted to gain from it gives us opportunity to look at what we have made of our world since and see how accomplished they must feel. Our hated freedoms are eroded by our own legislature. Our treatment as a nation of human beings based on race and religion has again become acceptable practice. We are more despised in the world today than we were. Those voices which cheer such things, which answer with rhetoric such as, "We are only protecting America" and "We are the only superpower" as if those things give us license need to remember Sept 11th for what it was.

People who hated the Western World, and the US more so, in part for years of meddling in the lives and governments not our own, took it upon themselves to meddle in ours. We answered with more and more direct meddling. We answered with more and continued death, on all sides, innocents included. We answered with reducing what the United States of America is by making those ideas guaranteed in our Constitution mirror more the King's policies which brought it to be written in the first place. We've come to view the whole world, our own citizens included, as suspect. We compounded the distrust and hate. And we still continue to do so, ten years later.

I can say all this and be a patriot, even without my own service counted. A patriot is one who simply believes in their country and fights for it. This is me, believing in and fighting for the ideas this country was founded on and has expanded on throughout it's history, seeking to include rather than exclude. This is also me being an adult and taking accountability for what we allow our government to do in our name.

I support our troops. I do not support it's mission of unending war. I do not support the continued killing of innocents which goes mostly unreported whilst we quietly paying a small restitution their families in what is akin to hush money. I am proud of our military members' service. I am not proud of it's mission, it's changing missions.

No, I am not very proud to be an American in this post 9/11 American world. I don't want the pre-9/11 America back either. I want the nation which kept striving forward in starts and stops to reach the idea of the United States of America. I want to take pride again in trying at least.

Sincerely,
Michael W. May

p.s.
Remember also the people who worked to save others and their families. Remember their sacrifice of the last decade in chronic health issues and early deaths. Remember they who are not being cared for to the best of our ability. We call them heroes too. And yet they suffer.

The_Rosebuds-Come_Visit_Me.mp3

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The_Rosebuds-Come_Visit_Me.mp3 (10.77 MB)

And I want to feel something way out here
I need something to happen now, even if it fucks me up
Come visit me way out here
I need you to see me, even if it makes it worse

So send a note to me that says a nice thing
But can’t unfray the mess
A million tiny splinters, the ax still ringing
Glue them all together to build a new thing
A mostly nice place to be
A noble triumph come see, an absolute feat

And I want to feel something way out here
I need something to happen now, even if it fucks me up
Come visit me way out here
I need you to see me, even if it makes it worse

“I would have never left you alone way out there
If I could have heard anything at all”

And I want to feel something way out here
I need something to happen now, even if it fucks me up
Come visit me way out here
I need you to see me, even if it makes it worse

And I want to feel something way out here
I need something to happen now, even if it fucks me up
Come visit me way out here
I need you to see me, even if it makes it worse

Holly_Miranda-I’d_Rather_Go_Blind_(Etta_James)_(live_2010-05-25).mp3

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Holly_Miranda-I’d_Rather_Go_Blind_(Etta_James)_(live_2010-05-25).mp3 (7.42 MB)

I was just, I was just, I was just sitting here thinking
Of your kisses and your warm embrace, yeah,
When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now baby,
Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah.
And baby, baby, I would rather be blind boy
Than to see you walk away, see you walk away from me, yeah
Baby, baby, baby, I'd rather be blind now

Counting_Crows-Anna_Begins.mp3

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Counting_Crows-Anna_Begins.mp3 (6.26 MB)

It does not bother me to say this isn't love
Because if you don't want to talk about it then it isn't love
And I guess I'm going to have to live with that
But I'm sure there's something in a shade of grey,
Something in between,
And I can always change my name
If that's what you mean

My friend assures me, "It's all or nothing."
But I am not really worried I am not overly concerned
You try to tell yourself the things you try to tell yourself
To make yourself forget I am not worried
"If it's love," she said, "then we're going to have to think about the consequences."
She can't stop shaking
I can't stop touching her and...

This time when kindness falls like rain
It washes her away and Anna begins to change her mind
"These seconds when I'm shaking leave me shuddering for days," she says
And I'm not ready for this sort of thing

But I'm not going to break and I'm not going to worry about it anymore
I'm not going to bend, and I'm not going to break and I'm not going to worry about it anymore
It seems like I should say, "As long as this is love..."
But it's not all that easy so maybe I should
Snap her up in a butterfly net Pin her down on a photograph album
I am not worried I've done this sort of thing before
But then I start to think about the consequences
Because I don't get no sleep in a quiet room and...

The time when k indness falls like rain
It washes me away and Anna begin s to change my mind
And eve rytime she sneezes I believe it's love and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

She's talking in her sleep
It's keeping me awake and Anna begins to toss and turn
And every word is nonsense but I understand and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

Her kindness bangs a gong
It's moving me along and Anna begins to fade away
It's chasing me away
She disappears and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

Better_Than_Ezra-Porcelain.mp3

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Better_Than_Ezra-Porcelain.mp3 (5.49 MB)

Just the other day I felt, I had you by a string
Just the other day I felt, we could be everything
But now when I see you, you're somebody else
In somebody's eyes,
And your skin is like porcelain
Yeah, your skin is like porcelain

I don't know what I'm saying
Well, I don't know if you're there
In the words you are feigning
Do you even care?

Well I wish I could kill you, savor the sight
Get into my car, drive into the night
Then lie as I scream to the heavens above
That I was the last one you ever loved
Porcelain.

Yeah, your skin is like porcelain
Yeah, your skin is like porcelain
Yeah, your skin is like porcelain
Yeah

1. The Pauses - A Cautionary Tale
2. The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
3. Cults - Cults
4. Destroyer - Kaputt
5. Lia Ices - Grown Unknown
6. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
7. Braids - Native Speaker
8. Bright Eyes - The People's Key
9. Iron And Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
10. Thao & Mirah - Thao & Mirah

*key: band website link - album info/buying options link

These are in order of my enjoyment, though they could be jumbled in any order and I might not notice.

I have many albums I've not listened to enough to rate properly, a handful I've yet to listen to at all, and there are many, many more I do not have.

It's a good list.

I was considering adding sample tracks and album art, but I got bored of making this post alreadly. Enjoy!