The album is mixing, the album is being mixed, the album is amidst mixing, the album is amixt. I’m passive for the first time in the process, waiting for Brandon’s first pass to stick its head out, and I’m nervous as hell all the time.
It’s not that I don’t trust Brandon. It’s that the time is coming nigh when this album is no longer mine and his to love and look after, when we will no longer be debating its finer points — every point will become moot as it becomes a stone document, and it will be subject to public tastes and whims. I get sick nearly every time I hit this point. I worry that nobody’s going to like it. I worry that nobody’s going to like me.
The funny thing about trading in personal songs is that I’m never really aware that I’m more personal than most of my peers. When people tell me I’m brave to put myself out there, I feel like, how is this not the norm? What’s the point, if we’re not all trying to be honest and real? With this album, though, I feel like all of the Band-Aids are ripping at once.
I had someone (I won’t say who) ask me if I felt like I shouldn’t tone down the rhetoric in Misophone, that it’s a bit melodramatic in the context of the world’s “real” problems. That dude’s a huge fan, too, so it’s a little concerning that that song might be received that way. Misophonia isn’t a tiny issue for me. It’s been a huge part of my life since before I could name it, and it’s been to blame for a lot of my life’s failings, because when my crazy would come out, I had no way to make people understand — Hell, I had no way to make myself understand what was going on. I hope more people don’t see it as maudlin or something, because I think it’s really helped some people, even just to have the demo around, and I think it will help a lot of misophones to feel less alone, just the way Glutton’s Dozen made a bunch of 19-to-22-year-old males know it was OK to cry sometimes.
I’m so busy trying to scrape the last moneys together to make this album that I’m losing my mind. Shows I told friends I would play fell from my focus and now it’s catching up with me a bit, and I’m freaking out, but hopefully my friends will still love me and the freakout will pass. I always think I have the album covered, and then something comes along and takes money away from me. Stupid somethings. I think it will be OK, though.
Basically, I need to stop freaking out. Focus. Fix a website. Learn a song. Make a video. Go to work. Go to bed. Eat eggs. Not too many eggs. Right, just those.
OK, I can do this.