Thank you so much for your support everyone, I'm not going to do anything stupid, and I will probably update my LiveJournal more often, depending on a couple of different things. It's just that I've been writing to this one so long that it'd be kind of hard for me to transition over and get it to look as good as some other people's journals.

So anyway last night I stayed up until like 1:30 so that I could effectively get my English essay done, and then I went to bed. I got up after about 4 hours of sleep and planned to have breakfast at school, but when I got here I found out that the cafe crew isn't even here because it's an early release day and therefore they're not serving lunch. Wouldn't mind as much but after school I've got like $5 to spend at KHOP for lunch before I have to be back to the school for drama rehearsal until like 3... I'm probably going to have to borrow some money off someone if I'm going to have lunch today.

So now I'm off to do some stupid experiment in Biology that I'm probably going to screw up. CYAZ LATA!

F Life
Mood:  down
Topic: Random Ramblings
I don't think I came across nearly upset enough in my last post. This is one of those times when I seriously wish I did not exist. I have never been this embarassed to be part of a concert in my life, and yet being the only bass clarinet player I'd feel like a complete a-hole if I didn't show up (not to mention my grade would suffer bigtime). Not to mention semi is slowly creeping nearer, and though I've tried to hide it (even in this journal and from myself) it's really kind of getting to me that I don't have a date. Everyone is like "Ooh, Carl, who are you going with, who are you going with?" and it kind of hurts to say "No one," and in the back of my mind it hurts even more to follow it up with the lie, "But I'm cool with that." Then there's that goddamned son-of-a-pregnant-dog American Studies paper that she assigned us today... draft due tomorrow, and final paper due Tuesday. Well, let me clue you in on something, I'm not the kind of guy who can whip up a genius paper in a single night and then use the single half hour of spare time I'll actually have tomorrow to revise it based on the recommendations of two teachers who are just plain contradicting each other. It's when I get into moods like this that I start thinking things like "I have no friends, I'm a failure at life, everything I do I f*** it up," and even though I may seem cheery or hyper or even just tired in school, I'm really just covering up a really s****y mood that I don't want to spread to everyone else... Unfortunately, at that point I end up venting to the people who I know will listen and my mood gets dumped on them, because I just basically blow up in their face. That, and I blow up in the faces of the people I'm pissed off at, and they get pissed off at me, and then it escelates until I want to smash my head into anything that could put me into a permanent coma. Anyone who was in band today when I flipped out and started groaning and slamming my fist into the chair, that was a perfect example. Hell, it was either that or pick up my music stand and throw it across the room, and then I would have just made matters worse. Another perfect example, for those at Nightmare rehearsal, who saw me go into that huge, 15 minute laughing fit after the card-playing scene? I'm officially convinced that that was my 15 minutes of insanity. I'm not even kidding. It wasn't even that funny, yet I couldn't stop laughing. I guess it just felt so good to be laughing after all the s*** that I went through today, I didn't want to stop... I'm seriously convinced that I went insane for that period of time, and I'm not joking. I actually looked at Mr. Widman and said, "This'll probably be the last time I smile for a long time, so I may as well make it last," and his reply was, "What's that supposed to mean?" At that point I walked away, still laughing.

So anyone who reads this that actually cares about me whatsoever, please post a reply. It's not that hard to do. I've seen a ton of LiveJournals with a ton of replies, and it really adds to my depression when I look at my own journal and see a bunch of goose eggs. And after you've posted, wait like 5 or 10 minutes and check to see if it went up. If for some reason it didn't, drop me an e-mail. It's Caal1028@adelphia.net. I just get the feeling that a bunch of people come to read this just so they can laugh about me behind my back, like no one really cares about what I say, think, or feel, because so far the only replies I've ever gotten are criticism, complaints, insults, or messages from my family. Oh, and some cartoon quotes that I didn't even understand. I specifically asked for people who read those lyrics to post replies, and then I had to go IMing people asking them what they thought. All I can hope for is that there's something wrong with my Angelfire server, that it's only letting a small percentage of comments get posted for some reason, because otherwise I just feel like there's no one out there who really could give two s***s about what I think or how I'm feeling. And please put your name to your comment. Your real name, not some kind of fake-o name from a cartoon that I won't understand.

I've gotta go to bed now, because if I don't get a good night's sleep chances are I'm going to be a major a-hole tomorrow and be depressed enough to... I dunno... run out into traffic or something. So good-night to all. Except me.

EDIT: Well it's 5:00 on the day after I posted this, and it seems like no one honestly cares what I have to say. So I probably won't be writing in this journal for awhile.

All right, I'm ready, Grim Reaper. Whenever you get a chance.

I'm really getting tired of band and chorus. We have a concert tomorrow night and not only are we nowhere near ready, but everybody's attitude (including my own, I must admit) totally sucks. We've still got people throughout the room goofing around in the middle of our songs and people playing and talking every chance they get in band, plus arguing with each other and the teacher about tempo, dynamics, whether or not we're going to cut our third song out of three... It's real chaos and it's really dissuading me from joining the group again next year. It really sucks. I've been in band for the past six years, and although this is my first time in chorus, it's really leaving a bad first impression on me. I love singing and I love playing bass clarinet, but the majority of the people I have to work with are doing absolutely nothing but piss me off for two 45-minute blocks a day. All I can say is, thank God I've got play rehearsals tonight, hopefully that'll take a little bit of stress off my shoulders. Then again, unless we get nothing accomplished or if the attitudes suck. If such a thing happens, forget it. My mood is already shot as it is.

And for anyone who hasn't read the lyrics that I posted below, you best do so soon, because the front page of my BLOG only holds 10 entries, and then you have to go fishing for the older ones.

Another Christmas Pic
Mood:  lucky
Now Playing: In the Christmas Mood
Topic: Holiday Antics
Set up the tree... Here is a pic of Cory sitting on the couch next to it... :-)

And here's one of our house (normally we have a wreath on the door instead of that wooden decoration but we haven't gotten around to pulling it out and putting it up yet.)

In Pain
Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: Vh1 Hits
Topic: Random Ramblings
Since I woke up this morning I've had a pain in my right shoulder blade, and it's been getting progressively worse throughout the day. Wondering a couple of things:
a) what the heck I did to myself in the first place
b) whether I should keep working it in hopes of getting the "kink" out, or try to let it rest (put it in a sling or something... lol)
It was somewhat bearable until I was helping my dad lift a water heater into his truck and then out of the truck and to the junk pile at the dump; it's been killing me ever since. I can barely move my right shoulder or even extend my arm to a certain point without my shoulder blade killing me. Not sure exactly why I'm posting this, mainly boredom and the fact that it's foremost on my mind right now. Hopefully I'll be fine by tomorrow, if not the end of the day; if it still hurts like this on Monday I'm probably going to make a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. My dad said it could be something about having liquid between my lungs and bones, or something like that, don't even remember what it's called, but it kind of freaked me out. Sounded like something I'd need medical help for. Can't stand the thought of that. If it can't be cured by a) doing nothing or b) taking some kind of medicine via swallowing, I can't stand the thought of it.

Now I have to go look up the company that made my dad's car stereo and complain to them; this is the second console of the same model that he's had in the truck, the first one just died on him, and both have overheated beyond belief... We're afraid it's actually going to melt a disc or burn something one of these times.

So...
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: Santa Baby
Topic: Holiday Antics
We've set up the tree, now all we have to do is wait for Dad to string up the lights (he's better at it than I) and then we can help Mom pick and choose which ornaments go up this year... Maybe this'll be the first year I can convince her that the Barney and Big Bird ornaments are a little old. If not, I'll be sure to sneak them into the back when she's not looking. Or just take them off and hold them hostage until she fulfills all my ridiculous commands. MWAHAHAHA!

So... anyway... um...

Found a mix of Christmas songs that I put on CD last year, and it's pretty cool. I completely forgot about some of the stuff that was on there! There are like 3 rare, unreleased Barenaked Ladies Christmas tunes, a couple of good parodies ("Walkin' 'Round in Women's Underwear" to the tune of "Winter Wonderland"), and even some old lounge-jazz-type versions of songs like "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I also found a tape of Hilary Duff's Christmas CD, "Santa Claus Lane," that she released like 2 years ago. Don't ask me how I got it in the first place or why I still have it, but the fact of the matter is now I have one more blank cassette for a mixtape, since all my car has is a tape deck. Then again, note to self: put a Walkman car stereo adapter on my Christmas list. And some Velcro to stick my portable CD player to the center console.

Now I must go finish chores and (uggh!) do homework so that we can set up the rest of the tree and the exterior decorations this afternoon. Tomorrow I've got to perform with the band and chorus at Mr. Beals's annual Christmas party at his house, then to the Christmas party at the Home Depot in North Hampton, since my mom works there. Should be a good time. They're closing the store an hour early for us and everything. Now if only she'd get paid for the overtime... LOL. Then Tuesday night is our concert for symphonic band and concert chorus (which is going to suck, save for the quartet that will be performing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"), Wednesday is an early release, Friday night is a Barenaked Ladies concert at the Orpheum Theater in Boston, and Saturday is semi. Then it's "Hell Week" (the week before the show) for "Nightmare Before Christmas"...

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: Frosty Returns
Topic: Exciting News (for me)
So the interior of our house is looking pretty Christmassy, for lack of a better word. Spent the past couple of hours putting up the snowmen, pictures, books, and other general decorations (including the candles in each front- and side-facing window) in our house, and it looks excellent. A few got left behind due to the loss of the huge speakers that we originally put decorations on. (We now have a set of smaller bookshelf speakers on the floor, leaving little room for picture frames or other decorations.) The highlight so far has to be the stockings hanging from our new living room wall, as shown in the following picture:

Okay, okay, so the wall isn't exactly finished. The bottom part is supposed to be like a gray stone, sort of an old-fashioned country-type look, but we haven't gotten around to calling the guy yet. Chances are that'll be done sometime after the holidays.

Anyway, in terms of decorating, the only thing we really have left to do is the tree and the exterior decorations, which we will be putting up hopefully tomorrow afternoon, when my mom gets home from work. It'll be a traditional tree-decking with Christmas carols on the living room stereo (we already listened to Barenaked For the Holidays and the Music Choice "Sounds of the Seasons" station tonight), sneaking Christmas cookies from the jar, and a lot of redesign of the living room. (We're putting the tree where our loveseat is now, meaning we have to find a new home for the two-person couch.) I gotta be honest, I love going to bed at night with the glow of the candles from my windows, it's a nice way to end each day of the holiday season. Chances are when we have up the tree and the final outside setup, I will send a picture to all, assuming the outdoor picture comes out ok... :-D

Entry #156 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like XMas
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Random Ramblings
So... nothing to talk about really. Glad it's Friday. A ton of people from the drama club are going to see "Little Shop of Horrors" at Exeter High School tonight, so there's no rehearsal. I'll be staying home and beginning the Christmas decorating with my family, which is an event I look forward to every year. To be honest, it's probably my favorite part of the Christmas season, since it's the event that really kicks it off for us. The only real way we get any Christmas spirit prior to this is through radio and TV stations, going to stores, etc; we don't leave any of our Christmas CDs or decorations out, they all get packed away with the tree. Okay, so my mom keeps two of her CDs out, and I just got "Barenaked For the Holidays" in October, but other than that and a snowglobe that we forgot to put away last year, our house is looking very Christmas-deprived. Which should change tonight. Well, the interior decorations anyway. Chances are we'll get the candles in the windows, all the Christmas pictures into the frames, etc. The tree and the outside display will probably not be set up until tomorrow night or so. Actually, we left the spotlights outside if I remember correctly, all we have to do is plug them into the switch and re-focus them... and put the wreath on the door. The only problem is it's hard to see our house because we have like those 5 feet of woods in front of our property. But it looks cool when we're driving in and out of the driveway, which we do a lot. One of these days we'll get a good picture of it, especially now where we have a digital camera, so we can see the pic after it's taken and take another one if the first looks like crap...

My Life as a Teenage Moron
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: some sitcom
Topic: My Songwriting & Poetry
Today I realized something... had my ex-girlfriend and I still been going out, the semi would've fallen on our 2-year anniversary. Ironic that I am going stag.

Tonight I've got "Nightmare" rehearsal, and then I'll probably go to bed early. I'd like to drive over there, and hopefully I'll get the chance to. My car rocks out loud. Anyone who'll be there tonight, look for the 11-year-old piece of crap Buick Park Ave that'll pull into the parking lot probably about 15 minutes late, with the plates that have my name on them... That'll be me. Feel free to check out my ride if you so desire, but only for a short time since my dad will get irritated if he has to sit there for any length of time. Too bad I don't have my license. :-(

Okay, so anyway, I think it's high time I re-posted those old lyrics I wrote, but this time with some updates that make it at least a little more complete. Chances are it'll go through quite a few more changes before I actually record it, although once it does get recorded and mastered to my computer, you can bet it'll be downloadable here in MP3 format. That is, I hope so. I have come up with a working title for it, although chances are that title will change. At first glance (and even after close examination) it may seem to make no sense, but there is a hidden meaning behind it... deeply hidden. I just thought that too many of the songs I've written have obvious titles, such as the last line of the chorus, or the most frequently said word, etc. so I decided that it'd be cool to actually have a title that had something to do with the song, yet was not an actual lyric within the song. Although I have a melody in my head (which I can't obviously relate through text), harmonies and instrumental parts would be really cool. The only problem is, the only instruments I can play are the clarinet and bass clarinet, and my brother can play the drums... somewhat. I don't know how to write guitar tabs, so even if I came up with a guitar part and someone to play it, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to effectively relay the information to them. Plus, I don't really have anyone to do a harmony with, since my friend Kevin and my brother Cory are really the only two people I've ever recorded music with, and they'd probably just sit there laughing throughout the entire thing. (Trust me, Kevin did it when I wrote and tried to record a song a year or so back.) I guess the only alternative is to have a piano accompaniment, although it'd take forever to write out an effective piano part and would involve a lot of plunking out of notes... besides the fact that I don't own any kind of keyboard or piano.

But anyway... here are the lyrics... please post some replies as to what you think... and Shawna, no Aqua Teen Hunger Force quotes this time... lol.
Also, to the person who this is written about, I'm sure by this point you have figured it out. While my feelings have subsided a little, I want you to know that this has been made to sound a lot more dramatic than it is in real life. The death of a fellow Sanbornian had me pretty emotional at the time, not to mention having this "story" on my mind, so... I guess I just don't want this to be taken the wrong way.
PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE ADULT LYRICS WHICH I HAVE LEFT UNCENSORED FOR ARTISTIC REASONS.




WORKING TITLE: "Nabe Sell"

Can't look at my problems
Yet it hurts to look away
Wishing this was easier
Wishing things would go my way
Too much shit being thrown at me at one time
Started to write down my feelings one day
Didn't mean to make a rhyme, so

Then I sat down and I wrote this song
Might not be too long
But everything is going wrong
Lost a potential partner
But I'm glad she's still a good friend
I just wish it'd all come to an end

Not the greatest lyricist
I just write what I feel
Not too great with words
But everything I say is real
Not too good with emotions
I display them way too much
But here I am, lost for words again
Writing stream of consciousness

Then I sat down and I wrote this song
Might not be too long
But everything is going wrong
Lost a potential partner
But I'm glad she's still a good friend
I just wish it'd all come to an end

Can't nobody help me?
I need some good advice
I need someone who I can love
Someone who'll treat me right
I can't stand to suffer any more heartache
I'm wonderin' if love is just a big mistake
Can't nobody help me see the light
At the end of the tunnel
At the end of the tunnel

So now I'm just sitting here, singing this song
Hoping that someday, things will stop going wrong
What I need now, is some support from my friends
'Cause I think it's time for this mess to come...
To...
An...
End.




...And that's it. The entire song gets more and more powerful, starting off as a soft ballad and gradually increasing, until the climax, which is basically a slow rock feel: "Can't nobody help me, I need some good advice..." etc. At the lines "At the end of the tunnel," it starts to drop back down to the way it was at the beginning, and eventually drops to a slower tempo at the last three words of the song. The entire third verse (the above-mentioned "climax") was actually taken from the chorus of the song that I was originally writing, but not getting anywhere with. When I realized how well I was doing with this song, I decided to throw it in there since it made sense within the context. The following lines:

"I can't stand to suffer any more heartache
I'm wondering if love is just a big mistake"

were originally written as:

"Heaven please
I'm on my knees"

See why I changed them? With that much power in the song, a corny, 6-word line would have really brought it down, so I quickly changed it once it switched context. Not to mention, looking back on the original lyrics... they kind of sucked anyway. LOL. I guess I was just trying to find some kind of rhyme to fill in that space, and I failed initially. I like the new lines a lot better, and if for whatever reason I reconciled the original song, the new lyrics would probably follow the chorus back in. Let me know what you guys think of it, I really need feedback before I record it and possibly make an idiot out of myself! :-)

PS For those wondering, I do have a Live Journal account, but I never really update it. One of these days I might get around to copying & pasting all 150+ of these entries into one huge thing on LJ, but I don't even know if it's worth it. Anyway my user name is caal1028, and if you have a Friends Only journal on LJ I'd love to see it, just add me to your friends list. ;-)

The Nightmare Before Christmas
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: NADA
Topic: Theatre / Drama Club
Going to bed soon...

Just wanted to let everyone who is interested know that today, for the first time, I did my stunt in "The Nightmare Before Christmas." That's right, as I've probably mentioned countless times, as the Mayor I have to fall off a 6-foot platform on to a gymnastics mat that's sitting offstage. Shawna, Derrick, and Katie all have to do pretty much the same thing, but in different ways; I trip, Shawna intentionally "throws herself" off, and Derrick/Katie gets pushed off. Anyway, it was pretty weird today, because we didn't have the actual mat we're going to use, we just had these crappy blue mats that'd still kill if you landed on them the wrong way. So we ended up finding a way to make it look good to jump onto them feet-first and then fall sideways onto them, or however we're supposed to land. Eventually, we'll have like a 2-foot thick piece of foam that, according to Bobby, kids were doing flips onto from atop a stage director's booth that once hung on the right-hand side of our school's stage. The catch? We won't be working with the town hall's stage for rehearsal until our first dress rehearsal, meaning the falling space that we learn to work with on the Sanborn stage is going to be totally different from the space we have to work with at the town hall.

Oh, and another thing, to all members... even if you have a small part... STOP QUITTING ON US!!! It's hard enough for us to put on this show without having to re-cast and distribute the lines of those who are missing. This isn't directed to anyone in particular, just in general... if you have what you think to be a "small" part and are thinking of quitting because your role isn't that important, think again. We need as many people as we can get; we're already short two band members, and possibly even 3 if one of them has to play Sandy Claws for a night, so we really can't afford to lose any more people. Some left for reasons beyond their control, and I respect that and feel sorry for them. But every single person that is in this show right now counts, and if you were thinking of being in it but couldn't make it to auditions, talk to someone in the drama club IMMEDIATELY. There should be plenty of room for you!