It’s an amazing 72 degrees and sunny outside right now, and it could hit 80 again today. It looks as though spring truly is here as the forecast pretty much says the same thing for the whole week. I’m trying to jump on this momentum and move ahead with a few things because honestly I’m sick and tired of the way I’ve been living the last few months.

For the last week or so I’ve been feeling actually ill when I get up, honestly like I could throw up. It doesn’t really go away either, but comes and goes throughout the day. Whether or not I’ve been drinking the night before doesn’t seem to matter and this feels completely different than any hangover. I think it might be from the stress of all the things that are out of my control these days… and it has been a really, really, really, long last month and a half. I’ve been waking up around 1PM most days, nothing I usually like seems to interest me (not even videogames!), and most days it felt like I could just sleep all day.

It’s right time for change and I’m jumping on it. I’ve started hunting for apartments and a job, and already things are looking good for both. My Mom comes home from the hospital today (supposedly) which is really cool too. I’ll be here at her place (where I’ve been living) for the next week or so, but after that hopefully I’ll be living in my new place about 10 minutes away. That way I can get on with my own thing but still be around here pretty regularly.

So that’s the plan. I know I need to get on with my life, find something new to focus on. Being so absorbed in getting my Mom better was what I needed to do at the time, but I think I neglected taking care of myself in the process. Now that things are finally looking at least stable it’s time to start looking at my next step, and honestly I’m excited for the first time in a while.

Baltimore’s first thunderstorm of 2012 is booming outside right now. It’s been raining all day, and water is pooling up on the grass.

A lot has changed since my last post, and most of it’s good news. My mom is doing a lot better. She’s out of the critical care unit and is about to be moved to another hospital where they can begin to start rehab. She can even talk a bit at this point, and she’s regaining the use of her right leg and arm. We still have a long, long way to go, but that’s exactly what rehab’s for.

I also was asked to play that same gig at E-villa again last Thursday, and this time I got to DJ with my brother in a night-long tag team set. Although the crowd was pretty small we tore it up, enough to get asked back to play next Thursday. Should be a better turnout this time around; last time The Crystal Method was stealing all the kids across town.

I’m starting to try and figure out where I plan to go from here, because as I mentioned in the last post, it seems I’ll be sticking around in Baltimore this summer. I need to get a job, then figure out if I where I’m going to live: either at my Mom’s house like I am now or hopefully a place of my own. Either way it’s kind of exciting to start off on new beginnings again.

But still even with all the good news and possibilities I still find myself getting pretty bummed out often. Recently I’ll find myself just not enjoying things like I used to. It takes a lot for me to get loose of the dance floor now, and even video games seem a little less fun. Remember how in the last post I talked about getting back into music production? Nope, not yet… though all my equipment is just downstairs. Depression is the obvious culprit but I’m a little lost to the cause of it. I think it has to do with suddenly picking up a ton of responsibility and no longer enjoying the freedom I had from well… no responsibilities.

One thing I always held dear was my freedom to do what I want when I want. Graduating from college with desires to travel extensively abroad led to almost dangerous levels of freedom: at any point I could leave wherever I was and go to someplace new. When I began working in that same industry it only furthered it I think. Now I was part of the enterprise that made such freedom possible, my only shread of reality being my family and friends back home. And even though just recently I had made plans to gradually exit that crazy lifestyle, it still included a victory lap of one more season working over in Croatia… but scratch that. Like I said in the last post it’s amazing how much your life can change in a week.

Now don’t think this is a cry for help or time to sound the alarms. I’m just simply a little down about losing all that; I think anybody would. What annoys me is how I can’t shake out of it, cause honestly it seems like something that’s a little overdue. I mean doesn’t everyone turn in the party badge and gun and join real life sooner or later? I just hate the feeling I get sometimes where I feel like I’m being an asshole just cause I can’t get in the mood to have fun like I used to. I’m sure it’ll pass with time, I just don’t want to be some melancholy jerk you know?

[/end] Dr Phil Session….. let’s get some music up in this place. Recently I’ve really been digging the LA based group Oliver. It’s made up of one of the guys from U-turn and some other dude, and I think that one has Oliver as his first name and the other has it as his last. Crazy confusingggg…. Anyway, they make some pretty awesome funky stuff. Check it out.

Chromeo – Hot Mess (Oliver Remix)

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The picture above is of the “Apache” fireball durring the Operation Redwing series of nuclear tests. The result was a 1.85 megaton yield, and the photograph is one of my favorites of atomic explosions. A thermonuclear detonation consists of two seperate reactions: the first is simple fission which in a fraction of a second compresses another secondary reaction which results in fusion, combining hydrogen atoms together to make helium and releasing the same energy that powers the sun. This is where the term “Hydrogen Bomb” comes from.

It also could serve as a metaphor for my life right now. When I last posted I was gearing up to DJ my biggest gig ever in Baltimore. Shortly after that my laptop hard drive failed, but that was only the precursor to an even bigger shock: last Wednesday my mother suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. It’s funny how your entire life can change in a day.

While things are at least looking better now than they were a week ago, they still look pretty bad. Also, beyond the obvious issues, I now need to completely restructure my life as I was planning on heading back to Europe in early March. That certainly is no longer happening. One bit of good news — hopefully tomorrow I will get my regular laptop working again. Never before have I felt the need to get to work on music again, perhaps as an outlet to let loose some of the feelings I have inside of me that I can’t seem to acknowledge. I’m just not a very emotional guy, and my lack emotion so far through this episode has been somewhat disturbing. I know that some of my best work has come about when I feel just like I do now, and looking forward to what comes out of this is one of the few positives I can pull out of this god-awful, shitty mess. And I plan on letting it all out.

When it rains it pours my friends.

I was lucky enough to be squeezed into playing a quick set at the Ottobar on friday, courtesy of James Nasty (who is the da man, check out his stuff). It was my first gig in about 3 months and it felt great to get that adrenaline pumping again. Something about getting up there and hearing your own mixes really loud just makes my heart beat faster.

Today though I was met with another nice surprise when I got asked to play a new DJ night called It’s Casual which happens on Thursdays at E-Villa. I’ll be playing on 2/9, but this week it’s my buddies in Tek Subbort. I’ll be there for sure to case out the new place and dance like a crazy person, cause that’s how I get down. Plus it’s Groundhog Day fools. You know how you get down on G-hog day? You get down like Bill Murray. YOU DON’T GIVE A FUCK.

The musical nugget you will be receiving with this post is one of my favorites, and a song that never fails to get the dance floor moving. I closed out with this on Friday, and I like to think it paved the way for rest of the evening, which was a dance party for sure. Really, it should need no introduction. Such a classic tune.

Ginuwine – Pony (Lazerdisk Partysex Remix)

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Check it out. Paedophryne amauensis is the world’s smallest known vertebrate. At just under a third of an inch in length, this guy could sit on a lily-pad the size of a dime.