thedoldrummajor

Happy New Year

2023-01-01T23:20:07Z

I've never given much thought to new years before. When I was younger I was too focused on other things, like simply getting to see the next one, to have the chance to come up with resolutions or ideas for self improvement. Not this year. This year, I feel for the first time in my life that I'm no longer enduring. In the moment, yes, I'm enduring a mind-numbing job for the next two weeks before I can get back to what's really important, but on a grander scale I feel like I'm living for the first time.

The ideas for my future are no longer hypothetical. There's nothing I have to wait on anymore. No more "when I turn 18" "when I go to college" "when I get a car". I've done all that. Now it's time to figure out what exactly it is I want, rather than what I need to survive, and how to get it. That, I know, is going to be a long process. Something to marinate on the back burner. Maybe if I listen to enough new music and read enough books about philosophy I can speed up the process, but there's no telling.

Happy new year. I hope this year you find a way to feel more human. Tell your friends you love them.

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thedoldrummajor @ 2022-12-28T14:50:00

2022-12-28T21:13:04Z

Being home is driving me insane.

Work is literally torturous. All I do for 5-8 hours 5 days out of the week is walk around in circles, regurgitate the same three sentences, and listen to the same top 40 list from 2001. I hate it so much. Every shift I feel my mental health deteriorate just a little more. Because this doesn't matter. None of these people will remember me. I'm not human to them and they aren't human to me. They may as well be a hive mind and they're just as non-existent as I am. They too regurgitate the same words over and over, sometimes in a different order.

The money is nice to have, but it's just barely worth the feeling of slowly having my soul extracted via bloodletting. I can't make any art because whenever I'm not at work I'm trying to mentally recover from being there and I'm losing my mind. I'm being suffocated. When I'm not pacing around at work I'm trapped in my house because there's nothing to fucking do in this town. There's not even a condemable walmart parking lot for me to commit vandalism in.

Only two more weeks to go. I repeat the mantra constantly and it makes my mouth taste like blood. How did I live like this for a year? How did I live like this for more than a few hours?

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Get up, coward

2022-12-06T00:06:37Z

A friend shared with me today an assigned reading for one of their classes, gender studies or something like that. It's called THE QUEER NATION MANIFESTO and was passed out at a New York pride parade in 1990. I read it in full and I'm so, so angry.

Because nothing has changed.

Nothing. Replace the politician names and it's all the fucking same. It's been 22 years and in over the course of, 1? 2? We're right back square one. Hell, we're still fucking arguing about whether or not it's okay to call it the queer community. And I don't care! It doesn't matter what we call ourselves, we're all faggots to them! And fuck am I tired of playing along. I'm so sick of being a fucking educator and a good liaison to these straight conservative christian nazis.

I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of letting some asshole shout in my face about how we've been corrupted by demons and him still having teeth in his mouth while the pig officers drag him away, after we already told them this would happen and after we had to call four fucking times.

I'm done sitting idly by for the sake of keeping a good image for our community. I'm done sitting idly by while they kill my family and drive the rest to suicide. I want one of those nazi pricks to lay a finger on me. Give me a fucking excuse. Tell me again how I'll incur God's wrath. I will teach you the definition of wrath, and you will know Our pain.

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It's December

2022-12-01T20:44:17Z

I'm not big on drinking coffee and when I do it's usually something simple, just a little sugar and cream. Woke up in a weird mood, lost my headphones, and was late to my lab. Cut through the student union on the way back to my car to escape the cold and rain, and decided to grab one of those seasonal drinks from starbucks instead of doing what I usually do on Thursdays (pound a monster and forget to eat lunch), and.. god damn it the silly little drink people are right. Immediate mood improvement. Got my caffeine and a warm drink for the walk back, even if I seared off half my tongue on the first sip.

If you are also having a weird day, drink something with a hard to pronounce name, take a 20 min nap, and call me in the morning.

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If you built it, they will come

2022-12-01T00:06:15Z

So, it seems the punk rock/emo gods have heard everyone desperately begging for FOB to do literally anything in the wake of MCR, Paramore, and Pierce the Veil dropping new music and answered with a full page ad in the Chicago tribune. I, for one, am hyped as fuck and also pretty nervous. The Arctic Monkeys, a band I used to love, drifted far enough from their roots with their last two records that I've stopped keeping up with them, and FOB's last record was... definitely experimental. I didn't hate it by any means, but it's weak compared with the rest of their work. The band is clearly still trying to figure out this new hybrid of rock and EDM/dubstep, and MANIA has a lot of flat sounding spots. That and the quality of the lyrics varies pretty drastically from song to song.

But, I have a lot of hope for this new record. For one, Joe Trohman said FOB8 was going to be a guitar album (which is an aspect of their music I've sorely missed being in the spotlight), and since MANIA's release the band has had four years to solidify this new sound. Part of this hope is probably naive optimism and maybe some denial, because I really, really don't want start clarifying my love for FOB the same way I have to for the Arctic Monkeys.

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Rebirth through reckless abandon

2022-11-26T23:49:54Z

A lot of the people I know, myself included, seem to be tormented by this idea of self. Who they are, who they should be, who they want to be but can't escape from who they are to become it.

There was a period of my life, from about 11 years old to 17, where I was fascinated with being someone else. Not a picturesque, air-brushed version of me. Just someone different. Someone who told people to shut the fuck up about his dreams, who did not apologize for being louder than a whisper, and wasn't so obsessed with scraping off just enough weirdness to fade into the beige and greys of Normal.

There's something so seductive about the idea of self-destruction because it's control. I'll drink until I sweat liquor and smoke until my lungs bleed, if I want to. Because I can, and you can't stop me.

I think I figured out the secret though, so listen close. You can kill yourself any time you want. Literally, of course, but metaphysically too. You owe no one this version of yourself, or any future versions of yourself either. The concept of phases and permanent traits are bullshit, because the only permanent thing about you is that you'll always be changing anyway. It's like clouds in the sky. It always looks like clouds, it's always the sky, but there will never be the same configuration of clouds in the sky again. Every passing second has its own unique sky, that hasn't been seen before and will never been seen again.

That's you. You're the sky.

My point is, it's pointless, right? Who gives a fuck. Reconstruct your entire identity. Right now. The worst thing that will happen is you don't like it, and then you can just do it again.

The best part of this process, of killing your old self to make room for the new one, is that it takes time. You can ease in as slowly, or barrel through as quickly, as you want. I'm marinating in a cocoon of myself right now. In about six months I'll figure out whether or not I like the out come. My only regret will be not having done it sooner.

-DM

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Thanksgiving break

2022-11-20T01:08:35Z

It feels like this semester has left me in the dust. School and friends have become a juggling act, and though I've managed so far, it feels like any second the blades are going to come crashing down.

Being home is weird. It's home but it's not. It's not even my hometown anymore. It still feels comfortable, like a refuge, but more like the space between the walls of two different rooms than a resting place.

Hopefully with the time off I can write (or maybe even finish) some things. Happy thanksgiving.

- DM

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