A Little Oxygen

I think I reached a crossroads today. Since I came to Florida, I’ve mostly been noodling around, feeling sorry for myself for wasting eight years of my life behind the wheel of a truck. I’ve spent all my time patting myself on the back for regaining some of my physical mobility (you’d be amazed what driving a truck that long does to your joints), and very little time planning for tomorrow. As my step-father might have put it, I’ve head my head in the clouds.
Well, basic economic necessity has forced me to be a bit more realistic. This is a good thing. I haven’t exactly been hammering away, building a better bomb and trying to make things happen. Admittedly I needed a little time to get my head together. By Victoria’s good graces, I’ve had that. I’ve just about shaken all the doubt, anger and bitterness that attached itself to me during the last couple of years, that funk that clung to me like a fog around a lighthouse in some B-grade horror movie.
Okay, I’m not making any sense. Get to the point, you rambling bastid!
Today I decided to sell some things. My Alembic F-2B preamp. My T.C. Electronic M-One effects processor. Roger Waters’ Amused to Death on vinyl. All things that will bring in nice sums of money (as well as lots of miscellaneous debris which won’t bring in as much, but will add up). Victoria’s not happy with me. She thinks it’s a bad idea to sell these things, because once they’re gone, they’re gone. She’s right about that. But there’s nothing here that’s irreplaceable. That preamp and that effects processor are just bits of wiring and circuitry. That Roger Waters album is always being sold by someone on eBay (and I don’t even have a damned turntable anyway), so I can always get another one day. And the smaller stuff is just lying around taking up space.
Simply put, selling these things will buy me some time. Victoria thinks (rightly so, perhaps) that it’d make more sense to just get a job and keep my stuff. And I don’t have a problem with working. I mean, it’s a part of life. But eight years of being a ghost behind the wheel of a truck has put me so far behind that I have this desperate, aching need to feel like I’m getting back on track. Going to work, coming home and having dinner, watching a little television and then going to bed is not going to give that to me. Going back to work right now will rob me of the most precious commodity I have at the moment. Time.
For the moment, I have the time to record some songs. I have the time to get my web site together. I have the time to get my various online stores stocked and working. Once I go back to work, that’s gone. And while I certainly don’t expect that I’ll never go back to work, I desperately want just one more month. Just four more weeks to get a little more caught up. That’s the thing that gnaws away at me; that I’ve lost so much of my life already. I’m gathering up all the pieces and trying to make sense of it all. Trying to recapture just the faintest hint of that spark and fire that I used to have, when I was young and anything seemed possible, and I just knew that it was going to matter that I was alive.
I don’t need another year. I don’t need six months. I need maybe four more weeks. Selling this stuff will give me that. And compared to what I’ll be getting in return, these things I’m selling are insignificant. How do you explain that to someone? It may sound strange, but the thought of selling those things excites me. It’ll help us. We need the money. And it’ll give me a little more time to finish the wiring in the proverbial bomb that I’m building. I don’t need to finish it. But I certainly need to feel like it’s a real, viable thing. That it’s possible. Once that’s done, I’m fine with selling bits of my soul to an employer every week. At least then I’ll have revolución on my side, and I’ll again be the subversive maniac hatching nefarious plots every weekend in my lair when all my co-workers have gone out to hit the clubs to blow their paychecks and drink themselves into oblivion.
Yeah. I feel good about this. I feel like I’ve had trouble breathing and I just found a tank of oxygen.