How To Break A Spell

In the fall I hatched a plan. I was going to quit making my music, not to mention eating it and sleeping with it. I was offered a couple shows in Illinois so I decided to go play those and secretly make them my last. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, mostly because I didn't want proof of how little it would matter to others. What happened was that I had to take a 4-day weekend away from work to do this and by the end of those 4 days my sanity returned to me and I realized that it was my job that had strangled my joy. It was like waking up from a nap. I stretched, yawned, scratched my ass and said, "What the fuck am I talking about. I don't need to quit something cause I love it. That's crazy talk. I need to quit my job."

There's nothing particularly evil about my job. Except for the fact that nothing flows here. It's like a vacuum where the things you care about can't breathe. And the people... they're nice. But it's hard to tell if they really care about anything.

The thing is I have a daughter. She's got a genius soul and I know she lives on love, tickles and mac'n'cheese, but in the back of my mind I fear more than anything the looks I'll get if I were an out-of-work dad. Even though I just picture Native Americans subsisting on the continent, before the continent was changed, and in my mind know we all, everybody, would be happier with less.

So this is the way it is for me. Like a skinny superman, tied to a block of kryptonite. I even forget most of the time what's making me weak.

Man, last week was a good week. Making new friends. Making new music. A bunch of kids and a Sam Cooke singalong, like the fakest movie moment. Coming back from the dead, ready to break rocks with my hands and shoot heart-melting lasers out of my eyes. What was bad about it? Nothing. Just a bunch of beauty. I told someone, "Hey. I can't sleep in lately. Is it the happiness?"

This morning I woke up at 7 feeling great all over. Woke up the bear and she decided not to fight me while I put her pigtails in, dressed her and gave her her medicine, chocolate milk, vitamins and tickles. We made faces at each other on the way to work in my mirror. After I dropped her off I was listening to NPR and it was dry like the March rock salt drying out my mouth. I put on Talk Talk and listened to Spirit of Eden and was right there in that perfect mix, surrounded by all that dedication and accident. God bless those guys for punishing themselves like that so that I might feel that way on a Monday morning.

And then I was riding the elevator up to my floor, hoping to not be looked at. And then I was in my cube which is the color of grayed sandwich meat. And then I was chained to a block of kryptonite that glowed and made a humming sound.