Marc

I wrote an "I believe" post a long time ago. See it here. I am trying to get into the habit of writing more and more, and feel like it needs some sort of companion list.

The Top Ten List of Things I Cannot Believe
(1) I cannot believe that I have spent the overwhelming majority of my evening stuck on the driver's side of this hotel room's queen-sized bed. I got here right after work with a bag of Arby's in hand (it was a bad night, eating-wise) and watched PTI, followed by Malcolm X, followed by a quick trip to Pontiac IL's version of a Wal-Mart to see if they had the latest Spoon record, came home disappointed, watched Alias, poked around for ideas on vacation adventures to have, and have been beating myself up for not having written anything - or even attempted to write anything - almost all night long. Excluding my post on The Hero earlier. I spend far too much time sitting on my ass, doing nothing, thinking notching, accomplishing nothing. I get sick of it. The only progress I truly made tonight was this: Scoot and I have officially agreed on taking the Metra trains from his suburban dwelling to the city on the night of my bachelor party. Officially, that's it. That's what I have to show for tonight. My guitar is sitting on the bed next to me. My emails are piled up in the inbox just a few key strokes away. My body is aching for a shower, and my bladder could go for a good emptying. But here I am, alone, disappointed with myself, and on the driver's side of the bed watching tv ... and typing.

(2) I cannot believe that I actually expected the new Spoon album to be at the Pontiac IL Wal-Mart (aka the Saddest Fucking Wal-Mart Ever). Depression has a name: the Entertainment Section of the Pontiac IL Wal-Mart. If I needed the latest Larry the Cable Guy album, I would've been in luck. If I needed the most recent Kelly Rowlands release, I would have walked out the front door a happy man. If I would have been searching for a copy of Sucking in the Seventies, I would have needed to make one stop, and one stop only. Spoon, though, is not high on the priority list of the Pontiac IL Wal-Mart.

(3) I cannot believe Zook owns a house. Followed closely by...

(4) I cannot believe I have not seen Zook's house yet.

(5) I cannot believe how hard it is to write a song, and how much more difficult it is to write a song and be satisfied with it. I admire musicians. I think that there's strength in someone standing up and baring his/her soul in front of a crowd of absolute anonymi ***1***. I can hardly muster the courage to sing at an audible level in my own home, much less in the much more public hotel room setting. I can pluck and pluck and pluck, and yet I still end up setting the guitar down in frustration, hoping that I'll be able to come back at it tomorrow, or the day after, or next week, or whenever. I wrote the music for a song in 2001 when I actually lived on North Fell Ave in Normal IL. I finally gave up hope of ever being able to write lyrics to it this past winter ('05) and handed it to my closest friend - and favorite vocalist/lyricist, Scooter McBoober - and told him to go to town. Within a day and a half he's got ideas. Within a handful of weeks, we have it recorded, permanently on the record. I'm working on one right now. It has a ghostly outline, musically, yet I cannot get past the second line of the first verse, lyrically. I'm always afraid of putting something down to paper because I'm afraid (a) I'll be disatisfied with it, (b) it'll be worse than the drivel I poo-poo on a regular basis, and thusly I don't want to open myself to the "Where do you get off..." vein of musical criticism, and (c) I wouldn't like it if it wasn't my song - which is truly the most difficult self-assessment a person can give him/herself. I know I need to get over all of these quirks, but I find it difficult, to say the least.

(6) I cannot believe that I have a teaching job this coming fall.

(7) I cannot believe that I spent the overwhelming of the past two months working out of my home, and was able to stay with my girl almost every night, and was able to finally get to experience day-to-day life in Chicago for, really, the first time. One of the things that I always hated about my job after I had been doing it for more than six months straight, was the fact that it basically allowed me no time to get settled in at any one spot. I would hop on a plane, spend each workday hopping from town to town and from hotel to hotel, and come home only to find that there were so many little things that I had to do to keep my personal and professional lives organized and on-track. There were very few nights available for complete and total unwinding. Most of the time I was focused on what I needed to do for the next week's trip, or some other silly side-thought that almost always managed to take over my mind completely at times. Staying at home, with the girl, with the friends, with the cat over the course of the past two months was refreshing and inspiring and rewarding unto itself.

(8) I cannot believe, for that matter, that I even live in Chicago. I never never never never wanted to live in Chicago. Not in 1996 when I was looking for a university to attend. Not in 2000 when I dropped out of college to join the professional workforce. Not in 2001 when I returned to the same university. And not in 2003, when I was initially thinking about what it was I would do on 05/08/04 (aka Graduation Day). It's funny how life determines your path for you sometimes. If I hadn't of met Annie in the summer of 1999, I would not have moved to Chicago in May of 2004. Now I've lived there for a year, and finally feel like I am getting settled in. I know the names of the interstates (I think), and I can figure out where to go if you give me an address and a cross-street to base it on. I have a small list of favorite spots that I like to go to. And I even have a semi-regular order at a restaurant down the street from my apartment. I still don't really know the names of the neighborhoods, save Logan Square, Wrigleyville, Wicker Park, the vague borders of Lincoln Park, and the Loop. Edgewater Beach, Hungarian Village, Saguanash? These areas are all foreign to me. I can definitely see myself sticking around for a while, and not just because I'll be permanently attaching myself in June to someone who is definitely planning on sticking around for a while. Based on its own merits, I now find that Chicago feels like home. I want to live there because I want to live there, and that feels nice.

(9) I cannot believe that the Cubs' bullpen is as bad as it is. Didn't they realize, going into the offseason, that they needed to completely overhaul the pen. They've taken a guy like LaTroy Hawkins, who was initially a shut-down set-up guy, and shattered his confidence by repeatedly throwing him into the role of "closer." We're all counting on Joe Borowski to come back and be our saviour. Joe-Joe hardly pitched at all last year, and he barely got anyone out at that. His 33 saves from the '03 campaign came mainly due to good run support, not due to overwhelming skill as a relief pitcher. Of course, we cannot win games, too, if we are not scoring any runs. So I guess we'll have a couple of problems to fret over until the trade deadline, at which time our hopes will rise again, only to crest and plummet, crashing back into the soil with the weight of a hundred years of misery. Go Cubs. Blah blah.

(10) I cannot believe that I am still doing this "I cannot believe" list. Worst idea ever.

***1*** What is the plural form of anonymous?