I'm reading again, and that's the most important thing that I want to get across. Somehow I realized, at some point---maybe it's the motivation of a pretty girl who I want to understand better by immersing myself in the things she loves, so even though that she's far away I can feel like I'm getting to know her in some other intimate way in the absence of feel, of smell; or maybe it's the fact that I have more free thought, that the absence of the constant stress, anxiety, or onslaught of bullshit of my last relationship (an onslaught he was unwilling to admit to during the ordeal) has left my brain free to pursue other, more life altering things---that I should start doing what I love.

I guess if I was to attribute this change in me to any one thing in my life, it would be Google Hangouts. Yes, Google's new video conferencing thing has been the catalyst for genuine change. I'm not an out-going guy, particularly, and I've always found myself so exceedingly awkward that if you were to describe me in fiction you could say I was, perhaps, crippled over in the shoulders with awkwardness, or at least I always felt that way. To imagine myself on camera, in front of people at all, much less embarrassing myself on guitar with a couple of internet strangers watching, well, it wasn't something I ever thought would go well.

But, actually, it's a lot of fun. The fact that people are watching me and my friend dick around on instruments makes me want to try harder to make it sound like music, and that's encouraging, because if I try, I can. I'm not a lead guitarist, or even a decent rhythm guitarist, or maybe any sort of guitarist at all but damn, I can play enough chords to fake it.

Then there's the beautiful girl. There's this thing about distance, it makes you fantasize and fetishize every moment of your waking life, involving her in it in small ways. When you're reading, and you're trying to put yourself into some sort of writer-ly state where the world is poetry and the wind is full of hope, it's amplified something like eleventy-billion-fold. I want to write epic pieces of literature of entire lives, each one different, that her and I have lived. Some happy, some tragic, some comfortably mundane. I want to say: This is what I can give you! Take your pick, any single one, and just because I'm so awesome, I wrote one for every possible outcome and course you could ever imagine... That's how much you inspire me.

It's an amazing thing because it's all, well, just an idea. I have an idea of her. She exists in my mind as a color (a soft, light pink), a sound (one too private to mention), and a coal that burns hot in my imagination when I'm not distracting it with someone else's written word. But the feel of her is imagined by sight, and the smell of her can't be imagined at all. The important things aren't there.

I don't know what it's like to walk alongside her. Will her arm fall into mine, so that we lock arms more than we just hold hands at a bumpy distance? Maybe she's just the right height for us to walk huddled close together, like that Bob Dylan album cover I don't even have to link to because you've already imagined it. It's silly to think these things though, or play in them for very long at all, because, well, what am I? A teenager? While I'm broke, I might as well be.

But it's fun, and it's inspirational. I was reading Stephen King's "On Writing", having never actually read any of his writing before, and he talks of always having someone to write for. Someone whose opinion actually matters, the person he's trying to impress. I like to imagine she's the opinion the matters, and that's healthy. For me.

Because what I should be doing is what she inspires me to do. Isn't that the definition of a muse? I don't think I've had one in years.

I feel like that no matter what happens from here on out, there's only one direction to go in. That's a relief. To think that several months ago I was about to sign myself up for the kind of suburban horror story I just read about (in Revolutionary Road) is shocking, and sad, but ultimately it didn't happen so I guess... yay! No need to dwell on it now.

Onward and upward.

But then!

First, to not be unfair to White Denim, and use their marvelous song without saying something nice about them, let me say this: White Denim's latest album "D" might just be the best album of the year so far. I'm sure I've listened to it more than anything else. The problem with me saying anything about it is that my opinion mirrors Pitchfork's opinion, mostly, except where they get kind of backhanded and bitchy, fill that part with joyful exuberance.

"D" is a celebration, for me especially, because it does something right that almost no album ever does, and that is that it is properly paced. It starts off strong, and then it just gets stronger. If there's a lull in the middle, it's such a beautiful wonderful lull that I've never noticed at all. Then, right when most albums are really starting to wind down into the really bad, slow, crappy songs most bands tack onto the end of their albums soaking up time, White Denim releases a fucking nuclear bomb of awesome. The last two songs on the album might be the best on it, on an album of already really good songs, and that's how an album should be.

Everyone else's albums just suck ass in comparison. "D" is paced to perfection. God bless White Denim, I wouldn't change a thing about it.

Austin-based White Denim is pretty much awesome. This was the first album I listened to this year (released last year) that truly excited me, and it took me twelve straight listens to finally feel like I had over-saturated myself on it. The best way I can describe it is to steal a comment I read elsewhere on the internet: Fits sounds as if the greatest, most talented garage band in the world showed up at your house, set up all their gear in your garage, and all in one take recorded an entirely improvised album right then and there.

They'll rock your face off. In the first two tracks they are all over the place, at one point pretty much shredding a sick ass riff on a sitar, or at least on something that sounds a lot like a sitar. Since I don't know shit about music I can't really say for sure, but I do know one thing: it is pretty much awesome. The song Sex Prayer descends into a lovely stoney groove. El Hard Attack DCWYW pounds your face off. Regina Holding Hands makes you feel totally blissful.

In short, it seems like White Denim can do just about anything they put their mind to, and do it well. This is an album to check out just to see how one band manages to cover so many different styles all on one record without it being overwhelming or annoying. There's at least five tracks on this album that belong in your shuffle for sure. Blah blah blah.