I’m sure some of you have already heard (or at least heard of) Jon Schmidt. And those of you who know me well from earlier in life know that Jon Schmidt was the artist who fueled my drive to teach myself piano, and I’ve used his music in lots of competitions and performances throughout high school and just for fun with friends and family. I’ve always enjoyed it, and had a lot of really amazing experiences where his music and my personal spin and interpretation of it have brought joy to people and situations that felt sort of hopeless before.
I kinda fell away from playing as often - for lots of reasons - and this video has really reminded me of lots of things I used to really have a passion for… using the piano to express anything and everything I’m feeling, altering the music or mixing songs because it fits the feeling better, spending so much time with a song and learning its ins and outs and the intricacies of the song and how it was written and the way it all helped me feel emotionally grounded and connected, as silly as that may sound to those of you who don’t come from a musical family..
It almost feels like getting to know someone all over again.
Time to get my piano tuned and dive back in. 
P.S. If you’re not familiar with his music, spend some time looking through his official YouTube Channel.
03.12Anger Management
I think that covers it… Mostly..
02.10Happiness is..
…pink bubblegum ice cream.
02.10I’m Bored…
Okay, it’s time to play “Guess the random item from my desk”.
Can you guess from the photo what the item is?
+10 pts if someone who doesn’t work with me can guess what it is.
Two weeks late like a surplus reprieve
I found a hair the length of yours on my sleeve
I wound it round and round my finger so tight
It turned to purple and a pulse formed inside
And I knew the beat since it matched your own beat
I still remember it from our chest to chest and feet to feet
The easy silence then was a sweet relief to this hush
Of ovens, aeroplanes and distant car horns
A fire, a fire! You can only take what you can carry
A pulse, your pulse. It’s the only thing I can remember
I break, you don’t, I was always set to self destruct though
The fire, the fire! It cracks and barks like primal music
I said I knew the beat ’cause it matched your own beat
It’s become my engine my own source of heat
The sea between us only amplifies the sound waves
Every hum and echo and crash paints my cave.
A fire, a fire! You can only take what you can carry
A pulse, your pulse, it’s the only thing I can remember
I break, you don’t. I was always set to self destruct though
The fire, the fire! It cracks and barks like primal music
Yeah, I know.. everyone’s doing these on Facebook. (gag me..) But I need an excuse to get back into posting again, so for now you’ll just have to tolerate whatever muse gets something posted.
- I still have my tonsils.
- Until late in high school, my right leg was 2 centimeters (almost a full inch!) longer than my left.
- I’m a little bit OCD about water spots on faucets and mirrors in bathrooms. Must…clean…
- I taught myself piano at age 12, and guitar at age 20. (And I don’t know jack about any theory on either one..)
- My favorite smell is the sidewalk on the east coast right at the beginning of a rain storm.
- I’ve wanted to go to Tahiti and stay in one of those over-water bungalows since I was probably 7 or 8 years old. They bring you breakfast on a canoe!!
- If I can’t multi-task ridiculous amounts of things at the same time, I don’t feel like I get anything done.
- My biggest fear is cancer. And I’m more afraid of cancer than I’m afraid of dying.
- I walked on the ceiling of the 2nd floor of the parking garage at the Sahara hotel in Las Vegas. No really. On the ceiling. All the way to the elevator. Left footprints and everything.
- When I get really mad I clean stuff. (You can tell from my house I don’t get mad that often…)
- I’ve never had to stay overnight in a hospital (I think).
- I made my first appearance in the newspaper when I was 11.
- A good high-five will literally make my day most of the time.
- Almost as much as strawberry Bubblicious. And I can probably chew more at once than you can… mmmmmmaybe.
- I haven’t really cried - with the exception of at movies - around anyone who wasn’t a member of my family in probably…………4 years? Something like that.
- I own 10-ish domains, I’m hosting/managing 16, and running 17 MySQL databases on my web hosting account.
- I hate wearing makeup and frequently go out in public without it.
- I’m not very good at losing… especially card games.
- I played in a rock band. The real kind.
- Contrary to popular belief, I don’t have walls about everything with everyone. In fact, in most cases, the wall doesn’t even go up until someone’s trying to knock it down.
- I use song lyrics to get a point across in some form every day. Even if it’s just in my head.
- I hate reading fiction novels.
- I’d probably say that ‘middle ground’ is probably what I fight the hardest for in life, and yet I’m never very good at actually finding or having or doing middle ground in much of anything.
- I can be good at or thoroughly understand and accept pretty much anything if I understand the ‘why’ behind it. But if I don’t have my own ‘why’ behind something I need to learn or something that happens, I have an impossible time accepting it and I get ridiculously stubborn.
- I’m scared of the dark.
01.23Typos
After registering for a new account on YouBundle.com, I received the following message:
“Please Check your email and click on the conformation code to complete your registration. If the email has not arrived within a few minutes, please check your Spam Box and mark the message “NOT JUNK” so we can continue to contact you in the future.
The YouBundle Team”
You will conform.. resistance is futile..
I’m easily amused this morning.
Fact of Life #457: Life is infinitely more fun as a geek…
please hear what i am not saying.
don’t be fooled by me.
don’t be fooled by the mask i wear. for i wear a mask. i wear a thousand masks. masks that i’m afraid to take off and none of them is me.
pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don’t be fooled.
i give the impression that i’m secure, that all is sunny within as well as without. that confidence is my name and coolness is my game. that my waters are calm and that i’m in command, that i need no one, but don’t believe it. please don’t. my surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask. my ever bearing and ever concealing mask.
beneath lies no smugness, no coolness, no complacence. beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in loneliness. but i hide this. i don’t want anybody to know it.
i panic at the thought of my weakness being exposed.
that’s why i frantically create a mask to hide behind. a non-chalant sophisticated facade to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.
but such a glance is precisely my salvation. my only salvation and i know it.
it’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself. from my own self-built prison walls. from the barriers i so painstakingly erect.
but i don’t tell you this. i don’t dare. i’m afraid to.
i’m afraid that your glance will not be followed by love and acceptance.
i’m afraid that you’ll think less of me and that you’ll laugh, and that your laugh will kill me.
i’m afraid that deep down inside i’m nothing. that i’m just no good. that you’ll see and reject me.
so i play my games, i play my desperate pretending games with a facade of assurance on the outside and a trembling child within.
and so begins the parade of masks. the glittering but empty parade of masks, and my life becomes a front.
i idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talk. i tell you everything that’s really nothing, nothing of what’s crying within me. so when i’m going through my routine, don’t be fooled by what i’m saying. please listen carefully and try to hear what i’m not saying.
what i’d like to be able to say, what for survival i need to say, but i cannot say.
i dislike the hiding, honestly i do. i dislike the superficial phony games i’m playing. i’d really like to be genuine, spontaneous and me. but you have to help me. you have to help me by holding out your hand, even when that’s the last thing i seem to want or need.
each time you are kind and gentle encouraging, each time you try to understand me because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings. with your sensitivity and sympathy and your power of understanding, you can breathe life into me.
it will not be easy for you. a long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. but love is stronger than strong walls and therein lies my hope. please try to beat down those walls with firm hands but with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive, and i am a child.
who am i, you may wonder? i am someone you know very well. for i am every man, every woman, every child, every human you meet. all of us are very tender and sensitive inside, and the more inner security we can cultivate, the more we can listen to what people are not saying.
(excerpt from ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen R. Covey)