A Christmas Entry

I suppose Christmas is a special enough occasion to warrant a rare blog entry. I don't know exactly why I'm writing, I just am.

The entire Christmas season is obviously exceptional in a number of ways. The way it tends to strike me most is how it always manages to bring about in me an inventory of my own life. I don't know that I really begin drawing judgments about where I stand until New Year's Eve is next on the agenda. But I do tend to take notes about where I am and who and what are around me as Christmas approaches. I think this is the case for a couple of simple reasons.

In my family at least, the celebration of Christmas tends to be a consistent exercise from one year to the next. The tree goes up on Thanksgiving or shortly thereafter. The shopping follows, the wrapping is next. General nostalgia and warm fuzzies follow. Real life shuts down a couple of days before the holiday begins unofficially with the arrival of friends and family, and officially (in my family) with a trip to church on Christmas Eve, whether I've been in the last year or not. Somewhere on or around Christmas Day, big meals are shared with people whom I don't see often enough and gifts are exchanged. When no huge events are taking place, football games between unlikely teams take place in unlikely locales on the nearest television screen. A minor letdown bridges the gap before the New Year's holidays. A major letdown accompanies the boxing up of Christmas and the realization that the only thing left is twelve more cold, miserable weeks before spring arrives. The order or exact locations may vary from year to year, but each Christmas is basically the same.

I have mentioned this in a different context before, but that sameness over time makes the changes our lives undergo far more obvious at this time of year. When a family member is added to the mix, it is particularly notable at Christmas. When someone is gone, their absence is certainly most strongly felt at Christmas. Be those changes a new home, a new scar, a new wife or daughter, or a new void left by a former spouse, parent, friend, or familiar landmark - the changes our lives endure become most obvious to us at the times when all else in our lives is familiar. For my family and many like mine, that time of familiarity is Christmas.

And so I have thought much over the last few weeks about those changes. I smile when I think about the positive changes, crowned obviously by the addition of my wife to my life and my family. We are also lucky enough to have a sweet dog whom we love very much, nephews who grow at an unreasonable pace, and a home which provides much more (though not enough) space than either of us has enjoyed before. I am also particularly mindful at this time of year of those things that have changed for the worse. Be it recently or long ago, the people who have left us have left a void that is most memorable right now. I always think of my maternal grandfather (Big Daddy) at this time of year, because he was a part of my first 23 Christmases. He continues to be missed.

I also tend to reflect on the fact that many of the things that have not yet changed will do so in coming years. The things that I know that are likely to change are the things that make me most emotional at this time. It is clearly a waste to allow my holiday to be darkened by things that haven't yet happened, when the nearest thing to an antidote to those changes is the simple appreciation of the present. So I don't.

But for me, it is worth a modicum of emotional cost at this time of year to consider the ways in which life has changed and will surely change. The end result is always a deep appreciation for my life and world exactly the way it is. That is something worth celebrating.

Merry Christmas.

Cleaning out the picture drawer

After working on arrangements for the last week that have nearly written themselves, I am suddenly struck with the task of writing an arrangement of a tune that refuses to make itself idiomatically compatible with the marching band medium. (Extra credit: Count the unnecessary or extraneous words in the previous sentence. How about the one after that?) I have just plugged iPhone into the computer, and I noticed that there were several pictures that I haven't shared.


Here's me after surgery last November. The excess fat around my chin is from the anesthesia and not - I repeat, not - from eating Wendy's at every available opportunity over the previous eight months.


I'm not sure if this was my surgeon's attempt to provide me with affirmation by osmosis or his way of branding me with the name of his favorite prog rock band.


Izzie the Dog on the day we brought her home, before she was infected with the seed of Satan.


Fred Norton on January 3 in his car waiting in the eastbound lane of Roswell Rd. at the intersection with Johnson Ferry Road. He did not see Meghan and me waiting in the westbound lane, and luckily was not picking his nose.


My writer's room at NSAI on my first trip back to Nashville last winter.


Sunset behind River Street in late January, shot from Hutchinson Island in Savannah.


Izzie the Dog last February, napping with (and consequently not biting) her mom.


A calzone and a beer in front of me at the 'Shroom.


A photo of myself (times what, eight?) beneath the Cloud Gate sculpture, AKA "The Bean", in Chicago last spring.


An accidental encounter with Governor Mike Huckabee outside Fox News studios while walking from Radio City Music Hall back to Times Square.


From May, my nephew Landon's photograph of me some three minutes after my getting out of bed.


From about two weeks ago, this was the result of my nephew Carter's preference for meringue over banana pudding.


My dog's spelling isn't very good, but she is smart enough to be able to navigate the maze of paperwork necessary to start a small business in North Carolina. From our honeymoon.

The Big Day

As is frequently the case when I bother to acknowledge my poor neglected blog, I am sitting in Athens at Walker's waiting on something to happen. My surroundings look rather normal. My large Dancing Goats coffee with a shot of vanilla is on my left along with my keys, sunglasses, iPhone, and cashless wallet. My bulky computer bag, spilling over with peripherals necessary for the expedient arrangement of music, is on my right. The coffee shop or bar is half filled with other people who were too early or too late to be wherever they should be. And they are more or less oblivious to what is happening at my table.

What is happening is some combination of trembling and nervous motion. I have always wondered why people got nervous before their weddings. I always attributed it to some sort of concern about the result of doing something permanent. I have thought that it must be a similar feeling to that of signing one's name on the loan document for their first new home. The magnitude of the event, the feeling of potential doom, or a hybrid of the two seemed to make sense.

What I think I'm realizing is that the feeling is less about the event and more about the details - the worry that the caterer will arrive on time, that the musicians will be prepared, that the church will be unlocked and the air conditioning will work, that you don't accidentally bring up someones divorce or someone else's alcoholism in your toast. The nerves are all about the insignificant minutiae of a day that is all about a large thing.

I have always worried that, when and if this weekend ever arrived, I would be wracking my brain trying to find reasons to go through or not go through with the ceremony. I have worried that the inner struggle would not be about the ceremony but would rather be about if the ceremony is a good idea.

I am very happy to report that this hasn't even entered my mind. In a strange way, the most urgent yet completely insignificant issues are about everything but the woman who will be my wife in a little over twenty-six hours. Please don't interpret that to mean that she is either unimportant or has not been considered in this process. In fact, she has been so thoroughly vetted, theoretically torn apart and reassembled, and tested that I simply am not worried about the big questions.

I have known for quite some time that this is where we were headed. And as you would expect of me, I have tried to find any and every reason why we shouldn't get married and have come up empty. I don't really like to claim that any deity does anything for any reason that I can understand. It seems awfully presumptuous of me to insist that God, the Universe, or The Matrix has anything specifically in mind for me - at least it seems presumptuous to do so out loud. So I will simply insist that this is as close to perfect as it gets.

We fight - not frequently, but we do fight and we do so with sharp words, deft flanks, and lethal aim. We get irritated with each other, she with my tendency to leave my life lying about on all available flat surfaces and me with her seeming belief that life is tidier than I have learned that it is. We have conquerable issues that we do not pretend to control but that we know will have to be managed forever.

For every deficit that her flaws create, there are ten advantages to which those flaws are essential. What I identify as naivete is the trait that permits her to walk up to a stranger and ask a question. It's the trait that sees the beauty in my work when I have paralyzed myself in thought. It opened my ears to music I had not heard before, and brought me the additional love of a dog without whom I now can not imagine living. It says "why not." It gets me out of bed. It sees green when I see black and plenty when I see famine.

I don't always do a tremendous job of telling Meghan how completely changed I am because of her. While I know I need to do a better job of this, I believe I am currently proving the point that words suck at doing so. Fortunately for me, it would be awfully difficult for her to back out at this point. So I don't mind telling anyone who bothers reading this that I am more terminally in love than I ever imagined I could be. I will do my best to play it cool around you, but the truth is that it's that really gross, sappy, "awww"-inducing, quit-your-job-and-leave-town, run-out-in-front-of-a-bus, permanent, Saturday-under-the-covers kind of love. And what's even better, it's not love in spite of something. Under different circumstances, Meghan would have been the girl I would have cheated with.

And I wouldn't have felt guilty about it either, because it would have been the right thing to do. Thankfully, that won't be necessary. As of about 2:25pm tomorrow, I will have gotten it right the first time... after thirty-five years of false starts.

My TV Dad

Meghan and I were at dinner in Athens with Mom and Dad this evening, surveying the potential menu for our rehearsal dinner and catching up. In a random moment in mid-conversation, Mom seemed suddenly to come to her senses and said, "And, Oh Brett! Dan Miller died!"

As a child, I was a bit more enamored with television than would even today be considered acceptable. My first early computing experiments were with a database of prime-time television schedules for the broadcast networks. I daydreamed, before thinking of writing songs, of writing scripts for sitcoms. And at four-years old, I could identify the weekday, weekend, and daytime news personnel for the NBC affiliate in Nashville. For most of my life that list was literally and figuratively anchored by Dan Miller.

He left the station for a few years in the 80's to pursue bigger and better things in L.A. Among them was the role of sidekick in the short lived "Pat Sajak Show" which aired opposite Carson (Sajak was one of the weathermen at the same station when I was very young). Miller later returned to Nashville, and quickly resumed his role as the broadcasting patriarch of the Music City.

For me and many my age who had the privilege of growing up in Greater Nashville, Dan Miller was a trusted face in the midst of used car salesmen on local news. He had a soothing yet authoritative voice, a calming demeanor, and an honest face. The fact that he was similar in appearance to my father reserved a special place in my mind for him. Throughout my own childhood, I thought of Dan Miller as my TV Dad.

When I returned to Nashville in 2005, I did so alone. Even when I wasn't particularly interested in the news, I would frequently turn on Channel 4 at six or ten just to see a familiar face and hear a comforting voice - one that I had known as long as those of my own parents. I later began to enjoy his wisdom and insight through his blog on the WSMV website. On many lonely nights in Nashville, I thought of writing Dan Miller to tell him how he continued to affect me, but I never did.

Dan Miller, along with two of his friends from the station, returned earlier this week to Dan's hometown of Augusta to enjoy the early part of Masters week. He took a late night walk with Rudy Kalis (the sportscaster who had been around as long as Dan had), and began to point out sites of his childhood memories. According to Kalis, he continued to point with pride to the landmarks of his youth through gradually more difficult breaths. Eventually, Dan grabbed Rudy's arm and collapsed.

We make way too much of celebrity these days. We weep far too hard at the loss of people of fame and too lightly at the loss of people of substance. So I hope I don't inappropriately deify this gentleman whom I never met when I admit that his death has shaken me a bit. It may seem shallow or contrived, but I feel a little less secure knowing that he's gone. It may be the loss of a father figure, or the loss of a trusted voice in field more devoid of them than ever.

It's more likely, however, that I'm bothered because his passing is one more piece of my youth that is never coming back.

Rest in peace, sir.

Damned Old Gubmint

There have been three stories over the last two days that, to me, are good examples of why more government is probably not better government.

The first is a story Russ sent me. The short version of the story is this. In follow up to a story about (and pretty shocking video of) an Oklahoma sheriff's deputy shooting and killing a dog when stopping to ask for directions, further probing into department activities revealed a different deputy who falsified time sheets at a golf club where he was moonlighting. Whether or not the deputy should be punished at his government gig for something that happened on private time is someone else's debate. My issue is with the sheriff, who apparently doesn't seem to understand why people like me have a hard time trusting their government:

“Law, I don’t know of any law that says you can’t falsify time sheets at a golf course, so no. And if you (Reporter Mike Friend) want to keep asking me questions on this issue you’ll just damage any good relationship I have with the paper. You can’t tell me you don’t ever speed while you’re driving down the road, or that you don’t break the law and sin… so why is this such a big deal if the deputy was not working on department time? If I start calling you and asking you questions about your crimes and sins we’ll see how much you like it.”

It seems to me that the sheriff is suggesting, at best, that people should mind their own business when it comes to wondering if their law enforcement officers' activities are on the up and up. How do you suppose the sheriff would respond if you told him to mind his own business when he pulls you over?

The second story is one you may have heard. A Dallas police officer stopped Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats for running a traffic light near a Dallas hospital. To make yet another long story short, the officer refused to make any accommodation for the fact that Moats's mother-in-law was dying at that very moment. He allegedly drew his weapon shortly after making the stop, threatened to tow Moats's vehicle, threatened to take him to jail, and finally threatened to "screw [Moats] over." While Moats has some culpability for breaking the traffic law, and later for not being able to locate proof of insurance, the story as it is told is of a cold, compassion-less, and power-addicted officer of the law.

The third story involves the AIG bailout and the rage that was reported to be rampant when the $165 million in employee bonuses came to light. The story is remarkably unclear, as one U.S. Senator has either lied or been very confused about it, and the president is talking out of both sides of his mouth on the matter. It appears that employees who remain at AIG, largely to aid in its being dismantled and sold for scrap, were promised that they would be paid to halt their careers and stay in place until the job was finished. Naturally, many in the government and the media expressed absolute horror that a company would pay "bonuses" on the government dime.

According to this now-former AIG V.P., we didn't really get the whole story. A New York Times op-ed this week contained nothing but a resignation letter from the gentleman, whose explanation sheds new light on the nature of the so-called bonuses. Campbell Brown says, "It is hard to feel sorry for someone who is getting $742,000 and may end up with the final say on where it goes, charity or otherwise, as taxpayers spend $170 billion to save your company." She may be right. But if our government promises to pay individuals money to hang around and help pick up the pieces, it's not okay for it to renege as soon as the lights come on the wind changes direction.

All three stories, and thousands more throughout human history, point to one truth. You can't trust anyone, including agents of government. That's cynical, but it is true. You can't trust them to do the right thing. You can't trust them to hold themselves to the same standard as those whom they govern. You can't trust them to keep their word, especially when public opinion turns against the promises they made.

A mistake I believe we started making with the Patriot Act and continue to make today is that of believing that the people who work in our government are somehow more trustworthy than those who don't. They aren't. The only difference is that agents of government make decisions that are more-or-less final, often can't be challenged by competition, and can be implemented with deadly force.

I understand the compulsion to "do something" when things aren't going well. We elect leaders and expect them to solve problems. But much like managing your relationship with your in-laws, making a pot of chili, tending to your front lawn, or fishing, trying harder doesn't necessarily produce better results. When you insist that your government officials do something to fix a problem, not only might the government solution create more problems. The "solution" might be - and frequently is - motivated less by what is right than by what is popular at the moment, less by compassion than by the enjoyment and extension of power, and less by the hope for the well-being of constituents than by that of the politician.

20 Things I Generally Don't Like, But Wish I Did Like

In no particular order:

1. Dark beer
2. Americana music
3. Relish
4. Green beans
5. Sour cream
6. Hockey
7. Hip-hop
8. Dressing up
9. British humor
10. Rare beef
11. Scallops
12. Opera
13. Fiction books
14. Chamber ensemble music
15. Wearing green
16. Tabasco
17. Fishing
18. Cooked vegetables
19. Haydn
20. Waking up early

A bit of rambling

Yet another month or so has passed, and I still haven't become confident enough in what I wrote about my politics... story of my life.

Meghan has been terribly busy at school. I have been pretty busy myself between taking care of the dog, going to physical therapy, and working. Not surprisingly, we find ourselves exhausted every evening. It's nothing new to most of you. But it is a bit of a bitch that once we find the person with whom we want to spend our time, the rest of our life insists on encroaching on our personal time more than ever. I'm looking forward to summer.

The Nashville Thing is encouraging. Next week, I am heading up for the third consecutive month. I will have a guitar lesson (my first one ever), a couple of co-writes, and have a chance to be heard by a couple of folks that may be able to help. I have done a pretty solid job of keeping the writing half of my New Year's Resolution. Much like exercising, I am always amazed at how much writing consistently improves my subsequent output. Yet, for some reason, I seem to be knocked off track after a while. And starting back after a layoff can be tough.

Physical therapy has been fine. I think it is a bit of a rip-off - especially when a therapist starts you on exercises you have been doing in the comfort of your own home, tends to another patient while you do them, and then charges you for the privilege of using their table for the exercises. I know it's important. But I hate the way all three therapists at two different establishments have done things.

That is all.

I saw internet future, and its name is...

Perhaps you share my notice that blogging has largely been replaced by more convenient methods of communicating brief thoughts. In spite of my past excuse-making and promises to improve, this is why I don't blog as much as I once did. I have had little to say lately that warranted a note here, and in fact I had little to say today that warranted a tweet. But it made a lot of sense for me to send what little thought I had to you that way, since Twitter or Facebook were where you were looking for it. It made no sense for you to click on my bookmark to find out that I am almost out of coffee creamer when one of the other two methods will let you know when anything in my life is normal or abnormal. Even if you're using a reader I'll bet you expect, or at least hope, for something other than minutiae when you check it.

I have given a bit of thought lately to retiring the blog, as it has become obvious that I don't write in it as frequently as I once did. I have in fact decided not to retire it. Rather, I acknowledge the purpose it seems gradually to have adopted after several years of being my primary means of expression on the internet. When I need to tell a long story or pass along something that requires significant explanation, I put it here. When I want to tell you how cute the eighth-note-shaped poop that my new dog just took was, I tell you about it on Twitter and post the picture on Facebook. For many of you, this is nothing new. Facebook is now ubiquitous and/or casual enough that it makes sense to reserve the bigger or more involved ideas for one's blog - where people have to want to read it, rather than having it forced into their attention via News Feed.

I only bring this up, I suppose, in a nod to the fact tthat I think about my blog differently than I once did. I am not going to go all Network on you, but I anticipate that the only things I will continue to post here will be more involved items. This may include a bit of opinion writing, which I have tended not to do in order to avoid the virtual shouting matches I have seen many endure over the last four years. In doing so, I will have to abandon a part of my general strategy for life. That strategy is not expressing opinions that won't change anything. I don't expect to change anyone's mind. In fact, I expect that some people will think I am stupid, ignorant, self-centered, just plain mean, or all four.

I once thought of my blog as my front porch on the internet. It certainly served its purpose well as such. Now it seems that the blog is rather a back porch - a place where ideas are shared slowly and thoughtfully with less concern for their beauty than for their honesty.

If you wish to read, then that's great. Take off your shoes and stay awhile. Don't smoke inside, and don't drive home drunk. If you don't, that's great too. You can keep up with me, my world, and my mucus output for the day on Facebook or Twitter.

(Edit: This was written last night and posted this morning. If you think I am pointing a finger at you for posting minutiae on your blog, I'm not. It's yours. I'm just handling mine differently.)

The Worst Idea of All Time

I really thought I had heard it on at least ten occasions around Dwight and Christine. Turns out I was wrong. Here it is. "Disturbia" and "I'm Yours" are particularly kidtastic.

After your eyes have rolled back into their natural place, I'm sure you will ask yourself how I found that. And you should. When I am looking after Izzie during the day, there are several times when I need to leave Meghan's apartment. At some point I reasoned that she might be best entertained by kid's television shows. So Nickelodeon keeps her entertained while I am away. These young musicians greeted me on my way in this afternoon.

No really.

Seasonal Affective Disordnance

• I returned from Nashville ten days ago following a very good trip. My professional friends there were exactly as I had left them, for better or worse, and welcomed me back. I got good co-writing done with one old and one new co-writer, happened into an impromptu meeting at a place that can help, and heard some very good music. I also had a couple of beers with Amos at a show, which was naturally very nice as well.

• This time of year makes me feel like shit, and pretty much always has. I know a lot of it is the post-holiday, post-football lull. Some of it is certainly the sunlight. And some of it is likely the wait for things to become busy again. The wait won't be long.

• Though I am looking forward to GMEA this weekend, I have to admit that my mind is a week ahead of that. The following Friday, my first original concert band work will receive it's world premiere at the South Car0lina Music Educat0r's Ass0ciation conference. I'm excited and absolutely terrified. I hope this piece doesn't suck.

• I'm under three weeks from having my surgery-related movement restrictions lifted, and it's about time. Since Izzie joined us, it has been very difficult to honor those restrictions and take care of her as needed. Thus, other things have begun to hurt.

• Speaking of Izzie... I don't know if I have mentioned her on the blog before, but our puppy is amazing. We have had her for a month, and I am thrilled that she's with us. Everyone thinks their dog is the best dog ever. Ours is too, even though she just bit me in the mouth when she was kissing me goodnight.

Return to the Music City

It has been some seventeen months since Meghan blasted Dexter Freebish's "Leaving Town" from her car in Brentwood's Players Club parking lot and I closed the lock on the back of the Penske rental truck that would bring me home. And I mean some seventeen months.

A month ago, I mentioned that it was time once again for me to get back on the songwriting horse. Monday afternoon will bring the timid opening galops, as I hit the road for Nashville for my first legitimate business trip back since I left. The run-up to this return has brought about alternating fear and swagger.

I fear the rejection just like I always did, but I have heard so much of it over the years that I'm beginning to feel immune to it. I worry about the stigma that some may assign me for getting to town and then consciously choosing to leave after two years, though I know that those with whom I would would ever care to work would certainly understand my reasoning. I worry that some may be judgmental of my sporadic writing habits, but I know that many of the best binge and quit much as I do. I worry that I'm wasting time or money, but I think being satisfied that I've given it my very best shot is worth both.

The swagger results from writing again and the review of old material that comes with preparing for a trip to town. In looking back at what I have written in the last two to three years, the successful products bring to mind specific points in time in which songs have come together. Those moments are the precious minority - when the right word, note, change, or phrase finds its way into one's consciousness. I don't pretend that these are world-changing nuggets like "The movement you need is on your shoulder." They may never be heard outside my circle of friends and a few publishers with shaking heads. But, like the one good golf drive in a 100-shot day, those moments will keep a writer coming back for more. The more of those a writer can string together, the better his chances of shooting the writing equivalent of a sub-70 score become.

Fortunately for me, those moments are also enough to make me disregard the fear, get in the car, and drive north and west. Details upon my return.

Optimistic

I'm once again writing with a bit of insomnia, but it feels as though it will abate shortly.

The dis-assembly of Meghan's Christmas Tree (which functions, as many things do, as ours) was the big project for the day. I mentioned last year how much I hate the real and metaphorical boxing up of Christmas. That has always been the case, and definitely gets worse with age.

As we boxed the ornaments and removed the fake branches from the fake trunk, I began to say reassuring things in an effort to back Meghan and me off of the emotional cliff to which the re-emergence of the Real World can and does drive both of us at this time every year. The only words that seemed to work for me were old standards. I spun the end of the holidays as a beginning and not an end, as many wise or desperate widows, breakers-up, and newly married grooms do.

After giving the psychobabble some time to wear off, I concluded that I am actually quite optimistic about the year just begun. The most obvious cause for optimism is our June 27 wedding, and I am very excited about this. I am quite sure that subject will take up a good bit of the space on my blog for the next several months. But let me simply leave the subject by saying that I feel more genuine excitement, happiness, and peace over my impending wedding to Meghan that I have felt for anything before.

There are many reasons in addition to the wedding that give me reason to be upbeat. I feel like I am in a good professional spot, with many opportunities approaching. I am mentally as clear-headed as I remember being. I am about twenty-five pounds overweight - only some of which can be rightly blamed on the Great Back Trauma of 2008 - but I should be able to begin correcting that in six weeks. My finances are rapidly improving from the beating they took in college, grad school, five years of very poor pay, and two years in Nashville. Socially, I am within a one-hour drive of eighty-percent of my friends and a half-day drive of all of my family.

At a time when almost all news is wary of the future and Blue Monday is just two weeks away, it seems important to remind myself that the time between Christmases has a pretty good bit of promise as well - regardless of what the paper or that blank spot in the den would have me believe.

The Airing of Grievances

I actually have few grievances, and virtually none which originate outside of my own shortcomings and failures to focus. I do think, however, that the holiday season would be more complete and much more interesting if the "Airing of Grievances" were an actual part of the celebration.

I have been thinking lately about my career (the part of it that I choose to pursue rather than need to continue). It occurs to me over (and over and over and over) that, for a writer, I don't write very much. That doesn't tend to bode well for one's future, so I have tried to figure out why that is. As I analyzed my use of time, I realized that I get bogged down too easily. I take my proverbial eye off the proverbial ball, become frustrated with the often meaningless periphery, and stop writing.

In my particular case, the stingy details are demo recordings. I have been warned about this a dozen times - that it is easy to become enamored by the process of creating music at the expense of creating songs - and now find myself far less productive now than I should be. This is made worse by the fact that I haven't learned the science and art of music engineering. I can kill a day trying to get the right sound on a guitar track. A good engineer can get it right in five minutes. Stephen Sondheim wrote "Send In the Clowns" in two days. Time is money, and I have spent mine whittling the firewood.

As you may have noticed on your right (my left), I made a New Year's resolution for the first time in many years. There are two parts to the resolution:

1. Read everyday. This doesn't mean the internet or the newspaper. It means something worthy of being published in permanent form in a book.

2. Write everyday. Blogging doesn't count. It has to be a song.

In order to do both, I will have to stop worrying about the things that don't matter and fixing the things that do. I really feel like this has to be successful. It feels like fulfilling my professional potential requires that I do both of these things, without the semi-comedic failure of many resolutions.

One of my biggest fears is looking back on my life and feeling as though I wasted something valuable.