So turn off the light, 'cause tonight on the sun you're hopelessly hopeless, I hope so, for you

The song quoted above, by Modest Mouse, is all entwined in my memory with my life a year ago. My old apartment complex, La Casita. The tiny living room, swirling in a silvery darkness in midday because we only had one sliver of a window in the corner to light the room. (Electric lights during the day kind of depress me for some reason.) The room, like the light and like the carpet felt cool and blue, because with Reid out of town for the summer, I kept the AC quietly blasting and hardly ever opened the door in the afternoons. I'd punch on the Nintendo and this song and slouch into the couch to play Tetris. Zone out. Falling blocks, precisely calculated yet unconcious twitches of the thumb, a satisfying flash from the screen every so often, breathing slowly, thinking thinking thinking about nothing important. Relaxed, utter laziness, but my mind still flickering, replaying the drive home or my swim the day before or the girl I should have talked to at the bar last night.

It was a weird time in my life. Living alone for a few months was both liberating and depressing. I didn't have to hide anything from anyone and I wasn't able to share anything with someone when I needed to. Nights were better, when my friends got off work and we'd go slug pints and laugh loudly and every once in a while have something dramatic and annoying happen to keep our minds off whatever we were trying to avoid that summer. But those afternoons were all mine, and that song is forever tied to alternately being alone and enjoying it and being alone and just wanting to talk to someone.

Lately, every time I get in the car, I feel compelled to throw in DJ Spooky's Optometry CD. DJ Spooky actually mixes jazz instrumentals together to seamlessly create an original composition--no synthesized beats or glowsticks allowed. The first song starts off with the sounds of cars driving, before a strummed bass beat begins keeping time, creating the effect of merging onto a highway--or at least that's how I hear it because that's what I'm usually doing at this point on my way home from work. Then, as if accelerating into the far left lane, a trumpet strikes a high, long note before moving into a succession of notes that feel like they're rolling over hills and around curves, spinning rapidly in circles, but always moving in the same direction.

My twenty-minute drive to and from work, the majority of it on Mopac, is my new think-time. Today, with Spooky, a.k.a. "that subliminal kid," playing, I thought about this weblog. I haven't posted much of substance lately, even though there's been plenty to write about. I'd sit down meaning to write and instead end up reading friends' blogs for hours or fussing over the graphics on this site. I think it's because I convinced myself a few days ago that I have no original voice in my writing. I've been impressed with my friends' blogs because all of them have a distinct voice that the authors seem to be perfectly comfortable maintaining. Ever since I was young, my writing has been largely emulative of whatever I was reading and enjoying. This is, of course, natural and commonplace. But in my writing more than in my friends' or in any professional's I feel there is greater fluctuation from piece to piece, post to post. Once I started worrying about all this, I could feel myself getting ready to try my James Baldwin impersonation or my Dave Barry mime (well learned since he was the plat du jour during college-application essays), or maybe trying to tell a story as well as my friend Rob. I finally forced myself to sit down tonight and type away, not allowing self-consciousness to make my fingers stutter.

Click click click, here we go. This feels good. It's early and I'm just getting started.