In This Life

Quotation of the day: Chantal Kreviazuk ~ You're in the basement, watching the TV / I'm on the second floor, watching the ceiling (from "In This Life")

Just bought Chantal Kreviazuk's new CD, "In This Life," the other day.  There's the album cover:

Chantal is, in case you don't know, a Canadian singer / songwriter and a classicaly-trained pianist, married to Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace and i've been following her career since her debut album in 1996.  I think she's terrific.  The name is pronounced "krevvy-A-zuhk."  This new album is a semi-unplugged, in concert recording, performed with the Niagara Symphony Orchestra, a "greatest hits and more" type of package.  And it includes a free DVD (which i haven't watched yet).

And i started to think, as George Harrison once famously sang, "what is life?" Erm, he probably wasn't the first to ask the question.  In fact it probably goes 'way back, beyond the ancient Greek sages like Solon, who said "No one can be said to be happy until he is dead." Further back than that, even.

Well, i'm starting to think that life is a mistake.  One of god's silly little experiments that went awry, like the Boson particle.  Or the Ford Pinto.

I'm certainly starting to believe that my life was a mistake.  It is, in general, so unbearable that i think i must be doing penance for the sins of a previous life.  This is mostly workplace-related, where i'm surrounded by energy vampires, people so negative that they suck the the juice right out of me.  And of course this spills over into the other aspects of my being.

I've suffered from insomnia all of my life -- brain won't shut down when head hits the pillow -- but now, i can't sleep at all unless i'm half blootered.  But then, work haunts my dreams.  And there's no escape. And i'm too old to find anything different -- i don't know how to do anything else any more anyway.

I've tried. 

Back in January, i enrolled in a part-time, online college course in programming.  Not really expecting it to lead to a career change at my age (i'm old) but stranger things have happened.

I'm supposed to work five and a half days a week, i figured i could work on my studies on my afternoons off.  Ha, wrong again: they stopped giving me afternoons off. I complained -- and they gave me one afternoon, and then stopped.  I got further and further behind on the studies.  I had a week off in April and tried to catch up but it was no good, i was too far behind, and i gave up.

So that's why i spend so much time in cyberspace, then: because real life, or "meatspace," is so fuckn dreadful. And i don't like working six days a week!  I mean, it's nice to be wanted, but then to have to put up with all of the crap up with which i must put....

Oh, well, at least i still have music. Here's the playlist:

Roxy Music -- World Tour Live, disc 1
Talk Talk -- Spirit Of Eden
Fairport Convention -- The Alternative Heyday
Maddy Prior & Guests -- Live At Cecil Sharp House, 2008
Barry Lyndon (soundtrack)
Focus -- Hamburger Concerto Tour (bootleg)
The Move -- Looking In
Keane -- Strangeland
Various Artists -- The Roots Of The Rolling Stones
Ten Years After -- Recorded Live
Jane Siberry -- City
Chantal Kreviazuk -- In This Life
Seether -- One Cold Night
Billie Holiday -- Lady In Satin
John Fogerty -- Deja Vu All Over Again
Rory Gallagher -- Against The Grain
City Boy -- Go East Young Men
Alvin Lee -- I Hear You Rockin'
Marc Bonilla -- EE Ticket
Richard Thompson -- Henry The Human Fly
Jethro Tull -- A Passion Play