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rambles and half-essays

Tag: music

  • rage and trying our best

    KM Brunner

    Often I feel like I’m not doing enough. Enough work, enough connecting, enough good. There isn’t a cure for feeling this way; it’s a cyclical process, to feel content, discontented, angry, desperate, determined, and content again. It’s unrushable and right now, for me, only just bearable.

    Because I am so tired. It isn’t burnout – or it is, just not a kind I’m familiar with.

    A week ago, I was walking home from Davis Square when I started to notice that the sidewalk was filling with people. It got more packed until the crowd erupted into Tufts Park, along with metal barricades and yelling and two people being cuffed by the Boston Police Department.

    All that sounds very dramatic but it wasn’t. The yelling was from bullhorns – “go to Harvard Square!” – and the arresting of protesters seemed like an activity both parties (protester/cop) were submitting to, rather than relishing. A reporter and his cameraman sat on a curb smiling, sharing a cigarette or a sandwich (couldn’t see in the dusk), and I walked into the park and around the barricade without issue.

    Not even a sideways glance from a cop.

    I was carrying a bouquet of tulips. Someone complimented them (the flowers were gorgeous) and I said thank you, hoping they thought I was carting flowers around for a good cause. Really, the tulips were given to me for five years spent working at the university. A corporate gift.

    Part of me wanted to go to Harvard Square with the protesters, but mostly I wanted to go home. I had a long day, so I denied the part of me that wants to do good. I don’t know if I regret it.

    Rage is an emotion that exhausts; I feel a lot of it, which is why I’m so tired. It’s making me feel my age for the first time in my life, which is a weird symptom I didn’t expect.

    Like most of these entries, I don’t have a conclusion. There’s nothing for it, anyway; our rage is alive and almost creaturelike – autonomous. It’s all I can do to keep it leashed, you know?

    Recommendations:

    Music: Billie Eilish is growing into her voice. This live session blew me away.

    1. Over the weekend I went to the Power of Narrative Conference at Boston University and it was inspiring. Terrifying, but inspiring.
    2. Been bringing the books I don’t want in my library to a used bookstore for credit. It’s just a good thing to do! I don’t want them to get pulped, which is what I think happens to a lot of book donation places.
    3. A friend of mine started playing regularly at Café Zing in Porter Square! They’re very good and so is the café.

  • they say romance sells

    KM Brunner

    With the next four years looking confusing and concerning, I figured I should turn on my marketing brain and try to write something sellable. In general, I love what I write. I follow my interests. But I’ve only got my one job, and diversifying my income seems like a good idea.

    That said, I’m only one person and diversifying means more work, work that I don’t know if I have time for. And so I am looking at the things I can change, things I can make work for me. I know that with writing, I might be able to pivot and maybe, just maybe, be able to sell whatever comes of it.

    My first instinct is to turn to genre fiction – maybe romance. Who knows? The last time I tried to write romance it did not go well. That said, I was writing a boring, hyper-straight couple because I thought I wanted to sell my soul. I’m not going to do that, this time.

    Or I could get back to music reviews. I did that for years; there might be opportunities there.

    I’ll keep you updated on my progress. I’m frightened. I do not like that these posts are getting more personal as time goes on, but it’s difficult to separate myself from, well, everything else. It takes effort to stay objective, and most of my effort is going into staying sane.

    Recommendations:

    Music: Sugar in the Tank, Julien Baker/TORRES (folk/indie rock)

    Book: Reading plays lately. Just started Fences by August Wilson.

    Things:

    • I’m redoing my wardrobe, but I also have a conscience, so I’ve been buying from ThredUp, an online thrift store.
    • Here are my glasses. I wanted to look like a librarian or a detective in a small town. Not sure if I got it right.

  • breaks are important

    KM Brunner

    When you work in higher education, sometimes you’re lucky enough to get a break when the students do, which is why I can’t leave academia. Counting weekends, I had 12 days off over Christmas and New Year’s. Initially I thought I’d try to be productive, but once the break began, it didn’t feel right to push myself. So instead of buckling down to write, I decided to do the opposite.

    Something felt wrong – fundamentally – in my writing practice. I couldn’t pinpoint it, so I figured I’d just wait until it came to me. Luckily, it did.

    The day before Christmas, my friend asked me to a blues jam. I love watching live music, and as a musician, I’m even happier when it’s improvised. A jam is like a sporting event to me.

    These musicians were fabulous and a few minutes in, I realized I was deeply, painfully (toxically) envious of them. When they asked me to play (the host lent me his guitar, which was sweet), I was aching for it. And while playing, the penny dropped.

    I hadn’t picked up my guitar in months.

    Years ago I realized that music (my first love) was integral to keeping myself sane, stable, creative. I suppose I forgot that.

    The moment I started writing music again (11 a.m. on Christmas morning), I felt something unlock in me. I knew that I’d be okay. I knew I’d recover creatively and felt very stupid for forgetting the thing that keeps me, me.

    It’s always weird to be ignorant of the obvious, especially when it’s to do with you. Embarrassing, really. ‘Cause I know this about myself. It’s something I try to watch out for! If I stop playing music, I’m supposed to do like, a mental audit.

    Unsurprisingly, I recovered my creativity over the week following my revelation. The callouses on my left hand returned. It felt like I’d returned, too.

    The first recommendations list of this year!

    Music: “This Town” by Trixie Mattel/Shakey Graves. It’s about a small town in northeast Wisconsin, a few miles from where I went to high school. The song (and Trixie’s voice) is simple but the second verse makes me cry. It nails the very specific vibe that part of the country has.

    Reading: The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada (trans. David Boyd). It’s a wild, surreal criticism of capitalism and office work masquerading as a novel. I really enjoyed it but it’s not for everyone. I have a feeling it’s even better in Japanese, but the translation is fine.

    Miscellaneous: I only use shortscale guitars because I have tiny hands. My forever guitars are this Fender Mustang (electric), and a GS-Mini Taylor (acoustic/electric).

  • family, tradition, and growing up

    KM Brunner

    I want to start by saying that I love my family. I had a fabulous time with them over the holiday. Best one I’ve had, I think. Ever. Of course there were difficult moments, but we each have our failings and challenging personality traits, so that’s to be expected. Ultimately, though, I love them. And that can be hard, because we’re so different.

    I was the black sheep of the family the moment my sister arrived. My sister is a fantastic woman. She’s smart, confident, and loving. She can be intimidating, but so can I. Thing is, she’s unique in ways that elevate her in American/traditional society, I’m unique in ways that alienate me from it. Regardless, I think she’s very cool and in some ways, I envy her. I certainly envy her easier navigation of the world.

    She doesn’t question much. Her life is her life, and my family understands that life. They lived that life, and are thrilled that she, too, is living it.

    I do nothing but question. It can be exhausting. I can be exhausting. My family doesn’t understand my life – and it has nothing to do with my being gay. It’s ’cause I think too much. That’s it. And that molded me into someone so, so unlike my family. A little changeling creature.

    But I’ve been like this forever. Mom used to say I was “born forty,” but I know that’s another way to say “strange.” I never stop at what. I always have to interrogate things, get to the why. And once you understand something, you can’t un-understand it. If you’re like this as a child, you get stuck with knowledge you don’t know what to do with, and worse, knowledge of things you can’t discuss. So it’ll fester. Little things will start to grate, especially things that to the rest of the family, might not seem like a “big deal.”

    They are, though. Some small things – word choice, teeny judgements, off-colour comments – the roots of them are serious and so, so telling. The things that grate are the things you can’t unlearn, only ignore, and ignoring is tough.

    My sister is an amazing woman. My parents are fabulous people. I love them more than is reasonable and will continue to love them. Still, when we are all together, I feel so different from them that it’s almost unbearable.

    I’m still trying to understand the divide; when I’m not paying attention, I sometimes find myself trying to repair it. I found that sad, this last Thanksgiving. I don’t want to be more like them. They’re not bad, they’re just different, but I like the things that make me different and don’t want to sacrifice my personhood to make them more comfortable.

    This Thanksgiving, I felt the most myself than I ever have around them. It was a little scary. It was thrilling. It felt like I was daring them to finally acknowledge my strangeness. They didn’t, of course, and they won’t. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t brave of me to be myself, to maintain my boundaries, while in their house.

    ‘Cause it was. Anyway, I hope they never find this piece.

    Recommendations:

    Music: Illinoise is my favorite Sufjan Stevens album. It’s really cohesive and a fun listen. The song “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” is buck wild and really unsettling, but it’s my favorite from the album.

    Reading: Just finished The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, and it was fun. Dense and poetic, but fun. I took my time reading it; I recommend a…slow digestion.

    I find THEMA, this entirely-analog small literary journal, to be really charming. Been submitting again lately (not to this journal, but to others), and damn does it take a long time to get responses back.

  • leaning in, shame, power exchange

    KM Brunner

    I’m happy that I started this blog. I began it after re-reading one I maintained during college. The old site was less a blog and more a record of my failures. Good failures – the death of creative projects, explorations of different musical genres (and my subsequent abandonment), and a subconscious attempt to confront my chronic illness, among other things.

    I did confront it consciously, finally, about six years ago. I’m still working on it.

    I also wrote a lot about college, growing up, and moving to Boston. The writing was bad, but even worse than that, it didn’t sound like me. I guess it’s tough for writers to own to our voices before we’re ready, so I forgive myself for the posturing. But that truly is what it was: posturing.

    To be oneself is such a task.

    It requires consciously leaning into what you – and only you – want, know, need. Of course, borrowing traits and ideas is normal. Necessary, even, but once you come to know what you truly like, when you pinpoint what comes from only you…

    It is hard to abandon the shame of some things, you know? It took me years to write science fiction, but I like it. I finally got tattoos in my late twenties. I only just admitted to myself what I’d like my future to look like, and…I stood up to my father at dinner only last week.

    He was being particularly mean, and I cannot stand anyone forgoing kindness for a power trip. A little bit of exploiting ones authority can feel good in the moment, but that doesn’t indicate power, really. Any resulting compliance is a fear response.

    Want power? Play a long game. Usurp a throne (any kind will work) or better yet, become the throne’s right hand. Become the office confidant or the quietest – and most influential – member of the C-suite. Or maybe play chess and remind yourself that the king’s the weakest piece on the board.

    If all else fails and you need straightforward “power,” demand it from someone who’d like to give theirs to you. They’re out there (and gagging for it, honestly).

    Do not externalize your own shame and frustration. It’s embarrassing and frankly, crass.

    I’m done now. With the entry, not the blog. I haven’t decided on its purpose, so there’s no end in sight, yet.

    Some recommendations:

    Music:

    I like Paloma Faith. She’s great. This is her most popular song.

    I just really like John Oliver and this is a good, well-written piece.

    Been reading the best of Shakespeare’s plays. I had an idea for a character – kind of a sundowning scholar – and he’s a Shakespeare guy. Had to find some good speeches, didn’t I? I’ve been reading the Arden Performance Editions.

  • working hard while working hard

    KM Brunner

    It took me a long time to realize I worked harder than most other people. That’s the thing about neurodiversity: though you feel different than everyone else, you also believe that what you’re experiencing is common. Normal, even. When I was young I thought I was just sad or something, not inherently unsuited for the world around me. Turns out it was the latter, but I did okay regardless.

    I worked really hard.

    I work hard at my job but also at pretending to be normalish. These days I’m bad at it. My personality leaks out because I’m tired of being miserable, which is why people think I’m smart. Needing to mask is why I love to learn (I had to like it if I was going to pretend to be another person all the time) and it’s why I’m good at pretending to be likable.

    I don’t mask as violently as I did before leaving the agency world, but I still find it easy to manipulate my personality.

    Part of that is all the acting I did when I was young and some of it is the nature of the marketing industry. Drop a few (relevant) keywords into a conversation and you can make anyone feel important.

    It all sounds wildly manipulative but it’s not like I disliked these people. Often it was the opposite; I wanted them to like me for reasons beyond the professional.

    A friend once told me I was scary after I explained all this (to be fair, I didn’t articulate myself well). Though I understand their response, I disagree.

    They’re neurotypical. They don’t understand what I mean, really. It’s not malicious; it’s just how I operate. I think there are a lot of ways neurodivergent people can interact with society’s rules. One of them is that they catalog neurotypical behaviors, learn them, and strategically choose what they want to indulge. That’s what I do.

    Steeping myself in the psychology of marketing was helpful, but I think all the acting I did was the thing that made me good at it. ‘Cause I sound like this in my head. You can’t sound like this out loud unless you want to out yourself as a nerd. And in some places, speaking like this will make you unapproachable. Granted, that can be helpful, but you don’t want an ice queen reputation all the time.

    A colleague said to a group of interns once, while passing my office, “She’s really cool, but she’s not going to talk to you.”

    Part of me was proud because I felt all mysterious, but it did make me realize I had to go to happy hour at some point. Minnesota is weird.

    Nice doesn’t mean kind, there. It means palatable.

    This was a longer post than I expected it to be. I’m procrastinating dealing with the back end of some marketing systems which are just awful to look at.

    Recommendations:

    Music:

    Stick with me. This is a rock/metal song. It’s got screaming in it. It’s DEFINITELY not for everyone, but I love the build. GREAT tension. This band is very fun and their music is varied.

    • Though it’s kind of controversial at the moment, my friend and I are going to use NaNoWriMo’s website to track our November writing spree. It’s just a good place to keep each other accountable.
    • Been trying to pinpoint a good way to keep the stakes high and the pressure on for the middle bit of my novel, so I’m playing around with narrative structure. Here’s a quick and dirty explanation of a few.
    • I’ve started Martian Time Slip and I know I’m years behind the bandwagon but I’m having fun.
    • Obsessed with hawthorn trees because they have berries in the winter and HUGE spikes. Picture below:

  • long time no see

    KM Brunner

    I’m not sure why but I’m trying to work and write this post at the same time. I’ve been doing a lot of writing and also a lot of working. That’s not necessarily important for this post but I figured I’d say it so I’d feel compelled to write tonight. I have a schedule and I’m sticking to it as well as I can. Sometimes it’s difficult but I’m trying to push through that.

    I said in my last post that I find it hard to relate to people sometimes. I just cut off a romance I’d been in – she’s amazing, which sucks for me – because I couldn’t fully relate to her. She’s very cool but I’m a little intense. I know that about myself.

    Fortunately, she’s not as intense as me. Romantically, I need someone as specific as I am, but I’m happy for her, because she’s probably less stressed out. I’d rather her enjoy herself and never see me again than try to get through to me and watch me drown in self-pity (I’m working on it, ok).

    This post is more personal than I intended it to be.

    Anyway, work is difficult enough that I want to lay facedown on the floor and cry about it. I vacillate wildly from productive to miserable and am finding it difficult to steady myself. Honestly…I think I’m just so, so tired. I’ve been thinking of applying to different jobs but even that feels like too much.

    Then again, I may just be hungry. Or sad that I had to let that woman go. Or maybe I miss my friends.

    Could be because I’m all angsty about things. We’ll never know.

    Time for some recommendations.

    Music: “Never Surrender” – Combichrist

    This is a dark industrial song. Like if NIN had a baby with a male Poppy. I really enjoy it but it’s not for everyone.

    I’m currently reading:

    • Interview With the Vampire (I get why it’s so popular, but good Lord the book is wild).
    • The annotated version of The Phantom Tollbooth. I love this book. It’s my favorite book, actually. I think it’s the best children’s lit I’ve ever read.
    • Hum by…some woman whose name I can’t remember. I’m writing this at the office and my copy is at home. It was part of Book of the Month, which I canceled a long time ago. It’s a speedy read.

    I’m having a tough time thinking of things to share, so I’ll be going now.

  • i had an awful month

    KM Brunner

    I am not going to give a rundown of my month; you don’t deserve the frustration and I’m not interested in baring my personal life for folks to read. I’m no one’s friend here, and it wasn’t particularly interesting anyway. It was just…hard.

    Because I’m chronically ill, I forget what it’s like to experience violence from something outside my body. My day-to-day life is a minefield of managing a disorder that, when triggered, provides me with heaps of trauma that I then have to wade through. I spend months – sometimes years – working through my fear while still living in the body that is responsible for that trauma (and threatening to inflict more).

    It is not a fun place, my body – my brain, specifically. But there’s nothing for it except for suicide and I’d like to at least enjoy my thirties. Forties, too, if I get those years.

    Vigilance and violence are part of my life. They are part of my mornings, afternoons, evenings. They are part of my writing practice. I think about them when I cry, because the action is not entirely controllable. I think about them when I laugh.

    But this month was difficult because of an external force and it felt like a privilege to experience that. It was a perverse feeling and made me feel bad, like I was invalidating other people’s terrifying experiences with abuse, and yet I found it comforting in some ways. It gave me something to fear that didn’t come from me.

    I could lock the door. Separate myself from her. God, what a luxury that was.

    The month is over and the danger is gone. My apartment feels like my own again. I’m back with just me and my brain. I am glad for it because weathering that danger was exhausting, but there was something to knowing she couldn’t hurt me when I was staying with a friend, across town, that was soothing.

    Chronic illness is such a strange thing. The filter through which I see the world makes it difficult to relate to other people, and my relationship with fear and pain is very warped. I am a great listener and like to help folks with their problems, but I often find myself holding back when talking to friends, because their problems are so, so bearable to me. I’d love to have their problems, and only those problems.

    I’m going to stop with this self-pity and move on to my little recommendations section.

    Music: Delirium Division, Little Pink Houses. It’s a rock song. I just really love it. It’s been on repeat for me.

    Stuff:

    1. Comic: Vinyl by Image Comics. It’s about a serial killer with Alzheimer’s who is emotionally attached to his FBI agent. He saves him from a murderous cult. It’s very, very cool.
    2. Been wearing my half-rimless glasses. I like them but they make me look like a librarian. I’ve decided I don’t care.
    3. I’m going up to Marblehead on Saturday to drive around. It’s where part of my novel is set.

  • the Church is haunting me while I’m asleep

    KM Brunner

    I said a few weeks ago that I was not going to stop at one post about spirituality, so here is the second.

    I am being haunted by Catholicism in my sleep. They aren’t bad dreams, but they’re confusing and when I wake up, they frighten me a little. I try very hard not to lean into delusion. Some days I consume weird Catholic content and so I dream about it. I have an aunt who is a nun, some priest friends, and so I dream about the clergy. Easy-peasy-resting-easy.

    That said, there are things in my life that I can’t explain. My easy fix: simply don’t think about them.

    I don’t believe in the Church. I think the institution is rather rotten and I’m not interested in the Bible as a historical document. It comes across as metaphor to me, and so I treat it that way. All the lessons still read the same – and I don’t even have to lie to myself.

    Now if everyone else got on board…

    That’s a little unfair, I know. I’m sure there are people who actually believe in the story. In the resurrection of the dead, the life of the world to come…

    What if Jesus’s resurrection in the Bible is an allegory for the resurrection of his teachings? Same takeaway, no delusion, and honestly? Better writing.

    So I don’t think I can call myself a Catholic. I also don’t consider the Bible my end-all-be-all of spiritual texts. I’m interested in the Tao, I’m interested in meditation, the Bhagavad Vita, etc. They are all in conversation with one another anyway, and who am I to ignore that? Who am I to dismiss all that tradition? Ridiculous.

    But then there are the dreams, you see. That is why they’re frightening. When I’m awake, Christianity is just a pretty story. While I sleep, I’m…

    In the last one I was a nun. I was happy, too. Happy and cloistered and spiritually fulfilled. I was smiling at my sisters and wearing a habit and the abbey was warm in the morning sun. I woke up upset.

    ‘Cause that’s completely out of my reach. If I were to pursue being a nun, I would hate it. I would 100% despise it. I wouldn’t be able to stay true to my spiritual vows. I think the frustration would get to me, and eventually I’d say something about it. Something like:

    “Why can’t I be a priest?”

    I think about that a lot. Some women are priests. I’m not like that, though. I’m nowhere near positive enough to try to forge a path for women in the Church. Those people are strong in a way that I find intimidating. I’d envy them if their road didn’t seem so fraught.

    I suppose my big problem is that I don’t want to be a priest unless I get the weight of tradition along with it. But I don’t want to be a man and don’t think I could fake it well enough to get through seminary.

    And so I learn about Catholicism and I think about the saints and I worry about spiritual psychosis and the young people who were victimized because of it. I go to classes and fantasize about being one of the original monks who just…walked into the desert.

    I sometimes go to church. When I do, I feel that secret-sacred tether that reminds me that there’s more to those dreams than just the jumbled remnants of my day. Then I leave and try to convince myself that feeling is just the product of a beautiful service.

    I am trying my best.

    I don’t like the idea of being religious and I’m not. I’m curious and stubborn and desperate to prove to myself that I can dismiss those moments as chemical. Something tangible.

    ///

    Though it feels inappropriate, I’m still going to include recommendations!

    Music: Misere mei, Deus – Tenebrae (on theme!)

    Actual fun stuff:

    Comic: Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees is complete! The whole series was wild but it ended in a nice place.

    • Finally getting back to writing. I write on a Remarkable tablet. They’re like a Kindle with a word processing function. I can’t do the computer all the time so it’s fabulous.
    • I love this podcast about CNF (the podcast is hosted by the guy whose website this is): https://brendanomeara.com/

  • change, distraction, and worry

    KM Brunner

    I have a problem. It’s not a big problem, but it is one that’s taking up a lot of space in my brain:

    I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be writing.

    I worry, probably several times a day, that there’s something missing from the novel I’m working on. I think, unhelpfully, that I should be pursuing one of my other projects. I think maybe, just maybe, I should be writing nonfiction. I used to write nonfiction. I was rather good at it.

    It wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as fiction, but it was something I felt comfortable with.

    Then I step back and think: that was the problem with nonfiction in the first place. I wasn’t challenging myself.

    And so I go back to the book and the short stories but then, there, I have the same problem:

    I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be writing.

    It’s a fun thing, to have lots of ideas. It’s an enviable position, but I need to focus – and if I’m going to use the ideas, I need to whittle. I am trying to concentrate on the novel, but I want to submit a story once a month, so I always have a short piece I’m working on alongside the book. Sometimes that piece is fun. Sometimes I think it might be better than the novel.

    How can I know that, though? I can’t! I absolutely can’t. I’m a few chapters into a first draft and those are notoriously bad! Regardless, I’m hitting a pretty significant rough patch. Things are working, mostly, but I’m concerned about a few characters, I worry I’ve made the story too big, that the plot is too niche to be relatable – and worst of all, sometimes I think it might be boring.

    Is this what impostor syndrome is? I’m not worried about being a writer – I feel paralyzed because I am one.

    It’s enough to make me want to scream but I can’t give up writing. I know I’ll work through it. I’ll show up, every day, at my stupid little keyboard. Writing is an awful, sometimes parasitic, thing. It compels. It’s worse than music, and that’s saying something.

    Anyway.

    Here are some things I’ve liked over last month:

    • Song: Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan. She’s blowing up, and she deserves it. Vocal chops like nobody’s business and actual musical, catchy, pop. They use real instruments and the mixing isn’t all flat like most pop these days. It’s just…good music.
    • I don’t drink, but when I’m craving a beer, I reach for an Athletic. I’m into the Hazy IPA lately.
    • I got a noir piece published. It’s called Apartment 11A.
    • I found my writing workshop group on Meetup. I’d recommend it!
    • St. John’s Seminary, the seminary attached to Boston College, is full of nice people and very, very interesting classes. I’m going to take Moral Theology next semester. I never thought I’d be taking a course with Catholic undertones but here I am. I’m just interested.