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rambles and half-essays

Tag: rock

  • 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).

  • 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: