That is a picture of my kid, sucking his thumb. It’s one of the first four still images taken of him/her, ever. It was taken on Thursday, shortly after the last time I posted here. Well had I known that the day would have gone so horribly wrong (which I should have known), I would have waited and written about the whole nightmare of a day in one post. Without going into details, I can safely say that the day was completely ruined. Put simply, it was the exact opposite of how any parent-to-be would want that day to go. It was horrible. Despite all that, once we were in the office and that real-time image of the baby came on the screen, I had nothing else on my mind. It was pretty amazing to say the least. For me it was a huge relief. It showed me that my kid was in fact alive, moving, and had all of its limbs intact. In fact, it was probably the most amazed I’d ever been at a piece of technological equipment without an Apple logo on it. It’s too early to see a weener, but man, I’m hoping there is one.

And since Thursday? Let’s see… yeah, everything has sucked. The weekend was spent moving, which is bad enough. But of course nothing can ever just be “bad enough” in my life, it has to be worse than that. Sunday was at least as bad as Thursday, and that’s not even counting the fact that I had to move out of my dream apartment. As vague as all this sounds, trust me, it’s got to be that way for my own good.

Last night was the first night spent in my new apartment. It was everything I expected it to be. Today will be the last time I ever set foot in the awesome ex-apartment. It’s all empty aside from some trash that needs to go out, but I’ll take a few minutes to stand in there and look around before I give the keys back and resign myself to this awesome new life of mine.

And for a Grad School progress update: Nothing good has happened. 900 phone calls gone unreturned, lots of disappointment, lots of red tape bullshit. I guess it’s time to start filling out an application at one of the nice suburban McDonalds around the way.

At least there’s a new NIN DVD coming out.

To keep the theme going, I got another important email recently. I had an interview set up for another Music Production Teaching job. This one would be a pretty full-time gig, and would give me the first regular paycheck I’ve had in years. It was the financial stability that I’ve been wanting so badly, and it was a job I would be happy with. I was extremely confident that the job was mine. Yesterday morning i got this email:

“Hi Joseph
I have to cancel our appointment for today. My director informed me that due to budget cuts, we are unable to run music production until the end of summer. I am sorry for the inconvenience. I will keep you in mind for the summer. Thank you for your interest and good luck with your search.”

Buy hey, she wished me good luck, so I’m sure I’ll be just fine.

Anyway, I’ve been spending a lot of time daydreaming. I dream about a life unlike my own. I fantasize about how I could run away and start again, and how great that would be. I could take some of the money that I have sitting in my account right now and fly out West and convince Slim to hook me up with a job to get me going. I bet I could do it. I could book that flight right fucking now and change my life forever. I would never have to see this town again, I would never have to be baited into the same old fights, and I wouldn’t have to apologize for things that I’m not sorry for. This place (in my life, as well as geographically) is just too full of sadness and disappointment to ever be washed clean. So, do I book that flight and do what it takes to fix my life? Or do I do the “right” thing and stay put, locked forever in a sea of sorrow? Would my staying really help anyone? I know it won’t be helping myself any, and I tend to doubt that having a miserable fuck like me around will do much to lift anyone else’s spirits either. So why am I here? Why am I running around in the same circles over and over and over and over and over and over? I may never know the answer, but that seems to be my fate. I’m sure I won’t ever book that flight. I’m sure I’ll stay here in this Hell-Hole town until the day I’m finally put out of my misery by some meaningless blink of Mother Nature’s eye. Along the way I’ll try to do the best I can to help my offspring find a path better than mine. Most likely he/she will simply rebel against me because I’m old, I don’t understand, and I should shut the fuck up. Ahh, the cycles of life.

Today is the first ultrasound.

Yesterday morning I had my final meeting with the woman who is in charge of the Book Arts/Printmaking Program at UArts. I felt like the meeting went pretty well, and I was feeling good about my chances of getting accepted. Today I got this email:

Dear Joseph,

****** ********
*********, MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program
The University of the Arts

I have worked toward getting into this program for a really long time. I was specifically told that I would be accepted as an applicant despite the “lack of accreditation”. And now, just like that, it is all over. Gone. I can’t even begin to express the massive, life-altering disappointment that I am feeling right now.

Fuck. I spend so much time trying to sugar coat things, especially to myself. I say a bunch of shit like “Things are going well”, “It could be worse”, all of that phony optimistic nonsense. In reality, my life is a complete mess. I’m trying so hard to keep my head above water, but it gets harder and harder each day. A lot of people assume that this should be an overwhelmingly happy time in a persons life, and I wish so badly that it was. When you are surrounded by so much negativity on a constant basis, it just becomes impossible to avoid being sucked in. I’ve been so confused lately, and all of my emotions seem to exist only at the extreme ends of the spectrum while my behavior (generally) resides right in the middle. I don’t cry, I don’t yell, I don’t break shit. I do my best to stay calm, hoping that logic and reason will be my friend. It’s hopeless. I am officially drowning, and they aren’t even my tears.

I turned 29 yesterday (January 10). The day was fine, the night was a disaster, and I don’t feel any older or wiser. I had one present coming my way, and it didn’t arrive in time. I’m getting the Guitar Hero II Multi-Player Bundle for Playstation 2.

I’ve been extremely stressed out lately about applying to grad school, but I’m just about finished with that headache. I completed my portfolio DVD, filled out all the paperwork, and dropped it all off in person today. The last step is an appointment with the head lady in charge, which is set for Wednesday morning. I’d feel way better about my chances if I had more books in my portfolio, but I guess it’s too late to second guess it all now.

On a more amusing note, it was brought to my attention that a guy that I fired from Dark Disco Club has launched a solo project. I won’t give my opinion of it here since it would surely sound biased. I think the guitar solo in the song more than speaks for itself.

Check out Eric Rosso’s solo project.

Now, for all the oldheads, here’s a classic photo of the bass player from Under Grace:

Today was my first official day as a Music Production teacher. I was pretty nervous, but it went well. The group was smaller than it will usually be, but that was fine with me since I was slightly nervous. I started off the class with some introductions, an overview of my class rules, and a brief description of what we would be covering throughout the program. Then I busted out a mix cd that I had burned, just to show some examples of different kinds of Hip Hop, and the ways that Hip Hop mixes with other genres. Here’s the playlist:
01. Still D.R.E. / Dr. Dre
02. Through the Wire / Kanye West
03. You Got Me (f/ Erykah Badu) / The Roots
04. Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) / Digable Planets
05. Risingson / Massive Attack
06. Turn the Page / The Streets
07. 99 Problems / Jay-Z
08. Just Another Victim / Helmet & House Of Pain
09. Nobody’s Listening / Linkin Park
10. Where Is Everybody? / Nine Inch Nails
11. Bulls on Parade / Rage Against the Machine
12. Year of tha Boomerang / Rage Against the Machine
13. It’s Tricky / Run DMC
14. I Can’t Live Without My Radio / LL Cool J
15. Bad Dreams / Tricky
Anyway, the class went well and I think the kids approved of me. Hopefully things will continue to go this way and I’ll help some more cool music enter the world.

In other news, my woman is just about on week 12 (of 40) into the pregnancy. This means that I am learning how to keep my head down and my mouth shut. I haven’t perfected it yet, but I’m working on it. I love that woman more than anything, and I find this whole time to be fascinating and great… but god damn does it have its moments. If you thought chicks could be moody without pregnancy, oooohhhh shit you have no idea. These are crazy times.

Late last week, while browsing a Howard Stern Show fan site, I came across a post by someone claiming to have two tickets to the sold out Artie Lange show on New Year’s Eve. He said that he lived in Maine, and his plans got screwed up, so he wouldn’t be able to get down to the show. The point of the post was to give the tickets away to the first person to get back to him. I figured the tickets were already gone, but I gave it a shot and replied to the guy. Well I’ll be damned. He wrote be back and said they were all mine. YES! This show was sold out, tickets were way expensive, and this guy is giving me 3 of them for free! I gave him my address and he said they would be Express Mailed out to me. They were to arrive on Saturday, and the show was on Sunday. He also said that he would request to waive signature, just in case I wasn’t home. Solid plan.

Saturday came, and I was pretty excited to get the tickets. I left the house early in the morning to run some errands, and I was out most of the day. I came home, and went right for the mailbox, feeling pretty confident that the tickets would be there since he waived the requirement for a signature. Well almost immediately, we noticed that note on our door. In an instant, excitement turned into disappointment. The mailman came with the tickets, and for some fucked up reason, didn’t leave them. It also says that the item is available for pick-up after 1/3/06, which was a year ago! So I spent New Year’s Eve sitting at home feeling bummed out.

I hope that whoever is responsible for this gets some painful disease that causes great suffering for all of time. Fuck the USPS!