December 7, 2002
Safety valves
We want every day and every action to be a manifestation of love, joy, confusion and revolt. - Refused, Final Communique
As is often the case when I'm feeling a bit down, I have stayed in the past few nights, cleaning my room and listening to old hardcore records. Refused, Anomie, Born Against, Portraits of Past, Clikatat Ikatowi, His Hero is Gone, Frail, Palatka, Yaphet Kotto - all the music that still gets me going. I air drum, shout along with the lyrics, and reconnect with the energy that seems to have been sucked out of me. I write long e-mails and longer letters, dream up new projects, scribble notes on torn pieces of paper, reorganize and reprioritize. It happens every few months, when my relatively stable range of emotions drifts below the horizon line. An internal safety valve. When I think of close friends and lovers, it seems that they all have these mechanisms. I'm very curious to hear what yours might be. For now, I'm off to watch the lights go out on the Empire State Building, a midnight ritual. I'm sure it's done by computer, but I like to imagine that there's one man or woman somewhere up near the 86th floor, looking at a wristwatch and waiting for the exact moment to flip the switch.
For those of you looking at this on your friends list: I also hope that, despite the voluminous contributions already made by myself and