All that good will...gone

Even just taking one day off from work does wonders for the psyche. Waking up on a Monday morning and realizing you don't have to get out of bed? It's great. Spending an entire day doing whatever you want when usually you'd be sitting at a desk? Can't love it enough. But the problem is, whether you take a day off or a week or a month, that you eventually do have to go back. Until you win the lottery, that is. And as soon as you get back, it's like all that good will you've gathered in your vacation time is immediately gone when there are 58 unread emails for you to check and open calls that once again need your attention and all the work-related problems you had last week are still there when you get back. They didn't go on vacation. (Note: by "work-related" problems I am referring to ongoing technical issues that we are currently working with companies on. Difficult issues with answers that we don't have. The type that give you headaches.)

This is why any vacation short of a permanent one will never be long enough. As a friend of mine recently said: We are not meant to work. We are meant to hang out warm places, drink good drinks and eat good food. And although this observation was made in a somewhat drunken state, it still sounds good to me.

Thankfully I have a little Kyuss to get me through these early morning hours.
...
I had mentioned recently about my lack of inspiration as far as guitar playing goes. usually when this happens, I just put the guitar down and wait for inspiration to come back from it's vacation. Unfortunately it had stuck around longer than I would have liked this time. Until I took the advise of my keychain.

Many years ago, Elizabeth gave me a keychain that contained a quote from Jack London that said: "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." Bearing that in mind, I turned off the TV last night, shut down the XBox 360, lit up some candles, sat in a chair that was not right in front of my computer, and made myself come up with something new. The jury's still out whether or not I like it, but it's definitely better than the nothing I've been producing. Let me amend that, I do like it, I'm just trying to figure out where it fits. Is it something I can use with the band, or does it not quite fit that vibe and would it be better as a "solo" piece? That's what I need to figure out. I also did come up with a few other riffs that aren't particularly solid on their own, but could make good additions to songs in progress eventually. If they don't get forgotten, they'll go on the riff pile. And I may have also come up with an arrangement I like for a song idea that's been hanging around for a while; throwing in an unnecessary modulation seems to add just that right flavor that it's been missing.

Either way, whether there are any keepers there or not, it just felt good to get something going.