So I'm kind of having a temporal vertigo at the moment.  All of a sudden, I find myself back in touch with dozens of people who were part of my life back in Michigan, and who I haven't seen or talked to in maybe a decade and a half, or more.  The years fall away like dried maple leaves in autumn...I'm struck with a sudden urge to grow my hair out and put on a pair of longjohns under jeans shorts and boots with a band t-shirt under a flannel and a lack leather jacket.

Wait.  My hair's already halfway down to my ass and I'm wearing jeans shorts and boots.  Nevermind.

Something is happening, here.  Maybe it's just that I'm finding it, or maybe it's one of those weird things where a bunch of people who aren't collaborating have the same idea at roughly the same time, I don't know.  What I do know is that there suddenly seems to be a spike in the number of people who are interested in the SWMI music scene of the late 80's and early 90's, and suddenly the life I have been leading for the last 15 years is dovetailing with the life I led for the two dozen years prior.

Naturally, I suspect most of the folks I'm running back in to still think I'm a loser, and they're probably right.  Social skills have never been my strong point.  I am who I am, and anyone is welcome to take or leave it as they see fit; thus it has always been.

But I'd be lying if I claimed to not have a hope in the back of my mind that all this reconnecting and renetworking and reintroducing will eventually lead to something more meaningful and relevant.  Kalamazoo and the bands in it basically got screwed - largely through our own ineptitude, egomania, lifestyle poisons, and internecine sniping, but even those that did manage to get something out of the freakshow other than free beer at Soda or Bell's don't seem to have gotten what they thought they were getting.  The most successful folks from that scene in a musical sense - the ones that are still out there doing it (like I damned well should be) seem to be mostly the folks who left town and went out by themselves - the Kevins (Oberlin/Farkas), Dustin Donaldson, Chris Lee - and pretty much steadfastly refuse to even say the word "Kalamazoo" in public.

Maybe they're the smart ones.

So I'm kind of torn, in a lot of different ways.  I've always had a weird social sense; I want to be liked, loved, admired, respected, like anyone else, but I'm just constitutionally unable to kiss ass or censor myself for the sake of gaining people's approval.  I say what I think, and do what I feel, and my heart remains pinned to my sleeve just like it was when I was six years old.  Naturally, this leads to my occasionally inserting my foot in my mouth.  Sometimes I find out after the fact that my own perspective doesn't necessarily fall in line with that of others.

I have a recurring nightmare in which I go back home to Kalamazoo, put a great band together from the remnants of past bands, get on stage, and nobody knows who the hell I am...or if they do know, they don't much give a damn.

I worry that someone I pissed off or hurt in the past is going to show up and make me feel like that lonely, friendless little freak that I was back in elementary school.  Worse, I worry that I'm still that lonely, friendless little freak that I was back in elementary school, and the only one who doesn't realize it is me.

I worry that I spend so much time navel-gazing that I'm not accomplishing anything at all.

I worry that nobody much gives a crap about anything I have to say...or that nothing I have to say matters in the least, objectively or subjectively.

I worry that I'll finally get instruments and equipment to start making music again...and will have forgotten how to play.

I worry that my contributions, friendships, collaborations, and relationships have all been forgotten, and I have nobody to blame but myself.

I worry that my life and career peaked sometime around August of 1987, and all I'm doing now is running out the clock.

I worry too much.