Are You Experienced?

I had a horrible day yesterday. I felt completely out of control. (Not being able to keep computer files and panicking when I can’t get a handle on the mess. I have a god-awful short-term memory. Ask me something from five minutes ago. Forget it. I can’t do any of it anymore. And so many other stupid things that I used to find easy.) I sometimes forget how fragile I am. I misinterpreted an email, because of my low feelings of self-esteem I’ve been feeling these days. (Why? Because I can’t do the shit that all you can do. And I never will.)

Okay, I didn’t exactly misinterpret the email. I just read it in such a way that made me feel deficient for not “doing more.” And not appreciating the small joys in life. Hell, if I try to appreciate anything smaller, they’d fucking need a microscope to see the fuck it is. What’s more, I haven’t the foggiest what more I can do. More exercise? More writing? “Touching base” with more people? (Oh, puhleeze.)? Loving my peanut butter and jelly more than I already do? (And I can’t do what you all can do.) But oh, this stuff hurts so much! I feel like I’m hanging on with just the tips of my fingers. No, don’t worry. If I die, it will be a natural death. So chill, s’alright? (s’alright.) Good.

Complete change of subject: I know I’ve come a little late to this game, but I fucking adore Jimi Hendrix. I never was crazy about the stuff the d.j.’s played over and over again. Those songs are still not my favorites. But the tunes I never heard on those three records are remarkable. And there is something so sweet about him that brings out the mother in me. (Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Jimi was going for.) So with three “new” albums to get to know, I’ve got what to listen to. (And I can also relate…the second song on Are You Experienced is Manic Depression. Why the hell do you think he was self-medicating? (and Kurt Cobain…Janis…)

Well, I think I'll go turn myself off,

And go on down

All the way down

Another one of my sweeping statements: most artists suffer from manic depression. They love manic. And when they’re manic, watch them magically create until they crash. They crash hard. Like Jimi. What a perfect song. I’m not manic-depressive, but I’ve recognized two manic periods in my life and shit, were they productive as bloody hell. Both in relation to Since When. The second time preceded my trip to see if could get placed on the lung transplant list. And that month prior, I got more and more wound up. I finished Since When. Rewrote the damned thing front to back. Then off to Pittsburgh to crash like a flaming hot air balloon.

When Chip and I got home, I really wanted to avoid “the big crash” that I expected when the possibility of transplant blew up in my face. (Survival stats beyond low…) So I just continued to write and magically, I didn’t fall to pieces. (The first time was the big one, oooh baby, never to be repeated.) But if you’re manic depressive, your highs are so much higher and your crashes are lower than low and unavoidable. (That’s where my maternal instincts come in. I would just rock that poor baby to sleep and tell him that I love him.)

I must have written about my Duane project. I’m telling you, that baby has kept me out of trouble for at least a year. I am trying to collect every piece of music Duane Allman played as a session musician. (FYI, side one of Layla doesn’t include Duane. He had to have been gone by the time it was recorded. Otherwise, why record any of it without Duane?) He died at only twenty four. God knows what we would have heard from him.

Duane Allman did not suffer from manic depression.