Blog: Come On Florida & Texas, Just Say Gay.

As of today, February 25th, 2022, the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill has officially passed with a vote of 69-47 in Florida. Additionally Governor Abbott of Texas has begun instructing Child Protective Services to investigate the parents of any child identifying as Trans under the penalty of “child abuse.” None of this is even to mention the atrocities being carried out in Ukraine, Poland, Yemen, Syria, or Somalia. In short, today feels heavy.

I had initially planned to write about “Eating Disorder Awareness Week,” which it currently is & my personal struggles with body dysmorphia & vilifying certain foods but I felt called to write less about my personal experiences & more in regards to current events. Plus for those of you reading this that answered my poll, this topic won out by a long shot.

Let’s tackle Florida first shall we?

Don’t Say Gay or HB 1557, a bill proposed by Florida Representative, Joe Harding & backed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (boo, hiss), is a bill that prohibits the educating of students on all topics LGBTQ. The bill specifically outlines the complete illegality of discussing anything even remotely LGBTQ with children grades three & younger; including acknowledging their LGBTQ parents & limits the discussion of LGBTQ history or ideas in older classrooms based on whether or not it is deemed appropriate, something entirely up for the Florida Board of Education to decide. The bill also completely limits a teachers ability to be a mentor to any student struggling with the acceptance of their own gender identity or sexuality & was originally set to include a requirement for the “outing” of any student confiding in a teacher to their parents or guardians within six week of them learning of it. Luckily, that last bit didn’t pass.

Moreover, this bill further stigmatizes LGBTQ individuals & creates massive divides between the normalcy of who they are & what the Florida government qualifies as normal. It ostracizes any individual already struggling with the confusion of adolescence & sequesters them to the possibilities of further hopelessness or feelings that they are other than or not worthy of being recognized by society. The bill not only alienates but outwardly discriminates against the freedom these youths should have for self expression & throws a major wrench in the quintessential years that lead to understanding of who they are.

This time in each of our lives is pivotal not only where identity is concerned but also in the foundations of mental health. According to a recent survey conducted by the Trevor Project an average of 42% of LGBTQ youth have seriously considered taking their own lives or have actively attempted to do so. More than half of all nonbinary & trans identify youth have stated the same. Those who identify as LBGTQ also have much higher rates of depression & anxiety, primarily linked to feelings of isolation, repression, & lack of self worth.

Let’s set statistics aside for a second & do a bit of imagining shall we? Imagine the script has been flipped. Imagine instead of LGBTQ students being targeted it’s those who identify as CIS/Hetero. Imagine not being able to talk about your straight parents or relatives. Imagine not being able to express your romantic feelings, your attractions, etc. Imagine not being able to identify as He/Him/His or She/Her/Hers or even discuss the omission. Imagine not being able to consume any media, books, educational films, etc., that featured anything remotely CIS/Hetero. Imagine not being able to learn about important historical figures who were straight or binary. Do you get it now?

This bill is not endemic to Florida alone. There are currently as many as 20 states with anti-LGBTQ curriculum bills in the US & that number is growing rapidly. LGBTQ hate crimes are also on the rise & in the wake of Pulse, the second largest mass shooting in US history, you would think Florida, specifically, would have wised up by now. The argument being made here is that “parents must have a seat at the table for what’s going on in schools” & I personally couldn't disagree more. I’m elated, no offense M&D, that my parents didn’t have a direct say in what I learned in school.

Now. Texas. Ooooooh Texas, what shall we do with you?….

On Tuesday Governor Abbott, the bag of slimy, pustulated dog shit that he is (that’s not an opinion, it’s factual), announced that he will be calling for all licensed officials & members of the general public to report parents of transgender minors so that the state can investigate them for child abuse. Child. Abuse. The radical transphobic move is not a first for Abbott who last year failed to pass legislation making it a felony for physicians, doctors, therapists, & teacher to provide gender affirming care to minors. The bill would have filed felony charges under the physical & sexual abuse categories. Under the current orders not only will child abuse charges be inflicted upon the parents & guardians of trans youth but also any doctor, nurse, teacher, therapists, etc. who refused to report a child’s gender affirming parents.

Five district attorneys have already spoken out in defiance of the order, refusing to prosecute those who are reported. DA’s cite the unconstitutional nature of the bill as well as HIPAA as their reasonings aside from the blatant discrimination happening here.

Trans activists within the state say they are beginning to fear Abbott’s personal trans-phobic tendencies are leaking into the general public & reverting years of progress. They also fear that the rhetoric being presented to non-gender conforming minors it that the Texas government would rather see them dead than recognize them for who they truly really are.

I know this week’s blog was full of a lot of heavy stuff, but I felt it was important. We can’t ignore the issues of the marginalized just because they don’t effect us or play into our personal lives. We have to stop electing officials who paint targets on the backs of minorities simply because of their own misgivings & embrace a society that allows ample opportunity for love & acceptance to all of its citizens, not just those it has personally labeled as desirable.

I hope you each have a great weekend, I know things seem bleak right now but it’s worth fighting for a better world. Persevere on, treat one another with kindness & empathy, make new friends & acquaintances who live completely different lives from you, listen to them, put yourself in their shoes!

Much love to you all,

C

Object Writing: Pavement

Glossy pools of silvery water sit anchored in their valleys, each receiving new tsunamis with every fresh drop of sky that plunges into their shallow depths. Reflective images of trees & clouds ripple away into the aqueous black with each cascading wave. Mountains of inky pebbles extend from the water reaching fruitlessly towards the heavens bridled by their mass & rigidity. It's a small world this splash of life giving sustenance I've stumbled upon, yet another drizzly day blossoming their abundance into existence, their multitudes extending as far as my eyes can see. They tumble recklessly into one another, spilling their burden into their companion just down stream from them until the bounds of each of their shores is compromised & runs its contents lazily into its next of kin. The pavement glistens in the gray gloom of this rainy afternoon. I splash vivacious yellow across the face of each ocean as I pass hearing the soft pitter-patter of the midday precipitation dash against the hood of my polyester rain coat.

Blog: Object Writing

I realized today that I never gave context to the “Object Writing” posts I’ve been making. I’m sure for a lot of you outside of the creative world & even for those within, their materialization has been bizarre. I’ve blindsided you with videos & blog posting that of course make no sense out of context, so please allow me to do some explaining!

This blog will once again contain a story about Leena Regan by the way!

Back in the summer with the soft launch of Leena & her husband Max’s Australian music school, The Songbird Society, Leena started doing artist & writer outreach. Part of that outreach included creating a group that would center around object writing. Object writing is a Berklee School of Music songwriting practice where you are given a random object & told to write a paragraph or so around it. This paragraph must include sensory details (sight, smell, taste, feel, sound) as well as somewhat of a short story it is all wrapped up in. This is a practice meant to be done daily to get the creative juices flowing. It forces you to give random objects context in your mind & create a narrative around them.

Fast forward six months to now. I’m a part of an artist accelerator at the moment that is forcing us to think of our brand & marketing efforts in new in interesting ways, this also translates, naturally, to content! I’d been sharing some of the object writing that I had been doing the last couple of months with Evan who suggested that some of them were good enough to share! I brought it up with my accelerator group & they loved the idea, especially since Instagram Reels & TikToks are such great discovery tools these days!

I thought & thought & thought about how I wanted to share these little snippets of writing I’d done; I thought about maybe just posting the script & reading over it, I thought about just making them blogs or even YouTube vids, but in the end I came back to a method one of my current favorite TikTok users utilizes!

The account in question, @ewistone, has a series of videos he calls “Beautiful Words that Describe Obscure Emotions.” In this series he posts a video that relates to the word in question, voice overs it, & has legible text scrolling along the way. I decided that was the format I wanted to take my inspiration from.

I picked the object writing prompt that I thought would be the easiest to film as my tester, Chapel, & set out to East Nashville to film my video. In hindsight I definitely should have done the voice over first so I knew how long to make the video, but I guess you live & learn.

It’s now been a month since I started the object writing videos & while they haven’t necessarily taken off in the manner I’d hoped they would, I’m still believing they’re going to be a vehicle for me to reach new fans & friends. I’ve now posted a total of four; Chapel, Biscuits, Track, & Teddy Bear. You can find them here, on this blog every Wednesday or on TikTok & Instagram Reels the same day!

As this is still a fairly fresh endeavor I’d love to know your thoughts! I’d love to know ways in which I can improve them, how you’d like them to show up, even any objects you want me to write about! I’d also love to know, honestly, how you feel about them! I apologize for the wonky friday blog schedule this past month as well, I’m still trying to figure out where the object writing fits into my weekly schedule & am still adapting!

Have the loveliest of weekends,

-C

Object Writing: Teddy Bear:

One of its small, knowing eyes hangs lazily, detached just a few inches below its intended placement, held flimsily together by two fine, red strings. The soft tawny fur fades in & out where adolescent hands & arms have left permanent scuffs of love. This teddy had seen better days, that was for sure, but for all the adoration & world it had seen behind its shiny plastic eyes, it was content. You see this bear, this stuffed personified companion had once belonged to a child. It had been a gift joyously received which had then proceeded to fill the life of its young owner to the brim with comfort & amity. This small worn shaping of cotton & polyester had been everywhere its adolescent keeper had gone; it had been a soft, supple shoulder to cry on, it had been thrown to the sky in bouquets of laugher, it had been fastened into trucks, carriages, cars, beds, any assortment of garments, & cavorted tirelessly with. It had been many days since the likes of this had seen the likes of those but the bear still sat satisfied; the dust & years slipping through the gaps in its fibers, making their own home in a former part of someone else's. The furry friend did not despair or long for days long past, it had fulfilled its purpose & was overjoyed with the time it had been given. For the love of a toy wants not, but gives exponentially.

Object Writing: Track

"One more lap" I tell myself, "just one more lap." My feet ache with each exhausting stride they beat into the asphalt, long tired out from the previous innumerable laps. My legs scream at me to stop, beg me for rest, but it is my will that over powers them.It's been far too long since I ran, far too long since I put rubber sole to track & rocketed my way around. My compromised hip sends signals of distress ringing throughout my person but I do my best to ignore its warnings, for it is the reason for my current struggle. If I hadn't of fallen, if I'd paid more attention maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't be in my current predicament, stuck trying to prove to myself & those around me that I can come back stronger that the sum of my falterings. Just. One. More. Lap. The battle between brain & brawn rages within me & thus far the war has leaned heavily in my brain's favor, but I can feel the shifting tides, I can feel the odds evening out & I know once they do there will be no coming back from it. In the meantime I just have to keep pushing on. Come on, just one more lap.

Blog: Forcing Creativity

As songwriters the message that we seem to have drilled into our heads over & over again is that in order to be successful in the writing realm, or in music in general, you have to be able to force creativity at any given moment. While on the surface I don’t entirely disagree, you do need to “show up” to do your job. You need to be able to walk into a room, especially when writing for a major artist, & pull a quality song out at the drop of a hat. It’s a scenario I am sure a lot of us are familiar with even in the non-musical world, the need to tap into the creative on the fly, but something I’ve found that is next to impossible to get on demand is that of inspiration.

Inspiration & creativity often go hand in hand, especially where the art world is concerned. It tends to hit like lightning & fade quickly. The trick of striking while the iron is hot can be a difficult one. Inspiration, unfortunately, often comes exclusively from life experience. It comes from living, failures or successes in love, stories that invigorate you, adventures that flex your sense of wonder, etc. Inspiration is not something that can be faked or forced & when an attempt is made to do either it ends up being abundantly apparent.

I’m going to once again refer back to a writing camp that my dear friend Leena Regan put on, if you’ve read any of my other blogs you’ll know that bring up often. In said camp Leena really hammered in the point that if, in a writing situation, you feel like you’re pulling teeth, stop immediately. It’s a mistake I’ve made in the past for sure & I’m sure a lot of us who create have made as well. The problem that ends up arising when you force your way through painful creation is that it completely saps the joy out of creation. Your piece ends up being soulless, heartless, lifeless. It ends up being a stand in that you lock in a drawer & never look at again.

I was discussing this very topic with a producer friend of mine, Joshua Gleave, last night! We were both talking about how we feel it’s a complete & utter waste of everyone in the room’s time to try & juice a song from the pulp of your brain if the spark just isn’t there. He said that he’s had writes where he & his co-writer got a verse & chorus into a song, both looked at each other & immediately said “nah,” calling the session. I’ve definitely had the same, but I’ve often found that going from a different angle ends up igniting the fire of inspiration.

I was in a write back in October with my friend Frye & she & I had the exact same experience as Josh did above; we got a verse & a chorus in & were like “nah.” Nothing wears your creative brain out faster than writing something you’re not feeling at all or creating something you have no attachment to & know will end up going nowhere. We did end up getting a song out of that session but it was one that ultimately we both felt incredibly drawn to & inspired by.

I ended up getting burned out of writing for this exact reason. I stopped looking forward to writing because it felt like a chore, & not a fun one at that. I had always been told what I mentioned at the top of this post, write to write so you can write more & write better. I don’t disagree that we should flex our creative muscles on the daily, no argument there, but I don’t believe that has to take the form of torturous forced “mea culpa” style “inspiration.” You can be creative in other ways! Greet your day with some object writing, paint, draw, dance, sing, play an instrument, do something that gets the neurons of the left side brain firing. You can flex & maintain your creative muscles by broadening its definition for yourself & simply creating to create.

I’m sure that any of you in the virtual audience who are songwriter currently reading this can attest to the following; the best songs I’ve ever written were those I never planned to write & most of the time they were those that just came pouring out of me like lava. In addition to that, most of the best co-writes I’ve had were those where we’d either given up on writing, taking the pressure off, or had just been goofing around. Pressure, to me, brings instant death to inspiration.

Please, please, please don’t burn yourself out creatively the way I did! Find new ways to integrate your art into your life, to get the juices flowing. The songs will come when it’s time for them to, I promise, but you must be persistent & patient with them!

As always my loves, have a fantastic weekend!

-C

Object Writing: Biscuits

The crumbs lie lazily scattered around the base of the package; let’s call them little remnants of a midnight snack consumed half awake. Their trail extending from the ripped opening of which now only a trivial few fractions of the original tantalizing contents remain. It was clear from the moment I'd opened them, during my initial purchase, that this package had previously been dropped; the silvery wrapping had given way to the crumbled bits of cookie within still loosely holding tight to their uniform means of presentation. The hours of night that crept into morning had made way for the soft vanilla & caramel accents of the biscuits to waft delicately into the air & pique the olfactory of any happenstance passerbyer. They weren't my favorite, though, I guess, the haste at which I had ushered them into my shopping basket the day prior would have said otherwise; I guess I'd just had a hankering for something saccharine & carbohydrate laden. I finished the remainder of the container with passive indifference before discarding the scrapes & the undesirable bits into the trash. Great way to break fast, I thought to myself as my gnashing turned sugary tack into mush. Great. Way. To. Break. Fast.

Object Writing: Chapel

Time & time again I've passed it; its old weathered doors, its crumbling steps, & its stained glass remnants of a faith long since supplanted from its grounds. The muffled scuff of my worn work boots click-clack along the well trod cobblestones that lie in its ominous shadow, stopping just for a second to take in its former majesty. The wind carries with it the spirits of the forgotten as it whips through the exposed rafters & returns to bear its divinity as it softly caresses my skin & lovingly lifts the straggling hairs from my brow. Tranquility. It's a rush of warmth from deep within that spreads capriciously throughout my limbs. It is memory, the recollection of time long gone & people long since passed. It is the warm hearth unto which I hang the foundations of my being, the essence of my inspiration. But with the expiration of this town so too has its chapel diminished. Short of ruin, these mildewed & rotting halls once bore witness to all the goings on we as a community shared. This sanctified ground once saw fit to host unions, separations, celebrations, & seasons of mourning. It now plays host to not but the few pigeons that call it home & the ghosts & echos of the kinship of a bygone age.

@charlierogersmusic

Object Writing: Chapel

♬ UNDERWATER WONDERSCAPES (MASTER) - Frederic Bernard

Blog: Understanding You Value

Hi Friends,

Happy Friday!…if that’s when you’re reading this, if not, Happy Whatever Day It Is For You!

I’m currently a part of a twelve week accelerator that brought up something very interesting I felt would fit immaculately as this week’s blog entry. This prompt was given to us in the form of a question. That question we were asked was to identify the three world that describe you, or as my friend Leena put it, the three reasons that you’re the person people pick up the phone to call when they’re needing X,Y, & Z in their life. What draws people to you?

I’m sure many of you saw that I posted the question on my socials to get feedback from those of you that follow me or know me because, after all, you/they know exactly what it is you/they get from me. I got a lot of really interesting responses & so many of you said so many things that warmed my heart to the core but at the end of it all, I had to narrow the list down to three.

I started by bunching any “like minded” words together to see if I could find a commonality between them or a culminating theme. Here’s what I came up with.

My three words are:

Serene, Considerate, & Curious

The beauty of these three words is that they’re tentative, constantly subject to change because, as we change & evolve, so too must our three words.

The point of this exercise allows you to begin to understand your value, to understand the things that you bring to the table as a human being that make others seek you out or that enrich someone else’s life.

I chose serene because many people say I have a calming presence about me, that I make them feel safe &/or secure. I am often seen as gentle or down to earth. The energy I give off is grounding & comfortable, it allows people to let their guard down & be 100% who they are, unapologetically.

I chose considerate because the word that popped up the most for me, from you all, was kind. I was also gifted words like sensitive, caring, loyal, thoughtful, & present. All of which I felt were summed up well in “considerate,” because at the end of the day what is kindness if not consideration for the feelings, emotions, needs, etc. of someone else on a human level?

My final word, to be honest, is still a bit of a work in progress. In all actuality my original work was “communicative” because I got words like strong, brave, leader, communicator; so I felt that enveloped those things, but the more I sat with it the less it felt right. I recently changed to “curious” because I am a lover of culture, a lover of art, I crave new & exciting foods, drinks, etc., I love travel & discovery, I love reading & learning new things. I love to have my mind blown. I like to try to be ahead of the curve & pushing the limits. New science excites me & new cultures invigorate me. I love sharing these experiences as well as I’m sure many of my friends & the many blogs I’ve written will tell you! Truly curiosity often gets the best of me in the best possible way.

Enough about me though, yeah? Let’s go further down this value rabbit hole.

What Is Your Value?

Each of us has many things that make us valuable, but what is specific to you? No one is valueless, so I’m going to go ahead & shut that down for a lot of you reading this right now, no one. Your value is what gives you an edge in life, it’s the aspects of yourself that make you interesting, that call the world to you, that make you feel alive, & make you feel important.

I’m genuinely curious, there’s that word again, to see what some of you think your specific value is so if it’s not too much & you’d like to drop what you think your three words are in the comments of this post or on whichever social you found this in I’d be delighted to know!

So often we are taught to diminish ourselves, to not be boisterous or to shrink away from the spotlight but I think that taught behavior can be harmful, especially where self esteem & confidence are concerned. I’m sure that a lot of you were raised, as I was, to embrace humility & to always be humble & I’m not at all saying those are bad traits, but we are often pushed too far into those traits to the point where it becomes damaging to our self image. In all honesty, I think a lot of the shrinking of self neuters us. We begin to feel worthless, like our little victories aren’t worth celebrating or even that the big victories aren’t worth celebrating because to do so would be seen as too bold & brazen. Our over abundance of humility is minimizing us & creating unhealthy beliefs around who we are, what we can accomplish, & what we are worth.

I, myself, was always taught “pride cometh before the fall” & I don’t entirely disagree; foolhardy & an overabundance of pride can absolutely be blinding & very much a turn off to the majority of people, but a little pride is totally healthy. We always crave the pride of others but never allow it for ourselves. We love to hear those close to us tell us how proud they are of us, but don’t reserve any of that emotion for ourselves. Be proud of who you are, be proud of the road that brought you here today because the person who climbed the mountain is worth being proud of. You’ve overcome your struggles, you’ve overcome your pain, & even if you’ve faltered be proud of your defeats & learn from them so that next time you can be proud of your victories.

We are luminous beings, all of us. So please, let the light of what makes you so incredibly special shine unabashedly bright!

As always, much love to you all,

Please let me know what your three words are!

-C

Blog: Seeking Movement

This blog was actually a suggestion of a fan & friend of mine who reached out earlier this week to ask my thoughts on Brené Brown. Truthfully, I’m not as familiar with her work as I probably should be or would like to be but that’s not to say she hasn’t drifted in & out of my orbit from time to time. The ask was if I had read Brown’s new book “Atlas Of The Heart.” Truthfully I have not, but, his point is the ask was that I, over the holidays, had written a blog outlining the reasons why sad holiday music is the preferred holiday music for so many of us. You can read that one here. In said blog, aside from outlining the reasons behind the sadness felt during the holidays I also talked briefly about wanting to feel something, to feel connected or seen through these musical pieces. He had just come across the section of Brown’s book in which she talks about grief, he sent me a few screen shots to read & I immediately felt seen by what Brené had to say.

My first adult introduction to Brené happened due to my friend Leena who put together a writing camp. In this camp she used Brené’s example of empathy vs sympathy & how that relates to the cowriting space, I later wrote an entire blog on that which you can read here. I was also advised to give her book “The Gifts Of Imperfection” a read which unfortunately I still have yet to begin. From there it seemed that Brené Brown was popping up all over my life or at least the lens of it. Jake went on Brown’s podcast, I wrote the blog & had a bunch of people talking about Brown directly to me, I had several other people suggest “Gifts” to me, I had people posting her quotes all over my feed. It truly began to felt like a sign that maybe her thoughts were worth investing in further!

The screen shot in question that I mentioned in the first paragraph talks about the reason we as consumers love sad movies. In the section Brown takes about how a researcher by the name of Julian Hanich & his colleagues were investigating something they called the “Sad-FIlm Paradox.” The questions the researchers proposed was "how can a negative emotion such as sadness go together with “aesthetic liking” & even pleasure? Their findings? People like to be moved.

The beauty in the sad films, sad songs, sad books, etc. is that “we feel connected to what it means to be human, to be reminded of our inextricable connection to one another,” Brené explains. It shifts the mindset of the individual into one of “us.” From “me” to “we.” The study further revealed that there is a “highly significant positive correlation between sadness & enjoyment." This process of feeling sad or lonely or want makes us feel moved which then turns into enjoyment. “Hence sadness primarily functions as a contributor to & intensifier of the emotional state of being moved.” -Brené Brown, Atlas Of The Heart

This really stuck a chord with me! You see, if the above is to be believed, we as humans consume art to feel something, to feel connected to the community around us. We, in a manor of speaking, go out to concerts, to movies, to art shows, to the library & bookstores, to our streaming services seeking movement. We desire a shift from one emotion to another in a form of escapism from the mundane. There’s a quote from Stage Coach, Tom Jackson, in which he says exactly this, “audiences go to shows to feel something or else they’d stay at home & listen to the record from their couch.”

I truly think that’s beautiful, that the reason we as human beings consumer art, specifically sad art, is out of a desire for connection, for understanding. As a lover of all things sad media wise there’s something incredibly therapeutic about the experience of being moved. I am a self proclaimed cinephile, I love movies, deeply. I go to the theater seeking movement, seeking joy & tears & pain & wonder as I’m sure many of you reading this do as well, there’s no shame in it. It also allows us to flex our “empathy” muscle which I think we all could use from time to time.

At the end of the day love the art you love, you don’t have to justify it to anyone, there’s a reason it clicks with you & most likely it’s because it makes you feel seen or connected. It has succeeded in providing the movement you sought out. Relish that, feel the way it makes you feel & be grateful for that experience! Great art is hard to come by so love what you love & do so boldly!

As always, have a fantastic weekend!

Much love to you all,

C

Blog: Just Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Fan!

I started writing this blog the week that Spider-Man: No Way Home came out. At the point of this blog’s inception I had already seen the film two nights before, at this point I have seen it another time! If the title of this blog or that first sentences weren’t dead enough give aways, yes we will be talking about Spider-Man & all things the love of in this blog!

NO, I WILL NOT BE SPOILING SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME FOR YOU EVEN THOUGH IT’S BEEN OUT FOR ALMOST A MONTH & YOU DEFINITELY SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT BY NOW!!!!!

Instead of talking directly about NWH, this is intended as a bit of an open letter to whomever regarding a character that I love so dearly & that I identify with so intimately.

I remember vividly going to see the original Spider-Man in theaters. I was newly 10 years old at the time & we were in Eugene, Oregon. I remember it being a rainy day, I remember us eating somewhere across the street from the theater, & I remember the lasting impression the film had on me as an adolescent. I had been a Spider-Man fan prior to the release of the original Sam Raimi film but this is what truly turned it from something that piqued my interest to a bit of an obsession.

Spider-Man is my guy, he’s my dude, just as I’m sure he is for so many of you. He’s not the statuesque boy scout that Cap usually is or the brooding genius of Bruce Wayne (I know, DC, just thinking of people’s favorite superheros), Peter Parker is simply a kid trying to have a normal life while balancing a truly amazing gift that he was miraculously given.

Peter, despite his quips & quirks, often presents as a soft-spoken, mild mannered guy with a genius level intellect, an often socially awkward nature, &, dare I say, an impeccable moral compass thanks to the guidance of people like Aunt May & Uncle Ben. It’s safe to say, all considered, that the story of Peter Parker is seldom a happy one. In spite of the loving, happy go lucky, positive person that he often is, his life is riddled with tragedy after tragedy.

You see much like Captain America, Spider-Man is the type to make the sacrifice play, to lay down his life & livelihood for anyone, truly anyone. However, I feel unlike Cap, that Peter lives further in the realm of obscurity within the Marvel universe at large. Where as Caps actions are often unintentionally grandiose & allow him to receive even the slightest bit of recognition, Peter is often left to make the more subtle sacrifice calls that come at great personal cost to himself. Pete doesn’t often get the happy ending but he willingly sacrifices it time & time again without hesitation.

I think that is the beauty of Spider-Man as a hero, he is truly a super hero. I’m going to pull in an example from Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4/5 because I think this illustrates my point very well so if you haven’t played this in the two years that it has been out & are planning to, skip this paragraph because there will be spoilers from that. Still here? Okay, let’s go. In the Playstation game, at the very end, New York has been overtaken by a deadly poison unleashed by Mr. Negative. Peter ends up with one vial of the antidote that he can use to replicate. However, before he can replicate it he finds out that his Aunt May is on her death bed from the poison. He is faced with the choice of save the person closest to him or save New York. Of course he chooses the latter & Aunt May dies.

These are the stakes Peter is constantly faced with. The world or himself. He never chooses himself.

For those of you who have seen No Way Home you know exactly what I’m talking about here, specifically where the ending is concerned & with the ramifications of the choice he’s made.

For all intents & purposes, Peter is a fantastic moral role model. He is an incredible symbol for us in society to try to live up to. He is the definition of self-less & the things he constantly has to sacrifice are heart wrenching. The selflessness even extends to the villains he fights & to those who have caused him harm while outside of their own sanity.

You see, to me, Pete is someone to aspire to. I truly feel he, as a character, makes us societally better. He is a pop culture icon that gives people hope & shows us how to be better human beings to those around us. I grew up loving Peter because of that. Despite this immense power he has it never goes to his head or corrupts him. Peter makes me want to be more selfless, more intellectual, more kind, more quirky, he truly shines, by himself, as beacon of light in the darkness around him, something I think we could all use a bit more of.

“I believe there’s a hero in all of us…that keeps us honest…gives us strength…makes us noble…and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most – even our dreams. ”

— Aunt May, Spider-Man II

I think we should all aspire to be more like Peter in our day to day lives. I think Spider-Man is truly Stan Lee’s & Steve Ditko’s greatest achievement in character creation. We all know Pete was the creation that Stan was the most proud of.

There’s a reason we all flock to the cinemas for this character, there’s a reason we all buy up the merch & play the games. To put it simply, Spider-Man gives us hope, hope that we ourselves can be better.

Have a lovely weekend & a fantastic January.

Much love to you all,

-C

Oh & my live action ranking goes:

Andrew

Tom

Tobey

This is not up for debate.

Blog: 2021, A Year In Review

So here we are again at the end of another year. I know 2021 was a tough year for a lot of us but at least we had glimmers of hope within the raging storm of the pandemic. I want to take a moment to highlight some of my personal glimmers of hope over the past year in the hope of welcoming in more light in the coming years, not just for myself but also for you, dear reader.

2021 started for me, as it did for many of us, within the fatigue of the pandemic. It also started with the torrent climate of the US political landscape. That’s not why we’re here though, we’re not here to talk about the dark, the muddled, the divisive. We’re here to talk about the hope, the joy, the novel, & the progress.

The first hope of early 2021 I can remember was the distribution of the vaccine. We’d come out of a long COVID riddled winter & were offered the chance, as a society, to change the course of this disease we’d all grown soooooo fond of. The most vulnerable among us were offered that vaccine first, then the on & on it went to it was available to the masses. I personally got both of my vaccinations in March!

Being a newly minted member of the neurodivergent family, something we’ll get more into later, I tend to develop hyper fixations, little things that I find exciting until the dopamine wears out & I move onto the next thing. In early 2021 my first hyper fixation became my home. I looked around & found my house severely lacked things that I felt made it unique to those that lived here. I felt like anyone could have walked into my house & found it hard to pinpoint the exact kind of person that resides within these walls. I decided to introduce a little of what I called “quirk.” I invested in better decor; new lamps, rugs that had subtle Star Wars prints on them, art that hinted at the things I love, etc. Slowly but surely my house began to feel more me.

My next fixation came in the form of self improvement, not a bad fixation to have. I looked inward & found that despite having spent basically the year prior forced into further introspection & was mostly just covering up the things that had been eating me from the inside for so long. I started meditation, I started reading books on psychology, quantum & energetic sciences, even dipping into self help from time to time. I uncovered parts of myself that I had neglected, feelings I’d held onto that no longer served me, & true peace. I fell in love with the natural world around me & with the ghost that lives in the shell that is me.

In the midst of this time of self actualization I found scuba diving. My parents, knowing my deep love for the ocean & all things aquatic, decided it was time I got scuba certified. I know wonder why it took me til almost 30 to get that certification as I immediately fell in love with it.

Around the time of my 29th birthday, my inner work, & scuba certification I also fell in love with plants in a way I never had before. My mother had always been the green thumb of the family & I always leaned more towards the fauna of the world but I guess with the appreciation for all things nature so arrived the appreciation for all things botanical. I started collecting house plants.

I guess that’s a bit of an understatement seeing how, in my living room along, I have over 50 different house plants now. Yes, 50.

Longing to get my travel legs back & wanting to use my scuba certification Evan & I booked a trip to Maui. I’m sure many of you have read about the Maui trip as those three blogs are still the most viewed on my page to this day, almost seven months later, but to put it lightly, the trip was everything. Maui felt like coming home. I mean that in the energetic sense as I cannot lay any claim to Hawaii being 0% pacific islander myself. Maui charged & invigorated my soul, it made me excited for life in a way that I hadn’t been in a long time. Our trip was jam packed, our own doing, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. If you care to read more on that of course here are the Maui blogs; Part One, Two, & Three.

After Maui we spent the summer in & out of Kansas. We went on a family vacation to Table Rock Lake for a long weekend, I chipped my tooth tubing, & got to spend time with parts of my family I don’t often get to see. Upon returning home from family vacation Evan & I were stricken with COVID, having been fully vaccinated though the effects were minimal. I was achy with a cough for about a week & lost my sense of taste & smell for a total of three days.

About the same time I got COVID I found a crack in the sump of my 125 gallon saltwater fish tank. I had been wanting to upgrade the size of my tank for a long while & seeing how I needed to completely drain the top tank to get the bottom sump tank even out, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. This reinvigorated my love for aquarium keeping, a hobby I’ve had since I was 16. I upgraded to a 185 with a 15-20 gallon sump in the base & my tank continues to flourish & be a great source of joy & relaxation for me.

In August I began to play again, something I’d seen advised for creatives, it helps to feed that inner child we all still have. I began building legos again, a hobby I grew up loving, I tried to be more playful, to have fun in the mundane day to day experiences! I began painting my nails regularly, I got my ears pierced, why? Cuz I felt like it! I highly recommend it to all, but play responsibly & respectfully!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the two songs I tracked this year, both of which I love dearly! Music has always been a way of connection for me, a form of expression & entertainment that I have made my life’s calling & creating new music is life giving to me, I can’t wait to share what I’ve been working on in 2022!

After August came Puerto Rico, a bit of a spur of the moment trip if I’m being honest. Puerto Rico is as the name suggests a rich port. It’s rich in culture, atmosphere, heritage, & adventure. I got to dive more in Puerto Rico in addition for further flexing my “foodie” tongue. You can read about that adventure in my Puerto Rico blog! Part One. Part Two.

We finally got to go back to Los Angeles in October, I hadn’t been since March of 2020 & normally it eats up about a quarter of my year! We went to Disney, I built a frickin’ lightsaber! I got to see a lot of old friends, went to a few Halloween parties, made some new friends, wrote a lot of new music, etc. Read more here.

We almost lost one of our cats, Max while in LA. Max is a three year old short haired tabby/bengal mix, who ended up getting a urinary obstruction. Our house sitter was lovely enough to sit over night with him at the emergency vet & after a few days in the hospital Max was fine. It’s incredibly difficult to have to face surgery or euthenization from the other side of the country but it really put into perspective how much I am grateful for the day to day interactions I get to have with each of my animals.

Max is the first animal to greet you at the door, the first animal to come running when the alarm goes off in the morning, in addition to being the last thing I see most nights as he kneads & purrs us all to sleep. He is an integral part of our household & I’m so blessed that he’s made a full recovery & gets to hang around this world for a long while longer.

In November I was formally diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. It was something I thought I’d had for a long while but after three months of testing I finally got verification of that. I wrote a whole blog on that process & the impact it had as well. LINK haha.

Thanksgiving was a blur, back & forth across the country seeing family members all over the states in addition to people coming into Nashville. Truly a whirlwind where at one point we’d spent two weeks traveling & only 24 hours at home in the middle of it. Lots & lots of driving.

I was also in the process of trying out different aids for my new found condition which made the Thanksgiving holiday even harder. My mother said “it was like someone had sucked out my joy.”

For once I felt a bit of the holiday spirit but with the crazy fluctuating weather that feeling fizzled out fairly quickly. I, like so many, saw Spider-Man: No Way Home opening night, the only reason for which I bring it up is because I definitely already have a blog written about that experience that may be coming out next week!

Christmas was also a whirlwind & sitting here writing about it just a week later, feels like a century ago.

Now it’s New Year’s Eve. We sit on the precipice of 2022 & I fear much like so many of us felt around the holidays this year it doesn’t exactly feel much like something worth celebrating. We once again have COVID raging across the world, we have labor shortages, & the world seems bleak but I’d advise you to look over your year & find those shining moments, the diamonds in the rough. Look back on them with fondness, with love & realize that’s what will make up the next year for you as well; small moments of human joy that bring out our appreciation for this life we’re given.

I know it’s not always easy & I know it’s hard to be hopeful when things seem such a mess but as I’ve said before, preserve. Find daily moments of gratitude & get to know yourself a little deeper.

I love you all dearly, Happy New Year & thank you ever so much for reading these. It is my true joy to connect with people & make them feel even the slightest bit more seen than they did mere minutes before coming across my words or my songs.

God Bless You All!

I wish you nothing but a prosperous & fulfilling 2022.

-C

Blog: I'll Have A "Blue Christmas," Thank You Very Much!

If you’re like me you like the sadder things in life. I’m not talking about wallowing in grief, I simply enjoy the sadder songs, sadder movies, sadder books because they evoke a prominent feeling within me. I’m not ashamed, as a man, to admit that I rather enjoy things that make me cry, there’s something therapeutic in the release of pent up emotion throw the windows of the soul. I have always been drawn to break-up songs, to films about hardship that don’t necessarily have the happiest of endings. I find the most poignant moments of human connection & expression through art tend to be heightened in these moments.

Another side of the coin that is me is not a fan of the holidays, I’ve always found them stressful & lonely even when surrounded by those you love. The expectation is always just way too high. There’s always so much pressure around the holidays for everything to be perfect; the food, the gifts, the music, etc., all of it has to sparkle & shine with the luster of the lights we surround ourselves with in this time. It’s not for me. I think to some extent the holidays seem too manicured for my taste, we put layers of wrapping over our problems & grievances & tie our emotions all up in a bow topped with a smile. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to the point at hand that I established in the first paragraph.

If you don’t fall in line with holiday cheer you’re labeled as a Scrooge or a Grinch when in reality I think the holidays put a massive lens on the places in which we feel pain, especially where friends, family, & other relationships are concerned. It shows us that we’re not making enough money, or haven’t been successful enough in the previous months to truly dote upon those we love in the fashion that we wish we could. In short the holidays are very painful for so many of us, but we become the outcast for not falling into a jolly line.

I’ve always had a hard time with masking emotion when it comes to the holidays, I grew up in a family where things often got swept under the rug if they were considered counter to the mood or feelings of the rest of the family. Not trying to devalue my family or upbringing, it’s just a very midwestern/southern thing to do that I’m sure many of you also grew up with.

All of that being said, the music of the holidays that I tend to gravitate towards are those that many would deem “depressing.” I love the lonesome, longing, heartbroken songs that truly exemplify the emptiness of the holiday season & I found that quite a few people feel the same way.

Is this a blog designed to promote the “Holiday Blues” playlist I made? Not entirely, but partially I guess. I felt that after assembling the playlists & getting a lot of response on them that I should explain a little about why I connect with this type of music on such a deep level.

The holiday season has always appeared to me as a glaze over of our interpersonal problems as well as those facing the world. We cover the slush of winter with packages & bows & cheer ignoring the hurt, so I appreciate music that speaks to that longing for understanding & connection.

If you’re interested in my Holiday Blues playlists I’ll link them below!

Happy Holidays to you all!

I hope it’s as stress free & warm as it can be but understand there’s absolutely no pressure to feel “in the holiday spirit.”

Have a great weekend!

-C

Blog: The Impending Doom Of 30

I feel that a lot of people are excited about turning 30; they’ve worked through the clunky bits of life, figured out who they are & what their interests are & they are ready to openly embrace the next stage of adulthood & officially wave goodbye to, what most seem to consider anyway, adolescence. I however do not share in that exuberance, I am not looking forward to turning 30, or at least I wasn’t.

Excitement for your 30s often stems from feeling fulfilled in the aspects of your 20s that you wanted to make happen. You achieved the goals & dreams you’d set for yourself & now its time for those aspirations to mature along side of you. I however, do not feel I’ve met the aspired goal of my 20s & that makes me, in all honesty, fearful. I work in an industry that can be very vain a lot of the time, it strives to make stars out of the adolescent because, let’s face it, who goes to concerts & actively listens to current music? The adolescent.

I remember being at a meeting when I was 27 at a major agency in Nashville where someone said something to the effect of “oh, you’ve still got a few more years where you can make it” in response to learning my age at the time. That is a sentiment that has been peekabooing in & out of my brain more & more as my 30th birthday rapidly approaches.

If I’m being completely honest I’m not nearly as far along career wise as I’d hoped I’d be at this point. I always figured I’d be two albums deep at a major label with a global tour by 30, signed to a major publishing company but I guess the saying is true; man makes plans & God laughs.

I also suffer horribly from the plaque of comparison, it often steals my joy & if you read these blogs often you’ll know I touch on that frequently. It is a battle I am constantly losing that I think to some large degree stifles my creativity. It causes me to put immense pressure on myself to “write the next great thing that’ll go viral” or “create something entirely unique that becomes the next big thing.” To create any “art” that is over-the-top, commercially viable BS, instead of the inner working of my heart & mind. You know, the thing that actually makes you an interesting artist.

Lately it seems that the almighty above or the universe itself recognize this state of panic & have done everything in their power to present me with media that seeks to placate my nerves.

Last night I had the pleasure of watching Lin-Manuel Miranda’s screen adaptation of “tick, tick…BOOM!” staring Andrew Garfield, a show I hadn’t seen since I was in high school. The musical, which is autobiographical in nature, centers around musical writer Jonathan Larson as he strives to strike gold in the musical theater world. Often the thief of Larson’s joy, comparison plays a bit part in the show itself as he too panics with the thought of turning 30 with nothing to show for his artistic efforts. He even goes as far as citing the fact that at this point in their lives McCartney had already written his last song with Lennon & Sondheim (RIP) had already premiered Sunday In The Park With George. While the musical that the show is about doesn’t make it to Broadway his next effort, “tick, tick…BOOM!” had slight success but it wasn’t until he was 35 that he wrote one of the most impactful pieces of musical theater in history, RENT.

Likewise, another bit of media that landed in my lap was Tabitha Brown’s “Feeding The Soul (Because It’s My Business).” If you don’t know who Tabitha Brown is, she’s a sweet soul that rose to prevalence over Tik Tok who has fought her whole life to be an actor & now is signed with one of the largest talent agencies in the world & is currently working on two of her own shows! Tabitha is 42 by the way & didn’t get “discovered” til she was 40.

Example after example after example has fallen into my field of consciousness to the point where I think I finally get the message, I actually think it’s going to stick that age is just a number, we all bloom & thrive in our own time & that timing is divine. Sometimes there are lessons you need to learn about yourself, the world, or those around you before you can soar. Sometimes you don’t realize what you truly want until you’ve been through the trial & error of seeing what you don’t want. Either way, I’m done being afraid of my 30th birthday. I’m done thinking it has some baring on what my level of success can be & who will be interested in what I have to say. I’m going to keep being me & pushing onward, come 30 or high water.

Keep your chin up & have a marvelous weekend.

Much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Sympathy Vs. Empathy

A few weeks ago I was part of a songwriting workshop with a few of my fellow songwriters led by Leena Regan. One of the first things she started out with on the very first day of the workshop was reiterating the importance of trust & vulnerability in the co-writing space. It is often very hard to be vulnerable with people if you don’t trust what they’ll do with the information you give them after all. We as writers, or I guess even as humans, tend to paint the broad strokes of our stories & negate the little intimate details that personalize the story to you. I think a lot of us have been taught over the years that broad strokes equal more of a mass appeal & I’d argue that’s a false belief.

Think of your favorite artists, think of your favorite songs. Are they broad or are they very specific to the story being told or the life of the artist/writer in question? I’m going to go ahead & guess that, for the most part, they’re very specific. These are the songs we should all be trying to write, those that are personal to us, those that convey emotion not only in the listener but also in the artists themselves. Ever watched an artist try to sell a song they have no attachment to? It’s painful.

So what’s my point in all this? How does this relate to all of you non-writers out there? How does this apply to your life? Leena’s next point in fostering a creative space conducive to specific art is to approach the write, the story of life you’re being told, with empathy.

I think most people assume that they’re empathetic humans, I’m not arguing that you’re not, but I would like to highlight, as Leena did with us, the importance in the differences between being sympathetic & being empathetic. I think a lot of people assume they’re synonymous. That sympathy & empathy are one in the same, but at simply is not the truth. Let’s break it down by definition first.

Dictionary.com defines sympathy as ‘feelings or impulses of compassion.’ Well then what is compassion? It is ‘a feeling of deep sympathy & sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.’ Meanwhile the definition for empathy reads ‘the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.’ Notice the difference there? Sympathy boils down to simply feeling, it does not seek to equalize, it simply exists as a separation. You feel this way & I recognize it, but I want to fix or change it. Empathy on the other hand is the equalizer. It is identifying something within yourself that can relate to the other person’s experience. It does not seek to repair or alter, it seeks to humanize & understand.

There’s an excellent video from Brené Brown that was shared along within the lesson, in it she shows that often the sympathetic seek to divert. “I lost my house.” “At least you had a house to lose.” “I failed out of college.” “Well, at least you could afford to go in the first place.” Where in the empathetic would approach “I lost my house” with something along the lines of “I’m so sorry to hear that, I’m here for you & I’ll do my best to meet you where you’re at emotionally” or “I failed out of college” with “do you want to talk about it?” It does not seek to repair or override someone else’s life experience or emotion. I’ll link Brené’s video below, she explains it a lot better than I do. It’s also a short video that I promise it’s worth the watch!

I have said quite often in blogs of the past that I feel we as humans sorely lack empathy. I think it is one of the biggest things dividing us as people. So many of us strive for empathy but stop at sympathy, we do not bring ourselves into the experience of another to the best of our ability, instead we simply seek to divert & adjust. In the writing space beautiful art is born from a space of empathy, in the corporate world employers begin to understand their employees, in the political world we begin to recognize & acknowledge those we marginalize & belittle. Empathy is the key to all of it. It takes the selfish angle out of the picture & instead strives for human understanding. We could all use a bit more empathy, we could all show a bit more love & understanding.

I write all of this from a place of love & with a desire to unify, not alienate, but I hope the next time someone comes to you with their pain or troubles that the words “at least” don’t appear in your response. Treat your peers, your family, your loved ones, your colleagues, your grocer, your gas station attendant, your etc, with empathy not just sympathy. We each deserve to be met where we are not passively rushed out of our strife.

I hope you have a great weekend & remember be loving to one another.

-C

Blog: Be Kind, Remind(er).

Tis the season once again, the holiday season & with it comes all the ingrained stress. Lines get longer, the gifts we wanted to give or the ingredients we needed to make that one special dish get more & more scarce. Tensions rise & often with it, so do tempers. We often get lost in the capitalistic frenzy of “I need, we need” that we forget about the people we interact with on the day to day basis. Having spent some time myself working in customer service space; from being a barista to driving ride share, I can personally tell you when the weather turns cold, so do the people, at least where November/December are concerned.

This blog actually came at the request of a dear friend of mine who basically wanted me to use this platform as a PSA. She works as a barista & for whatever reason people think it’s okay to treat those hand preparing a beverage for you like garbage. I know the feeling, I’ve been there. People can often make you feel dirt low simply for the dumbest of reasons. I don’t know what brings people to the point of being completely & utterly devoid of empathy but I guess that’s a question we try to answer each & every election cycle as well.

I guess the point of this PSA style blog is simply to remind you to be kind. I know for many of you that isn’t necessarily a problem, but I feel the point needs reiterating. You have to understand that the people preparing your coffee, ringing you up at the gas station, running around returning the mountains of clothes that have been tried on, restocking shelves, waiting your table, driving you home, etc. are exactly that, people. They are, as you are, flesh & bone. They have their own lives, their own desires, their own struggles, their own disappointments, & their own thoughts that are equally as valid as your own. You do not out rank them in humanity simply by being a customer.

I truly think one of the most harmful practices we as humans have engrained into the customer service space is that “the customer is always right.” The customer is most definitely not always right. Let me say that again. You, as the customer, are not always right. If you make the customer the one & only priority as an employer you completely negate & dehumanize the needs of your employees. In addition to being better people to one another in the customer exchange, I think the current state of The US in general is also emphasizing the need for employers to do better.

You don’t need to be an asshole to get your point across, if anything I’ve found that usually ends up getting you farther from your goal. If you treat people with the respect & dignity they deserve you are 1000% more likely to get what you want or need. And maybe that’s the key to my super power, maybe that’s the key to getting a reservation anywhere you go, not being an asshole about it & genuinely taking an interest in the wellbeing of the people you interact with.

This is all a long form way of saying, be kind. Tis the season of giving; thanks, gifts, love, so give kindness a shot. You may find it makes you feel better as well. To quote a dearly departed mentor of mine, Billy Block, “if you see someone without a smile, give them yours.”

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: I’m Neurodivergent & You Can Too!

Yesterday I received confirmation in the form a diagnosis for something that I’ve been fairly certain of for a while now. I truly hope this wasn’t something that I manifested into my life by believing it to be true, nor do I think it defines me, but it is what it is. No, I’m not dying, no, it’s not a physical ailment. In terms of physicality, with the exception of a hyperactive allergic response system, my body is a-okay! Yesterday, after several months of formal testing, interviews, & the like, I was diagnosed with ADHD.

At first I was over the moon about this information, I finally had factual evidence to back up the thing that I have a strong feeling was there all along. It felt a tad like an “I told you so” moment, where I got to sit back & show the truth to those who had doubted me for years & years, including those in the medical field. I wanted to email or call up everyone that denied me & show them the extent of how wrong they were (I scored an 87/100, the threshold for ADHD being 65), but that’s just being spiteful. Then that feeling began to shift. You see, in addition to my newly minted neuro-divergence I was also diagnosed with consistent moderate depression, but we already knew that didn’t we? (See the plethora of blogs I’ve written in regards to mental health.) However, depression does this lovely little thing where it likes to seep into everything you do, for the most part I’ve gotten pretty good at blocking it out, but last night was different.

As it began to permeate my thoughts I began to think about my past, to think about all of the years I asked psychologists or therapists if I could get formally tested & they denied me. All of the sudden all of the symptoms in my life that I had jokingly brushed off as a part of my assumed ADHD became very real & cemented themselves as fact, not just a feeling I had. I suddenly found myself starring into a valley of grief & regret that I could not for the life of me escape.

I thought about school, how it could have been different if I’d been diagnosed &/or treated. I thought about my career & all of the times I knew I should have been doing things but could not for the life of me bring myself to do them, sometimes these blogs included. When it comes to ADHD it all boils down to one thing, following the dopamine.

So why wasn’t this caught earlier? Why did it take me til the 2nd half of my 29th year to uncover a truth I’d always known? That boils down to masking.

In addition to the ADHD, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, bipolar, etc. panel they also had me do an IQ test. Much to my ego’s delight, I scored in the “highly intelligent” section which is a lot of the reason my neurological nature went unnoticed. People who are different, those of us who grew up queer, depressed, social awkward, have attention variability dysfunctions, etc. learn to mask. We learn to camouflage our differences because we feel it either helps us to fit into society better or we don’t want to burden people with having to cater a response unique to each of us. My intellect got in the way of a lot of my symptoms because I overcompensated for my differences or didn’t voice my struggled or misunderstandings. I also lacked the physical hyperactivity of the traditionally stereotypical ADHD kid so I guess I can’t blame those in my childhood for not noticing.

All of this led to my grief; I mourned for the “could have been, would have beens” even though they may never existed anyway. I went through the spectrum of emotions until I could process them no longer & my brain felt fried. I called my parents & my mother reminded me that lingering on the past is a lost cause, what’s written is done & moving forward into brighter things is the only option.

I have begun believing more & more in divine timing. I think successful relationships happen only when we’ve put in the time & the work to be ready for them. I think advances in career do the same thing, so maybe there was a reason I wasn’t meant to have confirmation of this information until now. Maybe it’s a reason that I have yet to see or understand but in hindsight will appear perfect. I don’t know. All I know is that’s what I’m choosing to believe, I’m choosing to create a new start going forward further understanding who I am as a person & what makes me tick under the hood.

Far be it from me to think ADHD is a death sentence or like there’s something wrong with me, I actually think down the line we will all progress towards neurodivergent brains especially as technology advances & our focus continues to divide. I think it’s a natural part of our evolution, society just hasn’t caught up yet which then sends those of us who think differently spiraling into depression as we fail time & time again to fit in.

If you have a feeling about yourself please don’t hesitate to consult someone about it, especially if it’s medical. Be firm & insistent on getting the testing & treatment you need but also be aware your thoughts have power to them. Sometimes the things we dread become us but other times they were already there. This diagnosis does not define me, it doesn’t change who I am as a person, it just gives me more context into navigating the world going forward & for that I am grateful.

I love you all dearly, know that I see you & value you as a human being. Keep pushing on & remember to be kind to one another & yourself.

-C

Travel Blog: Disneyland (COVID Edition)

FORWARD

Hi friends,

Happy Friday!

As many of you know, I, on the occasion that I get to travel & do fun things, tend to write travel blogs about those experiences. The past couple of weeks I have held residency in LA primarily for work but I also managed to clear up a day just to make Disneyland happen. I wanted to share what I found there & how it differed specifically from my trips to Disneyland in the past. I also wanted to frame this in the light of my usual travel blog with pictures & stories to add a bit more fun into the mix.

I hope you enjoy!

BTW, unlike my other travel blogs that are often many parts, this will only be one. I was only there for one day.

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DISNEYLAND/CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE

Allow me to start this by saying that I am not a Disney adult. I am a huge fan of a lot of the mouse’s properties specifically where things like Star Wars & Marvel are concerned, I am also a lover of animated films, but I am by no means a fanatic, nor am I a Disney Parks fanatic. I don’t have the inside scoop, as of yet, BUT I did do quite a deal of pre-planning before even setting foot in their doors, which during the current Ponderosa Steakhouse, is a requirement.

Let me first say that to even get into the parks, under the current conditions, you have to reserve your ticket & your parks ahead of time through the Disneyland App. We wanted to park hop, so we had to book our reservations & date of entry extra early. In addition to your park reservation you also have to make virtual queue reservations for two of the current rides, Rise of the Resistance in Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge & W.E.B. Slingers in California Adventure’s Avengers Campus. Reservations for which open up at 7 AM the day of.

I set my alarm the morning of our trip for 6:55 AM in order to get up & make our ride reservations. They allow you to form groups in the app, combining all party members’ tickets into one section so that you can book for the entirety of your party & not just one person at a time. We had been assigned a starting point of Disneyland with our park hopper pass which meant we couldn’t apply for a spot in the W.E.B. Slingers’ virtual queue until noon, we also weren’t allowed to enter California Adventure at all until 1 PM…with that park closing at 6 that night for Oogie Boogie Bash, a halloween party that requires a completely separate ticket & reservation…Anyway, I logged on right at 7 AM & our virtual queue spot for Rise of the Resistance was set to be around 11:45-12 PM. That should show you how quickly they fill up. Think of it like Southwest Airlines boarding group check-in.

We arrived at the park a little later than I’d have liked which ended up being around 11 AM. Disneyland is currently opening its doors at 8 AM & California Adventure does the same at 10 AM. They also are apparently not running the tram system at the moment. How that prevents the spread of COVID when you spend the day masked up with a ton of strangers all crammed together on rides, I’ll never know. So yes, you have to walk from the parking garage to the park entrances & yes, it is a walk, around a half a mile.

We entered Disneyland & immediately headed to Galaxy’s Edge. As I mentioned above I am partial to Star Wars which is probably the understatement of the century. I love Star Wars, truly, deeply. I grew up on it, I have been many a character from Star Wars for halloween, I consume all the lore & media available around Star Wars. So I was looking forward to this portion of the park to say the least. Quite frankly I was convinced that I was going to cry walking into Galaxy’s Edge but I didn’t! I definitely had the cheesiest of grins though.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

Upon entering Galaxy’s Edge we immediately went looking for food & drink, we were all pretty hungry. I popped into the Milk Stand & got a Blue Milk & a Toydarian Swirl. I liked the Blue Milk a lot, the Toydarian Swirl, not so much. It was overly salty for some reason & they’d put way too much tajin on it for my taste. After a drink we walked over to Ronto Roasters for some lunch. Ev & I both got a Ronto Wrap (a sausage topped with pulled pork, peppercorn sauce, & tangy slaw all wrapped up in a pita) & Jenna got the Ronto-less Garden Wrap (a plant based sausage, kimchi, pickles, & peppercorn sauce also atop a pita). In addition to the wraps we also got an assortment of drinks; the Tatooine Sunset & Meiloorun Juice. I preferred the Meiloorun Juice but ended up swapping it out with Jenna & Evan because they couldn’t pallet the Tatooine Sunset, which I truly didn’t mind.

After lunch it was time for us to join our physical queue for Rise of the Resistance. Yes, you heard that right, after you spend several hours in a virtual queue you then have to spend around 20-30 minutes in a physical queue. While in the queue it became time for us to book our spots in the W.E.B. virtual queue. We tried & we tried to get in but the app wouldn’t let us through so we ended up missing out on a spot in the queue…more on that later. We got onto Rise of the Resistance & I immediately started geeking out. The ride operates in a fashion that makes it so you enter a landing ship in the park before being sent into space & being picked up by a star destroyer. You then exit through the same doors you entered through into the hanger of the star destroyer, it’s fantastically immersive! From there you’re shown to your “prison holding cell” where you are busted out by members of the Resistance cutting through the wall. You’re then set in a cart led by a droid & have to escape the star destroyer before returning to Batuu i.e. Galaxy’s Edge. It’s truly a superb ride with some impressive effect & animatronic work involved!

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

By the time we got off the ride it was almost time for us to enter California Adventure. Did I mention the park was beyond crowded the day we went?! So most waits for rides were at the bare minimum thirty to forty minutes. We got to Cali Adventure right around our entry time & made a be-line to Avengers Campus. We did this partially because much like Star Wars I’m a tad Marvel obsessed but then so is Jenna, at least where the MCU is concerned, & partially to try & fix our virtual queue issues with W.E.B.. I was given the task of talking our problem over with a park manager because, if you remember in my previous travel blogs, I have a super power of always being able to get a reservation anywhere. I explained to the parks manager what happened, may have been a tad exaggerated on the details while keeping them honest, but when he looked at our party he found no reason we shouldn’t have been able to make the reservation & added us to the last queue of the day, 5:30 PM. Bag secured.

Once we’d secured our reservation in the virtual queue we headed to Pym’s Tasting Lab for some libations. It was a hot day in Southern California & water, amongst other drinks, were a must. Evan & Jenna got the Honey Buzz, which they both agreed was way too sweet, & I got the Particle Fizz because anything P.O.G., Passionfruit, or Guava will always get my vote. We took our drinks & walked over to Pixar Pier to ride The Incredicoaster, an Incredibles themed launch coaster. Along the way we also snagged a few bottles of water & a pickle which we had downed completely by the time we boarded the ride.

I was more than pleasantly surprised by The Incredicoaster! It was truly a lot of fun. The drops were there but not too extreme, the twists & loops were also there but again, not too intense & the theming of The Incredibles trying to catch Jack-Jack fit perfectly. There’s even a part of the ride where they pump in the smell of fresh baked cookies (subliminal advertising for the cookie stand at the ride’s exit)!

After the rollarcoaster we came to the consensus of being way too hot & hopped over to Ariel’s Undersea Adventure because it was indoors & air conditioned. The ride itself is fine, a dark ride that casually takes you through animatronic events of the movie, but we had really gone in just to get cooled down seeing as it also had no wait.

We left the pier & went back to Avengers Campus to try & get on Guardians of the Galaxy-Mission: BREAKOUT! but they had just closed it for a re-theme they do during Halloween that revolved around monsters of the MCU. So instead we got food. At Pym’s Test Kitchen Ev & I split the Not So Little Chicken Sandwich & Jenna had the PB3 Superb Sandwich sans Candied Bacon. The food there was excellent with the exception of the stale bread on the chicken sandwich which we easily removed & ate like a fried chicken steak. I also got a Proton PB&J Punch here which was a fascinating drink to say the least.

We decided to go back to Disneyland because most of the rides we wanted to do were there, our reservation for W.E.B. wasn’t until 5:30, & all the ride queues were short seeing as everyone & their mother had flocked to California Adventure for that 1 PM call time.

Upon re-entry of the land we made our way to Indiana Jones Adventure, one of the best rides in the whole park if you’re asking me or Jenna! The line was relatively nonexistent so we were on & off in a breeze. We then made our way over to Pirates of the Caribbean, which, if you haven’t ridden, is 1,000X better at Disneyland than its Disney World counterpart! I said what I said & I’m sticking to it. After we had basically, again, walked onto Pirates the people were starting to return from California Adventure. We snagged a few Spicy Pickles from Bengal Barbecue & walked back on over to Cali Adventure just in time for our W.E.B. reservation.

If I’m being completely honest we weren’t exactly the most upset about not getting a W.E.B. reservation initially. You see we thought the ride was going to be very similar to Toy Story Midway Mania in the sense that both rides are “shooting gallery” style where each individual person racks up points shooting at targets. We weren’t really into the idea of that, but we went! We’d put in the effort to secure the resy so why not give it a whirl? There was no one in line when we got there & we actually walked onto this ride, that is after the ride pre-show played, shout out to Tom Holland, pleasure getting to see you as always.

I’m going to lay this out flat for you all. RIDE W.E.B. SLINGERS IF YOU GET THE CHANCE!!! The ride is a complete & utter blast! You are loaded into a cart, Toy Story style, you are given 3D glasses, Toy Story style, but unlike Toy Story there is no mounted gun. “But Charlie,” you may ask, “how do you score points then?” Well my lovelies, you score points by “webbing up” spider-bots & assisting Spider-Man through many different rooms in the ride. What do you use to web up these spider-bots you ask. YOU USE YOUR ARMS!!!! YOU LITERALLY EXTEND YOUR ARM, TOBEY MCQUIRE SPIDEY STYLE, & WEB UP SPIDER-BOTS LIKE THE WEB FLUID IS COMING OUT OF YOUR WRISTS!!!!! It’s a workout for sure but honestly was probably the most fun we had all day!

We exited the park right around the time it closed for Oogie Boogie Bash but not before I picked up a shiny set of display web shooters that I actually ended up using as part of a last minute Peter Parker Halloween costume that weekend. When we once again re-entered Disneyland we immediately went for Dole Whip by the Enchanted Tiki Room. The sun was setting, the day was starting to cool of & it was a nice. We then decided to head back over to Galaxy’s Edge.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

If you haven’t caught on, yes, we did spend most of our day bouncing between Avengers Campus & Galaxy’s Edge & I couldn't have been happier about it!

Jenna’s one request when we booked our Disney trip was that we grab drinks at Oga’s Cantina, she wanted herself a Fuzzy Tauntaun (fizzy lip tingling drink). Unfortunately Oga’s is now on a reservation/waitlist system only & all reservations for it are booked out about a month in advance. So we decided to head into Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. On the way to Smuggler’s Run my reservation sense was tingling & the super power once again kicked in. I opened up my Disneyland app to check on Oga’s & it was still showing a ‘full waitlist,’ I clicked the ‘add name to waitlist’ option anyway & much to J’s surprise was immediately given a wait time of 15 minutes. So naturally Smuggler’s Run got to wait.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

In Oga’s I once again start geeking the F out. It’s a Star Wars cantina through & through & it feels like it was literally ripped out of one of the films even though it’s an all new creation. I ordered an Oga’s Obsession (boba & jelly concoction served in a petri dish) & The Outer Rim (a pomegranate margarita-esque cocktail), followed by a Takodana Quencher (dragonberry rum with kiwi & pineapple) which I was not a fan of. The other two things were bomb though! J got a Fuzzy Tauntaun, naturally, & Batuu Bites, an assortment of crispy veggies. She was disappointed to find the fizz wasn’t tingly this go round & apparently it had been a problem all day. Evan got Jabba Juice, a non-alcoholic orange/pinepple boba drink.

Oga’s Obsession

After we’d payed our tab at Oga’s it was almost time for the thing I’d looked forward to doing all. freakin. day! It was time for me to build my lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop! Yet another thing that you have to book in advance, Savi’s allows you to build a custom lightsaber all your own. You first choose what type of hilt you want; something reminiscent of the Old Republic, or maybe the Jedi themselves, something more in line with the dark side, or maybe something more that feels like having had to had scavenged for parts. I chose “Peace & Justice” a style more inline with the Jedi.

Once you choose your hilt style you are given a pin to mark which your preference was before being shown into the “back room” of Savi’s to construct your saber amongst around 10-12 other people. I was placed dead center. Like the whole show that accompanies the build was happening right in front of me. This is the moment I expected to cry, the moment I assembled my own lightsaber. I didn’t. I was, however, visibly shaking. To quote Evan it was like an ecstatic tremble.

The first thing that happens once you’re placed is that you’re told to choose your Kyber Crystal. Your options are blue, green, violet, or red (you can buy more colors & crystals in the store next door). I chose blue, anyone surprised there? After choosing your crystal you are given the interior mechanism of your hilt & instructed to insert your Kyber Crystal. The assistants of the show then place your designated tray of parts in front of you & you are walked through the process of building your hilt around the inner mechanism. You have the options of two different pummels, two different igniters, two different emitters, & four different grips (of which you pick two). When your construction is done the cast members come around & place your hilt into an “ignition chamber” attaching it to a blade. You then all ignite your sabers at once as the room darkens & the chambers all open simultaneously. Chills. Instant full bodied chills. I got them but still, no tears much to my surprise. In addition to my blue crystal I also got a red & a white, the latter of which I lean the most towards. If you understand Star Wars lore you know what that means.

I tried desperately to get Jedi robes & a tunic while at Disney but they said they’d been sold out of them for months. I had planned to use that as my Halloween costume for the weekend but I guess some plans fall apart. I even tried to get a Resistance pilot suit but alas everything was too small.

Our last venture of the evening was Smuggler’s Run, yes we made it aboard! Another ride that I cannot recommend enough, Smuggler’s Run puts you in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. In a crew of six two people are assigned pilot (one controls vertical stick, the other horizontal), two people are gunners, & two people are engineers. It’s a lot of fun & I may have gotten a little too competitive in the midst of it.

With the park closing down & exhaustion setting in we walked (ugh) the trek back to the car & made for In-N-Out for a late night dinner. Overall I’d say it was a pretty great day at Disney, I just wish it hadn’t been so crowded so we could’ve ridden more things or maybe ridden things multiple times!

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FN-2187

Blog: Boundaries, Have You Set Them?

We are in the middle of what has been designated “The Great Resignation.” What that means/what that entails has been the mass exodus of workers from the corporate world. Why are people leaving in droves? In short, they’re realizing their worth. The silver lining that has shown through the cloud of the pandemic has been that people have grown sick of being treated like cogs in the corporate machine. They have looked at their lives, looked at the impending mortality presented by a global pandemic as well as the ever escalating climate emergency, & thought “WTF am I doing with my life?!” It’s hard sending yet another BS work email on the behalf of someone who doesn’t care a lick about you or your well-being while the world literally burns outside your door. People are realizing that for so long we have lived at the whims of our corporate overlords & that life isn’t meant to be lived under lifeless florescence of a forty+ hour work week for not even close to a livable wage.

This all boils down to the fact that for so long we as workers were encouraged to compromise ourselves for the sake of our jobs. We have been asked to overstep the outlined terms of our employment & go above & beyond what exactly we were hired to do. It is not only the norm but the expectation. If you aren’t sacrificing your time, your health (mental or physical), your desires for the sake of some company that wouldn’t do the same for you, you’re a bad employee & people are sick of it & if I’m being honest, I’m so happy that their sick of it.

Living your life slowly working your way into the husk of a human is no way to live. We are meant to explore, to socialize, to connect with each other, with our planet. We are meant to run & breathe & be free, not to be chained to a desk for the majority of our lives. This is where boundaries come in. We as a society are in a pivotal moment where we can renegotiate the societal contracts that have minimized so many of us for so long. We are in a position to demand the bare minimum things that we should have been receiving all along but that mentality doesn’t need to be limited to our work lives.

So many friends of mine who come to me for advice could use a healthy reestablishment of their boundaries. Whether it’s familial, interpersonal, whatever, so many people I know don’t know how to tell the people in their lives “no.” It may stem from fears of abandonment or rejection but we are often far too afraid to “offend” the people closest to us. Here’s a little secret, if you can’t be honest with the people close to you about the things that harm you or diminish your quality of life then you’re not that close to them. Those who love & respect you will hear you out & put in effort to honor the boundaries you’ve set. You should be able to sit down with your friends & family members & have a conversation about something they’ve done that harmed you or made you uncomfortable & have them hear you & I mean really hear you, not just passively listen. You should be able to do all of this before these things happen as well. Your loved ones should honor & respect your predetermined boundaries.

Boundaries are healthy, they allow us to assert our health & wellbeing into our lives & keep us in check. I think we all need a healthy dose of them from time to time but I also think it’s okay for you to constantly be pushing your own boundaries to expand your realm of comfort. As Elizabeth Gilbert says “fear is boring” it is a boring emotion to have because it always leads you to the same place of nothing. Respect your own boundaries that keep you happy but don’t be afraid to tweak them from time to time. Also don’t expect people to automatically know where your lines in your sand are set, communicate.

As always I hope you all have a fantastic week! Shout out to Jenna Vitolo for this week’s prompt, it’s always a fun exercise for me to get ideas listed at me & see what sends my brain into a tangent, this week it was this, next week it’ll definitely be something different! Keep up the good work & stay healthy out there!

-C

Blog: Song Scammers

I was reminded this week of an occurrence that happened to me as well as a few other writers I know a couple of months ago. Someone, it seems, has been targeting the songwriting community, a community notorious for having sooooooo much money……, & scamming us.

I received a message a few months ago over Instagram DM. It was a “father” requesting that I, a songwriter, write his son, Solomon, a song for his birthday. I asked for details; what was he looking for, what level of production, what artists he liked, what things he wanted included in the song, etc. Here are the details I was given:

-It was Solomon’s 6th birthday

-Solomon loves Spider-man & Cat-Boy

-Solomon’s best friend’s name is Jena

-Solomon’s dog is named Maxxy

-Solomon’s father likes to “swing him around the room” so he can pretend to be Spider-Man

-He has Cat-Boy pajamas that he runs around the house in

-Solomon’s favorite artists are Jack Harlow, Justin Bieber, & Ed Sheeran

These were all the details I was given to include in this “birthday song” & it was to be in the style of one of the listed artists above. His “father” had also stated that an acoustic demo of the song would be fine, just vocal & acoustic guitar or piano. He was also apparently offering $500 dollars for this song.

I recruited Evan to help me with the song, offering to split the fee with him & we sat down & wrote the damned thing. I had been communicating with the client back & forth regarding the pay & how it would be sent. We’d agreed to PayPal I believe instead of a direct deposit & we were going to do $200 upon completion of the lyrics & the remaining $300 for the finished song & file.

After completing the song I messaged him & told him I was sending over lyrics for his approval & once he signed off on them I’d & got paid I’d send the song over. He then tried to pull some story about how one of his assistants had over extended his account on PayPal so it’d be a week or two before he could send money that way so instead he wanted to send the money direct deposit. I told him I wasn’t comfortable sending my account info over text but would request a direct pay if he could send me his phone number attached to the account. This is when he stopped responding.

I waited a few days before I reached out again, asking if he still wanted the song. No response. I tried again a few days later. No response. I waited a week, again, nothing.

I eventually let it go until we were having game night one night via zoom with our friends, Leena & Max, who live in Australia. I brought up this strange occurrence & they both immediately went white.

Apparently this account, or several other accounts of the like, had been going around targeting songwriters, asking them to write a song with the exact above listed details, & then stealing money from them. How were they doing that? Well, instead of $500 they’d send you several thousand, over extending your account which they’d ask you to refund. They’d then claim somewhere, whether it was their bank or wherever that they never got the funds returned & it would pull an additional several thousand from your account. Apparently this occurrence was happening all over the songwriting worlds of Nashville & LA specifically amongst up & coming or unsigned writers who aren’t exactly rolling in dough.

The reason I bring this up & chose this as my blog topic this week was because I was once again reached out to by a “father” asking me to write a birthday song for his “son, Solomon.”

If you are a writer reading this I want you to heed my warning & report these people. We have a hard enough time getting paid by the avenues that are supposed to pay us, looking at you streaming services, & many of us jump at an opportunity to make easy money like this but it’s a trap.

I’m going to post the lyrics to “Solomon’s Song” below so it doesn’t feel completely wasted, keep in mind we wrote it with the intent of modifications which, naturally, it never received. Enjoy I guess haha.

SOLOMON’S SONG

V1:

Solly, I see it slipping by

How you grow up every night

Something’s older in your eyes

And I’m blessed to get to be there by your side

So take me catboy to the fray

Grab your mask & Maxxy & let’s play

On our grand adventure tell me how you’ll save the day

C:

So I’ll keep swinging you around like Spider-Man

Just as long as these two arms of mine can stand.

I’ll place you high upon my shoulders

Through the endless world before you.

I promise I’ll do all I can

Solomon

V2:

Solly, I can’t believe that

The last six years have come & passed,

I’ve tried my best to make them last

But time’s a gift that we don’t get back

C:

So I’ll keep swinging you around like Spider-Man

Just as long as these two arms of mine can stand.

I’ll place you high upon my shoulders

Through the endless world before you.

I promise I’ll do all I can

Solomon

B:

So take me catboy to the fray

Grab your jams & Jena & let’s play

What grand adventure will you take us on today?

C:

So I’ll keep swinging you around like Spider-Man

Just as long as these two arms of mine can stand.

I’ll place you high upon my shoulders

Through the endless world before you.

I promise I’ll do all I can

Solomon