i miss you jean jean

i don't really plan on making sad posts a common thing, but this one is going to be one. well, maybe not sad per se but a bit of a downer. this is an open letter to jeanna, a close friend/sister that i lost back in march. i still don't think i've fully come to grasp that i won't see her again, even months later. i miss you jean jean. lately you've been on my mind more and more and i felt compelled to write all of this down.

to understand how close we are (i don't think i'll ever be able to use the past tense), i've known her since i was 12 and she was my best friend's sister so basically my sister. the entire brown family is my family. i send mother and father's day cards to them and always stop in during the holidays even if it's only for a little while.

i got a call while i was in nashville on march 9th, jeanna had her baby boy cameron! i was excited for her and even more excited that i already had a trip to town planned for that weekend so i'd be able to visit her. on the way back from nashville on friday i got the call...jean jean had passed away from an aneurysm thursday night. my sister had died giving birth to a child she wanted more than anything.

dear jean jean,

i miss you, i miss not being able to tell you about my life and what's going on. i miss the advice and the encouragement you always gave me. you'd be happy to know that i've met an amazing girl that makes me really happy. you always worried about me finding someone because of how unhealthy my past couple of relationships were but no worries here. i think you'd have liked her a lot, more than just the fact that she makes me visibly happier but you two could have bonded over your love of dogs and corny jokes. we re-connected (we've known each other for a while) the friday after your funeral, so i like to think that was maybe your last little gift for me.

i'm finally making the necessary preparations to move back to charlotte, like you always asked EVERY TIME we talked haha. haven't been able to find a job yet but it's still really early in the process. i'll be excited to be back up in nc and closer to mere, ml and mark and hopefully be able to stop in and see cameron from time to time. mere puts up a lot of pictures on facebook and he looks a lot like you, definitely has your temperament...all smiles, all the time.

mark and i are still talking a lot, i'm trying to keep him in some resemblance of order but he misses you tons. the starting line are officially back together so hopefully that means he'll be going back on the road doing what he loves again soon. the week of your funeral, i didn't leave his side, i tried to be strong for him, as best as i could. we talked a lot about the beach trip back in july and i'm so glad i got to come up for a couple days. we laughed for a good while about how long and to the extent you went to find me those cheerwine donuts...that i could barely even eat haha.

i'm glad our last conversation centered around how great of a mother you were going to be to cameron and for those 8 hours, you were the greatest mother he'll ever know. i miss you, a lot. a lot more than i'll ever admit out loud i guess but here, hiding behind the internet and a keyboard, i can say it. you know me...too stubborn to admit weakness, even when it's not really a weakness.

this was our last picture together. no idea why i'm the center of it (it was your wedding haha) but even from only seeing the side of your face, i know you're smiling. i love and miss you jean jean.

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punching writer's block in the throat

so if you've ever had to deal with writer's block, you know how much it sucks. constantly wanting to write something down, to get your emotions on paper but every time you try nothing comes to mind...it's one of the worst feelings. writing, even my crappy songs, keeps me from going insane because otherwise, i don't talk about my emotions...ever. ask the gf how hard it is to get me to talk, she'll back me up on that last statement.

so maybe some of you are wondering, so what? you can't write, what's the big deal? it's not like it's your day job or something. well writing is my therapy and writer's block keeps me from having said therapy so things start building up, it's not good. and once things start building up, my brain does this weird thing where it'll take the smallest negative thought and run through a list of hypotheticals and then take those hypotheticals of the hypotheticals and it turns into a vicious cycle to where i end up getting worried/stressed about something that'll probably never happen. yea........i'm strange. i wish i could stop that, but it's gotten a lot worse as i've gotten older.

this isn't to say that i just run around all day in a conflicted state where i can't say anything but when i really want to write, and i mean really want to write, it's when it hits. so too combat this crippling writer's block, i've thought of a couple of techniques i'm gonna try.


1. stop censoring myself
i'm sure this seems odd, but even when i'm just writing for writing's sake, i censor myself constantly. i worry about being too blunt because i don't want the person i'm writing about to hear it (assuming its a song i send out to the interwebz) and feel bad. but i need to stop and just write exactly how i'm feeling and if need be, apologize later. i do a pretty good job of not holding grudges (unless you're one of the exes that cheated on me, then you can eff off)so it wouldn't necessarily be how i feel about that person overall, just at that time.
2. write a story
this is the one that i'm most excited about. when i say story, i don't mean a novel or anything but before i start on a song, write down a plot line, characters and emotions i want to portray. then maybe add in environment details (i.e. type of town, description of the scenery). Writing the story from the outside in and not necessarily trying to write down my personal feelings could help out a lot when i do NEED to write down my thoughts/emotions.

3. learn other songs
i use to learn other artist's songs all of the time but in the past couple of years, i've stopped. i need to start this up again. this will just lighten up some of the pressure i put on myself and will also help with ideas for chord progressions, melodies, etc...

i don't know if any of these will work but they're worth a shot. i want to be able to express whatever emotion i may be feeling so i'm not always holding it in...fingers crossed!

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i've got a soundcloud

so as some of you probably know, i've been talking about doing an acoustic EP/LP for quite a while. it's not anywhere close to being a reality but i've at least made a step forward in it...i've made a sound cloud account! you can check it out here if you're so inclined. i'm using the moniker Urban Electric Company, I saw it on a building once and liked it.

the sound cloud account doesn't seem like much of a step, but i'm really self-conscious about my songs. i think they all suck so this is my way of putting my demos out there for public ridicule. it's also a way for me to listen through the songs and make mental notes (and actual notes on the sound cloud track itself which is neat) to try and improve on the good parts instead of just throwing the songs away like i do normally. all of the songs up there now are demos and have plenty of things wrong with them but i think they have some of the most potential out of the 30+ i've got written. man, i wish i could sing...that'd save me a lot of stress. at least that's what i tell myself but in reality, i'd just find something else to dislike about a song.

below is my newest song, that's actually quite a few weeks old but i still like it.

Devils and Saints by Urban Electric Company

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the man, the myth, the legend.........the jort king

so hef and i were joking about me making a post about his mullet and jorts and then i realized....too funny not to. for those that don't know, hef is one of my best friends. if he had a blog, he'd be down there in the bottom right corner with kyle (chowlb).

the dude is awesome. helped me through a lot of personal crap, played in bands with him for the closer part of forever, been lucky enough to call him a best friend for closer to 10 years now,  so here you go, good sir, a blog post about your mullet and jorts.

the infamous mullet. if he didn't have that crap yankees hat on, it'd be magnificent

the jorts. i wish i could pull off jorts this well...look at those legs

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