There is a bartender at a bar about four blocks away. I like to go there and read on Sunday afternoons. I want to fuck his brains out. His voice sounds like he had a laryngectomy, he has no tact and he's only a couple inches taller than me.

Damn.

It's been a while since I've posted. I'm sending guilty vibes out into the universe, though I know ultimately that the only person who gives a shit whether or not I write is me. Consider this an apology, oh inner voice. I didn't mean to cut off your flow.

At Clatter and Din, the studio where I am lucky enough to have been chosen, handpicked really, to get people coffee and wipe down counters, there is a small faction of video artists.

These artists work mostly on footage recorded and sent in by small businesses. Marketing attempts.

Carly, the whip-cracker, pulled me aside. "I need you".

She didn't emphasize the "you" as in, I need you, not him or her. But I could sense that it was implied that she needed ME- and I jumped at the chance to do something that didn't require 409 and a coffee grinder and did, maybe, require some semblance of skill.

Headphones on, I immediately recognized the problem. Whoever recorded the audio on this project had, to put it kindly, fucked up. The man's voice, timid and shaky, was masked in a thick layer of noise. I doubt that they had placed him in the middle of a hurricane to record him, but natural disaster in its loudest form is what this audio file suggested.

"Can you fix it?" she asked.

Could I fix it? Absolutely not. Was I going to say yes and give it a try? Yes.

After two hours of knob tweaking, it sounded less totally awful. But not good. All I could think was, "how could someone think this was OK?"

Possible theories:
1) Laziness. No one bothered to check the setup or the result of the recording.
2) Deafness. That one's self explanatory.

Let's be fair. Audio is my area of expertise. If it wasn't, I might make a sub par recording and think it was usable. Not as heinous as the recording in question, but it's plausible that the result wouldn't be too easy on the ears.

Audio is something I get. And this recording was obviously bad. But it makes me wonder what I don't get. What have I screwed up in my life and not even realized? How many "bad audio files" have I recorded? How many engineers have quietly cleaned up after me? How many unpaid interns does it take to eliminate the excess noise in our lives?

Let's get our analogy on, shall we?

In my earlier production days, I would use all clean sounds. Synthesizers with smooth volume envelopes. Shimmery sounds. And something always sounded wrong. The tracks felt thin and lifeless.

Then I discovered bitcrushing. You take a sound and warp it until it's unrecognizable. It sounds crunchy and fuzzy and awful on its own, but in a mix, it transforms the track. It gives it lungs and a raspy, real voice, and a past and a soul.

Like life. The rough patches are necessary.

Yawn. I know that's no new insight, but the tumult in my stomach is easier to tame when I remind myself that Everything Sucking is an entirely necessary concept and that it always, without fail, passes. Eventually.

Purposeful noise, used judiciously. That's the goal from here on out.


[If you have fifteen minutes, you should check out this amazing short film. All the sound design was done by my friend Eric Johnson at C&D. Starring Rider Strong (Sean from Boy Meets World). He showed it to me yesterday, and I was beyond impressed. It got me re-amped on sound design. Much love]

Your Lucky Day from Dan on Vimeo.

I drive a white Volvo, and I drive it (I thought) well.

This morning, I went to move the car. I pulled out of my parking space, tried to change lanes, and hit another car. My first car accident, nothing serious, but I was completely shaken.

I feel like there are certain days/weeks/months where you screw something up and, with each new screw up, you become more prone to screw ups. The harder I try to do everything perfectly, the more I seem to trip over my own feet.

As I wrote this, Sean walked into the kitchen. I immediately started falling over myself apologizing (sound familiar?). I'm close to tears. He is quiet and sweet and when he talked about how he's "concerned with Sarah being in the car", I nearly died. He then proceeded to tell me that he'd rather I take the bus to work. I felt like I was thirteen, and being lectured. I felt like an idiot. I feel like a fucking idiot.

I'm worried that this situation is more than I can handle. I don't like the idea of quitting, because Sarah doesn't deserve that, but does she deserve a nanny who can't drive, worries her dad, and pisses off her mom?

Today I uttered the following sentence:

"You can't go wrong with a pair of white linen pants."

After four hours of styling strangers (I sort of love being a walking In Style magazine), I headed back up the hill to pick up the cat from the vet.

I'm sort of loving routine, dependability. But I really don't like that cat.

I'm making mac and cheese. It's early Sunday morning (1:30 AM) and I have a craving for cheesy chemicals. I can't imagine a better way to satisfy that craving than with Kraft from the box.

Nicole and I went out tonight, we ended up at a "cantina" which was really just an underground bar with a few red and orange lights. Nicole has a last name, which she claims isn't really her name, and a sordid past, about which she won't talk, but who can blame her. She is a confident and beautiful and a perfect partner in crime.

I got hit on by two guys- Kurt and Kirk. Kurt asked for my phone number, then turned around and started to flirt with another girl at the bar. Kirk wanted to give me his phone number- I told I didn't call guys, and he went off in search of a pen and a piece of paper on which he was going to write my number down.

I don't plan on returning either of their (potential) phone calls.

Megan's "partner" (Sarah's dad) is named Sean. Sean is almost 50, Sean is a surfer and kayaker, and Sean proves to be insanely attractive when he talks about his life. Sean (and Megan) seem to have had no plans to have kids. Sarah was a complete surprise. Sean is a lawyer, Megan was.

This afternoon, when Sarah was waking up from her nap, I tried to carry her from the couch to the dining room table, where we would wait for dinner. She woke just enough to complain-

"No! I want Daddy to carry me! His hands are warmer!"
"How do you know? We've both been inside."
"I just know."

She called Sean in to the room. She felt his hands, then asked him to feel mine. I looked up, knowing that any discomfort was stemming from me only. He placed his palm on mine, and as soon as it touched, I pulled away.

"Yup, I guess Daddy is warmer."

He carried her to the table, and thirty minutes later, I walked out of the house, down the street, and into the bar.

After eight years of living with ALS, her voice comes out in spurts. Her enunciation is careful, and imperfect. She scares me, not because her body is a battlefield, but because she is my new employer, and I can't figure out just where I stand.

I saw fire yesterday. I saw rage, and I was the cause of it. I keep replaying the scene in my head. All I can really remember is the anger in her eyes. Around her eyes. The skin contracted and expanded; she shook.

My job description is as follows:

-Nanny to a six year old girl, who was adopted by her great aunt after her mother was deemed unfit.
-Chauffeur
-Disciplinarian
-Surrogate older sister
-Extra set of hands for Megan, who is dying.

Dying.

Today, I can't remember why I took this job.

Sarah, my girl, was away for a few days with her dad. While she was gone, Megan asked me to drive to the community center to sign her up for camp. Are you with me? See if you can spot what I did wrong. I couldn't.

When she returned from camp, I crushed her in my arms. "Guess what I did while you were gone?" She shrugged. "I got you all signed up for camp this summer."

That was our exchange. I have that sort of exchange a hundred times a day. Question and answer. Call and response. Can I get an Amen?

Yesterday, as Sarah climbed into the car, she found the free t-shirt I had been given at registration for her. I explained where it came from, and that was that. I was unaware, and blissful and had already screwed up.

Later, Sarah misbehaved, as six-almost-seven year olds are wont to do. As Megan wrapped up the disciplinary procedures (Sarah was found guilty, sentenced to a time-out), she asked where the t-shirt came from.

Are you bored yet? I am. It's not much of a story. Not worth remembering. I don't really remember. Don't remember what any of us was wearing, or if the sun was out. Not that the state of the sun has anything to do with anything. If it did, then Seattle would be in a permanent state of hiberation, and the plot of our lives would stand still.

"I got the t-shirt when I signed her up for camp."

And that was it. That is what hurt Megan so much that I felt waves of white heat coming off her body. She sent Sarah upstairs, and turned to look at me in disgust.

"Let me clarify something. You have now taken credit for camp twice."

She was right.

"And I'm the mom here."

Right again.

I'm the girl that parents like. I'm polite, I'm hard-working. I say please and thank you. I only get trashed occassionally, and I'm very careful to fill up the gas tank when it's getting low.

I don't know how I screwed up.

Last night, I apologized. I looked into those eyes and apologized, over and over. Most nights that end with apologies yield mornings that seem bright. Today, I woke up confused.

I wonder what dying is like. I wonder if Sarah wonders what dying is like. I bet she does. I think about how much it must weigh on you when you realize that you need to hire someone to help you be a mom. I wonder what the expiration date is for her resentment. I pray that she sees that my heart is in the right place, and that place is my throat.