Obsessive Compulsive Admission

I am extremely embarrassed by the strange weight I place on live music and musicians. I am almost ashamed of the meticulous lists and organizational system of photographs on my computer. The half-finished scrapbooks and large laundry basket of photographs in chronological order make me want to cry. When I moved to Fairfax and started school at George Mason University, I finally let go. I stopped making lists and I let my organizational system go to hell. At the end of 2008, all of my folders were named New Folder (1), New Folder (2), and so on. I stopped going to every single show simply because I couldn't; I no longer had a vehicle and I lived too far out to Metro in.

When I got my car back, the drive wasn't there anymore. Now I only go see bands I am extremely comfortable with. And I've traded my camera for a book. That's right; I can go to shows without a camera now. In 2007, I went to 150 shows and I had a camera at 150 of those shows. I had to. I didn't want to miss anything; I wanted to be able to recall anything and have proof of it. I wanted to be an expert at something which I suspect only I cared about. After all, I still have yet to meet anybody with musical fingerprints even a little bit similar to mine.

The horrible point to all of this is that last night I was going through that laundry basket looking for photos from August 22, 2003 and I wanted to cry because I couldn't find them. I was looking for something tangible to hold onto but I couldn't find it. This indicates to me that the photos don't exist because back then, I did not make archival mistakes.