I haven't so much been wanting to write lately. And I wonder if that's because... well, I wonder what's causing it. I've been sleeping different hours... going to bed later and getting up later. I've been working more. We don't have TV anymore, so I read in my down time, which I think engages my brain far more than watching TV, making me feel less compelled to engage my brain by writing. But really, I don't know if any of those things has anything to do with it.

I got home from seeing Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer about half an hour ago. They were wonderful, of course. I even went up and, very blushingly I'm sure, talked to Dave for a minute, and requested a song ("Kate and the Ghost of Lost Love"), which they played. And they thanked me from the stage, I guess for being a local radio station person. I don't know. I get such a kick out of things like that even though I know how silly they are.

I'm going to post their setlist here because currently it's living in my back pocket and I know I'll lose it if I don't put it in electronic form.

The River, Where She Sleeps
Crocodile Man
Gentle Arms of Eden
The Power and Glory
I Go Like the Raven
Lancelot
Hey Conductor

Charlottesville (the Flowers and Times)
Highway 80 (She's a Mighty Good Road)
Tanglewood Tree
The Mountain
Cat-Eye Willie Claims His Lover
Dark Womb
When I Go
Liza Jane
Kate and the Ghost of Lost Love

Farewell to Bitterroot Valley
Elvis Presley
236-6132

Oh dear, it was wonderful. And on Sunday I get to see Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. It's a good weekend for folk music.

I don't know, maybe I just don't have the stamina for writing that I used to. Maybe I don't have the inner turmoil. Maybe I'm not depressed enough. I'm not depressed at all. It's totally weird. It's not like everything's great and I spend all day bouncing around being pleased... it's just that... I haven't wanted to cry in weeks. Sad things don't overwhelm me anymore. It's incredible. And generally I like it... I love it; it makes things feel so much easier and so much more real. Less is more when it comes to melodrama. But as far as writing goes... I don't know. Journal writing, at least, seems to be one thing that depression is good for. Possibly the only thing.

I've been thinking lots and lots about religion these days, both about religion in general and Christianity more specifically and Catholicism more specifically than that, and about my own religion. It's something I'm sort of afraid to get into, especially at the end of a long day and in writing, because I feel like I have so much to say and I'll feel cheated, or like I've done something wrong, if I don't say it right, or if I don't say it thoroughly enough. To be extremely vague, I realized tonight while listening to Dave and Tracy play that my religious ideas contradict each other intensely. I feel like I could write a book on this... probably not a book that anyone would read, but a book nonetheless. Which is not to say that I will, what with the aforementioned fear of not getting it right, and the general fact that my enthusiasm for any project I come up with is never so great as right before I actually start working on it.

But I'd like to talk about it; I'd like to talk these things out. I'd like to push at these conflicts and see what happens. And I don't know how to do that or who to do it with.

And right now I keep getting distracted by the fact that I'm right smack in the middle of a very interesting Orson Scott Card short story, which I put down to call Curtis (but he was on the phone), so I'm going to go ahead and finish that rather than trying to force out thoughts that aren't ready to come out. And tomorrow -- hey, how's this for braveness -- I'm going to go check out the gym. I live five minutes away now, walking, and once I graduate I'll never have this cheap a gym membership again, I'm sure. So I might as well see whether it's cool.

Bedtime for me, then... not sleep time, but bedtime. What a luxury it is at the end of this busy week to lie in bed and read and not have to set my alarm before falling asleep.