Been a long time, been a long time....

This morning I was woken up by my menagerie.  One of the living, breathing animals was shuffling around and apparently needed to go to the restroom.  For some strange reason when I muscled myself out of bed, I realized that I felt quite rested after seven hours of sleep.  A few minutes later I let Wednesday Pug (who in checking this link, I've realized has more Facebook friends than I have) back into the house and returned to my magic carpet of memory foam.  My mind started to wander in a few different directions:

"Hmm, New Year's Eve."

"I'm hungry."

"I wonder if I'm getting paid today (turns out not, guess I'll have to wait 'till the 2nd)?"

"I need to put the rough mix up in the Dropbox so that Stuck can practice his singing."

I picked up my iPhone and checked my email and Facebook.  All the while, my beautiful wife was blissfully sleeping the morning away and I was feeling another thought gathering steam in my head: 

"What am I going to do with 2013?" 

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one thinking about this today.  I'm damn sure I won't be the only one writing about it either.  

When I logged into Blogger this a.m. I took a look back at the posts I had made over the course of the year.  There were lots of pictures of animals (big surprise), a mention here and there about my kickass wife, Rachel and some ramblings about how I was coming along with the transition to being "handicapped."  I'm not unique in my ailments.  Sure, I'm unique in that my various doctors and I STILL don't know what has caused my legs to waste away, but I'm just another guy trying to hobble through the day.  Apparently, I used this blog to air the thoughts and frustrations of my situation.  

Turns out, even my own thoughts must have bored me because I haven't posted since May!!  Sometimes life just takes over and due to the fact that I received my RoboCop legs last March, I was moving in very positive directions...and quickly I might add.  Whether I was hitting the dog park with the clan or trekking across a university campus, I was fast!  While sailing through life at a newly posted speed limit of awesome, I had almost forgotten about the painful physical limits I was leaving behind.   That is, until recently.  

I've spent the last couple of weeks without my "legs" as I've called them on my various social media outlets.  My braces, through the nine months of providing me a stark differential in quality of life, had taken a bit of a beating.  After careful examination I realized it was time to send them in for a tune up.  

In the time they were gone I was taken back to a depressing and unbalanced (literally) way of life.  Old Flamey (my rockin' cane) was helping me through it all, though handicapping the hand and arm used to hold onto it.  It takes me FOREVER to get around a grocery store.  Browsing the aisles of temptation at the local Best Buy lost its luster.  The idea of going to the dog park was no where near my wheelhouse.  Despite a relatively blessed life, I spent the first week of my winter vacation in the dumps.  

The weather outside was frightful (fa la la la la? nah, not that one).  The sun made a cameo here and there, but coupled with a crippling cold snap in the weather (contributes to VERY painful legs and feet) followed by muggy mornings followed by the blah in my brain...I almost couldn't wait to go back to work.  Surely peddling higher education to qualified individuals had to be better than sitting at home with so many options in the day, yet finding none of them emotionally appealing.  In my depression I returned to a familiar haunt: the hole in the wall bar at the end of the street - MUSIC.

Although I haven't been writing NEW music (yet), I'm revisiting old songs and working with others on their music.  I'm a 20+ year guitarist who is now entering the realm of recording/sound engineering/mixing/mastering.  I'm in the process of learning new recording techniques and making myself a more knowledgable person in the home studio environment.  I find myself watching countless videos on YouTube and reading blogs and books and I feel like I'm in college again.  The true test will be graded by the listening ears of the public.  I have set deadlines and goals and am looking forward to the focus it takes to fit this in with my "real life" of work and play.  I plan on documenting as much of it as possible through this blog, YouTube vlogs and Soundcloud audio updates.  

I have joked with non-musicians and musicians alike about the songwriting process.  When you feel like crap on every level, creativity springs new life.  Remember how every artist in EVERY SINGLE VH1 "Behind the Music" special mentions that "Music saved my life!!"???  It's true.  Creating something from nothing is magical and when that magic can turn your frown upside down, you pray for it to round the corner with a smile.  With every note you are building a bridge, climbing a rung, jumping a chasm and doing so with a feeling of blind confidence.  Ironically this cathartic process has an interesting caveat for a LOT of musicians and artists like: after being pulled out of the dark, the creativity wanes.  This ebb and flow has bookended the last two decades of my life and for me personally, when I'm at my highs and feeling good, I tend to not write!  I'm a Foul-Weather Artist, what can I say?!?!

Chris Stuck

http://www.youtube.com/lincolnalice

http://soundcloud.com/lincolnalicemusic

In closing...things are looking up.  Sometimes what we really want is direction.  To add to that, we NEED a positive direction.  We need to move forward because stagnation leads to complacency.  I hope those of you who read this blog will pass it onto others you think would enjoy it, learn from it or find motivation in it.  Send it to your musician friends and send it to those that feel alone in their ailments.  Send it to the broken, beaten and scarred.  Send it to anyone that needs a swift kick in the ass.  I hope for community and fellowship.  

Rock and roll it.  I got my legs back. 

-Lee