Hey hey,
Well… as promised, I’m back here doing a blog. Writing a blog. This weekend is the first time in over a week that I’ve been all on my lonesome. We’ve had family, friends, and co-workers in and out of here, visiting or helping us with various things… such as stay sane while off the road. My sister just left yesterday morning. She visited me all week and we basically did everything there is to do here in Los Angeles. Found ourselves in that infamous traffic all week long. Even so, we still walked to the Hollywood sign, sat on a cliff in Malibu (right near our old band house during BNE recording sessions), talked about boys, spent a day at Disneyland, and hung at the Warped tour. Great week, right? Now, it’s all quiet. Now, what?
Ugh, I’d like to take a few sentences to complain about these longish claw nails I had put on for the hell of it. How does anyone type with these things? How does Katy Perry tweet? How does Gaga play her keytar? Anyways….
Since I’m feeling particularly alone right about now, I thought it’d be a good time to talk about one of the songs we’ll be recording for the new album. It’s kind of fun to get into subject matter without any of you actually have heard the song or even knowing the exact words to it. The song is not as much about feeling lonely as it is enjoying the simple state of being alone. For instance, on a Saturday night, like tonight. I quite enjoy the opportunity to cook a meal for myself and sit on the couch watching Pretty Woman all night if that’s what I feel like. Read a book. Write a song. You get the point. Basically, I don’t mind spending some time by myself. It’s something that I’ve always learned a lot from.
Over the last four years or so, Paramore got busier and spent more time working on tour than we did at home. I sort of forgot how much I loved, even needed, my alone time. But the past year, being as “slow” as it was… I was able to sort of refocus all that nervous, busy energy and learn once again how nice a night-in can be. In fact, I spend most nights “in”, unless there’s work, family, or some important event going on. It’s probably a phase and life is very much like a pendulum… So, by the time this really gets around, I could be raging every night. (See: sober-raging, for reference). All this to say, I’ve talked to many people who say that they really don’t like to be alone. That they can’t shut their mind off when there’s no one around talking to them or when the music isn’t loud. It takes practice. And truly, it’s worth getting good at.
The other side of this is how reclusive I’ve become as of late. Like I said, I love my time alone. With only one or two close friends. I’m pretty weary of people getting close to me and whether or not it’s a positive or a negative thing, I’m not too concerned right now. What matters is I feel good about it. And as we already discussed, it’s most likely some phase but I’m learning nonetheless. It just seems like most people my age are going through the exact opposite phase. For some reason, I needed to write it out, how I felt about the social ladder, overactive social lives… and my lack of any sort of care in the world about it all.
Geez, what a long winded explanation. Think about it though. Spend some time with yourself if you haven’t. I’m no therapist but it seems like it couldn’t hurt. Certainly does wonders for me. In fact, writing run-on sentences and blogging all this nonsense is one of my favorite quiet things to do. I’ll be writing these more often now that we are headed back into the studio… so come on back to this bloggy blog any ol’ time you wanna “be alone” with me.
HW on be-third of Paramore.
