Annoyed at my oldest, best friend. We're in a band together. Today, we scheduled recording at 8 pm. My days can be dense, so I have to use a digital scheduler to keep my shit in order. This recording date was set last year before christmas. I had lunch with Helen, and she suggested a movie... which I turned down because I had the previous engagement. I started trying to get in touch with Kris, but his cell was off or out of range. I refrained from the movie, because it would lock me into a block of unscheduled activity. He finally called me at midnight. He had gone to a movie with his girlfriend, because he hadn't heard from me.

Now, this irks me. He called me once, at 6:40 or therebouts, and then made no further attempt at contact. It feels like it's up to me to create this recording session, when really, at least us two have to take ownership of this project. It was probably the fault of his crappy cell service that the five times I called him between 7 and 10, he didn't get a call. Since he didn't try calling me more than once, we didn't hook up. I think what annoys me the most is that he gave up on me and went to see a movie, when I kept the entire evening open and avoided doing the same thing. It feels like we're on opposite sides of some kind of fairness threshold. I'm in no shape to talk about it with him rationally now, cause what I'm irritated about is not really the problem. I'm irritated that I didn't get to do the fun thing and he did, and I made a lot of effort to keep my date and he made little. Whiny kid stuff. The thing I think he should have done differently is to call more than once. I tried 9 times, alternately calling his house and his cell. Now it's irritating me so much, I'm writing about it.

When I do calm down more, the real issue will probably be that he has to take more responsibility for getting these recording tasks done. Even if I don't call him at all, he should spend all his energy trying to track me down. Rather than just expecting the opposite to happen. So I guess the thing to do would be to tell him: I'm not going to schedule and coordinate the next recording session. He's in charge of getting ahold of everyone and setting a time. The problem is I think that if he's looking after it, it might never happen. That's what is happening to the drum machine he was responsible for checking repair cost on. (He took it to work and left it lying around so long someone sent it to repairs, racking up an $80 charge for a repair I'm experienced in performing. It now sits there waiting for him to pay the repair bill. As of now, he has no plan to get it back.) We've lost gear to this kind of flakiness before (Brian's XP-10 got auctioned off or something because he didn't pay the repair bill, go to the store to ask about making payments, or even fucking call to see if they'd hold onto it for a while.)

Obviously I've got some issues with the way the band is run. I've got control issues to start with; it's not easy for me to work with other people, to delegate responsibility for something I know I can do. So of course, I want to grab control of every aspect of this project. There's too much, though. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the tasks that I LIKE doing. But for me to give a task to someone who seems to have little interest in completing it is right there on the hairline between tolerable and batshit insanity. Save your apathy for things you don't believe in, like your workplace, or your popularity. Keep it out of your art.

It may suck, but it's for real, and therefore automatically valid.

Well anyway, I'll talk to Kris tomorrow and we'll work it out.