T00L: the intro

I refused to listen to TOOL prior to 2001.  I only ever saw giant trucks with misogynistic, homophobic assholes driving around with their TOOL stickers stuck proudly on their windows, right next to Korn (who I didn't like) and knew it wasn't for me.
But there was this boy...

A boy who was shy and nervous and two years behind me in college; he spent all of his free time playing Counter Strike and Diablo II and, eventually, with me.  And in the spring of 2001, when we should have been working, but the day was slow, he sat me down and said, "You will love TOOL.  I know you."

I am always intrigued by people who think they know me, because even if I sit and scream about myself at you all the time, which I do, I mostly skip over all the important pieces so that when rejected, it is only those things placed around me as a distraction and not anything too real. 

And this shy boy, who made all the effort in the world to love me as best he could, even though it was never enough to satiate me, sat down and gave me my favourite thing, words:

"What was it like to see,
The face of your own stability,
Suddenly look away,
Leaving you with the dead and hopeless?
Eleven and she was gone.
Eleven is when we waved good-bye.
Eleven is standing still,
Waiting for me to free him,
By coming home.
Moving me with a sound.
Opening me within a gesture.
Drawing me down and in,
Showing me where it all began,
Eleven.

You're too scar'd to realize this,
You are the voice that's been calling me back home.
Under a dead Ohio sky,
Eleven has been and will be waiting,
Defending his light and wondering,
Where the hell have I been?
Sleeping lost and numb I.
So glad that I have found you.
I am but wide awake and heading,
Home.
I wish that I could see you,
Turn and run to play.
Dreams are fading,
Carry my ancient soul.
Carry me into the light.
Aim your body heavenly,
Enduring a memory.
I’ll come to your light,
Hold your light.
Hold your light where I can see it,

Hold it,
High.
Hold your light,
Eleven, Lead me through each gentle step,
By step,
By inch by loaded memory,
I'll move,
To heal,
As soon as pain allows so we can,
Reunite,
And both move on together.
Hold,
Your light,
Eleven lead me through each gentle step,
By step,
By inch by loaded memory 'till,
One,
And one are one,
Eleven.
So glow,
Child,
Glow.
I'm heading back home..." - Jimmy, TOOL

And I fell in love with the true emotion those words seared into me.

There is a reason Lateralus looks this way...

... becauseTOOL's music sounds exactly like the beating of my heart, the opening of my valves, the electricity flowing between my chakras, and the life and death of my cells.

Which is why I flew to Reno this weekend, to let TOOL remind me that I have always been what I have been, even if I am scared to death of some of those things.  I'm going to continue this process of removing my skin and playing with the strings of my heart and the fire in my soul.  I'm starting to fall in love with myself and the courtship is beguiling.