we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.

01 December 2001

80's night last night was fun, even though I had a pounding headache going in.

I'd forgotten what I was going to write about today. I have this habit of opening up my blog, some vague impression of what I want to write in my head, a dim hope in the back of my head that maybe I'll just start rambling and it'll end up a long post that I can look back on and say, "Quite right there."

Or not.

Here's something I guess: being over 21 in Vegas.

So. I'm 23. When I turned 21 I was on a plane coming back from England, so I'd already experienced the bar life while I was over there, even though I didn't drink. (I was a Pepsi "slice and ice" kinda girl with Rhiannon.) I mean, not that growing up in a bar here in this town didn't give me enough experience already.

I didn't start drinking, actually, until about 6 months after my birthday. My first real drink was a pint of peach cider at the Redlands Brewery. It fucked me up bad. At first I didn't like the taste, but I got used to it, actually. The one pint was quite enough that first night.

And being here and being under 21 frankly sucks. There isn't much to do except play pool if you're over 18. And while that's a nice thing, a lot of people I know like to drink beer while participating in this (inter)national pastime. Being 18, you can't really do that. So you settle for Coke instead.

And then you turn 21 and it's, you know, anti-climactic. Most kids I know had their wild phase still in high school and they reach legal age and just don't wanna do it anymore. I didn't start drinking out of some wild inclination; I just did it because I wanted to see if I could handle myself. And I do. I've really only gotten drunk once, and I remember the night vividly. But that's for another entry. Most of my other friends had their one night of partying and then said the famous last words: "I'll never drink again." You've heard that shit before.

The only thing that's truly advantageous about being 21 in Vegas is that your choices of places to go expands considerably. Here, you can't be under 21 in a bar, unlike California, where you can be 18 and serve drinks and have a bar and a restaurant in the same vicinity. (The rules can be bended a little bit, but you have to be careful.) But when you get to 21 there aren't only bars,there's clubs, certain concerts you can attend that are strictly 21+ shows.

I have friends still under 21. They're almost there-- within the next year. Sometimes I forget they aren't 21 and I invite them to places. Then I feel dumb 'cause they can't go. Sometimes they'll call up wanting to go hang out and do something and I'll usually say on alternate Friday nights "I'm not doing anything until 11." And then they'll say, "Oh, 'cause I was... just... wondering." And then I feel bad 'cause it's like I'm in some Gold Membership club or something.

.the girl who is not very 2:01 PM [+].

30 November 2001

To say it was sad to come home, tired, to read that George Harrison had died is a little understating.

I think everyone, whether they loved or hated them, has a Beatles story. When my mother found out I'd started listening to them as a freshman in high school, she bought me an Abbey Road t-shirt and a huge Beatles guitar book of all their "hits." I still have that book, and still play out of it every so often. That book helped me to learn guitar. So I guess The Beatles basically started my journey into music. (Who I really wanted to sound like, though, was Queen, but they were a little difficult, you know.)

The first song I ever learned was "Norweigan Wood."

I have pictures of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields around here somewhere from when I visited Liverpool a couple of years ago. I'm glad I have those.

My favorite George Harrison song, though, has to be "Something." It's one of my favorite Beatles songs overall, and strangely enough, it's one of the latter songs from their Psychadellic Era in the late '60s. I don't know exactly why I like that song. Maybe I want someone to sing it to me.

The thing that really hit for me was that he died of cancer, and my father's going through the same thing right now. My Dad's only 55. And just when everyone thought Harrison was getting better, he wasn't. His son is my age. I can understand what he's going through. The man who was a totally different person a year ago is slowly being deconstructed, and the only thing you can do is watch the destruction and try and make things as normal as you can.

Jai geru deva om. Nothing's gonna change my world.

.the girl who is not very 11:34 AM [+].

29 November 2001

There really wasn't that much to move around-- just the travelogue thing. And that's good. I was putting it off for awhile.

So the Silver Streak is all registered and legal, with proof of insurance. Even after going to bed early last night (read: 11:30 pm), I got up at 9, checked email, took a shower, and was off. I only spent an hour and a half at the DMV. I think that's a bloody record.

And it seems I've been comped for the first show of a double header this evening. I'm still not gonna link them because I don't, still, yet, have a tape. Or copy of a tape on CD, which I guess is the plan.

Which reminds me, I need to call somebody.

.the girl who is not very 4:04 PM [+].

Okay. So I'm going to be re-arranging the site around. It'll take a little bit, as I have to change links around and all that stuff. It'll be done today, however.

If you come by and links don't work, let me know.

.the girl who is not very 2:39 PM [+].

28 November 2001

Just keep this on the down low: Brandon and I are practicing with Shameless. We might actually have a set soon, if getting 2 songs together in three days is any indication...

Dad had a CT scan earlier today. It was fairly quick, but the fact that he's recently developed headaches and they don't want to go away scares me. He's never been sick until he started getting chemo for his cancer 2 years ago. And now he's got phlegm that he's coughing up, and a recent bout of pneumonia was more taxing than I'd like to admit to in public. If these headaches are because of brain tumors, then we'll all have less time. My grandmother (Dad's mom) died of a brain tumor twelve years ago. I can still see her in that scarf. It's not a memory from adolescence I like to hang on to, but it's there anyway to remind me.

I'm getting to the point right now where I feel like I'm totally disconnected from what I'm seeing in my eyes: it's total auto-pilot. I see things, react, but I'm still blogging in silence right now because everything I've listened to has been overdone and talking to people feels like a script. I'm sure just about everyone has felt that way: fufilling a role because it's so easy to fake sometimes. The problem is that most people know what the real face behind the role is; I'm not really sure what's my base emotion right now. Probably just tired. A little frustration and stress mixed in, too.

Tomorrow's not really going to be any better. I have to get insurance papers for the car so I can get it registered, and go to the bank, and I might possibly have practice sometime later in the day.

I think, right now, I'd really just like to take a day out away from everything. Like, maybe go to Redrock on Friday just for shits and giggles, take the new girl out for a spin on the scenic drive. Go visit Eric.

I don't know; things aren't great. I wish they were. They will be soon. They were a few weeks ago. Now that the cold weather's here (cold by Vegas standards), things get a little bleak and then all of a sudden it's spring and everybody's fucking again.

Time for Sudafed and bed.

.the girl who is not very 10:31 PM [+].

27 November 2001

So I'm convinced that maybe I shouldn't bartend ever again.

The morning (starting at 8 o'clock) was slow. I was ever so not sure if I was mixing things right. And one of the alarms we have in the walk-in freezer malfunctioned and Metro had to come out and make sure everything was peachy.

I'm cursed to only function well in the background, I swear to god.

The other sad news is that the Green Machine is officially retired. Gone. Traded in for a Honda Accord.

I, in that car, in 5 years, racked up 81,000 miles on her. I did just about everything except have sex in that car. (Not even messing around fer chrissakes.) And her middle back seat seatbelt is sitting up on my wall. I'm gonna miss her.

Got a few words in for the not-quite-novel in a 40-minute window I had earlier this evening. I want to work on it, but with my aunt and uncle being in town it was a little difficult to just up and leave to go do something as silly as just sit somewhere and write. I'm hoping to do that Thursday. Hey, it's a goal. I think tonight, however, I did get a good couple hundred words in, which is more than some weeks, I suppose. I'm getting there.

.the girl who is not very 11:45 PM [+].

26 November 2001

This is a pretty decent answer to my dream from last night:

The trouble with Geminis is that they never do anything by halves. You are willing to go almost anywhere, as long as it's towards an extreme. You are either reaching for the Moon or you are in the deepest dungeon the world has seen. The latter phenomenon is thankfully rare. You are too much of a megalomaniac to be a manic-depressive. Today's sharp link from Mercury to Jupiter suggests inner tension and self doubt. You are just paying the price for taking on too much. If you don't want to pay it, drop something. Or stop complaining.

And it feels as if going out of town caused more tension than untension. It was nice to get out of town, but by the time I'd gotten used to that feeling it was over.

I've been thinking about my father a lot lately.

He's not the same man he was 6 months ago. Now he rests in bed, a tube snaking out of his stomach, and when he sits up he rests his head on his hand as if he can't believe this is all happening to him.

I keep thinking of my best friend in 4th grade, AJ, and his father, skin hanging off bones, lying in a hospital bed in the middle of his house, the urinal catheter running to the floor. He'd see AJ and I come in, and he'd look at us, and he had a red beard, and he'd be distantly away, talking to whomever had decided to visit his head that day, in hushed whispers. And AJ would drag me up the stairs to go listen to Pink Floyd's The Wall.

How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

These days, my dad's more coherent and mobile than that. For now, at least. I shudder to think of six months from now, whether he's going to be giving up, or worse. But the soundtrack is Tori's "Winter" and every time I see him I hear her sing it in San Diego and my losing it as I sat there entralled-- the only time I've ever lost it at a show.

I always wanted you to be proud of me. I always wanted that myself.

I hate to see my father in pain. I hate watching him die slowly. I know it's happening, regardless of whatever drugs we can give him now. I know it's happening, regardless of how many spells I think I can think of or try and bind by Yuletime next month.

"You mother is laughing at me," he says. I know she's not. She wasn't laughing when he was on a ventilator two months ago. She's not laughing at his recent pneumonia, or the fact that he's being fed from a tube. I'm not dead, so I wouldn't know better.

It was like mom had died all over again when the attacks happened. I didn't feel safe anymore. I felt alone again, despite everything. And then Dad went back east to have surgery later that week, then into the hospital two weeks later, and he wanted to be put under that respirator, and seeing him there, unable to talk. It killed me. I was nine years old again, at AJ's house, speechless. My father's hands were soft when he held mine. I got hot flashes in the ER. I almost passed out. I felt like my head was going to sink out of my ears all over me. I would've fell, covered in the blood of unreality, and forgotten what had happened only to have to re-learn it and re-live it all over again.

This time around, the life decisions are being made for me. One parent is already gone, slipped from my hands unexpectedly. The other is making plans.

Taking on too much. I'm leery of that being voluntary. I only take on too much because I get bored too easily.

And it keeps my mind off of things I have no business thinking about. Like regrets.

.the girl who is not very 12:44 AM [+].

25 November 2001

I had a very strange dream last night. It involved me not being able to play bass at someone's house, a real house, someone who I'd talked to last night but don't consider a friend so much as an aquaintance. I left his house in a huff, angry, and he started to say things to me I didn't want to hear but I'm starting to admit in my head this morning, and it's not a good breakfast. I mean things that have nothing to do with the other dream symbols in there, except maybe one who made a guest appearance.

Literally, the things that were coming out of his mouth. In real life I doubt he'd be the first to admit exactly what I was thinking, but he said it anyway in a vivid, crystal clear voice. I can still see him standing on his doorstep yelling after me as I stomped down the street, going off to the waking world again.

You know how things are feel nice, and they feel nice into your tummy in that way where you know it's supposed to be like that-- so warm and calm? Your body can't deny its contentment, no matter what circumstances float around. And yet, your mind still refuses to let some things go. She likes to tell you things, in your dreams, in the symbols of the world around you, that she's on red alert. Something's wrong, something's always wrong. It's always going to be that one blue thread in the perfect Navajo blanket.

This time I'm going to admit these things to myself, and I'm going to be okay with it, because if I didn't feel them maybe there'd be something wrong with me. But then if they'd really come true, these things that I admit, maybe then there'd be a problem. Something else would have to be given up for that turnaround. The blue thread would be traded for purple, or yellow, or black.

It's okay. The year's in the home stretch of being over. And I think it's been a good one, when I level things out:

Music journalist job on no experience=Good. Dad being in and out of the hospital=Bad. Learning more and more about myself in relationships=Good. Not having a relationship=Bad. Not really caring that being in a relationship is bad or not=Good.

Having my friends around who call and email you at just the right time=Very Good.

.the girl who is not very 11:47 AM [+].