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

15 December 2001

The hour I had to myself this morning will be only one. Just finishing with employee xmas shopping, and wrapping, and now running errands before the xmas party at the bar and then to the last Inside Scarlet show later this evening.

Sniff sniff.

.the girl who is not very 3:07 PM [+].

14 December 2001

No 80's night. Rainy weather and some people having to get up early tomorrow are the culprits.

It was really nice to get all my work done before, like 3:30, when I got a call to Roma to hang.

There were a couple of pictures I was gonna post, but I decided against it. If you really wanna see 'em, lemme know. They aren't really important, just real silly. They involve fros and nice poopers.

However, there are some new pictures up in my little portfolio thingie. I've been carrying my camera around the past couple of days, and've been in the mood to take some shots, especially on a great rainy day like today, when at night all the lights of the Strip reflect off the clouds.

I don't know where this is going to go. But I wanted to write about it.

Tonight, after thinking about some things, and after I'd talked to Dad earlier today, I started to understand why I'm in my little depressive state against my will.

My father is dying. This Christmas will more than likely be his last.

I hate to think about it like that. I hate to think that I'm selfish in thinking that I'm putting everything on hold for this. I hate to think I have no control over it. It makes me frustrated. I'm getting pissed off at the wrong things, I'm getting pissed off at myself for thinking thoughts, and though I am admitting some things to myself, I'm not liking that, either.

It's not like I can have simple jealousy issues or simple self-anger issues about not getting off my ass about things. I am getting off my ass, at least a little bit, but something inside me is telling me to sit down and not do anything for awhile. Go take a trip somewhere. Drive.

I can't have simple anger anymore. There has to be a reason. There does? Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth it to pinpoint things. I hate cancer. I can't do anything about it's spread in my father's body, or that it's taking his energy, leaving him in pain. I can't. Part of me wonders if he even wants to fight anymore. People have their drama and they ask me why I'm depressed. "My father's at home in bed, he's been there for a 2 months now, and my brother and I are helping to take care of him." It makes people shut up.

And I don't want sympathy. I want it to end. I want my father to not have any more pain ever again.

It was one thing to have it be sudden. But to watch it? I don't wish it on anyone. I keep imagining who's going to show up for the funeral already. What the fuck is that about? I shouldn't be thinking of that.

But I can smell death on my father. I can feel the laziness of his cancer, taking its time to make him suffer. I don't want that anymore. Every quiet moment I have alone comes back to seeing him in bed. His features are changed. There are certain things you shouldn't talk to him about, like eating. I don't eat in front of him, or talk about food. I was even leery about cooking in the house yesterday, even though he was at the doctor's office with my brother. I can feel all our ghosts around, waiting. He thinks my mother is laughing at him.

The worst thing about it is everyone's need to dump on me about it. All my father's friends (or so they call themselves, though some don't even call), they stop me at work, touch my arm, and tell me how they see Sean and I taking care of things so well. I don't like going to work anymore because I feel like I'm back where I was almost 4 years ago with my mother, when I almost literally had a line of people telling me how sorry they were. There were only a few with no words, and those were the people that knew. They knew that there wasn't anything they could say. Those are the people that are still around, who still keep in touch, who still wonder if I'm okay and actually mean it.

Now, I have friends who can only offer a pat or a kiss on the head, or a real hug. And it makes a difference. I know some of those people might not know what to say when the time comes. But some have already been through it with my mother. They'll know. Some will have to walk on eggshells. Some do now. That's okay.

I just don't really know what this is doing to me inside. I won't know until the final outcome. Right now this cancer is turning my father into a layer of skin of his former self, and I have to watch the process. Right now the cancer is a shadow inside me that covers everything up and I can't just chant it away, because when I open my eyes all I'll see is my father sitting there, asking me for help. And all I'll be able to do is help him.

.the girl who is not very 11:01 PM [+].

Yay. Everything looks how I want it to look. I think.

Now off to work.

.the girl who is not very 12:14 PM [+].

Mantra for bed: I'm freaking out over absolutely nothing. I'm freaking out over absolutely nothing. I'm freaking out over absolutely nothing.

.the girl who is not very 1:59 AM [+].

I'm so manic. I'm trying out another new layout, though it's technically not a whole lot different than before, just kinda... I dunno. Rearranged.

But I was having a shitty night so I needed to get stressed out about that instead of other things that I don't want to go into here.

Tomorrow night is '80's night. I will have a good time there, no matter what. After this overall crappy week, it's almost destiny.

.the girl who is not very 1:51 AM [+].

13 December 2001

I totally forgot what the hell I was going to write in here. I don't think it was all that important.

I have MTV on mute-- the way it should be. I'm sick of bloody Nickelback. I didn't like them 3 years ago when I heard about them when I bought Big Wreck, and I still don't like them now (nor Big Wreck either. There was just one song on that record, In Loving Memory Of... that I thought was a good song. "Blown Wide Open." I still dust that song off every once in awhile, because it reminds me of the fall of '98, but I wasn't all too impressed with the rest of the record except for maybe "The Oaf," which was the single at the time.)

I should link to this while I'm reading it: I saw Hey Mercedes last Saturday at the House of Blues and was very impressed. here's their weblog, Are You Wearing A Wire? (I did really enjoy Thursday as well... dammit, where's the site. Ah, the Victory Records site, which isn't all that helpful. Oh shit, even better-- their own site.)

Fuck it. I'm adding mass links. I think I'm going to start a "recently converted" thing. Google time...

.the girl who is not very 10:37 AM [+].

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck-fuck.

Dammit, I want to write some dammed fiction but I keep writing about myself. That would be fine if I wanted to write about myself.

I just wanted to curse a lot, though. Not that it's working any.

.the girl who is not very 12:45 AM [+].

12 December 2001

Dammit. I keep writing things for this post and hitting the delete button. Stop that.

I went to bed smiling last night. I have friends who rock, of course, and I have friends who Rock, with a Capital R, meaning they're in bands that play electric guitars. Then I have friends who rock because they play songs at a show, a show that was supposed to be a whole band but ended up just being an acoustic solo show, and they play a song just for you.

I don't know about you guys, but I think that's the coolest shit ever. Call me sentimental or sappy or just plain easy to entertain. I think it's admirable that someone would think that little ol' me would be privelege to be the only one to hear a song, and then when it's really played in public it's for me. It's like getting a present. An early Xmas present, every single time.

It made my week. With all the shitty, ugly, sad-as-fuck things running through my head, it made my week. Yesterday I woke up at 5:48 in the morning not being able to get back to sleep thinking about WTC and today I woke up with this stupid grin on my face. I've been thinking about Mom, and Dad, and death again, and how things are still on hold, and just one song, for those couple of minutes, takes everything away.

I'm gonna see if I can get the lyrics and post 'em up here.

.the girl who is not very 10:59 AM [+].

11 December 2001

While I did the top ten of the year (I'll get to that in a minute), my editor did a piece on the state of the local scene at the end of the year. I finally got to read it today.

You know what I realized? Though overall it was a pretty shitty year, it hasn't left me as jaded as I thought.

When I started writing for CityLife about 11 months ago, I knew a few bands in the scene, but I was way out of the loop having been in CA for college for 4 years. My last year was spent in a band of my own, which was how I'd gotten a little familiar with the scene before I started doing the musical journalism thing. I knew the scene needed some work, but I didn't realize how bad things would get until this year.

Not only did my own band completely fall off the face of the planet, quite a few major local acts bit the dust. Hard. 12 Volt Sex, Epstein's Mother, Barney Fyfe, Blueline (not even together a year!), Inside Scarlet... these were the big bands in Vegas. Now they're just left as stories in the annals of local music.

Not to mention the venues closing. When Sanctuary went bye-bye, I was shocked. Then if it wasn't Asian Palace it was The Junkyard. Roma stopped having shows. And now, to add the black cherry on top, the legendary Huntridge was sold a few weeks ago, and won't be doing shows after the first. A few acoustic nights started up, but a lot of the kids aren't into that kind of thing right now-- they wanna rock. For a little while Tremorz was having problems, but they're back-- and thank god, 'cause it's going to be the only central place to be in town, and it's all ages to boot. It's going to be the new epicenter of the scene now. It's way more vital than it would've ever been years ago.

But then I think about the bands I saw this year that blew me away. Cornerstone. Joynt Chiefs (even if they did get a little overdone.) Blueline (when they started, they had potential.) notfromhere. Even Face Down was doing well, until they got a cover story and basically shot themselves in the foot rep-wise after huffing about opening for Hemlock. And speaking of Hemlock. Mygod, those guys. Hardest working guys in this town, and they deserve to blow up big. All these bands worked hard. They're getting there.

I was having dinner with Aaron and Ham the other night, and all we talked about was the state of the scene. Aaron is where I was about 6 months ago. I wanted to give up, stop writing about the scene, move. But I stayed. I was seeing the same bands all the time, and they were playing the same sets, seeing the same people at every show. It was disheartening. I wasn't getting any kind of information from bands about upcoming shit, nobody wanted to talk about anything, and even showing up to gigs for bands was getting tedious because they were all starting to hate the media. Aaron plays in all kinds of bands. He was talking about how the scene sucks so bad because nobody has any professionalism, which is true for a lot of bands. And it was funny, because he was on one side of the table and Ham and I were on the other, and while Aaron was saying things were shit, the two of us were both talking pretty animatedly about how we're excited about things coming up in the scene, despite all the flaws: his own band is getting good buzz, Cornerstone's starting to blow up, Joynt Chiefs got on HBO's Reverb, Left Standing came out with a brand new sound (which I've yet to hear 'till the last Scarlet show next week), The Szuters got signed, Hemlock's right on the verge of a deal. Venues may be closing, but kids are still coming to shows. They aren't giving up.

In my view, it's all cyclical. Bands break up for new bands to emerge. And these new bands (finally!) have the whole idea: not following what's on the radio and doing something fresh. This year may have ended on a sour note, but next year is looking good. I honestly think it is. This place has so much potential, it just takes the right kind of people to make the right kind of influences, to make the right kind of notes.

Yesterday I visited my editor, and he commented how this year's Top Ten was the most diverse he'd seen yet-- which was my whole point. I'm hoping this'll encourage bands to send in more stuff next year.

Blueline
I Like to Watch (Perverted Rock)

Conni Emerson
Unsigned (Singer/songwriter rock)

Face Down
Psychomagnetic (Black rock)

Michael Fuller
Vegas: Escapism (Techno/DJ set)

Hemlock
Pigeonholed (Hardcore Rock)

Mark Huff
Clean (Singer/songwriter Rock)

Robert Oleysyck
Mixed Emotions, Vol. 1 (Techno/DJ set)

Rohn Shead
Phantasmagoria (R&B)

3rd Man In
Forget What You Know ... (Punk/Emocore)

2� Worth
Still Sick After All These Years (Punk)

And I know there are a shitload of other bands who made demos that never made it to my editor or me, either because they didn't want to send it or just didn't know how, or wanted to come out perfect. Fuck that. If you've got something, just get it out there. Let people know. Make your connections, get your faces out there. Hell, make your demo in the garage with your computer mic if that's all you've got-- that's what drop_alpha did for our very first demo, and it came out decently. But it gave people something to listen to, just to let them know you're there. And then when we got a sort of proper demo done we gave it out to everybody and we eventually started getting calls from bands like Vegas expats God Among Men and Life Hates Me out of San Diego. (Unfortunately we were "on hiatus" by then, which meant that we were pretty much broken up, just without the horrible label.)

You have to work. Bands are finally starting to do that, and it's starting to show. It's making us all excited for the year ahead. I'm hoping that if I'm still working for CityLife next year it's actually going to be difficult to pick out the good stuff.

Here's to crossing our internal organs.

.the girl who is not very 4:23 PM [+].

I had such a good practice last night I broke one of Ham's strings. Doh. (There was absolutely no pun intended there. Or maybe there was. Anthrax.)

The thing is, I don't know how to re-string a Strat. Double-doh. Play-doh, even.

The thing that really sucked was that practice was the only truly productive part of my day. I'm seeing if I can get myself on a schedule where I take one day out of the week to sit down and write and then see if I can make that a regular occurrence. That day was supposed to be yesterday. I packed up my laptop and headed to the Virgin Megastore Cafe to sit and write. I ended up sitting there, in between phone calls, writing The and then deleting it, maybe putting in a sentence here or there, or looking at things I wanted to work on and just getting that icky feeling. Nobody was speaking to me. So I typed up the thing I wrote on Mom and realized I'd written my thousand words for the week. Or maybe it was just because I was sitting at a computer and I've been more inclined to longhand it lately. So last night at Roma I started a piece on Dad.

I don't know where these things are going. I know what they're for (as I vaguely scratch my head), but it's not helping my work on other things all that much. I guess I'm just in an autobiographical-searching-myself kind of mode. That's okay. I'm hitting that point again where I have lessons to learn and they're knocking on my brain instead of just happening.

But I just wish my Fiction Muse would come back from the Bahamas, just for half an hour. The Music Muse is getting lonely and bored with the Poetry/Lyric chick.

.the girl who is not very 11:42 AM [+].

10 December 2001

Um.

Things are good.

70.onelinedrawing. breathless

Today was the first day where I felt kinda good this week. This is almost a revelation. This is also a full night of real sleep under my belt. I haven't wanted to write much; mostly it's been because I'm just all over the place this week. Post PMS stuff.

I'm a writer, but I'm not a great one. I'm an okay one, maybe even a good one, but I'll never be great-- I don't have the attention span to be great. I'm a musician, but I don't have the patience to write a bunch of songs, so even though that's a great hobby I don't plan on making it a career. I just love to play instruments, more often for my friends than anyone else.

This man is fast becoming one of my favorite people ever. I know, it's a really dumb thing to say about someone who does astrology. But I've always been a little weary of horoscopes. They've never really applied to me.

What do you want for Christmas? Shall I leave a space here, for you to fill with a list of requests and preferences? Or shall I not bother because ultimately, your needs are small and simple? Could it be that all you really want is not to feel unsure about anything or anyone, anymore? This week begins to bring much needed re-assurance. It puts your mind at rest over a matter that has lately been the cause of considerable concern. It also puts you in an admirably advantageous position; one which you should feel free to capitalise on.

I've been thinking about my Mom again. A lot tonight, since my friend suggested I think about her whole situation and how I've changed because of it. More writing. I think I wrote a good thousand word stream of consciousness thing on it earlier tonight, so that's a good thing. I was asked about a lot of things that I've been ritually thinking this week and it's making me think twice, and that's always refreshing.

Like the fact that I have this thing where I want to do what I want to do, but I have to consider the consequences and that's where I get all fucked up. I have certain goals in my head, like wanting to write full time, no matter in what capacity. (Mostly fiction; I don't really wanna do music journalism the rest of my life. Really, I don't. Honestly, I love writing about music and having musician friends, but sometimes I feel like there's only so much you can really say.) But my friend brought up my fear of now that I've done that, then what? I guess there's a fear of hitting a career ceiling with me, which is why I set things small, like wanting to write and get money-- good, I'm on my way there with a freelance job. Now what? Go national? I'd love to, but I don't feel as if I'm qualified enough for that yet. I'm still a jounalistic baby in certain terms. And what if the fiction thing falls to the wayside, what then? I need to stop thinking of Worst-Case Scenarios. I think if that were the case, it would've happened already and I wouldn't be writing to you on this computer in a house and listening to Rival Schools. (Love those guys.)

Plus the fact that I haven't had a day to myself to write and do nothing else in awhile kinda put me at odds with my insecurities this week. That's okay; I have my moments where the wires cross. They're points in my life where I'm having a self-quiz: what did I learn this year, and am I really using it?

And I'm starting to really feel like friends are friends. It shouldn't matter where I am, they're going to be there regardless. That's a really weird thought I'm still trying to wrap my head around.

It still doesn't change the situation with my father being bedridden and the outlook not being good. That's the one thing I really can't do anything about. Miracles were never my strong point.

.the girl who is not very 2:59 AM [+].