22 December 2001
Today I feel a little silly, already have sent my Top Ten into the editor, and two records that were brilliant didn't make it on: Coldplay's
Parachutes and Hamell on Trial's
Ed's Not Dead-- Hamell Comes Alive! The former was brilliant and appreciated, and the latter was brilliant, mindblowing, and totally underappreciated.
Why didn't they make it on? Perhaps I'll never know. Maybe I just didn't want to conform, considering those who did make it included Hey Mercedes, New End Original, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Matthew Good Band, Gorillaz, Arsonists, Jude, Boy Hits Car, and Rival Schools (not necessarily in that order).
I think perhaps it may have had something to do with the fact that those two particular records were more personal than anything, although the other records on the list do have some aspect of personal significance for me:
Hey Mercedes is a staple in my car right now and will always remind me of this particular winter;
New End Original because Jonah's singing for them, and well, he's
Jonah (and had one of the
best, most amazing shows this year at the Huntridge);
Tori Amos because I finally got to see her solo down in San Diego and cried for the first time at
any show;
Ani DiFranco because it was the first major record I got to do for
the paper, and was the lead review;
Matthew Good Band because it reminds me of The Pimpness 1.0 (driving Dad's car since mine was being a poo head);
Gorillaz takes me back to driving around San Fransisco with Thingies on the way to see
Neil in
Berkeley;
Arsonists I heard on
BBC Radio 1 and every time I listen to them I think of England;
Jude just because I saw a preview of all the songs solo in L.A. and was blown away;
Boy Hits Car who was the first band I saw live this year, I got to see them twice, and they started (finally!) my voyage into the indie scene this year (and who had
another one of the best shows ever at the Huntridge, and were the sweetest guys I've met); and
Rival Schools, mainly the song "Good Things," because it reminds me of the good things that were going on when I was listening to it, and that went on all this year.
Coldplay reminds me of the spring, and
Hamell on Trial reminds me of how pumped I get listening to fresh good stuff.
But I do feel kinda dumb. 12 months. That's a lot of CD's I've collected this year. Some I bought, some I didn't, some were forced down my throat. A lot of good stuff was just overlooked. That's not right. And some of it I have yet to re-catalog. It sucks.
I've been making a little prediction though lately: it's just a feeling I have, but I think one of these bands here in Vegas is gonna break, either really big underground or break just a little nationally. Things, despite the bad year, are feeling strangely fine as the new year's gonna start.
.the girl who is not very 2:25 PM
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20 December 2001
I'm not gonna plan anything with The Thing That Is Another Novel Idea I'm working on right now. If I do, that means it'll stop talking to me. I've already got a couple thousand words, and I don't wanna jinx it this early on.
I pulled a muscle in my calf this morning turning over in bed, so that felt nice.
We'll see. Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow, I'll be done with my xmas shopping. I'm so close to getting there.
.the girl who is not very 11:58 PM
[+].
I've got another idea for a novel. I'm not really sure where it's going to go quite yet. I'm just writing some stuff out and seeing where it goes.
The other novel I was working on, however, decided to just stop talking to me altogether.
There will be a day, mark my words, when these dammed things will get finished. The Taurus moon part of me gets anal about finishing things. They'll get done, dammit.
.the girl who is not very 12:32 AM
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19 December 2001
Hmmm. Okay. I gave blood today, which I think was the best thing I could've ever done for myself. And I didn't get light headed like I usually do with these things (been doing it for 6 years now, you think my body would know better), which I'm wondering was either the product of a good hamburger beforehand or because of the garbage in my head the past week.
Been taking lots of pictures, but they aren't up anywhere else but for who they're intended for right now.
Dad's good. He's gonna be out of the hospital tomorrow. (yay!)
And I'm almost done Xmas shopping. Maybe tomorrow. I think I was supposed to have something planned. Fuck. I forgot. I hate that.
.the girl who is not very 12:32 AM
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17 December 2001
I was going to go to bed, but I had to write. This just came out.
tonightit's nights like this
when I want to pack up,
go somewhere warm,
write a story
and have it rain when I'm finished.
it's nights like this
when admitting the truth
makes me sick,
or maybe it's just because you're dying
that makes me want to let go
from inside me,
releasing the
fuck yous and
nosand transmitting blocked signals.
it's nights like this
when throwing up
would just show you your insides,
so you keep it in
for old times' sake,
swallow the like-to-love feelings,
sput love-to-hate
and this part is about a dying part,
hypocracy running rampant,
and dammit I don't want you to die.
I don't want to lose the last shred of respect
in held hands
and sideward glances
this is my chance
to dig down
and pull out a flower.
we planted seeds once
and did it ever matter
that it's really a tree,
making shade
and linking houses together?
and from the top
it's like the world got so small,
stopped being a weight
stopped being a fucking lie--
where you are is where you'll stay
in memory
and worst impressions were always more
bad things always stuck out
my bad parts come back to haunt me
walls of ivy and all me
carving less of the respect I deserve.
I feel like I'm dying.
don't you see me talking
nobody says a word
when ghosts become tragic celebrities
and you get fucked up
you just
get fucked.
I'm at the top of our tree now.
there are no cats to rescue
no damsels in distress
just the one thing
the one heart
that always hurt to beat in my chest
when I saw the rain fall.
I can never finish stories
but this time I will.
you're climbing the trunk
running away from the world.
and I can't tell you what to do
but sit here with me,
tell the truth:
have you ever been so sick
that you just want to leave the world alone?
fuck you
no
the signal
was more than noise
it was the beating hurt
inside
and warm.
.the girl who is not very 1:11 AM
[+].
Vent vent vent. I must do this. Today was arguably one of the shittiest days of my life. In fact, it was so bad that it merits 2 good things (they'll come at the end), and I'm feeling borderline nasueous right now.
It started off at about 11 o'clock this morning with my brother calling me, buzzed to what extent I don't know, telling me to check on Dad because he called to say that his tube was stopped up. By the way, this is after getting in at about 3:30 this morning, so I'm groggy and sound real cranky. Brother tries to make me feel guilty and "step up" about things, which means he wants me to actually
like and accept the fact that he's spending the day at home drinking today, putting me in charge.
So our family friend that's a nurse came over to try and fix it. Meanwhile, I'm getting phone calls from stressed out singers about how people aren't showing up which means I can't take pictures. I tell singer that even though it's not my business to crack the whip. He calls me back to come down to practice around 3:30, so I call My Little Drummer Boy to see if he can restring a guitar and maybe get a little jamming in. By the time 2 o'clock rolls around, Dad's still not fixed and he tells me to go. So I go down there after getting a sarcastically huffy phone call, and all is fixed, and I have my 40 minutes of bliss playing guitar with a drummer and getting some ideas down.
Singer calls me to tell me all plans are clusterfuck, which is fine because I didn't think it was going to come to fruit anyway, so the photo stuff is rescheduled for Tuesday. Cool. So then drummer wants to go to Roma and get coffee. Cool. Then Kim calls wanting to eat after drummer leaves. She shows up, we eat, and I get a phone call first from Dad to come home for a bit then from the bar saying to stop in. No emergency.
I go back to get my car and head to the house, where Dad says everything's okay and to go out. By the way, your brother called drunk to say he's sorry about Mom. We need to talk to him because this is becoming a regular occurrence.
I go to work. I mess things up a little but it was fixable.
I go down to Roma for open mic. Chaz and I are talking and I realize my acoustic is in the trunk and can we do a song? We hammer together Matthew Good Band's "Giant" in a couple of takes and we're ready to rumble.
In the meantime, friends show up with exes who are acting like things haven't changed since the breakup a couple of months ago, which makes me wonder what's up.
So I decide last minute I want to sing. I want to sing Jude's "The Asshole Song," which while it may be overreacting somewhere inside my head, feels really appropo for me. I write down the lyrics so I can convince myself to do it.
I spill mocha on my phone, which goes kaput. I can't read the screen and the battery won't read.
It's time. Chaz and I get up there, play the song with a few minor disasters, and I get myself together to do my own solo thing. It's horribly out of tune, but I did it, I did it with my eyes closed, and I meant it with everything inside my sickened body. I was outside my body while I did it. And when I woke up, it was the loudest response I've ever heard.
My friend gets up to sing, and for the last song he asks what to sing. 2 suggestions go up. Mine is played. There was even a Matthew Good reference during the 3-song set.
Fleetwood Mac Moments.
I get back to the car, finally, after venting to some peeps, and realize my phone won't work unless
plugged in. Great. There's 3 voice mail messages from one of our bartenders-- the nurse took Dad to the hospital to get check out with the tube and possibly get it replaced. The thing is, they can't get it out and she has to be at work at 5 in the morning and my brother is MIA and can I go down there? Of course. I get a hold of her and she says they're still down there and if I could go down there, which is no problem.
I start to drive to the hospital, a million things in my head, none of them good, and I feel like total crap. It's like I've got this anvil in my stomach dropped from the highest point in the Grand Canyon by Wile E. Coyote, and it's pulling my insides out. I want to cry but I just can't. I just can't. Why cry now when all it's going to do is make me feel more sick?
I'm about half a mile away when Dad calls. "Where are you?" "I'm at home." "Aw man, I was just about to head to the hospital." "She brought me back because they can't do anything so I have to go to the doctor in the morning." "Okay."
On the drive home I keep telling myself, "You're okay. You're okay. You're okay."
Dad's okay when I get home. He starts falling asleep as soon as we start talking.
I get to take Dad to the doctor by 9 tomorrow morning. Not to mention the fact that I'd planned on doing Xmas shopping tomorrow.
I can't figure out for the life of me why I'm having another avalanche. Another landslide. Another fucking day of being pushed to the edge. Another day where I had one moment feeling safe and good, and it was with myself, and fuck off for everyone else. And even someone else made me smile. Just a little bit.
And I'm still listening to suicidal love songs when I get home. I went to bed last night with that confident feeling that everything was okay, that I was going to have a quiet Sunday, that things were starting to feel somewhat
nice again. Then it's snatched away by one phone call that starts the whole thing over again.
I'll be surprised if I get any sleep at all tonight.
.the girl who is not very 12:28 AM
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16 December 2001
Great show last night. Great, great show. Inside Scarlet will be sorely missed.
And though I get flack from friends (non-writer friends, mind you) about it, every time I see
Slow to Surface they get better and better. I don't think they'll go huge nationally, but I can see them finding a nice indie label soon. If they play their cards right. Nice, moody, atmospheric rock. Yes, goddammit, they're emo. Fuck off.
The employee party went well. Being there didn't hurt as much as I thought it would-- and I still ended up running into a local musician. What the fuck?
I might have some pictures up tonight, if I'm supposed to be taking any. Maybe.
.the girl who is not very 12:17 PM
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