beautiful, funny, sad & true

Lately, I’ve made a resolution to be more engaging with people I meet.  It’s safe to say that introverts have a harder time than most other people do, but I’ve been making a conscious effort to reach out more.

Last night’s gig with Susie was a good example.  The event was hosted by someone with an unusual enough name that I’d better create one of those clever pseudonyms to anonymize her; I’ll call her BlondeSinger.  Since I’ve played with lots of songwriters over the years, I’ve played probably five or six shows that she’s been a part of.  I’ve never played with her onstage, but I’ve played plenty of evenings like last night, where she’s been a part of it and so have I.  Also, she once performed on my friend’s radio show, on which I was a regular co-host, including the day of the show she appeared on.

Last night, I was one of the first to arrive.  I set down my accordion and went over to say hello to her.  She clearly didn’t recognize me, so I said, “Hey, [BlondeSinger].   We’ve met before, actually.  I’m friends with [RadioFriend], and you played on his show, and I co-hosted with him.  I’ve been playing with Susie and [short rundown of songwriters] and we’ve played together a handful of times.  Good to see you again.”

“Yeah, you do kinda look familiar,” she said, and asked if RadioFriend was still doing a show, and I told her that yes, he is.  “Cool.”  She looked down at her phone and started texting like mad.  The silence stretched out longer and longer, and it started to become a bit awkward, so I asked, “Who’s performing tonight?”

She grabbed the list of eight or so and explained each one.  There’s GuitaristGirl who’s kinda folky. . .GuitaristGuy who’s kinda like Tom Waits, there’s Susie – she’s really good and has a band (“Uhh, yes, I know,” I said, “I’m IN that band.”)–“  I just felt like an invisible, silent blip on her radar screen, so I decided to be done with that particular conversation.  After I got the scoop on the performers, I got a glass of wine and came back to find Susie and our group of friends instead.

On the way to meet them, I ran into another songwriter who I’ve met a time or two, and once my two friends and I even spent an evening hanging out and chatting with him at Jarra’s Ethiopian restaurant a while back, when we were all there to watch a band play.  I’ll call him Dreadlocks.  I wandered over and said, “Hey, Dreadlocks!  Good to see you.”  He also showed no sign of recognition, so I prompted him with the RadioFriend thing (cause that’s also how I knew him), and the Jarra’s show, and all that.  Still nothing, and I could see that this was headed for another disaster, so I cut it short with, “I’m playing accordion with Susie tonight, and I’m looking forward to hearing you play too!”

Just then, Susie and the rest of our group of friends appeared and saved the day.  We sat together and talked, and watched the first couple of performers, both of whom were really great.  The second performer was the Tom Waits-y guy, and he did a brilliant version of Rainbow Connection, which he followed up with one of my favorite Tom Waits songs, Hoist That Rag.

As a side note, it was brilliant of him to do Rainbow Connection, but for him to do a Tom Waits cover (despite the fact that he did it very well) when he already is so clearly influenced by Tom Waits, just seemed like a No-Duh.  There’s a girl in town who sounds remarkably like k.d. lang, and who even performs a couple of her tunes, which also seems like another No-Duh.  The point of all this is that I’d rather see her do the Tom Waits tune, and him do the k.d. lang tune.  It adds a bit of mystery and depth to a show, instead of leaving the audience thinking, “Gosh, they sure sound like somebody. . .but who?  Oh. . .right.  THAT person,” instead of sounding like themselves.  Just some food for thought.

After he was done, it was our turn to rock the house, and I should mention that we totally did.  Just before we started, however, someone said to me, “Look up there,” and pointed at the ceiling, where an accordion was hanging, completely defiled, gutted and torn to pieces.  You get used to stupid jokes like that; they just give you more incentive for veni, vedi, vici. “It’s okay,” the guy continued.  “The owner of this place is an accordion player.”

“I know, actually,” I said with a smirk (because I’ve played that venue many times before, including one night when the owner was running the sound, and before I had even stepped up to the microphone or played a note, he called out, “Less accordion!” to a round of slightly drunken laughter.  O, the hilarity.) “. . .but it’s still sad.”

We played four songs, and we brought down the house, if I can take the liberty of saying so.  The sound was great, and the two of us performed great.

Afterwards, when Susie and our friends and I were waiting in line at the bar, a SuperCuteGirl came up and introduced herself.  She was very engaging and flirty, and said she loved our set, and thought that the accordion was great.  We each got a drink and sat down to talk for a while, and after about twenty minutes or so, TomWaitsGuy and his friend came over and joined us.  The three of them knew each other, and we talked about the show.  While we were talking, the next performer came up to me and said he was about to go on, and that he really wanted me to hear his set.  He had introduced himself to me earlier, and he’d befriended me via my music page on MySpace, thanks to a couple of my mates from another band.  So I told SCG that I wanted to go listen to the guy, but I’d be back.  “Cheers!” she said, smiling, and we clinked our glasses together.

I watched the guy, who was very good, and talked with our group.  Afterwards, we all went outside to the smoking area, where I quickly discovered that SCG was married to the friend of TomWaitsGuy.  It was a bit disappointing, to say the least (especially since she wasn’t even wearing a ring!), but at least they were both friendly and cool people.  In a funny, only-in-Portland way, we discovered that they had looked at an apartment in the complex in which I used to live.  We had a good time talking about that.

As another side note, there’s a funny story about that apartment, actually, and the girl who used to live there when I first moved into the complex.  Her cat, Hooligan, got in a fight with another neighborhood cat a couple years before, and the victim cat’s owner sued her for the vet bills.  They settled in court, but not just any court. . .The Peoples’ Court.  She totally lost the case, by the way, when the judge asked, simply, “What’s your cat’s name again?”

“Hooligan.”

The audience laughed, and the judge banged the gavel.  “Court finds for the plaintiff.”

All in all, it turned out to be a pretty dang decent night, after kind of a weird and awkward start.  There’s nothing like a gutted accordion and a really great performance to make you forget about the weird stuff.

Last night, I had an extremely stressful dream which involved a job search, among other things.  My lack of money had forced me to move into a spare room above a computer store.   I was walking around in the store, customers kept asking me questions.  I continually had to tell them that I didn’t work there.

I had to go upstairs at one point to check on the status of a resumé I had sent out, and I kept getting interrupted by ridiculous questions.  Finally, I decided that I might as well work there, since I was there all the time anyway.  I went upstairs to change into some nicer clothes, and came down to find the store completely empty.  The guy behind the counter and I were talking about a girl with a guitar case who was waiting at the bus stop outside the window, and he kept making comments like, “She can come to this stop any time, heh heh.”  I pretended to laugh, then walked back upstairs to check my e-mail.

I’d gotten a response to my resume, in the form of a bunch of YouTube links with a note that said, “Watch these videos, and you’ll learn the correct way to apply for a job.”  I didn’t get a chance to read it, however, because the store was suddenly extremely busy, with people even milling around outside my room.  I went out and started my first official shift at the store.

It was crazy.  The people I worked with were a bunch of maladjusted teenagers, with the exception of the manager, who was an alien (yeah, I don’t know why either) and could keep watch over all aspects of the store at once.  He had a way of flitting up behind me and making a comment any time I stopped to take a breath, so I got into the habit of constantly moving around the store.  People asked me questions, and I would say, “It’s my first day; let me go find someone who can answer that question,” and that would propel me on another trip, looking for one of my co-workers, who I also didn’t know, and could barely differentiate between them and the customers.

The manager saw me doing this, and suddenly appeared behind me to say, “You’re circling.”  He sighed exasperatedly.  “See those white things on the floor?”  He pointed to some pieces of paper and litter.  “Why don’t you just go around the store and pick those up.”

“Is there some sort of bag I could put that stuff in?” I replied.  “I don’t really want to touch it and carry it around.”

He disappeared, and instantly appeared with a small white bag like the ones French fries are served in.  He handed it over.

“I don’t think that’ll be big enough, but I’ll give it a try,” I said, suddenly feeling very deflated.  I took the bag and half-heartedly looked around, but I didn’t bother to pick anything up.  I stood there, unable to believe that this was what my life had become.  “I’m thirty-eight years old, I’m working retail with a bunch of nineteen-year-olds, and I don’t even know when I get my first break.”  My stomach rumbled.

I woke up, feeling anxious and not at all rested.  I hate job hunting.  Hateithateithateithateit.

I had two romantic dreams this morning, the first of which was more so than the second.  I remember very little of the first, except that I was walking through a park, and I saw two young guys practicing a form of acrobatic dance.  I slowed down to watch them for a while as I passed by.  I walked a bit further and saw a girl who was doing the same sort of dance.  What a coincidence, I thought, they should all be friends. There was a long scene that I don’t remember, but I was back to the park later, walking in the direction from which I came.  As I walked closer, I saw that that the guys and the girl had joined forces and were now acrobatically dancing together.  I gave the group a smile as I passed, and the girl grabbed me and pulled me into an embrace that was surprisingly intimate, yet still looked like part of the dance.  “I just had to meet you,” she told me, “I don’t know why yet, but I felt that I needed to know you.”  We sort of danced around each other for a little while, in that intimate way, while we talked a bit and got to know each other.  It was very beautiful.  Then the dream changed to another scene, the rest of which eludes me.  This is unfortunate, because I do remember that it was also pretty romantic.

* * * * *

Dream #2

I was lying in bed with a girl, T, and our relationship wasn’t particularly close yet.  We hadn’t been seeing each other long, maybe a few days, and for some reason we were both wearing pajamas while we were in bed.  She resisted and got annoyed when I tried to cuddle with her, so we had an incredibly long, uncomfortable conversation before we ended up just cuddling anyway.

When we finally got up, we decided to call one of our female friends and go hiking.  We stopped in at a convenience store on our way up to the hills, and after we’d bought some supplies, the three of us hit the trail.  T led the way, then me, then our friend.  T got a long way ahead very quickly, and the other two of us weren’t able to keep up with her.  We walked and talked with each other instead, and said things like, “Man, she sets a grueling pace,” and “I sure hope everything’s okay up there,” and “I was hoping we’d all get to have some time together; I wish she’d stayed with us.”

After hiking for a while, we arrived at a turn-of-the-century inn that was nestled in a little valley between the hills, and since the front doors were wide open, we walked inside.  There was a lot of activity, and the place seemed to be a sort of retreat.  As we walked from room to room, we saw different things happening.  One room was the quiet room, where people were reading books or admiring the scenery out the windows.  Most people were single, but there was a married couple standing by the window.  In the next room was a dancing class, which appealed to both T and our friend, so they immediately took off their hiking boots and jackets and spontaneously joined the group, which the group seemed to encourage.  I gave them a little wave, and continued walking through the building.  I came to a large kitchen, in which a cooking class was in session, where they were making omelettes in the old-fashioned French way, over a fire in the huge oven.

As I passed one of the young women in the class, she was pulling a long-handled omelette pan out of the oven, rather awkwardly, and it looked as if she was having some difficulty, so I reached over and helped her maneuver it onto the prep table.  We made a few jokes back and forth, and had a really short but great conversation, and I thought to myself that already this girl and I probably had a better relationship than T and I had.  I bid her adieu, and walked out of the kitchen into a library room, where I saw a writer I’d met a few times standing next to one of the bookshelves with a guy friend of his.  I walked over to join them, and Writer asked me how it was going with the new girl I’d been seeing.  By the way he worded the question, I could tell that he knew we weren’t particularly close.

“I don’t know yet, we’re still figuring things out.”

He smirked.  “Do I know my audience, or what?  You been together long?  You f**k her?”

“We’re not quite there yet,” I replied.  “Like I said–”

He cut me off.  “Man, I could never do that.  If we don’t have sex, I’m outta there.”

“Hey, most of my friends are girls.  T and I are taking it slow, that’s all.  Seeing where it goes.”

He gave me a dude-I-just-feel-sorry-for-you look, and we changed the subject and talked about other things for a minute, then I took my leave to find my companions.  I saw them in a large dance performance room, which had bleachers on one end that were packed with people.  I found a seat before they did, so I motioned for them to join me.  They were on their way when a girl plopped down on my right, and dropped a huge duffel bag and overcoat next to me.  I told her that my girlfriend’s sitting there, and asked her to please move them underneath the seat.  She grumbled but finally agreed.  T and our friend weren’t able to make it through the milling crowd, however, so they decided to sit on the floor in front of the bleachers.  That figures, I thought, T and I are kept apart once again. The group of dancers walked out to the middle of the floor, and the show began.

At this point, the dream changed and I found myself in my home, which was an old farmhouse.  It was comfortable but needed a few repairs here and there.  I was walking across the gravel driveway, from the house to the shed, when a dog ran by me.  He was running from Cletus, my crazy neighbor with long black hair who was wearing a black suit, top hat, and John Lennon sunglasses.  He was chasing the dog with one of his homemade guns that had a short, flared barrel.  As he ran by, the dog yelled back to him (yes, the dog was yelling), “Don’t shoot me, Cletus, you hillbilly!”

Cletus lived in the next house down the road.  There was a large orchard between our houses, so we didn’t interact very much.  He was about five years older than I, and his two adult male cousins lived with him at his house.  A few seconds after Cletus and the dog ran past me, his two cousins came running by with two guns of similar design.  I said to them, “Okay, guys, that’s enough; just let him go,” and one of them turned and ran toward my shed, where I was leaning in the doorway.  He was either high or drunk, but I knew he was harmless, so I was unfazed and stood with my arms folded across my chest while he pulled out a switchblade and started to wave it around.

“I don’t recommend you do that,” I said, pausing at one point to lean away from one of his pathetic lunges.  “We’re neighbors, and at some point we may need to. . .help each other out.”

By way of an answer, he lit something on fire and stuck it onto the door jamb next to me, then laughed and ran off to join his brother.  I expected it to explode or something, so I shut the door and waited.  Nothing happened, so after about ten seconds I opened the door, grabbed a small hand towel, and snuffed the little fire out.  I’m gonna need to talk to Cletus about this one, I thought to myself, and that’s when I woke up.

I just woke from a dream, the story of which wasn’t interesting, but there were some details that were very interesting.

I was at a dinner party in a large hotel suite, and since the friend I was meeting there hadn’t arrived yet, I didn’t really know anyone.  There were a couple of people I’d seen once or twice before, at previous gatherings, but there was a lot of awkward conversation as more and more people entered the room.  I was sitting next to a young woman who was one of the people I’d met previously, and when her older sister arrived, she introduced me as William.  I shook her hand and said, “Todd; nice to meet you.”  The sister sat on my other side, and we chatted easily and got along very well, until some people on the other end of the table kept asking her things, seemingly to keep her from talking to me.  I decided to pull out my ‘Face Book’, which was an enormous coffee table book full of peoples’ pictures and updates.

I flipped through it for a few minutes, and then decided to put it down on the floor.  I turned around and leaned it vertically against the wall behind my chair, and that’s when my new friend turned to me and asked if she could take a look too.  I grabbed it and handed it to her, and she took it and turned completely away from me to read it.   I decided to go to the bathroom, and as soon as I stood up, I noticed that I was wearing a police uniform.

I wanted to be a little less conspicuous, so I unhooked my name badge and slipped it into my pocket just before entering the mens’ room.  As I pushed the door open, I noticed a disheveled guy sitting next to the door, slightly sprawled out with his back against the wall.  I turned my head to the left, and saw two guys entering the building through the side entrance.  I turned back and entered the restroom.

I felt I should pay attention to what everyone else in the room was doing.  As I was urinating, the two guys entered the mens’ room also, and went into a darkened side room for a minute.  When they came out, one of them tried to turn the light switch off (even though the room they’d just left was dark already) and he seemed to have great difficulty doing so, as if he was extremely drunk.  I thought to myself, ‘Someone ought to report him.  I should tell the guy next to me, who’s urinating also, but he’ll probably think I’m a cop since I’m wearing this stupid uniform.’

I continued to urinate, and in fact woke up as I was doing that.  Quite a strange sensation, by the way, to dream that you’re urinating and then wake up to find that you’re not urinating anymore.  Once again, I’m grateful for dopamine, so that our bodies don’t act out our dreams.

Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, and I called her last night.  We talked for a while, and one of the things she mentioned is that she occasionally checks in on my blog to ‘see how things are going.’  My mom reads my blog, and she’s apparently been doing it for some time now.

Great.

With all those posts I’ve written about Satan and feces and third grade memories, not to mention all the copious amounts of premarital sex weird dreams and my judicious but regular smattering of naughty words, she probably thinks that her real baby son must have somehow been swapped in the hospital for this devil’s spawn.

But the most egregious thing of all (for her, anyway) has to be my non-stop trash-talking about Yakima, which is decidedly well-deserved, but she can’t stomach it.  I have a kinda funny story about that, actually, which involves my niece’s favorite TV show, which we all couldn’t help but watch with her while we were at the beach a few weeks ago.

It’s a national show, which you probably haven’t seen, let alone enjoyed, if you’re over the age of ten.  It’s about PrecociousTeenageGirl, and it’s set in Seattle, where Niece lives.  The grandparents on the show even live in Yakima, where one set of Niece’s grandparents live.  The hijinks ensued in one episode when it looked as if PTG was going to be sent to live with her grandparents.  She didn’t want to go, and she kept making all these lame jokes about Yakima and how bad it is (“oh, the sweet smell of Yakima”, et cetera).  I kept waiting for them to actually take her there, and have some scenes set in the town, which I’m sure they would have filmed in Salinas, California instead, anyway.  It has the exact same feel and look as Yakima, except for the fact that Salinas has the brilliant John Steinbeck rooting for it.  Raymond Carver and I are Yakima’s vox populi spokespeople, and we have nothing good to say about the place.

But that’s neither here nor there.

I found that episode surreal and hilarious.  No wonder it’s Niece’s favorite show; the writers practically frickin’ wrote it for her, and set it in the two places she knows best in the world.  I couldn’t stop cracking up at the irony of the situation, so between my incredulous laughter and the show’s cloying laugh track in response to every generic joke, my mom got angry and had to go upstairs to get away from it all.

I couldn’t tear myself away from the stupid show, and I actually watched the thing in its entirety. You’ll be glad to know that PTG did not, in fact, get sent to live in Yakima, because GenXGuardian (her older brother?) came through in the end to prove that despite his slacker appearance, he really was quite the responsible young gentleman when it came to raising her.  Awww.  Wipe my tears and cue the organist.

I suppose I don’t have a real reason to feel weird about my mom reading all this.  She knows (pretty much) what I’m like, this is all real stuff, and I feel like it’s a good representation of me, slightly-glossed-over warts and all.

But it still does feel weird.  I’m sure you understand.