beautiful, funny, sad & true

This week has been a bit much.

Friday night was the marathon night; straight from work to Ratatouille, then to the Gypsy bar, then to the Flaming Lips listening party, then to the double-shot of gay bars.

Saturday was a big show–the second week of the Voices For Silent Disasters series–at the Mission Theater with both Susie (I played accordion) and Breanna (I played piano, believe it or not). Very fun.

Sunday was dinner with John, where the waiter thought we were a couple and told us to “keep taking care of each other.”

Monday was a well-deserved Crash and Do Laundry Day.

Tuesday was SarahC Night, which originally meant that she and I were going to see the movie “Darjeeling Limited”, but the theater didn’t take credit cards, which was all we had. So we ended up hanging out and talking at the Sapphire Hotel–where they gladly accept credit cards–for a few hours instead.

Wednesday was another of TossedIn’s play readings. The play this time was a not-for-the-faint-of-heart epic that was written by one of the members of the group. It was hilarious and over-the-top. The author had his head in his hands for much of the play, saying, “I’m sorry,” for the unimaginably X-rated language and situations involved. He even told us at one point about how his so-called friend had said, “Look buddy, I don’t think this play is really ready for reading, so I’m not going to make it to the reading tonight” and that he’d “see if I can give you some criticism that would help you out.” Isn’t that a horrible thing to say about a work-in-progress? Anyway, after that, T and I and a couple other people from the group went on a bit of a scavenger hunt. Apparently there’s a game that’s sweeping the world, and it involves using your GPS unit (assuming that you have a GPS unit) to find hidden trinkets and coins, and signing your name on a tiny paper scroll inside. It was a total blast. I still have one of the coins; I need to figure out what to do with it. Hopefully someone’s not going to show up on my doorstep with a GPS and start digging around my apartment building.

Last night was a Breanna gig. There were two other songwriters on the bill, and the show went from 9:00 until midnight. It was pretty grueling. Also, there were only about eight people in the audience for the entire show. Oh well; I’ve played for fewer people, and for far less attentive ones too. So it was a good show, but pretty exhausting. Thank gawd for cheap food and free drinks.

And that’s not even saying anything about work, which was extremely stressful this week, especially yesterday and today. It’s also not saying anything about the fact that J started seeing a new guy this week, which brought a heaviness to my heart because of the connection that she and I have, even despite (or maybe because of. . .?) everything we’ve been through, and as close as we still are. Incidentally, she’s had the same lump-in-the-throat feeling whenever I’ve met someone new, so it goes both ways. We both care about each other so much that it’s sometimes hard to believe that a romantic relationship between us would never work, but we both know it. The good news is that her new guy seems really great, and even from the little bit she’s told me about him, I give their relationship my full support. Can’t wait to meet him. But it’s still kinda bittersweet for me at the same time.

So after this crazy week, I really needed to do simple, relaxing stuff that’s good for me, and that I just enjoy doing. It’s the kind of night that if I was a girl, I’d rejuvenate myself by taking a bath and painting my toenails or something, but what does the trick for me is cooking. I always feel like I’m Taking Care of Myself if I make a nice dinner, because I love to cook, but I never take the time to do it anymore. So tonight I made this:

It’s pasta with Alfredo sauce, smoked salmon, green onions and whole peppercorns. I got the idea from a meal I had at a local restaurant, and then I added my own touches to it. I’m still trying to improve it but even so, it’s always excellent and super easy. Tonight was no exception.

So that was Part One for tonight. Part Two involves watching a DVD I just rented called Haibane Renmei, which was written by the same guy who wrote Serial Experiments: Lain, a very dark, strange, and beautiful anime series. It’s one of my favorites, and I’m very much looking forward to this newer one.

Well, this entry turned out to be quite the novel. I really appreciate you for sticking with it clear through to the end.

Okay, I’m going to give this a try. This subject has been bouncing around in my head for weeks, and I haven’t been sure how to go about writing it all out, but I’m going to do my best.

True friends in this life are very rare. I’m lucky enough to have a few, but there’s one person who is responsible for the biggest changes in my life, and without whom my life would still be the same as it used to be.

When I first moved to Portland, I got a job with the Postal Service, after seeing an ad in the newspaper. It wasn’t the usual back-breaking USPS job, we were told, but a computer-based data entry job. Not very stressful; listened to NPR and audio books all day; I even made a few good friends, some of which I still have to this day. (Hey, JohnReneeMarkRosemary!)

For the first few years I lived here, I didn’t have a car. My apartment was right down the street from where I worked, and I wasn’t playing gigs yet, so I didn’t need one. My rent was low, and my job paid pretty well, so it was time to start thinking about doing more music writing. I got a new computer, a new guitar effects processor, and a couple of keyboard sound modules, and then started dinking around with song ideas. Some were completely realized and polished songs, others were just little snippets of ideas, twenty seconds long.

I started taking the tapes to work with me to play for my friends. Without exception they said, “Enh. . .not really my thing.” I’d say, “Hunh. Well, you know I played all the instruments on there; that’s gotta count for something, right?” They’d say, “Well, that’s kinda cool, I guess.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Whenever I met someone new, I’d let them listen to the tapes if they wanted to, and after lots of similarly lackluster responses, I decided to just stop sharing it. But–credit where credit’s due–there were two people who were the first ones to really listen, and to take my music seriously; Mark and John. Renee and Rosemary did too, a little later on (Renee in particular has come to a lot of my shows, but that’s getting ahead of The Story), but John and Mark were definitely the first, and their confidence and kind words came along at a time when I desperately needed them. Thank you, to all four of you. I’ve never ever forgotten your kindness.
(Incidentally, all four–particularly Renee and John–are regular readers of this blog.)

One other thing you should know about that job. There were about three hundred people who worked there, on about six or eight different shifts. So it was possible to work there for quite a while without getting a chance to really meet someone, if they didn’t work on your same shift. You’d be in the same huge room at the same time, but your paths might never cross.

So, after working there for about four years, I was coming back from a break and made some jokey comment to one of my friends. This woman named Crystin, who I’d seen plenty of times but never met, overheard that and laughed. She told me later that she didn’t remember what it was I said, but that it was genuinely smart and funny, without being crude or sexist, and that’s what made her think I might be a Good Person.

So we finally met and started talking, and she asked what I do outside of work. I said I play guitar and piano, and I dink around and write some little songs. She said she’d like to hear some stuff. She told me she was taking voice lessons and learning the guitar so she could write songs. In return, she gave me a tape of herself singing along in the bathroom to a Heather Nova song. I thought it was good, I told her, but I really wanted to hear stuff that she was writing. She went and listened to my tape, and then came back with tears in her eyes and gave me one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever had in my whole life. “Oh my gawd. That music made me laugh and cry at the same time! Do you think you can make my stuff sound like that?”

From then on, it was full speed ahead. She brought me all kinds of songs, and we’d record them, and I’d play all kinds of instruments on them. She was married–and still is–to a great guy named Aram, and we became just as close. The three of us became inseparable friends, and Crystin and I took any opportunity to share with people this new thing we were creating.

After we’d worked on about fifty songs together, we thought, “Hunh. . .we should probably start a band.” The idea hadn’t occurred to us. So we went to find some female-fronted singer-songwriter bands to check out. The two that we were both blown away and inspired by–ironically enough–were Stephanie Schneiderman and Susie Blue.

Since I’m trying to keep this entry at a reasonable length, I’ll skip the band-related stuff because it’s all out there on the web anyway. Suffice it to say that we started a band, and that provided just the right kind of support that we both needed to get past our fears and insecurities. We still had plenty, of course, but always managed to talk them out. She’s the one who taught me how to really talk them out, by the way.

So. What’s the point of all this?

I dunno; guess I just felt like I needed to say thank you, Crystin and Aram. I wouldn’t be the person I am today, doing the things that I’m doing, without you guys. I learned what it’s like to have people see through my thorns and facades, and still like what they saw. I learned what it’s like to have people see me in a way I couldn’t see myself, because they didn’t have my internal filters saying, “What’s wrong with me?” all the time. I learned what it’s like to have people expect the best from me, and that in turn brought out the best in me. I learned what it felt like to always (okay, ALMOST always!) be given the benefit of the doubt, even when I didn’t feel I deserved it, or when I was frustrated with my life, or when I was depressed and despondent. You saw past all those things, and saw me for what I am.

Like I said; friends like that are extremely rare in this life, and I owe you everything for helping me transform into the person I am now.

THANK YOU, C and A.

Incidentally, if you’d like to listen some of the songs we did together, go check out Crystin’s MySpace page.

After a long day of sleeping, sweating (I stayed home from work with a fever today), dinking around on the computer and washing dishes, I decided to go back to bed and read for a while. I’m still reading Catcher in the Rye. I got to the part where Our Hero sneaks into his parents’ home in the middle of the night–cause he’s home a couple of days early due to being kicked out of school, and he doesn’t want his parents to find out yet–to see his little sister. That scenario reminded me of the line from the play Our Town. You know the one; “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.”

I hadn’t seen that play since I was in junior high, and I wanted to see it again and remember the context of that great line, so I scrounged around a bit and watched the 1940 version of the movie on Google. I didn’t hear that line, but the movie was certainly excellent and moving. The crux of it is that we all sort of zoom through our lives without taking time to even see the people that are closest to us, until it’s too late. And if I’m not mistaken, the ending of the movie was different from that of the play…? I don’t remember the play having a Hollywood happy ending.

After all that, it turned out that the line was not from Our Town after all, but from a poem by Robert Frost called The Death of the Hired Man, which I somehow remember reading in fifth grade–and not really understanding it–but that line certainly stuck with me all this time. It also turns out that I had it slightly wrong. The actual line is this:

And now that I’m in my mid-thirties, and gone through some pretty hard times, I feel like I understand and appreciate it.

Amazing how certain things you read can stick with you. I read the poem when I was just ten years old, but the line is so strong that it called out to my little brain and then waited for me to come around and discover it again. Re-reading Catcher in the Rye has been a bit like that too. Even though I read it as an adult (albeit barely; I think I was eighteen), and I should have been able to relate to it completely, I hadn’t really started to live yet, so it was just as remote as reading Isaac Asimov or something. Now I actually find myself relating to the confusion, the humor, and even the darkness that seems to jump out from every page.

Makes me want to go back and re-read every book I thought I’d read before.

What a weekend.

The show on Friday night was pretty stellar. It was fun to play with BassPlayerDamian (Stephanie’s previous bass player) and DrummerNed (from Dirty Martini) again. We’ve all played together separately many times, but never all together. Breanna sang backup with us, and Paul Brainard played pedal steel (that twangy-sounding instrument that’s usually associated with country music) and trumpet like a champion. “Enough of Empty” went in a completely different and cool direction with the addition of a trumpet solo. This show was also the debut of my new red Hofner guitar. It sounded great, and I can’t wait to see what it looks like in a picture. After we were done, we pretty much stayed backstage in the green room the entire time, talking and relaxing (Incidentally, ‘relaxing’ may be spelled r-e-l-a-x-i-n-g, but in this case it’s pronounced ‘drinking wine’. We had plenty, and not much food to soak it up. Ohmygawd.) We missed the second band, but we came out and sat up front for the third band, Richmond Fontaine. They were excellent, as usual.

Saturday night was the full-band show with Breanna. It was good, but we haven’t been playing as an electric band for a while, so it never quite felt like we really gelled. We never sounded bad or anything–in fact I’d say we sounded pretty dang good–but it just never quite felt as good as it usually does, which is fine. If you’ve spent any kind of time reading this blog, you’ll know that some gigs are just better than others. Ain’t no thang.

Yesterday afternoon was a recording session for a new song of Breanna’s. I got there really early, brought in my cello and accordion, and then, since it would be a while before I was needed, I ended up going for an hour-long walk around the neighborhood because it was so beautiful outside. When I got home, I had a message on MySpace from a girl I went on a couple of dates with a year and a half ago. “I saw you! Walking on 22nd, talking on your cell phone.” It was very funny, in a small-world kind of way.

I think that the Dread Pirate Exhaustion may have been setting in, though, because with the exception of the show on Friday night, I never really felt ‘present’ for the rest of the weekend. I felt like I was going through the motions, even during the recording session.

By all standards, this should have been a two-thumbs-up weekend, but realistically, I think I’m only gonna be able to give it a thumb and a half, because I felt so exhausted and weird for so much of it.

I don’t have any kind of substantial basis for feeling this way, but I feel like this is going to be a good week.

As soon as I finished that last entry, I grabbed my bass, jumped in my car, and headed to Sarah Castro’s for rehearsal. Or so I thought.

You see, she lives just off Capitol Highway in Beaverton. For some reason, though, I had it in my head that I needed to go to SUNSET Highway instead. These are very different freeways, in completely opposite parts of town. I was through the tunnel and heading up the hill on the Sunset Highway when I realized, ‘Shit. What am I doing?’ It never really got any better after that.

I instantly thought, ‘Okay, I’ll just turn around at the next exit and come back up the Sunset Highway’ but there must have been a wreck or something in the tunnel, because traffic was at a dead stop for a couple of miles. I decided to go the only other way I knew, which was to take Highway 217 clear around Beaverton and meet up with I-5, where I could come back north and hit Capitol Highway from there. Wrong again.

Turns out that I-5 North doesn’t have an exit for Capitol Highway. Not only that, but that area of town is very confusing, so if you’re not very familiar with the area, it’s hard to tell which exit will get you where you need to go until you get downtown, by which time you’re in the thick of ugly traffic and construction. But I looked over in the direction of I-5 South anyway, only to find that there was an ambulance, a police car, and another two-mile, dead-stop traffic jam.

At that point I called Sarah. “I don’t think I’m gonna make it, unfortunately.” I told her about my 45-minute circle of the metropolitan area, to which she responded, “That’s okay; it happens. No biggie.” I apologized and told her I’d see her for sure on Sunday.

On the way back up I-5 toward my exit, the city lights were particularly bright, and the Willamette River particularly calm, so the lights of downtown were reflecting beautifully. I always have my camera with me, so I thought I would pull over somewhere and take some pictures. The exit I took put me right near the Coliseum, which was fine, but then the road split and wouldn’t let me go straight where I needed to go straight in order to get to the park I had in mind. In fact, the road put me on the Steel Bridge headed over the river and toward downtown. I cursed under my breath and drove over the bridge.

Once I was in downtown, I went around the block and back over the bridge, only to find all the parking spaces full and a bunch of ne’er-do-wells milling around underneath the overpass. I decided to give it a miss.

So the best-laid schemes of mice and men went awry on this sorry excuse for an eve, and I have neither rehearsal nor pictures to show for my fruitless travels.

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Or something like that.