her shoulder to cry on

2003-10-21T02:53:00.000-05:00

i need to get laid.

2003-10-10T00:53:00.000-05:00

wow, i'm screwed. i'm going to go insane.

mock trial started today. f-s-c no. three is on my team. as usual, massive flirtation, even though he's still (grrr...) taken. i wouldn't be surprised if some of the new mockers thought we were some kind of item or something. we're not, but we flirt like mad whenever we're anywhere near each other. he's also my attorney on one side, we decided today when assigning attorney-witness pairs. this is a good thing, because we get along so darn well, he's an amazing attorney, and he's going to be a blast to work with. still, it's going to cause lots more anxiety and brooding on my part, between the fact that i still don't know whether my own flirtation is friendly or friendly-with-ulterior-motives, and he's still taken...and that, as an attorney-witness pair, we'll be spending lots of time working on our direct. it also won't do anything to dispel any misconceptions that our behaviour may well be creating...oops.

eh well...caution to the wind. this is going to be a fun one.

2003-10-09T10:25:00.000-05:00

last night was the weirdest bar night ever. no, i didn't hook up with anyone or even come close... (that may have been part of the weirdness...lol). i went with fuzzy, f-s-c no. one, and the transfer student, the one that i may or may not have been interested in, the one that jammed up my gaydar and turned out to be bi. it was fun stuff, but it ended up being transfer guy pointing out guy after guy, and us trying to figure out whether or not he may like men. it was also funny because there was so much of that goofy queer guy/girl flirtation going on that i SWEAR that everyone thought we were together... one time it got a bit annoying, since i WAS flirting with this one guy (playing tic-tac-toe on his leg), and transfer guy made a comment that people might think i was flirting with the guy i actually WAS flirting with. grrr...nothing probably would have happened, if something did happen it probably would have been bad because this guy lives in fuzzy's house and this guy's a first year (which would be massive cradle robbing on my part), but it was still a little bizarre, a little annoying for him to shut down my game like that. :( whatever...i still had a good time at bar night, although i'm sure transfer guy and i confused the CRAP out of people.

last night also convinced me that i really don't have any interest in him, in that way. a switch, which probably already flipped, made known that it had flipped for sure...if that makes any sense whatsoever. still, it was really funny...he made a comment like "i have a very specific thing i look for in girls...if you wore your glasses all the time, you'd be right in the centre of that." umm...what do i make of that? i just started ranting about the annoyance of wearing glasses, 'cause that was the first thing that came to mind. it wasn't particularly stressful, just strange. still, i don't know what it is with guys and glasses...it always made my ex happy when i wore my glasses, and now transfer guy's big into glasses...glasses can be cute, but i don't think they make or break anything.

2003-10-07T12:56:00.000-05:00

it's been forever since i've posted in this thing...if by forever i mean a week and a half. school has started. i've been running around like a headless chicken. i'm not all unpacked yet. mock trial is slowly but surely returning to my life, since tryouts started sunday and conclude today. i'll know tonight what team i'm on, since i'm helping assemble them anyway. i'm dying to be on a team with f-s-c no. three, even though i'm sure that this is a bad idea because i'm going to be going nuts, we're both going to be extremely flirtatious, and he's still taken. granted, i can make sure nothing will happen if i muster the discipline, but i better be darn sure i muster the discipline.

i've seen new guy a few times since school started. happy things...i'm a little confuzzled, he seems to be sending me somewhat mixed messages, but whatever. i need to find a way to get him to actually go on a date with me, i should ask him out for coffee or dinner or something. i tried to do that last week, but it kind of didn't happen. grrr...

starting my job back up today, in about five minutes. i'm not looking forward to rotting here for four hours today. my cd player's busted, which makes it worse... at least i have a tape player, so i can listen to music anyway, but what i really wanted to do was put the cd of my band's practice (yes, i'm in one coherent band now!) in my cd player, put the instrumental i'm supposed to be writing lyrics to on repeat, and come up with at least half a clue for a vocal part. maybe i'll spring to buy a cd player in the near future, maybe after my first paycheck back to school or something. yeah...i really can't function without a portable cd player.

need to find people to drag to a show with me...inept, escape from earth, slytherin, facing forward, and lost in blue are playing in wheaton on sunday. i'll go even if no one goes with me, but i was hoping now that school has resumed that i'd at least be able to find SOMEONE to drag with me to these shows. grrr...it's sometimes pretty darn annoying when your friends' music tastes suck. they're the greatest people ever, but even they have their flaws. ;)

2003-09-26T11:28:00.000-05:00

today rules. my friends are slowly but surely coming back to town. today or tomorrow, sometime soon, i'll be able to finally see new guy again, maybe figure out what the heck might go on with that whole situation. (it's awesome, i talked to him yesterday and he said i should come over and help decorate his room...i can't object there!) i'm going squirrel fishing on the quad today, and then i'm going to the 'burbs to go see my boys Inept. :) it means i have to miss museum of science and industry night, but i really don't mind...i don't have a shift at the MSI, and i've been there a lot, and i'll probably go in the future since SGF is a member...i can go for free with him. besides, Inept isn't playing there, they're playing at Oasis One-Sixty! i can't overstate how much these boys rock...hopefully they'll play These Days today, since they never played it at their acoustic shows... i love Inept.

2003-09-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

total insanity.

looking so forward to tomorrow, it's going to be the perfect day. all my friends will be back in town and moving into the dorms. and then, Inept is playing at Oasis One-Sixty with Celldweller and Godhead! i think i'm going to throw everything to the wind and just go, in fact, i know i am. i'm going to be a very sad nicky if i don't go. i'm trying to get at least someone to go with me, but if i don't, i'm still going. maybe i'm dumb for going to a concert on move-back day, but it has been three weeks since i've seen my boys live and in concert, and it'll be the first chance i've really had to see them play plugged in since the escape from earth show mid-august...the first time i heard them. this time i'll get to sing along, this time i'll not miss the first song or two of the set, this time will be super sexy. :) i fear it may annoy some of my friends just a bit that i'll be out all night, but i'll have all day and all weekend and all the time to hang out, and i will go insane if i don't go to this show.

total shift in topic, but even my defective gaydar is starting to scream that Possibly Attractive Transfer is indeed gay. i think it's his rainbow flag in the room. i saw his emailbox and there was something from planetout in there. i think he's sort of a flirt-with-everyone type in the same way i am. he's not stereotypically gay, and he hasn't told me anything outright (i haven't asked), but even my low-grade gaydar has picked up enough vibes to start blaring. oh well...the way i see it, crisis averted. i'll have plenty to deal with once new guy shows up tomorrow, and once i get back into the swing of partying and meeting more people here. :) besides...o-aides should keep their paws off the newbies, right? i thought so.

2003-09-24T12:51:00.000-05:00

crazy stuff...i actually want to watch "the bachelor". it's a dumb show, but i'm so amused...who'd have ever thought that bob guiney, the lead singer of fat amy (a band i've been listening to since i was fourteen!) would be on it?!? i'm so amused. maybe fat amy will get some shout outs on the show, and maybe people will finally realise the awesomeness of fat amy. :)

2003-09-23T15:32:00.000-05:00

wow...i just did some cleaning in my room, and now i have about a half an hour of precious down time! i can't decide if i want to sit around, surf the net, and listen to finger eleven, or if i want to play around on my guitar...who knows? anyway, my floor's cleared off, so that's a good thing either way. today's been so long so far, though...i had project assignment stuff straight from 9 to about 2:30, and then i had to come home and do at least some cleaning. i've got to be back on campus in an hour, though, to watch the "sex and respect" show, since i'm leading a discussion on that tonight. that'll be over by nine, though, and then i'll have the night. i have no clue whatsoever what i'm doing tonight, maybe i'll go to bed early (since i slept from about 2:00 to about 7:30 last night!) i don't know. i still wish i could be at the ratbag hero show, but that's clearly not going to happen for two hugiferous reasons (it starts at nine, and i'm STILL not 21 yet!).

this is completely insane...i think i can compare my reaction (i can't think of a better word, i'm sorry!) to that transfer student in my house to mine with respect to f-s-c no. three... i don't know if i like him that way or not, but i hope i don't, because there are so many reasons it's a bad idea. in this case, he's a new student and i'm an orientation aide. he's an incoming junior, which isn't bad since i'm a senior, but it would still be massive, massive cradle robbery because he just turned 18. that would not be cool, i don't think...maybe it wouldn't be so bad, because he has had two years of college, but there's that buzzing in my gut that's telling me it's a bad idea. i ended up spending a few hours yesterday evening in his room, just watching silly stuff on his computer. nothing's happening, i can't even tell if he's flirting with me or not, i can't even tell if he's tripping my gaydar or not. i don't THINK he is, but who knows...the last guy that ambiguously fiddled with my gaydar was new guy, and that seems to be working out so well as an open possibility! my gaydar sucks, anyway. i'm confused. i'm making no sense whatsoever. this sucks.

2003-09-23T07:56:00.000-05:00

grrr...this is no good at all. tonight ratbag hero's playing their last show for a long, long time (they're recording), and i can't go! it's 21 and over, and i can't even try and talk my way in because i have a meeting here on campus until 8:45...and the show's out in wicker park at nine!!! this is really frustrating and annoying, i want to see this show so badly! i don't know...the jury's still out on the continuation of, um, relations between me and the lead singer (i don't know what to make of this guy other than the fact that he's a crazy punk rock goof, and such a freaking GUY...sometimes he replies, sometimes he takes forever...i guess the fact that he ever replies to a stinking email at all makes it better than many instances of inebriated one-nighters), but whatever. maybe a little part of me is frustrated that i can't go to this show because going to this show means an extremely good chance of getting laid, but they also rock really hard--yes, i did like this band before i fooled around with any of the bandmates! i promise!

in the words of Strong Sad, "there needs to be a better word for weird."

2003-09-22T02:00:00.000-05:00

oh dear, this is insane. i'm ridiculous. all the new students moved in yesterday, so i've clearly been getting to know all of the new kids in my dorm. there are only five of them, all transfers, so i've gotten to talk to them quite a bit between the intro yesterday and then the house outing tonight... anyway, there's one of the transfers in my house who i find myself a bit attracted to. this is a bad thing. first of all, he's a new student and i'm an orientation aide, so it's especially not a good thing this week, for orientation. second of all, he's probably going to do mock trial, so i'm going to see him ALL THE FREAKING TIME once mock rolls back around. third of all, it would be massive cradle robbery. i'm twenty, and i'm a humongous vixen...he's eighteen, he just turned eighteen about two months ago. he seems older than that, and he has been in college for two years, but sheesh...i even feel like i'm robbing the cradle a bit with new guy, and he's nineteen! just turned eighteen, there's something wrong with that. besides, the last thing i need is more confusion, i've got enough between new guy coming back on friday, the possibility of future tryst(s) with lead singer guy, and the inevitable crazy mixture of feelings i get whenever i hang out with f-s-c no. three (the only f-s-c who i guess is still a confuzzlement), who's also getting back to town on friday.

the bottom line is that i'm a huge whore who likes to go after whatever and whoever she wants. i guess i've always been like this, but it hasn't made anything too crazy until the last several months, when i've realised that i can go after what i want and more than likely land it. stewing in an attraction sucks because you convince yourself you can't ever have the object of your lust, but the opposite gets dicey when your head and your hormones tell you two different things. usually my hormones win out, but i really shouldn't make my crazy situation even crazier. i'm sure i'll make it crazier anyway, be it with this guy or with another person, or maybe with the people i've already got something or another buzzing with already. i don't know...this is just ridiculousness. divinely amusing ridiculousness, but still ridiculousness.

maybe i'll be okay as long as i don't ever kiss another person who seems to be intent on biting my tongue off. i was at the art opening/concert/party thingamabobber on friday night, and this guy who was kinda sorta cute started hitting on me and eventually kissing me, and i wasn't averse. then, though, he got really weird...started getting REALLY grabby, grabbing my butt really hard and sticking his hand in my shirt in public. that was totally non-cool, and i told him so in no uncertain terms. still, the worst thing he did was when he was kissing me, he started sucking and gnawing on my tongue like he wanted to take it out of my mouth or something. that felt horrible, and my tongue is still so freaking sore from it. needless to say, i ditched him pretty promptly after he started getting really bad to be with. he tried to get my attention again, but i just ditched him. i have no intention whatever of seeing him again...i hope to go to more similar parties, because the event was awesome...just, he sucked.

2003-09-20T23:40:00.000-05:00

i'm going stir-crazy...it's move-in day today (or, it was...), and i didn't actually lug a ton of first years' boxes. i didn't talk to as many first-years as usual...i spent most of the day, most of my down time, meandering around with one of my o-aide friends. i spent a good chunk of time this evening hanging out with old friends and not new students. i know this dorm will be awesome, but tonight it's just making me stir-crazy that it's not an overly social place. i know i picked the right dorm, i know i live here for the right reasons, but it makes orientation positively maddening.

2003-09-19T19:55:00.000-05:00

...so tonight, i'm going out to meet another rocker. :) this is the other band i may join, the one that does originals. i was on the phone with the drummer last night for about half an hour, talking about lots of random things, and he told me he was going to this art gallery event tonight, and that i could meet up with him there if i wanted. i said, what the heck? why not? so, i'm going. it starts at nine, so i'll be leaving in a little bit. it's over at this place called the texas ballroom, around 30th and archer...so i'll get to explore another south side neighbourhood i've never been to before. :) hopefully these guys will be cool.

i do need to get this band thing figured out... the bassist from the cover band just called me (as i was typing this!) to see if i could come over this weekend...i can't because of orientation, but i already told him i'll come over and sing with them next weekend. i haven't told either one of the bands about the other one, but i guess it's the same thing as really, really casual dating...i haven't told the cover band a definite "i'll be with you forever", and i won't have even MET anyone in the originals band until tonight, and won't sing with them until later, maybe this week or something. i need to get this figured out soon, though, so i can throw myself behind one of these projects with all my energy. i'm SO EXCITED about this...i can't wait to sing, to perform, to go to practice frequently, to go live! it's so amusing, i've told some of my friends about this whole band thing, and they're so excited for me...they can't wait to see me perform. :) it'll be SO sweet.

on another topic, i don't know WHAT to make of mister lead singer guy. i emailed him wednesday night (a really simple hey, what's up, life is good, maybe hang out later kind of email), and then thursday morning he had emailed me back. it was the most amusing and blunt thing i've read in a really long time, and it bodes well for maybe another go at things. no strings attached punk rock groupie flings...ain't nothing like 'em. :)

well...i'm off to the art gallery thing. wish me luck.

2003-09-17T21:32:00.000-05:00

i should be unpacking...it's my freest night of the week, but i don't feel like it. i'm tired. if i had quarters or money on my card to wash my sheets, i'd be a little more motivated, but i have no quarters and there's no cash-to-card machine (WHO decided it would be good not to put one in our laundry room?? guess i have to go to shoreland...) i guess i'll do it tomorrow after team night out, or maybe do it friday night. this place has to be presentable by saturday when the new students get here. it's already bad enough that all my storage stuff is stuck there until the rest of my roommates show up, a week from friday. my stuff is in the locker behind everyone elses's stuff--and locked with a lock to which i do not possess the key. that's pretty frustrating, i was looking forward to decorating my walls. at least i have a few thing for my walls with me now...i've got all my big posters with me, and a few little things (calendar pages, the ratbag hero article, et cetera). tonight would be good, but i'm just too tired and too lazy. i came home with such resolve, but i just sat down at my computer and started talking to new guy instead. :) i've still been talking to him really, really frequently.

goodness knows what's going to happen with that. i'm still pretty optimistic about it, but i'm also a bit scared because he seems a fairly serious type. i can't verify that one way or the other, it's just a vibe i get. i guess he can't be THAT serious a type if he let me sleep over that night, although by all accounts things were taken very slowly (compared to any of my other pursuits). it was still a very sweet encounter, not laden with the usual urgency and abandon of a one nighter. i don't know...we'll see.

i love girl talk. almost all my friends are guys, so it's definitely a rare, nice occasion to just dish about stuff to girls. i got to do that today...i was hanging out with one of my few really close female friends, and one of her friends who i also know to some extent, and we were dishing about flings and relationships and whatever else... i was in the middle of dishing about new guy to my close friend when her friend walked in, so i gushed about that for a while, and then i made an offhand comment about the punk rock bus ride, so i ended up telling that story (minus the fact that i slept with the lead singer...it's a good enough story minus that detail, and it would have been too much info for them anyway...still, the only person i've fessed that particular detail up to is SGF.) i gushed about that, they talked about other guys a bit, we flipped through the pic book scoping out new students...it's an experience i can't say i've really had since back when i lived with my ex-roommate. it was good.

i'm evil and calculating, i know...i'm still wondering when i should reply to lead singer's email to me. i didn't want to reply yesterday because HE waited a few days, but i'm a fan of replying in a more timely manner, i guess. i think i'm going to shoot him a quick email tonight before i nod off to sleep. he's an amusing character...there's clearly nothing more that's going to happen than some sort of occasional drinking buddy, groupie, or booty call kind of situation (and "situation" will be an overstatement, i'm sure!), but whatever...i'm totally cool with that. i'm playing for fun.

2003-09-17T08:33:00.000-05:00

here i am...back on campus. not all my friends are back, but the ones that are doing orientation are, so that's some of them. furthermore, i've got this HUGE HONKING APARTMENT to myself for a week and a half! that means i have some serious moving in to do, but it's all good, because i've got a huge apartment (with the biggest closet EVER) all to myself!!

okay, i'll stop squeaking and gloating. i have to get to orientation training anyway.

2003-09-16T12:04:00.000-05:00

i'm amused beyond belief. guess who just emailed me back? yeah...mister ratbag hero lead singer. :) i'll shoot him an email back in a few days or something... who knows what'll happen, maybe we'll chill, maybe i can use my incredible powers of persuasion or my matchless skill as a groupie to get him to sneak me into the double door next week, or maybe nothing at all will happen. whatever...i'm happy.

2003-09-15T21:58:00.000-05:00

yesterday was a pretty sweet day... i ended up jamming with a band for a couple of hours out on the southwest side. they mainly do covers, which i wasn't initially very excited about, but it must admit that i had a humongous blast. i didn't know a lot of the stuff they were playing well enough to sing it, but i knew some of it, and singing along to what i did know gave me a humongous rush. i'd get behind the microphone, start singing, and promptly lose all my inhibitions. i think the greatest thing was when we did "breed" by nirvana... the song is simple, the song is stupid, and the song is a BLAST. the lyrics are the same thing over and over again, and i just channeled my inner grunge goddess and went with it. i also had a surprisingly fun time with "man in the box" by alice in chains...i was never a big aic fan, but that's a really fun one to sing, and it proved that i wasn't as bad at screaming than i thought. anyway...i had a really good time, and the bassist really wants me to come back and sing with them again next weekend. i don't know what day i'll be free to do it (i think friday might be the only possible day, since saturday's move in day and sunday's pretty shot too with orientation stuff), but i think it would be fun. still, i don't know...i'm still looking into another project, a group that does originals, who i need to make a day to meet with soon. i think personality-wise i seem to hit it off with the person i've talked to from this band more than the band i sang with on sunday, but that's really only based on a phone conversation. i need to meet him face to face, and meet the rest of the band face to face, before i can say much of anything. i need to pick a band soon, though...i don't have time to be in two bands by any stretch of the imagination, and i don't want to lead a band on for a while and then quit it.

yesterday night was also cool...SGF and i had tickets to go see chicago at the schubert theatre downtown. i like that musical, but SGF is completely obsessed with it. it was definitely a good thing to go see...the show was really, really good, and it was interesting to compare and contrast the stage play with the movie. some things i liked better about one or the other, but i can't really put my finger on which one i liked better in total. i think the most amusing thing about it, though, was how insane it made SGF...he wasn't as incoherent after chicago as he is after we've seen naked boys singing, but he was still breaking out into song on quite the regular basis.

after the show, i was thinking i'd go home to bed, but i just went over to SGF's place and we just chatted for several hours. it was definitely something both of us needed...he had some stuff he really needed to get off his chest, for which he seems to be feeling a lot better now. then, we just started trading insane, mainly sex-related stories. i finally 'fessed up to him that i actually did sleep with the singer last weekend...he surmised that i had, it wasn't a surprise. i expected him to throttle me for it, but he didn't. (actually, after exclaiming he knew it, he started asking me how it was...i love SGF.) we also had one of the funniest small-world incidents ever last night. he was trying to come up with a story that may be more shocking or scandalous than my antics a week ago with ratbag hero, and he tells me that "someone we both know told me something really, really crazy soon before school ended, but swore me to secrecy." that was funny, because...someone we both knew told ME something pretty scandalous as well, and also swore ME to secrecy. after a few questions identifying the characteristics of who told me the secret and who told him the secret, it turned out that we were indeed keeping the same secret--one of the people involved had told SGF, and the other had told me. it's a small world, after all...

2003-09-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

this whole joining-a-band idea, i'm creating a monster. i want it too badly not to do it, but i'm terrified that it's going to have such an effect on my life that it's going to subject me to undue scrutiny and ridicule. i really don't have any fantasies in my head of being a rock star, of touring the world and making music my career. i don't want that, i don't need that. what i do want is to be able to get together with a bunch of people, rock out, and play some shows in some local places, bars and theatres and parties and stuff. i'm terrified that this may impact my idea of going to law school...which i know i'll do sometime. still, i can't decide if my trepidation to go to law school right after college is a cause of my exodus into attempts to pursue music more actively, or if it's simply a symptom of my desire to sing. i need to figure this out, i need to organize everything so i have time for school, mock trial, and whichever band i end up joining. i need to figure out if i'm going to go to law school next year, or if i'm going to defer for a couple years, work, and just find myself.

2003-09-13T10:50:00.000-05:00

the last two days have been insane, and i think things are only going to get crazier as time goes on.

thursday afternoon i was on the way to meet SGF for dinner one night. who do i run into but...my ex-roommate/ex-best friend. i hadn't talked to her since i moved out. i think it would have been so much easier if there had been animosity, but she said hi and started talking, and it felt like the right thing to do to chat as well. i don't know what to make of it...she was there with her new boyfriend and her boyfriend's father, so maybe that was part of it (i sorta know her boyfriend, he was a high school buddy of hers that had come to town a few times back when we were rooming together). we chatted for a few minutes, and made vague plans to talk later. i'm sure we will, but i need to make sure to be cautious...i don't think she's changed much, and i need to be nice without really letting her in my inner circle again, because i don't want her there. also, she's going to be clamouring to hang out with my friends who she got so angry that i hung out with in the first place, which is not going to happen at all. i'm not going to subject myself to that, and i'm not going to subject my friends to that. in other words...i've now got a nice, open can of worms that i'm going to have to deal with in the next couple of weeks, and i don't know what to do with it at all.

now, yesterday's shenanigan. after work yesterday, i made plans to meet this guy out in wicker park who had replied to my vocalist-available ad. i went over there, and he seemed like an alright guy at first. kind of a stoner (he and his roomie were smoking a joint when i got there), but whatever, i could deal. it was cool at first...we went into his room (where he had his instruments and studio and stuff set up) and played through some of his songs, i tried to write lyrics and get stuff in my head... it was fun, but it was clear we were not musically on the same page. he was thinking some kind of fusion between rap and death metal with a little alternative maybe mixed in, he was thinking a lot more growling and screaming, and i was thinking a lot more ethereal vocal stuff when he played the music. our influences were way too different, it became obvious after a while that it wasn't really going to work out. still, i was trying just for the heck of it...we worked for a couple hours, and then sat around and drank some beer with his roommate, and just chatted, which was cool.

that's when things started getting REALLY weird. he's a communist, which i'm totally cool with, but he's so obsessed with revolution, with blood flowing in the streets. he's also convinced that a comet is going to hit the earth and destroy everything in 2010. he kept referring to that way too often, and i thought he was nuts. then, he started coming on to me way too heavily. out of the middle of nowhere, he just planted a kiss on my lips. i really didn't care one way or the other...as dumb as that sounds, kissing can be harmless fun and i'll kiss most anyone who doesn't completely repulse me. he weirded me out, but didn't completely repulse me yet. i wasn't going to let it get any further, though...which is where the problem lied. i was finally like, let's go back and listen to the music for a while...i'd had some beer, i'd loosened up, and i wanted to try my hand at stuff again. it was also kind of a subliminal way of testing out his motive, if he could go back to thinking about music or if he was just going to be an old horndog who wanted sex. he let me listen and think about music for a few minutes, and then he starts trying to make out with me again, trying to take off my shirt. i

told him no, and he acceeded, but then he started trying to come on to me with all these cheeseball lines. let's just put it this way...i NEVER thought guys actually used crappy lines like "how can something that feels so right be wrong?", but after last night i totally stand corrected. i stuck around just for a while, because, more than anything, i was amused at the crap he was trying to pull, the crap he was trying to get away with--he actually, in so many words, tried to convince me that in the real world, it was cheesy lines that got people laid. he's like, "you can't expect it to be like french film noir stuff..." i laughed heartily and told him i wasn't expecting movies, but i didn't fall for cheesy stuff. he then tried to convince me that i only thought it was cheesy because the media made me think it was cheesy. i didn't know what to say to that...i don't give a crap why i think something is cheesy or not, but if i think it's dumb, it's dumb for me and it's not going to get him inside my pants or anywhere else! finally he knew that i was starting to find the situation ridiculous enough, and he started mumbling crap like "i've got to go to bed, i've got to be up early tomorrow"...and i was all for leaving by then. i'd had my fun, i'd shot him down, and it's all good.

so, musically, it didn't quite work out...his stuff was not the project i was looking for. that's no biggie...i've got a jam lined up for tomorrow afternoon with another project, and i've been in contact with a couple others as well. still, i had a great time proceeding to summarily tease and then ridicule him. i don't know what he was thinking, i don't know if he was even thinking, but i sure thwarted him. go me. :)

2003-09-11T12:32:00.000-05:00

i found my inner peace song: "vacant" by dead man holiday. i had it on repeat for over half an hour this morning...from the first play to the last, my head stayed so clear, and i felt so good.

2003-09-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

i see all these law students and lawyers in suits buzzing around the law school, and i hate myself. i plan on becoming a lawyer one day, sure, but i hate myself because i'm not sure whether i want to pursue that NOW or not. should i go to law school with the certainty of, four years from now, having to lose any semblance of a personal life so i can pay off law loans? or, should i find a random job that pays enough to start paying off my college loans after i graduate, and be able to live out my early twenties before going to law school and dealing with that heavy stuff. i've been heading toward law school at 21, but right now the idea of law school at 21 is becoming as harrowing to me as the idea of marriage at 21...too big a decision for me to leap into without exploring the alternatives, without enjoying the last of my youth. my friends, my family, everyone will think i'm insane, will think i'm flighty, if i don't apply to law school this fall, but i just don't know. this is ripping me to shreds, and i'm too lousy, too chicken to admit it to anyone.

2003-09-11T08:33:00.000-05:00

you know how you hear a song that you know is insanely formulaic, but you can't help liking it? i guess it's proof why the formula is the formula, and if it's well-executed, the song can still be extremely good. that's exactly how i felt yesterday evening when they played "I Hate (Everything About You)" by Three Days Grace. i had no idea what it was when it was on, but it was good enough to make me jump on my computer, google a line from the song, and find out its identity. it's definitely going to be a guilty pleasure song because it's hackneyed and formulaic and all, but screw that--it's good.

2003-09-11T07:51:00.000-05:00

grr...i woke up at 6:30 this morning and couldn't conk back out. i went to bed early last night, but not THAT early, since i got caught up talking to fuzzy and new guy online...i hadn't talked to new guy in about a week, so that was pretty sweet. :) it turns out he's going to be in chicago this weekend since he's helping his best friend move. odds are i won't be able to see him, but there's a possibility i may, and i told him to get in touch with me if he has time. that'll be awesome if i get to see him...i've been talking to him all summer, but i haven't actually seen him since the morning i left school for the summer.
as for fuzzy...he was up for giving me lots of crap for my weekend punk rock escapade. i guess what it boils down to, and what i told him, was...stupid, yes, but out of range of things i would do, i most certainly don't think so. i guess i've been a little dicey as to telling my friends exactly what i did on saturday night...i know none of it is really any of their business, but they know me well enough not to kid themselves into thinking that nothing went on, so i gave them a watered-down version that included everything but the sex. they seem to be placated by that story, and it gives them something else to give me heaps of good-natured crap about, so everyone's happy.
still, i think they have a hard enough time believing the truth, that nothing's gone on, at any of the other concerts i've been going to, especially since i've been following inept so hardcore. my devoted following of inept is indeed all about the music and the fact that the band members are cool, but there's nothing naughty about anything there. let them believe what they want to believe...i'll continue to be a huge local concert rat, i'll continue keeping things platonic when i want to or when the situation requires it, and i'll continue to be naughty when i feel like being naughty. it's all good.

2003-09-10T21:53:00.000-05:00

...so i decided the caper was a good idea, so i went. kind of a dumb thing to do, take the bus alone to 33rd and halsted from hyde park, but whatever...i'm still alive, i wasn't hurt or mugged or anything, life is good. i get off the bus and walk by the bar to see if the guys are there. i couldn't see so clearly through the window, and there were two guys that kinda looked like the lead singer and the bassist from the window, so i decided to put it all on the line and go in. bad idea. i bound in there all smiley, and those two guys are most definitely NOT the two guys i thought they were...and no one i knew was in that bar. darn. i sat down and tried to play it cool, but the dork behind the bar CARDED me!! hello...i didn't think they carded, i was extremely plastered in that same bar four days ago! so, i had to hightail it outta there. not willing to admit defeat, i just sort of wandered the area. i wasn't going to go to the lead singer's house (although that's where i assumed they were, practicing in the garage or something, i wasn't willing to do stalky things). about thirty or forty-five minutes later, i decided to cruise the bar once more before leaving, and they still weren't there. :( since there's really nothing to do in bridgeport that's open other than go to the couple of bars there, and i'm not 21 for another two months, i was kinda screwed unless i wanted to resort to stalking. clearly stalking is a bad thing...i've been stalked before, and doing creepy stuff will screw up my chances of EVER partying with ratbag hero again. that would suck a lot. so, i did what any self-respecting person would do...admit defeat and go home. :( i think i'm going to bed early tonight.

on a complete other note, it looks like i'm going to meet up with someone within the next couple of days who may want me to sing for him! he emailed me yesterday asking for more info on the kind of stuff i wanted to sing...i replied, and he emailed me back telling me he wanted to meet up with me and see what happens! i'm all over that...the soonest it will happen is friday since i told SGF i'd do something with him tomorrow (since i wanted to keep tonight open for the aforementioned caper attempt...), but i'm so excited! :) hopefully this guy will be cool, he'll have decent songs written, and i'll be able to sing it well!! this is awesome...within the very near and tangible future, i may be in a band!!

2003-09-10T19:21:00.000-05:00

here's the deal...i have intelligence (i.e., the front page of ratbag's website) that the band is going to be drinking at a certain bar (puffer's, the same one we went to really late saturday night) during the sox game tonight. i want to go, drink beer, chill with the band, and maybe cause some more commotion like i did on saturday night. two matters are complicating things. one is a minor matter: i'm still two months shy of 21. still, i'm not worried about that at all, given that i got into puffer's on saturday night without a problem, and i even got beer there. one is a not-so-minor matter: will i seem like a stalker if i go? i'm leaning toward no, since i did show up to their bus trip a couple days ago. then again, this would be a much easier argument to make, it would be much less of a conundrum, if i hadn't slept with the lead singer four days ago...and he hasn't emailed me back yet. it would be much less of a conundrum if i hadn't made out with the bassist as well. i don't want to seem possessive, because i know for sure that it was the most casual of casual encounters, but the band was really fun to hang out with and i'm sure it wouldn't be that weird with the article out and everything--i'm sure there should at least be some other fans there (and, given the band's persona, some of the band's other previous female hook-ups...), but who knows? i'm thinking just throw my caution to the wind and attempt this crazy caper...i only live once, right? the worst that could happen is i either don't get into the bar or they think i'm crazy, and then i can just avoid them. the best that could happen is i get some out of the deal, and maybe they'll even sneak me into the show on the 23rd at the double door if i'm persistent enough. ;)

...so should i pull this crazy caper, or not?

2003-09-10T14:13:00.000-05:00

i am more amused than i could possibly say...richard roeper's column in the sun-times today is about ratbag hero. i think that's just hilarious...i knew there was a column that was going to be published, and i knew exactly what it was going to be about, but i still can't get over the fact that an obscure local band that i'm into--and one that i partied really hard with on saturday night--is in the paper. yeah punk rock. :)

2003-09-10T10:19:00.000-05:00

one thing i did decide is that i'm sick and tired of having an idle dream of singing in a rock band, and that i need to make the time, get my butt in gear, and just do it. it's quite exciting...i've been putting myself up on musicians available boards as a singer, and i'm already getting replies! :) hopefully sometime soon i'll be able to rock out with a band, or some bands, and find one i can enjoy being in. this is gonna be awesome...

2003-09-10T09:42:00.000-05:00

i dreamt a dream last night that could only be described as harrowing. in the dream, i had broken up with my ex...but no one (save my father, who was actually a good person in that dream--go figure, that's a complete 180 from real life!) seemed to understand that, and i was supposed to marry him on saturday. i tried to tell my relatives that i had broken up with him, they told me it was just a hiatus until the wedding. i tried to tell them that i'd be heading for divorce, and that i'm better off single, they told me to just get divorced when i was 25, it would be no big deal. i just remember crying, and crying, and uncontrollably crying, swearing silently to myself that i'd jilt him at the altar if need be, because i had no business getting married.

i still have more life to live before i snuff myself out like that. thank goodness it was only a bad dream.

2003-09-09T09:32:00.000-05:00

so, sunday. sunday rocked. i can't believe i made it through sunday, though, given the fact that i got maybe three hours of sleep on saturday night (from about 4am to about 7am...yeah.) anyway, once i left the lead singer of ratbag hero's place around 9:30, i went home and had to get ready to meet my roomie and SGF for lunch. my roomie was around and wondering where i slept the night before, and i told him, but i didn't have to explain myself in any detail, thank goodness. then, they know what a flirt i am and a groupie i can be...i don't think much of anything was left to the imagination. :) anyway...lunch was good. we went to Leona's, ate lots of italian food, and depressurized.

right after lunch, though, i had to rush to Union Station to meet the train, since i was going to Downers Grove to see Inept. yes, i know it's my third Inept show in the span of about three and a half weeks, but i can't help it! they rock really hard, and they're crazy-nice guys to boot. it was a haul to Downers Grove--i got there about 3:30, but the place didn't open until 5--grr! when it was a little before 5, though, i walked over...and the guitarist and lead singer (the two members of the band that i really converse with) were out there, so i just started hanging out with them and chatting with them. that was pretty much the tone of the day...it was really, really laid-back, full of hanging around and rocking out and chatting with the guys every so often.

2003-09-08T14:59:00.000-05:00

oh man...today i'm paying hardcore for my wild weekend. HARDCORE. i've been staving off a cold for a week now...let's just say that by about 2:30 am last night, and especially by this morning, i feel like crap. the cold kicked in. my head was about to explode. i probably am pissing my boss off something fierce, but i stayed home from work today. the rest helps, but it still sucks so, so badly to be sick.

so...my weekend. where do i start? if anything, the beginning sounds as good a place as any. friday wasn't insanely wild...it was my night to stay in hyde park and hang out with my friends here. it was my roomie's last weekend in town, and we were going to have a big game of poker. the game got cancelled and rescheduled a few times, but it ended up being on. i lost a little money, but not a whole lot...i didn't get cleaned out like some people did. my roomie was the big winner...he started out with five bucks, and walked off with thirteen or fourteen. i think i'm coming to the conclusion that i blow really, really hard at poker. i win a bit sometimes, but i steadily end up a couple dollars down. i really need to get better at poker, or go back to playing for pennies instead of dimes, because it's starting to become a foregone conclusion that i'll lose money. still, i'm going to keep playing it...i'm not dumb (or rich) enough to play for high stakes, and it's massive quantities of fun to play poker with my friends.

saturday...saturday was the really insane day. the morning was pretty chill, i bummed around, played my guitar, and watched some baseball with my roomie on television. then, i decided to go ahead and do the punk rock bus trip thing. the bus trip thing is the greatest idea ever...ratbag hero rented a bus, and made it so all the bands playing (them, the hacks, shooting blanks, and bord) would ride the bus with any fans that felt like coming along. i was afraid that i was going to be late, since the website said the bus would be leaving at 3:30. i left my apartment at 2:10, but the no. 4 bus took FOREVER, and then four of them came at once. i was so afraid i was going to be late, and i think i was a couple minutes late...but the bands were out back playing wiffleball in an alley and drinking beer. turned out i had nothing to freak out about, the bus wasn't supposed to come until 4 or 4:30 or something like that. i just stood around, drank beer, watched a bunch of inebriated punk rockers play wiffleball, and laugh at them.

it was great, i was the only fan to show up for this fandango...the ONLY one. this was a good thing for me, because it meant a houseful, and then a busful, of crazy punk rock guys...and me. i just was my good old usual self...chatting with all the random people, being a humongous flirt like i always am...but, being the only girl there, i got to totally be the stud, with a huge punk rock harem surrounding me. :) i talked to a bunch of the guys, and it was shaping up to be a blast, a major blast.

so, on the bus ride there (the show was out at some crappy little bar in Harvey), there was just more drunken carousing. i was hoping to sit next to the lead singer of ratbag hero because there had been massive flirtation going on there, and he sat next to me for the ride so life was indeed good. the bus ride was an interesting study on the male psyche...it was a bunch of punk rockers on a school bus, drinking beer, making fun of each other, and just plain confirming the old adage that "boys will be boys."

it was more of that at the venue. when i got to the bar, i learned two awesome things...no, three awesome things...about being a groupie:
1. they don't charge you cover if you stroll in with the band.
2. they don't card you at the bar if they don't card the band at the bar
3. band members get you beer. lots, and lots, of beer.

the show was crazy. maybe about five or ten people showed up in addition to the bus, so most of the people there were just the members of the bands. i was pretty drunk myself, which made me grateful that ratbag hero played first. i was just sentient enough to be able to sing along to the stuff. actually, i never got so drunk that i was falling all over myself, i was never so drunk that i didn't know what i was doing, but i was most able to deal with a bit of a sing-along earlier in the night. a drunken sing-along it was.

as for the show, it was fun, i was rocking out to all the random punk rock, but between the fact that i didn't know any of the other music and i was pretty toasted by that point, there's really not much i can say. sorry!

at the venue, it was pretty goofy...massive flirtation with the lead singer...and then the bassist. i don't know what to say...i was a humongous punk rock tramp, and i loved every minute of it. actually, the bassist seemed to be a lot more cerebral (yes, i was at least talking SOME to these guys!)...he still had some punk rock bad guy appeal, but not as much as the lead singer. it was hilarious, by the time the show was long over, and we were getting on the bus, i had both of them wrapped around my little finger. on the bus, i just kind of sat down and waited to see which one would sit with me...turned out, the lead singer did, again, but then proceeded to give me crap because i was making out with his bassist. still, as the bus ride came to a close, he proceeded to give me less crap for it, and he and i and a couple of guys in the other bands ended up going to this random bar out on the south side (around 33rd and halsted, i think...something like that). that bar totally didn't card, i got in without a problem because i was sort of hanging on the lead singer's arm and he looks undoubtedly over 21 (which he is, he's 26) by the time i got to the bar i had kind of curtailed my drinking anyway because i was already drunk but didn't want to get sick or lose all my senses. still, the bar was fun...there was this really bad cover band there that we sang along to, we chatted about nothing in particular and just kind of acted like idiots, and we stayed until closing time.

then, back home...they were talking about going to a 5am bar, but it didn't materialize...which was fine with me because i was drunk and i was tired. i had a blast, it wasn't weird at all in the morning (i guess it's not when you're both on the same page with the casualness of it all!), and life was good. the only part that i look back on and find REALLY comical is the fact that the next morning, when me and him and one of the guys in one of the other bands (i think he was a guy from The Hacks, i don't remember his name...) were watching sportscenter, the lead singer's father walked in. (yes, i know, it's ridiculous, he's 26, in a punk rock band, and still lives at home! so sue me...) it was freaking obvious that he knew i was some random groupie that his son had been with the night before, but whatever...he didn't say anything and neither did i. i had to leave a little earlier than i wanted (9:30...ugh, so early given that i went to bed so late!), since i was meeting SGF and my roomie for lunch at an as-yet-undetermined time, and i did want some time to shower and stuff. whatever...all in all, it was a blast, an extremely amusing night. i have even less shame than i thought i did, and i don't regret a thing. let's just hope the lead singer and the bassist didn't get into an actual squabble over me...i really do doubt it, it was all in fun like everything else.

my fingers are tired. i'll write about yesterday later.

2003-09-07T12:02:00.000-05:00

oh. my. goodness. i'm going to type the story later because i'm about to head out to lunch and then to go see my boys Inept in Downers Grove, but yesterday was insane, insane, insane. i went to a Ratbag Hero show, and there was a bus trip, and there was lots and lots of beer, and i had a drunken, punk rock blast. sex, booze, and rock and roll...it doesn't get any better than that. :)

2003-09-05T11:31:00.000-05:00

...and they just played "didn't know you well enough", which got even better the second time. ::crying:: i need to have my paws on a recording of that song.

2003-09-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

this rocks...i'm taking an hour off of work and listening to Inept on the St. Xavier college station. this is sweet.

2003-09-05T08:21:00.000-05:00

i am a strange human being. if there weren't proof for it already, i realised that yes, i do find a lot of centering, and a lot of room to think, at random rock shows, even (especially?!) if they're not very good. i went and saw Red Hot Valentines, University, Midwest Blue, and Junior Varsity at the Metro last night. Midwest Blue rocked pretty hard, but the rest of the bands weren't very good...pleasant background noise, but that's really about it. still, it was a good experience...i just kind of went on a head trip the entire time. i thought about anything and everything and nothing. i cleared my head. i made a breakthrough in that song i'm trying to write...i heard my own voice soaring over the verse riff, and realised it may be a better chorus riff than a verse riff. i feel like i left that concert a better person, a saner person.

deep, meaningful stuff aside, i also have some amusing stories. :) near the beginning of the show, i was just standing around, listening to Junior Varsity, moving to the music, and going on my happy little head trip. all of a sudden, there's a tap on my shoulder. the security guard tells me to come with him, and i'm confused...was my swaying too much for his lousy existence? no...he just was telling me that i had to turn my shirt inside out. i was wearing my security guard work shirt...it's a plain blue button-down shirt with the word "security" written on the back...i got it 'cause i played a security guard for mock trial my second year, and it was funny. it's also a nice, punky shirt. i was like, what the heck? ACTUAL Metro security guard shirts are black, have writing on the front, and say "Security"...in addition to "Metro", with a huge METRO LOGO on the back! my shirt looked nothing like them! frustrating as it was, it's also an amusing story...i went and put my shirt inside out without incident. it looked like a plain blue shirt when i put it inside out...a little raggedy, an orange blue-collar-work-shirt label on the back near the nape of my neck...if anything, i probably looked more punk with the shirt inside out. whatever...it's an amusing story, and metro security guards are notorious jerkfaces.

so, the show goes on, and there is more amusement afterwards. i go out to the entryway during the last song so i can be ready to hand out flyers to promote the Inept concert in Downers Grove this weekend. there's another guy down there passing out flyers, so we start chatting. turns out he was passing out flyers for an empyrean show...i saw empyrean three weeks ago opening for escape from earth. they weren't my favourites, but i did like them quite a bit. it also turned out...he was the guitarist. and then, i had another very similar experience right outside the place...i ran into these two guys also passing out flyers for the show i was flyering for, and they were promoting no fate. turns out...one of the guys was the guitarist/lead singer for no fate, and the other one was a friend of his. i love the local music scene because there's no such thing as detachment. if the music rocks, you can tell the bands what you think. the bands are on the pavement promoting, and they're on the floor rocking out with other bands.

2003-09-04T12:24:00.000-05:00

i'm going off my rocker. i need time alone to recentre myself, or maybe i need to spend more time with my friends, i really don't know. maybe i will just feel better if i start acting on my dream of starting or joining a band, a dream that's been sitting in me since i was fourteen and is now festering really, really hard. maybe i need to come out of the closet already. i don't know what i need to do, i just need to do something--and that something hardly involves being at work for the rest of today and tomorrow and just festering in everything, sitting around unable to do anything about anything.

2003-09-04T08:26:00.000-05:00

i've gotten a bit further on my song...i've got more of the intro figured out, and i've even got two guitar parts i want to layer over each other for the verse riff. i'm still getting nowhere on a vocal part, though, which is annoying the crap out of me. :( i need to sit there and play the part over and over again...or at least put it in repeating loop in my head while i'm at work and not thinking about anything else.

i'm so sick of my job. i wish i were taking next week off, but i can't justify not making the $300 for showing up next week. :( at least next week is my last week for the summer, and then it's orientation time. i'm sure my aunt would have my head if i framed it as "i'm forgoing $600 worth of library pay to be an orientation aide", but she could then proceed to shove it: i need time away from that hole before school starts, and i'd just be depressed if i couldn't be an orientation aide. it's something i enjoy, it's something i'm good at, it's something that's become a staple in my life...it's what i do.

i need to get ready for work, i guess... :P get me through this day, and then i'll at least be able to head off to the metro. i'm seeing a couple of bands i've never heard (or even heard of), red hot valentines and midwest blue. they were handing out free tickets to it at the inept show over the weekend, so i took some, and i may as well go. maybe i'll dig up a good band, i'll undoubtedly have fun, and i'll be able to get my flyering on for the inept show this weekend. :)

2003-09-03T19:38:00.000-05:00

whooooo! i was doing some band website searching for my boys onesidezero, and i found that they have a couple new songs! it's sweet to know that even though they aren't on a major label anymore, they're still together and releasing songs and rocking out. the one thing that blows really hard is that their shows are all out west, in california and arizona and all...nowhere near chicago. (grr!) still...knowing that one of the greatest bands ever to pick up instruments and play is still together definitely makes today awesome.

i'm listening to the songs right now...i should be showering since i just got back from the gym and it's now free, but has anyone ever known me to let awesome new music wait? i didn't think so.

2003-09-02T21:35:00.000-05:00

i have this riff in my head. i've figured out how to play it, the mechanics of it, but my fingers lack the dexterity to play everything that's in my head all at once. still, i've succeeded in deconstructing it into its parts, playing each individual part, and busting out enough of my music theory knowledge to winnow out the chord progression that's in my head. thus, i've got the verse progression, the chorus progression, and the all-important Catchy Opening Riff to a song in my head. i've got the verse progression playing over and over, and i'm trying to get somewhere with writing a vocal part, although everything that's been popping up in my head hasn't been particularly satisfactory. right now i'm just blogging here because i need a second or two away, before i start working away at that song again. i feel like i'm getting somewhere, i just know it.

i want to perform, i want to be in a band, i want to rock. this dream has been latent for too long, and i'm not getting any younger.

2003-09-02T08:06:00.000-05:00

holy crap. school is in session. this means, since there is an elementary school right outside my window, that there are a lot of squeaking, screaming kindergarten-through-eighth-grade students right outside my apartment, waiting for school to start. i'm still convinced that 8am is way too early to be up and at 'em, but my school started that early growing up as well. for now, it's just annoying to have to deal with the noise...hey, it's bad enough i have to go to my dumb job today. at least i only have two more weeks until orientation week, two more weeks until i get to move into my new dorm, and only between two and four weeks until various friends i haven't seen all summer will be back around here. :)

2003-09-01T13:25:00.000-05:00

"if a band only tours around chicago, they can't be very good..."

i have never, ever heard a more insulting and asinine critique of my taste in music. ever. this morning i was talking to my roomie and f-s-c no. one about the Inept concert i went to last night, which was absolutely amazing (more on that later, after i vent this out.) neither of them like the kind of music i listen to for the most part, which i guess is understandable--to each his own, and neither of them like the kind of heavier music that i enjoy. i was talking about how i thought last night proved that Inept was especially the real deal because they could perform their music and sound good acoustic, with nothing to hide behind at all. then, f-s-c no. one looks at me and says...that. i couldn't believe it, it's a horrible argument. he's making a blanket dismissal of all local music. first of all, all of these famous or semi-famous bands he listens to, all these ones that tour nationally, had to have started somewhere--they can't have started out playing shows anywhere but locally or at least regionally. a band doesn't get to tour very far until they have a record company funding it. and, they don't get a record company funding it until they get noticed and signed. and, how do bands get noticed? sometimes, through connections. sometimes, through massive local followings. Inept has been together less than a year. some local bands have been together a very short time, some a long time. some are good, some are not. but, all of them play around here, and gather some sort of following. the fact that a band is signed just means that--they're signed. it doesn't mean, that if i don't like them, i'll automatically like them because some A&R rep decided they should get signed. it doesn't mean that they're any more objectively "good" or "bad" (which really can't be applied to music anyway.) just like, it doesn't make it less valid that Inept's music speaks to me if they are unsigned and playing in Chicago. actually, i like it that way a great deal...i get to see them in concert pretty much as often as i want, i get to take an active role in the area promoting their shows (as soon as the guitarist sends me the street team package...hehe...kidding, i still promote them like crazy, i tell people and i actually have some flyers for an Inept show next weekend that i got from Synikal's manager yesterday, since the two bands are playing together next week). in addition, local bands are often a lot more accessible and less egotistical than signed ones. i love being able to rock out to a band's music, and then just go talk with them. it's wonderful, it's something i love about the scene. so...i just think f-s-c no. one is wrong here.

anyway...the Inept show yesterday. i can't get over how amazing it was. it was an extremely long way to get there (YOU try getting from the south side of chicago to a random coffeehouse in naperville without a car!!!!!), but it was more worth it than you could imagine. i left my apartment at 10:30 or so, took the bus to the metra out, and then had to walk three miles in the rain. about two miles down a random motorist gave me a lift the rest of the way, which was pretty cool, but it was still a huge haul--i got to the coffeehouse around 3. there were already a couple people there for the show, which didn't start until 5--thus vindicating my plan to take the 12:30 train and not the 2:30. i got a good spot for the show, right near where the bands are playing...even though it really didn't matter a great deal. i stood around for the first band, Celestial Static, who was pretty good...i'd be interested to check them out plugged in. but, after their set, i went out to try and see if i could say hi to Inept before they played. for some reason, i was crazy-nervous--even though i had met the lead singer face to face briefly (VERY VERY briefly, just kind of a "you guys rocked" on the way out of the show), talked to both guitarists and the lead singer on the phone before, and been IM'ing one of the guitarists pretty regularly. i go to the back of the coffeeshop, and run into the lead singer, and we start chatting. it was really sweet...i had made a comment on the message boards a day or two ago that i was looking really, really forward to hearing "these days" acoustic. when i introduced myself to him, it was so cute...he started apologizing that they weren't going to play that song, but they'd practice and play it at their next acoustic show--he even pulled a note he had written to himself out of his pocket, which sure enough was a reminder that he apologize when he talked to me at the show. ;) i wished the band good luck and gave them hugs all around (they were just about to go on), and got back up front.

the show they put on was AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING. i honestly didn't know how it would sound acoustic...i assumed they'd be pretty good, but they blew me away. they played a few songs i knew, a few i didn't, and a few new ones:

Be Air Tight
Moved
Didn't Know You Well Enough
Sweet Dreams
Remember When
Without Me
Back Through This

i think "didn't know you well enough", one of the two new ones, is my new favourite Inept song--they played it, and i was fighting back tears through almost the whole song. i was chatting with the lead singer after the show, and he told me that he had written the music two years or so ago, but had just written the words a couple days ago...he didn't think the band would respond as well as they did to the music, but they all loved it. he sure underestimated himself there, because i'm with the band on this one--it was one of the best songs i've heard in a very, very long time. in all, it was just an amazing show.

maybe it was because Inept was so good, or maybe it was because they weren't so good to begin with, i was kind of underwhelmed by the rest of the show. The Fold was alright, i come to think that they probably sound better plugged in than they would acoustic. they were kinda boring, but i'd maybe dig them if they were heavier. Saraphine blew. they were boring, and they sounded just like some band i heard all the time in north carolina. maybe it was edwin mccain, i can't quite remember, but they sounded just like some really boring band i'd heard before. i had downloaded some saraphine before the show, and those songs were also quite bad. the strange thing, though, is i think they had more fans than anyone. just about all of them were squeaking suburban teenyboppers (heck, other than the band members, i was probably one of the oldest folks there), but it was a bunch of teenagers with really, really bad taste if they were so crazy about saraphine. finally, the dog and everything played...they had a beat that i could move to, but their music was unremarkable. the best things about the rest of the show were the random snitches of conversation with members of Inept. :)

when the show ended, i wanted to hang around so badly, but no such luck... it got out at 10:45...but the last train from naperville to chicago left naperville at 11:28. i couldn't walk three miles in the dark without sidewalks at 10:45 at night, so i had to call a cab. the good thing is, it got me there on time and i got back to chicago. the bad thing is, i couldn't bid all of Inept goodbye like i wanted to. i did run into the lead singer, though, but i didn't run into anyone else. i especially wanted to say bye to the guitarist i've been talking to, but i guess there will be chances to chat with him soon enough. all in all, though, it was one of the greatest days ever. no matter what anyone says knocking local music in general, or my taste in music in particular, the truth is that Inept's music is awesome, it strikes something in me, and the guys in the band are really cool to boot.

what more could i ask for? i say nothing.

2003-08-31T08:52:00.000-05:00

whoohoo...today's my jaunt to Naperville to see Inept! i'm quite excited...and hoping that they'll play "These Days", since that's my favourite song on the EP, and it should sound really cool acoustic. it will be quite interesting how the music sounds acoustic, since they rock really, really hard. it'll be sweet to hear the music, chat with the guys...life is good. :)

hopefully the opening bands will be decent. i listened to a few tracks from one of the openers yesterday, saraphine...i can't say i dug it too much. i found them really light and boring. eh, whatever...if the other bands are good, rock on. if the other bands blow, whatever...you can't win them all, and i DO get to see Inept, so life is automatically good.

2003-08-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

slogged through another work week...kinda. i cut out early on thursday because i was tired, and then i just didn't go in yesterday morning. that was great...although i woke up at seven anyway, i got to chill for a few hours instead of going to work. i played my guitar for awhile (i realized wednesday night that "suffocate" by cold can be played decently even by a guitarist of my less-than-meager skills, which increases my self-esteem a lot.), i talked to my roomies, i laughed at frat boys on the price is right...that was pretty cool.

it was great...ushering graduation yesterday, i met someone who's just as much, if not more, of a local music junkie and a concert junkie as i am. she actually knew of some of the random bands i've gone to see, and we traded concert stories. it was greatly amusing... she also told me about a party last night where there'd be lots of local musicians and stuff (it was in an apartment where six guys who i think are all in bands live). i ended up going after the evil beaver concert last night...i was a little nervous because the only person i knew who would be there was someone who i just met that day and had talked to for maybe an hour, but it was all good. a couple other people i actually did know were all there, and then i just mingled and met lots of random people anyway. it was good stuff...i'm glad i went. i hadn't been to an actual party all summer, so it felt good to get back into the swing of random partying. :)

the show last night was a blast. i was crazy-surprised--it wasn't crowded at all. usually shows at the metro, even with random local bands, are packed. nope...i showed up maybe fifteen minutes before doors, and i still got front and centre. it was a night of random, goofy stuff. the first band that played, ratbag hero, was highly amusing. i wouldn't say they were objectively good, but i enjoyed their show a great deal--i was dancing around with a big dumb grin on my face the entire set, in spite of myself. it was totally like "we're a bunch of late-twenty-somethings in a garage band goofing off", and it was a blast. it was cool, too...later, when one of the other bands was playing, the lead singer of ratbag hero just randomly walked up behind me and this other guy and started chatting with us. i ran into him a few more times later, and he was really nice, really talkative. i'd totally go see them again to goof off and to support them for being cool...they're doing a bus trip from chicago to a punk show in the suburbs next weekend, where fans can ride on a bus with all the bands. i think i'm going to do that.

anyway...that wasn't the only randomness, not by a long shot. after ratbag hero came the elvi, who was the band i was actually there to go see. they were ridiculously amusing...punk rockers in really, really nerdy suits. they were heavier live than i remember them being, but i guess maybe that's because i had never seen them live and all i knew of them was a two-year-old demo that i picked up at a show. anyway, they rocked really hard, i'd totally see them again. the randomness there was that before the show, these two guys come onstage with boxes of doughnuts and just start giving the crowd doughnuts. that made me happy, because i hadn't yet eaten dinner. :)

third were monkeypaw. i didn't like them a great deal, but during their last two songs this guy dressed like a monkey and ran around. that was hilarious--the monkey, in addition to the little chat with ratbag hero's lead singer, was the only good part of the show.

evil beaver, the headlining band, was cool. i want to know how that (guitarist? bassist?) did it...there were only two women in the band--and it still sounded like there were more instruments than a bass and a drumset. i know she was playing the bass like a guitar, but some of those notes sounded a smidge high to come from a bass, and it sounded like there was a guitar too. crazy harmonics? a "bass sounds like a guitar" effects pedal? i have no clue what was going on, but i'm intrigued.

2003-08-27T23:32:00.000-05:00

wow, it's really goofy to think that this evening, i had a conversation about drunken make-out sessions with someone with whom i have had a drunken make-out session. crazy, yes, but that's exactly what happened tonight with f-s-c no. one. turns out he's going to philly because some girl he knew in his summer job wants to have some no-strings-attached...stuff, and he's all over it, so he's flying to philly for a booty call. (crazy enough, but i'd be a liar to say i wouldn't do the same if there was a booty call for ME in philly.) the crazy thing was, there was practically zero awkwardness when we were talking about it. sure, we avoided mentioning the fact that we've had a drunken make out session before, but i think that this only bolsters my theory that our particular make-out session was a necessary, one night blow-off of any sexual frustration between us. i know about his booty call in philly, and crazy enough, i did tell him about the existence of new guy. due to the lightness of the conversation i think i understated the fact that there was some substance behind the lust, but i still managed to get extremely too giddy when talking about him, and i did mention some of the substance. yeah...now i'm just hoping he doesn't decide to remember new guy's IM handle and decide to IM and harass him (yes, that subject came up...he wanted to analyse it for "personality characteristics", and i really don't see why the heck NOT, i don't think he'd do anything evil...) still, i don't think he'd do anything stupid, because he knows i wouldn't do anything stupid to sabotage his chances with anybody.

2003-08-27T00:33:00.000-05:00

today's wednesday, so just five more days until the Barbecue From Hell...in other words, until i have to spend my labour day over at my aunt's friend's house putting up with crap from my patronising aunt and all of her friends. at least SGF is coming...right now i'm very mad at my aunt for trying to force me to talk to her more than i want to, but i'm not going to start that huge row until after i see her this weekend. SGF kindly offered to accompany me to the barbecue to keep me sane. i'm going to need it, i'm going to need it so badly.

on a complete non sequitur, you know you're a slut when you realise that at one time, you were talking to three guys that you've had one night flings with. that happened to me earlier today. i was talking to f-s-c no. one in person, and then f-s-c no. two and new guy online. granted, there's a pretty good chance new guy won't be just a one nighter, but thanks to an unfortunate twist of fate called The End Of The School Year, time has frozen until the fall. funny, i don't really feel slutty...i just have a tendency to fool around with my guy friends every so often, which explains f-s-c no. one and f-s-c no. two.

speaking of f-s-c no. one, i'm convinced nothing more will happen. stuff is back to marginally flirty and extremely platonic. i'm convinced our one-night stand had to happen to express all the sexual tension that had been growing between us and needed an outlet. that was our outlet, and it isn't leading to anything more. therefore, living together, as we are this month, is perfectly safe.

2003-08-26T18:11:00.000-05:00

warning: flaky girlish gushing ahead

happy times, happy times...talked to new guy last night online, and talked to him again today. i'm a smidgen bummed 'cause i didn't know he was IN CHICAGO for the weekend until he told me yesterday, but whatever...he was there to visit his best friend, so i can't be so miffed that i didn't see him at all for the two days he was in town. he's known me what, two and a half months? he's seen me face to face what, one night? i continue to have that feeling that i know him better than that, but...such is life. i am really happy, though...i recommended my favourite used-cd store to him a little while ago in another discussion, and he DID go there with his best friend, and loved it. :) yay, i did something right!! he's such a sweetie...talking to him makes me really happy. i can't wait to see him...only one more month!

end of flaky girlish gushing. you may now go back to your regularly scheduled programming.

2003-08-25T12:01:00.000-05:00

"monsterside"
by addict

i am young but a fool
i am stupid but i'm cool
i am kind but i'm weak
i can't turn the other cheek
all i wanted was to find a friend
again again

i just can't hide my monster side
my monster side
i can't control the loss i feel
the loss i feel

if i had another chance
i would peacefully advance
but as i'm fated to be here
resigned and ridden by my fear
i should love myself but
my vanity loves someone else

i just can't hide my monster side
my monster side
i can't control the loss i feel
the loss i feel

i am the best there is until all there is is hot air
unfulfilled i take it out on you because you care
and because i love you i expect you to be there

i just can't hide my monster side
my monster side
i can't control the loss i feel
the loss i feel
i can't abide my monster side
my monster side
well it's an animal i just can't ride
i just can't ride

this song is ringing in my head (too bad my addict cd shattered into a million pieces a few months ago!), and it's the perfect mood music. i feel i'm expressing my monster side, forcing it on everybody, being a horrible person, causing everyone in my life nothing but pain. i thought i shook this feeling away a couple weeks ago, but this weekend and today it's back with a vengeance.

2003-08-24T21:38:00.000-05:00

i hate the phrase "surrogate boyfriend" or "surrogate girlfriend", but it's the best phrase i can think of for the occurrence when somebody who is taken but not anywhere near their significant other carries on in dating-like activities with another person, i guess usually with a single person. i can't really do any sort of analysis of this practice as a general thing, because it's not something i've paid attention to or researched in outside situations, but it is a situation that i've seen myself in, both as the taken half and the couple half.

i was thinking of that today extremely hard because f-s-c no. three was in town today. it was f-s-c no. one's birthday today, so SGF, my roomie, f-s-c no. one, f-s-c no. three, and i all went to a white sox game. i hadn't seen f-s-c no. three since the trip to wisconsin to go visit him, almost two months ago. then, just as on some occasions during the school year, there was a lot of flirtation going on. he shows up today, and it was as if we were blatantly flirting on each other--i bet, if my friends didn't know any better (and if f-s-c no. three hadn't said that he was still going out with his gf from school, although their relationship is on the rocks), they would have assumed something was going on. as ridiculous as it was, we were all over each other...hugging or putting our arms around each other every two seconds, kinda sorta holding hands whenever we high-fived about something, and just being generally flirtatious toward each other. then again, one of his moves was so adorable i don't even know what to think...we had gotten back to my apartment after the sox game and were in the kitchen getting some water, and my face was a bit sweaty--and all of a sudden, he starts patting my face dry with his overshirt. i've dated people that have never done anything that sweet for me, and it was a very strangely...more-than-friends kind of act, even though it's clear that there isn't, there can't be anything there, at least until he's single. goodness only knows what, if anything, my friends picked up on...i'm sure they picked up on SOMETHING, especially since when the kiss-cam came on at the game, SGF made a comment to the effect of "well, if they show you two on it..." i expected to get the third degree about our shameless behaviour from SGF and my roomie after we dropped f-s-c no. three off at union station to go home, but nothing was said. i don't know what to make of that.

anyway, i've been in a very, very, very similar surrogate-significant-other situation before. my relationship with my ex was long distance. it went well until it was going badly for me (i know, master of the obvious...), but as i started to realise my relationship was bad for me, i subconsciously got into a flagrant surrogate situation with f-s-c no. one. he was a friend of mine and we were already hanging out a lot, more than usual. i had also been attracted to him to some degree since first year. we were very flirtatious...nothing happened between us (or, nothing until that one-nighter two and a half weeks after i broke up with my ex), but he was functionally like a significant other in some respects. massive flirtations, sorta-dates, stuff like that...

i'm afraid that this same kind of thing is what is going to transpire between me and f-s-c no. three once school resumes. i don't think it will be extremely flagrant since his girlfriend also goes to school and lives in his house, but there will probably be some kind of situation continuing, kind of the same flirtation that's been going on this summer, and actually going on since the night of mock trial elections when he came out with a bunch of my other friends for bowling and trivial pursuit...we were similarly flirting-heavily-without-crossing-into-concreteness. i guess this is a sticky, see-what-happens kind of situation. i'm not going to stress about it. i still have no idea to what extent i may like him as a friend versus a more-than-friend. i'm still focusing my energies on new guy once the school year resumes, and i'm going to make sure that i don't do anything to try and sabotage his relationship. (that would be evil...and also, from what i hear from f-s-c no. three, that would be like shooting at the hindenburg as it's falling from the sky.)

one idea i have about this surrogate situation is that i think it transpires more often when the taken person is not happy with their relationship. they haven't decided to scrap it yet, they haven't decided whether or not that leaving would be a good idea, but they're afraid of being stuck in that bothersome relationship forever. that's clearly how i felt when i was heading toward ending it with my ex, and from what i know, i don't doubt it's his reality as well.

still, it's kind of a weird situation for me. i don't really hesitate, in the sense that my experience as a taken member of one of these surrogate arrangements is that it didn't lead to me cheating or doing anything bad, but it did help lead me to know what's out there and to value my freedom from a relationship now that i am single again. it was a source of flirtatious companionship, and despite the fact that it was a strange situation, the time i spent with f-s-c no. one at that point did bring us closer together as friends. i don't think i'm being an evil temptress to f-s-c no. three, and i'm not trying to steal him away from his girlfriend. i'm a naturally flirtatious person anyway, and if he continues to flirt with me, i clearly won't stop flirting with him. it's all part of his learning curve as it was part of my learning curve...if things get really goofy, and he's still with his girlfriend, i'll clearly have to set a boundary, but i don't think it's to that point yet. crazy enough, i think i'm most worried at what my friends would have to say, or may currently have to say, about our behaviour--they will probably blame me if anything happens, since i am the older, more experienced one--and if anything bad does happen, it will most likely be my fault. i guess i have a lot to figure out about this particular experience...i probably won't see f-s-c no. three again for another month--maybe once before then, but i doubt it. personally, i'm fine with things the way they are, and i really don't feel like i'm leading anything on, or he's leading anything on. despite being huge flirts, despite this strange discourse, i still think we're safely on the "just-friends" side of the fence.

2003-08-22T08:22:00.000-05:00

it's friday...i have to work all day, but life is just plain alright. :) last night was insanely low-key...i got home from work and graduation usher training (usher training is good...very little "training", i pretty much got paid an hour's wage to shoot the breeze with Scavhunt Judge for half an hour), and just kind of bummed around. i went to the gym with my roomie, watched some of a baseball game, washed some dishes (i made fettucine alfredo wed. night for SGF...it was his first day at law school), and turned in early. i was in my room by nine thirty, and conked out by ten. that's earlier than i've gone to bed in FOREVER! that rocks. it also rocks that the icky nasty gross heat has broken...it's seventy right now instead of ninety, it feels like seventy instead of feeling like a hundred and ten. i just feel more together, more alive.

i have the most quintessential "summer" weekend this weekend. tonight, one of my friends is throwing a barbecue that i'm going to. tomorrow, i'm going to the park with some friends (probably many of the same people from the barbecue) and playing baseball. :) sunday, i'm going to the sox game. f-s-c no. one (who's getting back from Iowa today--yay!) is turning 21, so we're celebrating it with two of the three essentials of life: beer and baseball. f-s-c no. three is also coming in from wisconsin to watch the game with us and hang out--i haven't seen him since the little trip out to wisconsin earlier this summer, so that's going to be sweet, sweet stuff.

old news, but whatever: i did get to talk to new guy twice online on wednesday. :) that made me extremely happy...it always does. it's so weird, does it make any sense that my attraction to him seems both innocent and deep at the same time? i'm convinced that's a good way for attraction to be...when i get back to school, i really don't have any desire to take things too far too fast with him, but i do have a desire to take things somewhere. sure, i know the virtuecrats would kick the crap out of me for thinking i haven't taken things too far already, since in their cluttered heads you're not supposed to even sleep over with someone in the same bed unless you're married, but screw them...it was snuggly, cute, and extremely innocent. :) it's so great, it seems like we both have a voracious interest in digging up and listening to random bands, we both have a penchant for buying random punk compilations, we both are rock music heads who want to flout the RIAA. this is a good thing, because we've already discussed that we should go out to local concerts, and he has appointed me his guide in the local music scene. :) thus...dates! whoohoo! i'm optimistic...it just blows that i still won't see him for another month.

2003-08-20T23:13:00.000-05:00

i'd be the happiest girl in the world if i could just quit my stupid job.

2003-08-19T11:38:00.000-05:00

i'm still having a bad day, but i have a secret weapon that has improved my mood a bit--it's amazing how happy it makes me to see The Cheat in a bucket.

2003-08-19T09:16:00.000-05:00

i feel horrific. i'm tired, i'm cranky, i have no desire to be here, and all i really want to do is lie around and read and be a lazy blob. i kind of have a desire to go to the gym, which i will do after work today, but i don't want to be here.

i don't quite know why. i went to bed early enough last night. last night went pretty well...i bummed around and chatted for a couple hours with Scavhunt Judge, and then i bummed around and chatted a couple more hours with Supportive Gay Friend. i didn't do anything strenuous, didn't do anything that ripped me apart. well, i did one thing that ripped me apart...SGF told me i was his Supportive Straight Friend, and i still didn't muster up the balls to correct him. i need to, soon. that is affecting me.

my job blows. the new mock trial case blows. (i'm still looking forward to mock, it being one of the few unfettered joys in my life...it's just the case is no good.) i haven't talked to new guy since wednesday; we just haven't run into each other online. i want to be back in school. i want to be intellectually stimulated. i want all my friends and acquaintances back in chicago. i want to be out of the closet. i want to feel better this morning.

2003-08-18T17:51:00.000-05:00

i'm about to go hang out with scavhunt judge, and my stomach's doing flips. it shouldn't be...things are platonic, completely platonic, and i have no indication or desire that they will turn otherwise. i think what it is is that we don't have any plans, and i'm going to show up over there, and he's going to expect me to have something in mind. i don't.

i realised that i don't like not having plans unless it's my plan not to have plans! since when did i become so freaking meticulous, so freaking OCD, about anything??

2003-08-18T12:11:00.000-05:00

between the last two concerts i've been to, i've racked up a ton of demo cd's from a ton of local bands. i've spent the morning just going through and listening to as many as i can...and i'm so grateful to be in a city with so much good local hard rock and good local metal. chicago rocks, in the literal and figuratives senses both.

i've read all of the affidavits and most of the other stuff for the new mock trial case this year. it will be a fun case to mock, but the materials are really weak and poorly written. argh.

at least i do have a new mock trial theme song..."it's a stick-up" by dead man holiday. i doubt any song gets me going as insane as that one does...it's push-people-and-throw-things music in its purest form.

2003-08-18T00:03:00.000-05:00

today started out goofy. i woke up insanely early, and had still not heard back from the person i was supposed to go see the cubbies' game today with, so that clearly fell through the floor. i had a nervous breakdown this morning for no reason...i don't think this had anything to do with it, but i just went over to my roomie's room down the hall and ranted and cried...he's the man for bearing with all my crazinesses. he's borne through it so many times before, and i'm sure he will again. he keeps me sane.

this afternoon got better. yesterday i was surfing the web, checking out sites for bands i saw on friday night. inept, one of the bands who played, was awesome, and the lead singer seemed pretty nice for the second or two i met him on the way out of the show. (interesting foil to dead man holiday, the band i was actually at the show to see...they were cool, a worthy successor to red river, but their band members were so...inaccessible. i tried to talk to them, and...nothing.) anyway, there was an email address to join the street team, so i sent an email. that initiated a volley of email between me and the lead singer of inept, and this morning i got an email with a phone number, and he had told me to call him around 2. so, i did... i got the details of being on the street team (not too intricate...they'll send me stuff and i get the word out by passing out the flyers and stuff they give me), but i ended up being on the phone with inept for 25 minutes or so. it was great...at least three of the band members were around (they all live in a house together out in the 'burbs), and they just kept passing the phone around to talk to me. we talked about tons of nothing-in-particular...shooting the breeze with the guys was pretty sweet.

now, if i can only find a ride to naperville on the 31st so i can go to this show that i'm about to start publicizing!!

anyway...speaking of concerts, i just got back from another one. i went to the metro just to get out, just to see music...i had never heard of any of the bands i saw tonight. waste, synge, myllhouse, and pgs played. myllhouse rocked quite hard...they had this great two-lead-singers thing going on, one male and one female. i enjoyed them, hopefully i'll see them again someday. synge was alright...kinda boring, but i NEED a copy of one song they played. no idea on the title, but the lead singer played his guitar with a violin bow and it sounded so haunting and cool. pgs was pretty fun...they had a bunch of screaming teenybopper groupies, but they did play, to dig up a fitting cliche, very infectious pop-punk. as for waste...they were heavy, but they weren't good. they weren't bad enough for me to walk out, and their cover of negative creep at least got me rocking a bit, but they were just "let's play short loud songs and listen to the lead singer growl a lot." the one redeeming thing about waste was their bassist--she was really hot. i think i spent almost the entire duration of the show ogling at her from the front row. :)

...and the ogling was a lot more pleasant than this Stupid Drunk Guy that was trying to hit on me. there was this guy there who must have been my father's age, with long, scraggly hair and scraggly facial hair...he reeked of beer, and he was drunk and maybe high. he starts talking at me after synge's set...i start gazing straight ahead, and he keeps yammering at me. finally he walks off and these two pretty nice guys about my age take the spot he had occupied, because i could talk to the guys and thank them profusely for taking Stupid Drunk Guy's spot. still, Stupid Drunk Guy reappeared, but at least i successfully blew him off. phew.

i guess Stupid Drunk Guys are a normal risk of concertgoing, or any sort of going out...he's not the first one i've ever had to fend off, and i guess he won't be the last one either.

i'm so frustrated...i don't have a functioning copy of MS word on my computer, which i need to bum off a friend or something. usually this doesn't bother me, but i have the password for the new mock trial case, and i have all the files--wordpad just won't open them!!! that blows...i've got the new case and i can't read it!! stupid computer. stupid computer.

2003-08-17T00:54:00.000-05:00

today was crazy stuff... spent the afternoon at SGF's place, lying around, making cookies, talking to his parents (who came over), and lazing away my Concert Hangover, since the show last night (Escape From Earth, Empyrean, Dead Man Holiday, Inept) rocked so hard. we made cookies and potatoes, we were generally lazy, it was good. then, we headed over to a barbecue that one of my friends was throwing. it was hilarious, i asked Scavhunt Judge if he wanted to play poker with me tonight, and he told me that he was already booked going to a barbecue. i assumed it might be the one i was going to, since the two people throwing it are friends with his roomies, but who knew? i walked in, he was already there, it was amusing. the barbecue was lots of fun...good conversations, good food, good times. i almost didn't want to leave to play poker. the time i was supposed to leave, i was having this goofy convo with SJ...i don't think i left until 30 minutes later. i didn't even want to, but since i organized poker, i kind of needed to go. besides, i'm going out and doing something with SJ on monday, so it's all good. poker ended up being fun...i was down for the night, but i got to hang out and chat with a few of my other friends, so it was good. i told one of my friends about my intentions of asking New Guy out to fall formal...sure, it's three months away, but if i've got my eye on someone, whatever!

wow, i'm having a Stereotypical High School Moment, this whole plotting-about-asking-someone-out thing. it's not like i'm plotting to ask him out out of the blue or anything...we've already been talking all summer about random things we need to go out and do, and for crying out loud, the one night i met him, i crashed over with him. my chances are good, it seems even silly to think about "chances". still...i hadn't told her about him yet, and there was no real reason not to, especially since she's probably my closest female friend right now, the person i can sit down and have "girl talk" with (even though my "girl talk" usually ends up being with guys anyway...i'm weird.)

2003-08-15T16:12:00.000-05:00

just about to head out to see Dead Man Holiday at the Metro. :) i haven't seen them in two years (when they were still called Red River...yeah, i know, back in the day!), so i'm stoked. i'm a little bummed 'cause Scavhunt Judge can't go with me, but i'll live...i'm a better concertgoer alone anyway. (he had told me yesterday that he may go, but i guess he didn't get his errands done on time...grr...i need to find out if i'm still going to the baseball game with the random transfer student, so i know whether or not i can make plans with Scavhunt Judge...or maybe i'll do something with him tomorrow afternoon...i don't even know! having a social life is crazy! branching out beyond the same five people i always hang out with is strenuous!)

anyway, i only have one small bit of trepidation...that guy i met last weekend. the one i didn't call back or email. i know he's going to the Kill Hannah show tomorrow (the one i decided i'm not going to, since there's a huge poker night planned with my friends tomorrow). i mentioned this show to him last week, and i couldn't tell if he said he was going to this one or some other show, i think it was this one (i remember him mentioning Escape From Earth for some reason, and that's who's headlining tonight.) hopefully he won't be there, but if he is, let's hope i evade him...i have no desire whatsoever to talk to him or see him despite my flirtations last weekend. so, i'm a jerk, i'm a flirt, whatever. i just want a good night out to see Dead Man Holiday.

2003-08-15T10:32:00.000-05:00

i get so bitter sometimes. last night i was talking to one of my friends about the absurdity of getting married at our ages. she got to talking about people she knows that are getting married this young, and i get to talking about the insanity of my mother trying to get me to get back with my ex and get engaged to him.

i grew up thinking my mother wasn't so old fashioned. didn't she push for feminism during the heyday of the movement, during the time of roe v. wade, during the attempt to get the equal rights amendment passed? didn't she not get married until she was twenty-seven herself?

now she's saying i should marry myself off. now she's saying that if one of her kids wants to get married at eighteen, that they're ready and they should do so. now she's saying that unless it was one of her daughters, she would never ever vote for a female to be president, because they would be doomed to fail, because it is a gender thing.

i don't know what to blame on her long-standing beliefs, and what to chalk up to the strokes she had six years ago. since she remembers practically everything from her past, no matter how guilty it may make me feel i have to chalk this up to long-standing beliefs. i think the marriage one is exacerbated by her divorce earlier this year from my father (even though they had been, for all intents and purposes, separated since my mother got sick, and it had been stay-together-for-the-kids for years before that...). yes, my ex was a good person, and i think my mother was convinced that he was a good enough person that i should hold on to him and cleave to him forever. that i should have a marriage, because it was something that she wanted. i think that part was a combination of beliefs, desire to live vicariously through me, and the idea that a woman can't be happy without a husband. it may have been what she wanted, but it's wrong for me.

i don't understand it at all, it's making me wonder whether i actually had the feminist upbringing i thought i had, or if i grew up a feminist because it struck a chord in me and my mom was just laissez-faire about it. i really don't know anymore. all i know is, i'm beating my own path, and the less i think about my mother and what she wants for me in this arena, the better off i am.

and...boy, it's gonna be a hoot when and if i ever drop the bisexuality bomb in her general direction.

2003-08-14T14:41:00.000-05:00

i've got the overwhelming need to write something, but i don't know what. i hate when this happens...i'm dying to write, i'm bored out of my mind and should be going on some random thought trip, but i'm not thinking about anything. this makes no sense to me, and it's torture. therefore, to satisfy this, i'm writing the most meaningless, awful blog entry ever. and there it is, and there it goes.

2003-08-14T09:28:00.000-05:00

i'm amused. a couple of co-workers and i showed up for work at the library this morning, and on one of the machines in the bank of computers, an ad for "bizarre-sex.com" took up the entire screen.

that was less than half an hour ago. now, there's just a sign on the monitor that says "this machine is out of order."

sure, my job is dull, but at least it's punctuated with random bits of absurdity like that one. :)

2003-08-14T08:16:00.000-05:00

i've got pineapples, which i haven't eaten in a long time. they're my favourite fruit (well, other than SGF...running joke.) they make me happy. i've got coffee, which i drink every morning, and it still makes me happy. i'm playing finger eleven's self titled album on my stereo. i had a really, really sweet workout at the gym last night. i've playing poker tonight. yeah, life's pretty good.

ran into new guy last night, which only contributes to the general happiness of my morning. i had a pretty long, insomnia-fueled conversation with him. no matter what happens, it looks as though i have a concert buddy for random shows at the metro (or wherever...). i wish he was in town to go see Dead Man Holiday with me Friday, but eh well... anyway, he was also overtly flirtatious...yeah, i know, you really can't tell THAT much from an IM conversation, but since i don't get to see him this summer in person, i guess i sort of keep an eye on the e-flirting quotient, and last night both of us were e-flirting pretty heavily. clearly nothing huge or serious, but it's encouraging for when i do see him again in six weeks, when school resumes. it still blows that it's going to be six weeks until i see him, but that's life. at least we're in contact still, contact is good. and he's good. he's adorable, he's amusing, and i'm hugely attracted to him. i still can't help but grin...sometimes elatedly, sometimes smugly, sometimes both, when i walk by his dorm, when i walk by the corner where i had to catch the bus that next morning, where he walked me to the bus stop. he's a sweetie.

2003-08-13T09:14:00.000-05:00

i realised during Cold's set last night that a good concert is the experience that organised religion only wishes it were. think about it...in the pit with fellow members of the Cold Army, you had a throng of people passionately devoted to something with deep meaning to each individual. this unity in finding meaning in the music of Cold, in loving the music of Cold, made the experience something larger than any one member of the crowd, something larger than the men onstage, something larger than a body of songs.

it's also not a spiritually repressive experience at all. as long as one enjoys the music, they're in on the experience. you're not excluded because you're female, because you're queer, because you're anything. sure, i give some of my friends good-natured ribbing about their music tastes, but i don't ostracize anyone for their music tastes, and practically no one really does. it's an experience larger and deeper than any one component, and it's inclusive and supportive.

it's something i can have faith in.

2003-08-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

the concert tonight, with Evanescence, Cold, Revis, and Cauterize, is NOT SOLD OUT!!! :) guess who's going?? i totally shouldn't be spending $25 right now to go to a concert, but i really don't care, since Cold is one of my favourite bands on earth, and i really dig Revis and Evanescence as well.

life is good...i've been listening to tons of those three bands all day, and i'm insanely psyched.

2003-08-12T10:12:00.000-05:00

who's the guy who moves to the beat? the cheat. :)

2003-08-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

this is the least keyed up i've felt in a long time. i feel confident that doing nothing about this weekend is the right decision for me to make...it keeps me out of potential harm's way, out of the way of an even more sticky possible situation. i had a great evening just being lazy over at Scavhunt Judge's apartment, watching mallrats and watching random tv shows. (he's got cable, a luxury i haven't basked in all summer!) it was fun...extremely calm, chill, and low-key. i'm now sitting at home...i talked to my roomie for a little while, which is always nice. he's just the coolest guy on the face of the earth...he's funny, he's interesting, and he has a really calming effect on me when i talk to him about anything, serious or not. he rules, it'll suck not actually living with him during the school year, but at least that's only a technicality, since his dorm room will be just upstairs from mine. i turned in to go on the computer for a while, and new guy was online for a few minutes. i talked to him, which makes me even happier. he had to get offline after a couple minutes because his friends are tired, but it seems pretty clear he likes talking to me, and even a short conversation with him makes me extremely happy, and strangely at peace with i-don't-know-what. (or maybe i do know what, maybe it's just a feeling that these feelings i've had for him since the night we met may not be misplaced. that may be it...)

it's 11pm. i'm going to read a bit and then go to bed. i'm only working a half day tomorrow, and then i'm meeting my roomie for lunch and then just bumming around, doing whatever. maybe i'll read for my BA thesis. maybe i'll do some LSAT games. maybe i'll just sit around the apartment or see what my other friends are doing. either way, life's pretty sweet right now.

2003-08-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

i've decided what i'm going to do about everyone i met on saturday night. the answer is nothing. i've pretty much spent the last seven hours at work today mulling over my quandary, and as i think, thinking becomes more futile. my gut instincts are really the only thing i have to go on, and all my gut instincts are holding up big, red stop signs. as for him, i know anything i may say in a call or an email will probably get me into a bigger pickle...i'm not so good at being blunt, and given my discussion with him on the el and his copious amounts of references about me being good for him (despite the fact that we hardly knew each other), he would be way too clingy. WAY too clingy. i had enough of clingy with my ex, thankyouverymuch. he doesn't have my contact info anyway, so i'm just going to leave this one alone. the only worry here is that i know he's going to the kill hannah show this weekend, and i think he might be going to the dead man holiday show as well, but i guess i'll cross that bridge when i come to it...i'll keep an eye out for him and duly evade him or tell him nicely to go away.

as for the girls...i've decided that even though both of them were quite attractive, and i had a lot of fun with both of them on saturday night, it boils down to one thing: they're both jailbait. neither of them are eighteen yet, and no matter how cute they are or how mature they might seem, they're not eighteen. there's a difference between experimenting with younger people (read: new guy) and trying to be with people who aren't legal yet. besides, they're also both still in high school--i'm a senior in college, for crying out loud, just about to apply to law school. we can't have that much in common right now. i'd maybe go for three, five year age differences in my mid to late twenties, but not now. my gut's telling me to stick to my guns and stick to my usual rule: they have to at least have started college. end of story. they may have been the first girls i kissed, but they're still both way too young. therefore, i will not call them either...they have my cell number, and if either of them calls me, i'll just have to be nice about how they're a sweetheart, but they're just too young for me.

yay for making the right choice.

2003-08-10T23:59:00.000-05:00

so, f-s-c no. one is back in town, and living in the room right next to mine. i'm quite happy he's back...he's hilarious and fun to hang out with, and that means gatherings with my buddies (and life in general...) only gets funnier. it's good also that there doesn't seem to be any awkwardness whatsoever, despite that hookup back in may. i seriously doubt, practically discount, the idea of anything else going on between us (except MAYBE another drunken fling, who even knows...), but i'm convinced nothing will ever come of anything there. he's attractive, he's great as a friend, but i don't think there's anything "lasting-relationship-y" there. plus, both of us are insanely prone to hookups...we're both pretty easy. thus, i'm sure it's pretty easy for him to put that behind him. it's not as easy for me to put it behind me, i'm sure, but that night, right now, is really little more than a funny little episode, something i can look back at and smile at and laugh a bit at. it was like a dream, a very pleasant, sexy dream.

i still don't know what i'm going to do about any of the people i met yesterday. i still haven't called any of them. i still haven't decided whether it can lead to anything good to call up either of the girls i met yesterday...i still can't decide what trumps what, sexiness or age? i had them both pegged for so much older than they were...the one who was 15, i'd have guessed was 18 or 19...and the one who was 17 clearly looked and acted older than me...i was thinking somewhere between 21 and 23. if i'd have known their ages, i don't know if i would have even started flirting so heavily with either of them. still, i've got time.

as for the guy, i have pretty much decided that i will not call him, but i think i'll email him tomorrow or the next day or something. i'm not averse to hanging out with him sometime as friends, but i'm not attracted to him in the least. i feel kind of bad because he probably thinks i'm into him in some more-than-friends sense...i think i was totally leading him on. i was being flirtatious with everyone at the party last night, hugging people and even kissing pretty much everyone in sight, in most cases as kind of a greeting, albeit a very sexually open one. (despite the sheer number of people i kissed last night, the only ones with whom i really felt anything when i kissed them were the two aforementioned girls.) he asked me on the el last night if my roomies were going to be home (big red flag, i know!), and he kept saying how he was turned on and how i was meeting so many of his "perfect girl" characteristics. sheesh. no. creepy, maybe, even. i don't want to lead him on any further, and should fess up.

i should really start coming out to my friends. still, the only person at school to whom i'm out is new guy...that was so easy, because he didn't know me before, so when the subject of bisexuality came up, it was easy. he told me he was bi, i told him i was bi, we're both bi, he's still adorable, life is good. i'm sure most of my friends suspect something, between the drunken-lesbians incident back at the beginning of the summer, and the comment i made at the barbecue a few weeks ago about sex between two females turning me on, and the sheer fact that i revel in my butchiness. now, though, i think coming out is becoming inevitable and crucial... the school year is rolling around, and my friends are going to be disappointed if i kept something secret from them that i told someone who i just met the day before school ended. also, i haven't told anyone what i did last night, where i was last night, any of that. SGF instant messaged me when i got home, and i just told him that i was vaguely "meandering around boys town"...no mention of a queer dance or any girls or anything. i hate feeling like i'm hiding something, i hate hiding things. i finally took a step towards building a queer social life...whether or not i end up pursuing anything with the girls i met last night, i still brought myself to attend the dance, and i enjoyed it so much that it makes me want to take a much more proactive role in meeting women to possibly date. i don't want to have to keep this life to myself, just like i've had to keep my bisexuality to myself, as a secret facet of my personality, as something i've been careful to hint at but equally careful never to put in so many words.

speaking of risks, a kind of non sequitur... i was talking to this random transfer student who's starting at the u of c in the fall. he got my IM address of the incoming students message board, which orientation aides are allowed to post to as well. we got to talking about u of c related stuff, and social life around the university, and eventually just stuff...i've talked to him three or four times within the last couple days, and the conversations are good stuff. nothing heading towards the romantic (thank goodness, i don't need any more drama, any more confusion here...and there's no way to really become attracted to a person via the internet, i'm sure of this.), but he lives here in chicago, and he asked me yesterday whether i wanted to go see the cubs and the dodgers play at wrigley next weekend. i decided, why the heck not...he seems like a nice enough guy online, and he will be going to school with me in the fall. i know, the whole "nice enough guy online" is really no reason at all, because you can be anyone you want to be online, but i still think this is fairly low-risk...i'm meeting him in a very public place (it doesn't get much more public than wrigley field on game day!!), and the bulletin board from which he got my IM address is indeed only open to new students and orientation aides. thus, i'm going to the cubs game with him next weekend. what's the worst that could happen, it could be awkward? i'm convinced it should be fun.

i ought to go to bed. it's almost midnight, which means i'll be getting up in eight hours. i've got a full day at work tomorrow, and then i'm going over to Scavhunt Judge's apartment to watch a movie afterwards. it should be fun, i haven't seen or talked to him in about two and a half weeks, and he's a fun guy. hopefully we'll hang out a little more regularly than that...i should have emailed him sooner, but i was a smidge too embarrassed, between thinking it may have been a date (he doesn't know this, nor will he ever!), and the fact that i thought i came off as a total ditz when we went to see terminator 3. i guess i mustn't have come off as THAT huge a ditz since he invited me to hang out with him again, which is a good thing. i always thought i wasn't a ditz, and i was the farthest thing from it back in raleigh, compared to all the other people at my high school. still, compared to most of the people at the u of c, i feel like i'm less intelligent, and also quite a ditz. it's not paralysing, usually, but it's a feeling i have that i'm less intellectual than the majority of people here, that i can't see things as deeply or organise thoughts as well or argue as adeptly as my peers, that i can't contribute anything valuable to way too many conversations.

2003-08-10T01:31:00.000-05:00

tonight was completely insane. insane, insane, insane... i heard on the queers and associates list that there was a queer youth dance party up on belmont, so i decided why the heck not. i went, and there were definitely some really, really cute girls there. everyone wore numbers, and you could drop off mail for people with certain numbers, and two of the really cute ones who i was flirting with gave me their numbers, so i gave them mine as well. and...gasp...i got to kiss both of them. yes, i've now actually kissed a girl (or, shall i say, two of them!) :) :) :) let's just say, it makes me understand even less the idea of discriminating on romantic attraction based on gender, because it was definitely sexy. it wasn't weird at all...the only weirdness in my head came when i found out that out of these two girls that were interested in me, one of them was 17 and one of them was 15. they were both in high school, and i was totally robbing the cradle. i don't know how much i care about that or not...they both want me to call them be in touch with them, but i don't know how good i feel about it, especially with a fifteen year old. i totally wouldn't go after a fifteen year old guy...younger girls are generally more mature than younger guys, but these two aren't even legal yet! i'm sure i'll call them to hang out or something, but i really don't know. i'll think about where to proceed from here...half of me tells me to leave them alone because they're so young, and half of me tells them to go for it because they're both so dead sexy. one of them is way taller than me, and the other way shorter. both of them appeal to me for the same reasons...pretty dark hair, and they're both nice and curvaceous. they were both my type... :)

i've also got a guy i met there who's totally after me. he's straight...probably the only straight person there. he IS actually my age...just about 20. he was fun to talk to, and he's really into the music scene here. (he might even be lead singing for crash poet soon...) but i don't think i'm interested in him romantically at all. this might be a problem, because i'm thinking he is interested in me...and i was probably leading him on, since i was being really amorous and touchy-feely and kissing random people (i'm that way, and that was also the atmosphere, everyone was dancing with everyone else and kissing everyone else...). he gave me his phone number and email, and asked me to call him tonight or tomorrow. i'm not calling him tonight, i may or may not call him tomorrow... i don't know what i'm going to do about this, i think i'm even more confused about him than i am about anything else...but he doesn't have my contact information, so if i decide not to call him, he can't get at me. that would still be evil, though...i'll at least email.

2003-08-08T17:55:00.000-05:00

jaylynne: why she can't get a man...or, the idiocy of mass american media

i was on the el coming home from a succesful used cd-shopping trip to wicker park, and there was a woman on the el reading Us Weekly. i don't think i've ever read that magazine, but i find it strange that it's called "Us" because it's not about us, it's about celebrity gossip. there was a little picture of britney spears in the top corner, with a headline that went across the top: "BRITNEY SPEARS: WHY SHE CAN'T GET A MAN." the first thing that crossed my mind was a loud, resounding "why should i care?" i don't care about her music, i don't care about her love life, and i don't care about celebrities' love lives in general. it's insanely shallow. sure, i'm not completely oblivious to it because i'm not living under a rock...for example, i clearly know that ben affleck and j-lo are together, and i know that j-lo's marriages have been so short that getting engaged to her is a bad idea. i know that britney spears used to be with justin timberlake (my little sister moaned and complained about that one way too many times, she wanted justin for herself...), and i have heard vague rumours that he is now trashing her publicly. in other words, i hear things. still, it's all so irrelevant, and i question the sanity of people who would pay money to read trash like that. who cares if britney spears is dating anyone?

the second thing that crossed my head was a wave of gratitude that i'm not a celebrity. i wouldn't want people writing in stupid magazines about my love life or my friends or my purported connections or the person i hooked up with at a party the night before. i don't want random people, people who don't even know me, trying to tell me by way of the mass media why i'm single--or that being single is such a bad thing after all. people can be such armchair quarterbacks...they're voyeurs, and they're too chicken to live their own lives, so they try to live it through celebrities.

or, they try to live it by becoming celebrities...or, at least trying to outdo each other with how they garner their fifteen minutes of fame. the headline, for some odd reason, reminded me of most likely the most horrific, ridiculous thing i've ever seen on television. i was on my lunch break from work, and i was too tired and scatterbrained to read. so, i went downstairs, because there's a small television lounge in the basement of the law school. there was a woman in the room already watching television, the maury povich show. usually the maury show is ridiculous yet still somehow tolerable, so i plunked myself down in front of the tv and watched it.

it was not tolerable yesterday. the topic of the show was "the man i love ruined my life", and it was a parade of women coming on to talk about how they were shot or raped by their boyfriends. there was one spot on the show with a bunch of family members of someone who had been shot to death on her wedding day by her ex-boyfriend. there was video tape of the murder, tape they kept showing on loop...you could hear the gunshot and see the bridesmaids scattering. there was a short clip of real footage of the armed rape that they interspersed with the dramatization...you could see the time in the corner, and you could see a man thrusting into a woman while he held a gun to her head. i couldn't believe that these people thought they could reach anyone this way. i would not want to relive memories like this, especially on national television. i would dredge them up only with someone i trusted, like a close friend or a family member, or a psychiatrist if i believed in going to them. (i don't, but i can understand someone telling an experience like that to their psychiatrist...a trained professional.) i do not find it wise to go on tv and try and have maury fix such deep problems. it's exploitation...exploitation of one's own pain (if that exists, which for now i believe it does), and definitely exploitation of the pain of the people around you that the incident caused.

2003-08-08T10:13:00.000-05:00

i've realised this thing is an online verification of the fact that i don't know jack about life. i admit it, i write about my wonderments and confuzzlements and events, and i use it as a tool to try and think through it. i usually end up mired in the muck anyway, but i feel a little less mired with this thing than without it.

i was listening to "ark of the envious" by the verve pipe today...it's a song i've loved, listened to, and known all the words to since i was fourteen, but now (six years later!) i finally realised what it's about: the narrator is being cheated on, and he's trying to gather the nerve to leave her and their family and be single again, because he hates being cheated on and he's dying to be able to be a freewheeling bachelor again.

on another note, i was thinking about things professors say, and i would like to share three of the most useful and witty things i've learned from college professors.

"that's the definition of a professor: we talk in other people's sleep."--first year music theory professor

"the pool is a common pool resource. if someone befouls the pool, everybody suffers."--third year international relations professor

"if someone owed me a thousand dollars, and they backed up a dump truck full of soybeans worth a thousand dollars, they'd be paying me back, but not in money."--third year history professor

2003-08-08T01:08:00.000-05:00

my ex is satisfied with the email i sent. that means he's out of my hair about this, and out of my life for as long as he needs to be. right now i'm thinking out of my life forever. this is a comforting thought.

2003-08-06T22:38:00.000-05:00

so, i emailed my ex. it wasn't as short as i had hoped it would be, but at least it was relatively painless. he had written me yesterday telling me stuff that SGF told me two weeks or so ago, about how i had really caused him hurt in how i stopped talking to him. i was trying to be blunt, but he took it as me being bitchy. in other words, i emailed him to apologize for what i unwittingly did. i wrote the email a few minutes ago, i didn't start crying or freaking out or getting otherwise goofy. this is a good sign, because it means that he is as much if not more in my past as i had hoped. i really don't think about him that much anymore...he's a part of my past. i'm glad that it looks like i'm going into his past as well...he's even seeing someone else, according to the email he sent me yesterday. sure, i'm a bit curious about her, about how serious they are, about what she knows about me, whatever, but i don't dwell on it. i gues i'm not surprised, since he does seem to be the type that always has to be dating someone, that's always got his eye peeled for the woman who will play his wife role. i'm just thanking my lucky stars it wasn't me, thanking my lucky stars i had the sense to get out when i did. he was a good person, he was a comfortable person, but he wasn't what i really wanted or needed in my life for any long-term period.

2003-08-06T16:45:00.000-05:00

"don't say because you can't say what we should have been
don't show what i resent
don't know 'cause i forget"
"Stay In Shadow"
by finger eleven

2003-08-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

i made it up out of bed and to work on time, and i even woke up five minutes before my alarm. no matter, i still feel rotten. i wish i could have stayed in bed, or at least stayed splayed out on my floor looking at homestar runner all day. strong bad's emails improve my mood like work can't. i guess, if i have to be at work, i have the best thing i can to improve my mood...some good CD's. even though i'm in a lame mood this morning, i still can't help but smile when i play the Marvelous 3, which is who i'm listening to this morning.

i also brought a ton of matchbox20. given my desire to disappear at home all night and sulk (and/or read...), in addition to my having to email my ex today, it's a matchbox20 kind of day. you know, the dark, sullen, sad kind of day that you just can't help but wallow in. there's no better wallowing music than matchbox20.

2003-08-06T04:00:00.000-05:00

i feel rotten. it's 4am, and i have to be up in four hours, and at work in five. my ex emailed me tonight, airing out the same exact complaints that SGF told me two weeks ago that he had. still, he sounded so defensive about the whole being over me thing...about how he's dating another girl and that i'm part of his past. i'm ready to believe that i'm part of his past when he's ready to let me be part of his past...i don't understand the idea of needing to be connected to one's past. i'm connected to the parts of my past that feel relevant to my now, to my vision of the future, but he's not part of that. my relationship with him gave me some valuable experiences, and i don't regret it, but contact with him only seemed to mar my here and now, so contact with him is bad for me.

no, i never did email him. i guess i need to, in order to spare him some hurt, despite the fact that it will cause me hurt. i agree with what fuzzy told me today, that nothing extremely deep can be done electronically, but it still hurts me to write him email, any email, even a short message to tell him that i didn't mean to hurt him by the way that i handled my breakup. it will hurt, but it will also get him off my back, and it will get my responsibility for his current pain off of my shoulders. the dread of writing him is weighing on me more heavily than anything else, but i'm sure that's plain selfish of me. i haven't talked to him for two months...i guess i need to get some sleep, write him the email tomorrow, and be able to not talk to him without him or SGF sending me on a guilt trip for my total lack of contact.

2003-08-05T08:23:00.000-05:00

after hours of housework last night, my apartment is clean. all the dishes are done (all the dishes = everything from a huge chicken dinner last wednesday...yucky!), the garbage is taken out, the living room is clean, my room is clean, my laundry is washed...it kind of sucked to do, but i'm glad it's out of my hair. i'm actually pretty proud of my diligence...i worked solidly from seven until ten thirty or so, with only two "breaks", if by breaks you mean waiting half an hour for the drano to unclog the sink, and then twenty minutes or so to wait for the dryer to finish on my laundry, after i had finished the rest of the housework. i can't complain...these two small lulls in the housework coincided perfectly with two times that new guy was online, so i got to chat with him quite a bit yesterday. that made me happy. ;)

i'm also happy because i have coffee...i remembered to buy that when i was at the grocery store buying drano yesterday. it's cheaper than buying it at the law school cafe, and quite frankly, it's better as well, 'cause the coffee there kind of sucks. it's also nice because i can get up in the morning and sip coffee while i eat breakfast, check my fantasy baseball team, and blog a bit, as opposed to sucking it down while i work. yay maxwell house...

well, i need to get ready for work now. maybe i'll remember to make lunch today instead of reading straight through my lunch break. maybe not, though, because i'm still completely engrossed in the book i'm reading on sexual orientation and the law. i'm learning and thinking about a lot of interesting things, and i feel like i'm getting a smidge closer to a BA proposal that i can take to a prof. go me.

2003-08-04T22:39:00.000-05:00

i was listening to Human Clay by Creed today, and it made me think that i forgot a category in my discourse on The Last Song that i wrote in here a few weeks ago. i forgot the Inspirational Last Song. these creatures are often slower and softer than the rest of the album, althought not always (like in Human Clay, for example, where many of the songs sound the same anyway...My Own Prison was so good, this wasn't supposed to happen.) anyway, these creatures are also almost invariably bad. the last track on Human Clay, "Inside Us All", is listenable if i've got the CD on as background music at work, but it's not a song i'd really play on its own merits. (i'd never be like, hey, i have a huge craving to listen to this one!) it's an attempt to end a CD with some kind of message...to leave the listener with some sort of feeling, usually a positive feeling. it's also usually insufferably cheesy, insufferably bad.

sometimes, bands will turn this on its head. Drowning Pool did just that with "Sermon", the last song on their album Sinner. it's a long rant about organized religion...an extremely anti-inspirational song on one level. then again, it's also inspirational in the sense that it closes the CD with a feeling, with a message: it being, to question organized religion, to consider the possibility that it may not be all it's cracked up to be in the bible belt. i like this technique, because it's less cheesy and patronizing than the "it's all gonna be okay" ending usually ends up sounding.

2003-08-04T10:02:00.000-05:00

a few random musings on a monday morning, while i should be working...

--i'm actually getting excited about doing my BA. i've got a roomful of books out of the library (okay, more like ten books, but they're all pretty heavy stuff. i've started reading this one that's a legal text on sexual orientation and the law (i'm planning to do my BA on the concept of government interest as it relates to discrimination against homosexuals and bisexuals), and it's got a bunch of background reading to start, stuff on sexuality theory and queer theory. i'm enjoying it a great deal, and i wish i weren't working so i could be reading these articles instead.

--i was thinking about random hook-ups for no good reason, and thinking back to my little tryst with f-s-c no. one, i can do nothing but laugh. it's amusing. sure, i'd do it again in a heartbeat...he's attractive as all-get-out, and quite frankly the night was a boatload of fun. still, there's really no inkling of anything that will go any further, or go that far again, and there's no awkwardness in platonic reality. i was talking to him on the phone last week, and we were trading stories of the absurdities in our respective single lives this summer. it was amusing. he'll be back into town in a few weeks (two, i think...), and it will be lots of fun, but i doubt anything else will happen. it's almost funny to think anything ever did, since it was such an anomaly. anyway...i'm getting overanalytical here, but i'm amused. that's the important thing.

2003-08-03T10:07:00.000-05:00

why am i up at 9am? i don't get it. i shouldn't be up this early, i just went to bed at about 3am last night, give or take... i know there's a bunch of stuff i could do right now, or should do right now (clean my room, clean my kitchen, clean my living room...yeah...), but i don't feel like it. it's 9:30 on a sunday morning. at least i remembered to drink water and take advil last night, so i'm not hung over.

so yesterday. i made plans yesterday to go to the tall ships festival downtown and then go to the smoke daddy, this barbecue restaurant that one of my friends really likes. first we went to tall ships...it was kind of fun, but nothing to write home about. i'm not a huge boat buff, and they were charging eight dollars to be able to get on the ships and look at them. they weren't taking any of the ships out to sail, which is the one thing that would have been super cool. the boats were pretty to look at, but i think i spent a lot more time commenting on what idiots tourists are. so many tourists were waiting in line to walk around the boats. so many tourists were clogging navy pier and doing all the dumb tourist-trap things on navy pier. even if i were a tourist, i wouldn't be a stupid tourist, spending a limited amount of time in town waiting in line and paying eight dollars to wait in hourlong lines to walk on the decks of boats. overall, tall ships was quite fun...i enjoyed the company i was in, and we got to goof off and make fun of the tourists.

after looking at the ships, we met up with another friend and went to the smoke daddy for dinner. we were at navy pier, and the smoke daddy was in wicker park (around 1800 west division street). it was sort of a haul, and i knew how to get there on public transit, but SGF and another one of my friends decided we would walk it. sure, it was about a three mile walk from navy pier, but why not? besides, how sketchy could it be? you walked through the ritzy near north area, then old town, then a random stretch of division street, and then you got to wicker park. SGF, a chicago native, didn't raise any concern about walking, so i assumed it was cool. i had a small, lingering voice in the back of my head that told me that maybe, just maybe, Cabrini Green was on the random stretch of the street (hadn't i read somewhere that it was on division street? maybe? i knew it was just north of downtown...), but since SGF, our Chicago Native, didn't object, i assumed this was unfounded.

or not. we go through the near north area, make it up to sedgwick street or so, and it starts looking marginally not good...a razed lot here, a run-down building there. it still didn't look as sketchy yet as parts of the south side, and especially not as sketchy as parts of washington, dc. we walk a little further, up to larrabee and division, and it seems like more of the same. they're building some new houses, a townhouse development, across the street from where we're walking. on our side of the street, there are a couple of high-rise buildings that are gated off. a few too many of the windows are either busted out or boarded up, but there are a lot of buildings like that along the el route on the south side too. granted, i've never walked by said buildings on the south side, but i wasn't freaked out. then, as we crossed the street, i looked down at the gate.

ABRINI GREEN

the initial C had fallen off of the lettering on the gate. still, this gate was the only indication that this was the most infamous housing project in chicago. it is probably a smart thing that it doesn't advertise so heavily what it is...everyone who lives around there knows what it is, and everyone who doesn't live around there may or may not be better off to stay out. we got a lot of funny looks as we walked past there...we were six white college kids walking down in front of an exclusively (or maybe almost exclusively? i don't know for sure...) black housing project. anyway, i guess that meant that SGF didn't know off the bat where Cabrini Green was, and my hunch was right.

oh well, whatever. i just kept walking and talking as normal. ignore the bad publicity, and the neighbourhood didn't seem any more sketchy than parts of the south side that i've been through. i didn't feel any imminent threat of danger to life or limb, i didn't see contingents of gangsters or crazy men with guns. it was a neighbourhood...there were families waiting for the number 70 division street bus, there were playgrounds between the buildings with children playing on them, there were people going in and out of the buildings. sure, there may historically be a great deal of crime that has happened there, but i didn't get as bad a feeling as i expected while walking through The Infamous Cabrini Green. the only bad feeling that i got was from the publicity, from the mystique of it, seeing as how ever since i was a little girl, my parents and my aunt would tell me that Cabrini Green was the worst neighbourhood in chicago and i Should Never Go There. i was actually quite amused by it...clearly i will never tell my parents or my aunt that i walked by there, but next time they start telling me that Cabrini Green is bad and i Should Never Go There, i can nod and smile outwardly, but i can turn inward, chuckle to myself, and know that i walked past it, lived to tell the tale, and didn't find it to be particularly scary or bad anyway. or, if i really feel like spiting them (and i'm often up for spiting a relative), i can tell them what i did yesterday. i'm sure they've never actually been by Cabrini Green anyway.

as we walked along the street, i had been talking to my friend who suggested this barbecue expedition and another friend. none of the three of us were miffed or freaked out at all about the situation...it was a walk through chicago, an adventure, something we would have probably never seen with our own eyes otherwise. i did find it insanely amusing...she (the one who suggested this) will not ride public transit alone in broad daylight, yet she would walk us right through one of the most infamous neighbourhoods in chicago. i think that made the situation even more bizarre, even more amusing...it's a random, funny detail.

we cross Halsted street, get to a bridge, and get out of the neighbourhood. SGF is blowing his top...he starts screaming at our friend who suggested this that he would never have walked there if he knew he was going to be walking through Cabrini Green, and that we should have taken public transit. he also started ranting that he didn't think he would have gone if he knew the place was "within shouting distance of cabrini green." by this point, we were through the area, and there were only about ten blocks to go to get to the smoke daddy anyway. these ten blocks were very non-sketchy...over the river, under the highway, and into the relatively safe (read: yuppified, nonthreatening) confines of wicker park. we three girls were like, what's the big deal anyway? we got through the area, and it wasn't so bad anyway, and we have a story to tell. SGF and fuzzy were miffed, and our sixth friend really didn't say much about the experience.

finally we get to the barbecue place, and it was every bit worth the long walk. the food was yummy, the place was fun...and it was the epitome of "all's well that ends well." SGF and fuzzy continued to be unhappy that we walked through Cabrini Green, but they still loved the barbecue.

still, we took the el home, because that was a long walk from downtown. our feet were tired.

2003-08-03T02:35:00.000-05:00

so much insanity today. i'll tell the story in the morning, because i'm inebriated right now. still, today involved a lot of boats, a stroll along cabrini green, barbecue, and lots of beer and movies to end the night. right now i'm feeling the effects of my lots of beer. that means tomorrow is a better time to actually blog. goodnight.

2003-08-02T01:26:00.000-05:00

so my sister was just bugging me to send my father my contact information. i already did, early in the summer, but i guess he lost it just like he loses everything else. he's not responsible. he's also not a very good person, a very nice person. i don't feel like ruining my night going on a litany why (i'm sure i'll do that later, probably the next time i talk to him, which will be soon because it's been six, maybe seven weeks since i've talked to that man), but it still makes me kind of unhappy even when i just send him an email. he's someone i want in my life as little as possible, and every time that anyone or anything obligates me to be in touch with him, i feel like this wish of mine is being violated. at least he's all the way in tennessee, so he can't quite just drop in on me. that would be awful.

2003-08-01T23:50:00.000-05:00

i'm holding onto an unfounded myth, that explains something i can't quite put my finger on, that could probably be explained by something logical anyway.

either that, or i just really wish new guy would sign online so i can chat with him.

2003-08-01T01:57:00.000-05:00

yay for me and fuzzy...we're both in the process of getting back on our feet, muddling through reentering the single world. did a smidge of trading stories with him as we walked home from poker night...the single life is full of amusing foibles, from my total non-date with Scavhunt Judge last week to his smart decision not to pursue a seventeen year old. if i had a beer, i'd toast to the absurdity of singlehood right now.

2003-07-31T13:43:00.000-05:00

"this vessel has no spirit left
to hold on to lies i've lived in full"
"High Wire Escape Artist"
by Boy Sets Fire

2003-07-31T09:31:00.000-05:00

"don't show what i resent"

i can't shake the feeling that my friendship with my ex-roomie/ex-best friend started to deteriorate in the fall of my second year, when i joined the mock trial team. usually she was happy when i was happy, like a friend should be. but, when i told her i was joining mock, she growled at me, seemed outright resentful. was it because her then-boyfriend (fuzzy...who broke up with her in february...and the breakup set into motion a chain of events that eventually led to the final breakdown of her friendship with me...) and several of her other then-friends (or, then-friends-of-friends) were on mock trial? did she actually want to mock, like sometimes she seemed to say? i have no idea.

we're not talking, me and my ex-roomie. that doesn't bother me at all...i need it, since it is so insanely painful to even pass by her along the way. i won't talk to her right now, i can't. but, i'm afraid that that's about to mess with my friendship with another one of my friends--the only person left who's really a mutual friend, a mutual close friend, of mine and hers. i called her a week or two ago (after running into my ex-roomie at the museum), and she hasn't called me back. i'm going to try again, but i can't shake the idea that she's not getting back in touch with me because my ex-roomie has completely trashed me to her, because of that incident. i may have been cold, but i don't deserve to be ignored.

"don't know 'cause i forget"

2003-07-31T08:19:00.000-05:00

this sucks. i wanted to put up some virgos merlot lyrics, but i'm looking online (i know bits and pieces of their songs, but not whole ones) and i can't find lyrics ANYWHERE!!! what gives?

2003-07-30T23:47:00.000-05:00

i think tonight is the first night in a week or two where i haven't felt totally, unwarrantedly socially awkward or unwanted. this is a good thing. i hung out tonight with my roomie, fuzzy, and three other people who i hang out with on and off, but they're not so much my close friends as they are close friends of my roommate and fuzzy. it was good...we ate chicken, drank margaritas, and played spades. i'm not feeling completely in the dumps tonight like i was last night. i'm now retired to my room for the evening, talking to f-s-c no. three online and getting ready to snooze. i'm pretty tired, so i don't have the wherewithal to write anything that's not boring or straightforward in this thing.

i'm shutting up now.

2003-07-30T09:48:00.000-05:00

i knew almost nothing real in high school, but i can say with absolute certainty that i knew one thing. it always helps matters to have fitting mood music. my father always got on my case for having such depressing music in my music collection (as most of the alternative rock from the last ten, twelve years or so is wont to be), but i always found it soothing. i was sad about a lot of stuff in high school, and having music to commiserate with helped me get through the days and actually be a somewhat happier, better-adjusted person. i was just thinking that, because i'm at work right now, and i'm listening to my Virgos Merlot CD. they're not particularly good, even i'll admit that. still, i enjoy their music a great deal, and it's the perfect thing to listen to when i'm in a mood like i've been in for the last several days, if not a week. they're brooding, they're angst-ridden, and they walk the line between whiny and screamy. they're not lyrical geniuses, but when it comes to moods like i'm having now, the words fit the mood perfectly...i don't need anything profound, i'd rather have something achingly blunt. achingly blunt is something that Virgos Merlot did well...they generally screw the metaphors and tell you how much their life sucks. that's what i'm in the business of right about now, as well.

in other words, i'm actually feeling somewhat better this morning, and much of it is thanks to putting the right album in the CD player. yay for knowledge that was revealed to me at the tender age of fourteen.

2003-07-29T23:35:00.000-05:00

i'm having a breakdown. i couldn't deal with a whole day of work today. i went to another library and slept. i went bowling with some friends, but i felt somehow detached. i'm in a funk. i think i'll be able to lift it if i just get on with the process of coming out of the closet, and i was so close to telling SGF this evening, but i couldn't bring myself to do it. i come up with excuses that i know i shouldn't be coming up with. i know it's dumb of me not to just say it, i'm so outspoken about everything else, so ready to put myself on the line. i just need to do this, to tell him, to tell everyone.

it's so strange, even with everyone all around me recently, the highlights of my days recently have been my online chats with new guy. he's so adorable...last night, i IM'ed him, and he couldn't talk because he was watching anime. still, he said a nice, long goodbye as always happens, and when i told him to have sweet dreams, he sent me one of those big, goofy smilies. i don't know why, but that made my day. it was insanely cute, insanely adorable, and insanely him. i talked to him for a few minutes today, as well, and it made me equally happy...it was the one part of the day that i didn't feel off kilter.

i've felt so much recently that my mere presence is just offensive (even though it's clearly not, these are my closest friends i'm talking about, and i know they all love me), but i still feel like my self-esteem is plummeting, like i'm not wanted, like i'm an outcast, even when i'm engaged in what's going on. i don't feel that way at all when i'm talking to him, i feel like my presence in our conversations is happy and amusing and fun. he's a total goofball, but so are a lot of my other friends, the ones here in chicago. i think this feeling of mine is a mix of two things...it's partially that i have a crush on him, and it's partially that i'm out to him. i think things will be better generally if i start coming out to everyone else...not only will i feel happy and carefree when i talk to new guy, i'll feel happier and more carefree when i'm talking to everybody.

2003-07-29T08:23:00.000-05:00

it's tuesday morning. my friend (for argument's sake, since his hair is usually nice and fuzzy, we'll call him fuzzy) is in town. this is good since i haven't seen him since school got out. this is bad because, since he's staying here, i'm going to have less opportunity to hide from the world. it's also bad because it means we're going to go out a lot, which is fun but it also costs money, money i shouldn't be spending. i'm sure i'm going to just screw it and go do everything, but...yeah. oops.

talked to f-s-c no. one on the phone yesterday, he called me. he called in response to an email i sent, a stupid house-type question, whether there were sheets for his bed for fuzzy to sleep on. still, it was beautiful to talk to him. i seriously doubt anything's going to happen between us, ever, but whatever. yesterday we traded stories of date opportunities that didn't quite pan out...my story with scavhunt judge last week, his story about some girl who he thought he had a date with or was going to have a date with (his story was kinda hard to follow...), but then some minor league baseball player in the indians' farm system took her, and they're dating now. oops...both of us don't seem to have the best luck, i guess. on a total non sequitur, it won't be more than about two or three weeks until he gets into town. score. :)

i have a functional ethernet card on my own computer for the first time since the beginning of may, which means i'm not dependent on lab computers or f-s-c no. one's computer before. this is a good thing, because now i can save files and visit websites without having to clear the history (THAT'S exactly how i want to be outed, having someone see bisexual resource pages in the history of f-s-c no. one's computer...yeah right.) and download songs again. this is a good thing.

yay for mundane blog entries. i just needed to rant. a couple of my friends, on the way home from dinner last night, decided to completely start trashing the act of blogging, especially the concept of personal blogs (like mine). i was the only one there who would come to its defense. i will agree with them that a blog is not quite a regular journal. i will not agree with them that a blog can't be as honest (it's a lot easier to share stuff with total strangers who will never see, who will never be able to judge you face to face), and i will not agree with them that it's better to just write stuff down on paper and squirrel it away, as opposed to writing a blog, when you want to rant or you want to work through thoughts or events--meditate, if you will. i can type a lot faster than i can write, and i like having my rants and thoughts and workings-through posted on the web...you can read it if you want to, you can move along and not read it if you don't want to read it, and it gives me a nice feeling that there is a possibility that people are reading this, that people may comment or at least think about what i've said. one of my friends tried to dismiss it as an antisocial act, a search for computer friends and not actual friends. i think that's completely wrong. but, there are some things, that you may, for one reason or another, not want to tell them or not be able to tell them, at least not yet. but, blogging is nice because i can work though on an anonymous, nonjudgmental basis.

2003-07-28T03:25:00.000-05:00

goofiness. we were in the middle of a discussion about the recording industry lawsuits today at a barbecue with some friends, and SGF started going off about how he wouldn't mind having his computer subpoenaed because the inspector would find mass quantities of gay porn for every one of the mp3's he'd find. for some reason, he starts talking about woman-neutral gay men, and woman-hating gay men, and what straight men think about gay porn. he then turns to me, right in front of everyone, and asks me "what do you think about gay sex?" without skipping so much as a beat, i'm like, "it depends. two men going at it doesn't turn me on in the least. two women, i can't say the same." i decided, if i'm being asked about gay sex, i was going to go the whole nine yards and include both varieties of homosexual sex. i didn't make the logical next comment (as in...hey, i'm bisexual!), but it was an interesting episode. SGF, my roomie, and another one of my friends were like, what the heck...not in a good way or a bad way, just a "why did she say this in public" kind of way, or a "why didn't she just leave gay sex as two men" kind of way. another person who was there, a guy who i've maybe hung out with three times in my life before today, was like "we've just become better friends..." and slapped my hand, totally amused by and respectful of the pure balls it took to just say that as though it was nothing big to say in public. the rest of the people there just kind of giggled, didn't say much. i didn't see it as anything really big to say in public, i just saw it as being frank. if it was TMI (too much info), then it was TMI, but i don't see how that's any more TMI than all the comments SGF makes about loving cock so much...heck, i didn't go into anything graphic. sure, there may have been the surprise element of me making a comment like that because i'm still in the closet, but hopefully that episode will bring me at least some of the wherewithal i need to just come out of the closet already and let everyone know in so many words that i'm bi.

i bet at least some people suspect it anyway, and i still can't rationalize why i'm so hesitant to come out. i've known long enough to know it's not just some stupid passing phase of an interest (which i think is a stupid idea anyway, the whole "oh, [homosexuality, bisexuality, general queerness] is just a passing phase" thing that people throw at you.) sure, the politics of it are sticky (and the more i read about the politics of bisexuality, the more i agree that new guy is right, the politics are just insane), and i know that there's a lot of biphobia in society, and a lot of biphobia in the idea that both straights and gays (or, if you want to get as technical about it as some of my friends wished i'd have remained today, lesbians...there's a whole can of worms involving feminist politics and straight privilege that i'm not going to get into here at all right now, maybe later when i feel like going on a rant about bisexual politics and biphobia as opposed to a rant about me being an idiot who's too chicken to come out already even though she's dropping hints like crazy now) can be hesitant to date someone who's bi, but i should just bring myself to realize that this, in addition to any other of my characteristics that may be offensive to some (i'm outspoken, i'm not a stick figure, you name it...), can just be an idiot filter.

not to say he was a complete idiot, but my ex-boyfriend would have definitely been one of the people filtered by the idiot filter of my bisexuality if i'd have had my head screwed on straight when i was dating him. i actually did come out to him back in december...we got on the topic of sexuality, and i decided that the least i could do was be frank about it, since i was sleeping with him and all. it turned out that he had this extremely macho-chauvinistic-chump view of female-female relationships. he saw them as something less threatening to him than the idea of me messing around with another man...he even went so far to say that i could fool around with other women "as long as i didn't get emotionally attached." i never took him up on that for several reasons. first of all, it was totally patronizing, as if he took it as some sort of experimental phase that i needed to get out of my system before we took our relationship to some next level. secondly, i couldn't stand to let him think that there was no way that a sexual relationship with a woman could grow into something as deep and emotional and fulfilling and consuming as, say, my sexual relationship with him at the time. i found it ridiculous and insulting. he also definitely bought into the whole titillating-lesbian-action-to-turn-on-straight-men thing...he even had the nerve to tell me that, when he started dating someone else, should fly to LA and have a threesome with them--or, if i were in chicago and dating a girl, that i should invite him to fly to town to have a threesome with us. not that i have a problem with threesomes in general, and if me and a signficant other talked about it and found the right person to have a threesome with, i'm sure i'd enjoy a threesome a lot. still, i didn't like the idea of it in this context because it was as if he was taking advantage of my bisexuality in a really shallow, stupid way. it also violated what i think is cardinal rule no. one of a breakup: anyone you're still screwing is not your ex. that would include one of us going to visit the other for sex, be it in a threesome or not.

2003-07-27T01:24:00.000-05:00

i know this probably makes the fiftieth time this summer, and it's becoming a refrain of sorts, but most days it seems to bear repeating...new guy is such a cutie. :) i talked to him again tonight...just for a short while, but it was still thoroughly joyful. it's weird, "new guy" is what i refer to him as in this blog, but it's getting to be a smidge weird still calling him that, since i've been talking to him all summer and i've known him at least in some capacity for a month and a half now. it still feels new, but also not new at all. i don't know. again, i'm going all giddy-schoolgirl with it, and i need to see him face to face again before i get too carried away, but maybe i'm already too carried away.

sometimes i wonder why i don't use names in this thing. it was a conscious choice on my part when i started it...names will be omitted to protect the innocent or (in many cases, since it's not so much fun to fraternize with the innocent) the just-as-guilty-as-i-am. many of my friends have fairly common names, so it woudn't be so easy to tag identities, but maybe someone would, since there would be the juxtaposition of names and incidents and the knowledge that i'm at u of c. whatever...i think the epithets work just fine, since they can be followed just as names can be followed. i've considered making a sidebar of all of the frequently appearing characters in this unfolding story of mine, but i don't know if i'm comfortable condensing the existences of my friends, my confuzzlements, and everything in between into a small sound bite, even if the sound bite is only used as a reference point for people who read this and want to follow the ways that these particular lives interact with mine. i think it's that i do know things about these people that don't necessarily interact with my life, don't necessarily bear any relevance to my daily life, my occasional wanderings, or what gets mentioned or mulled over in this blog. i'm still batting around a sidebar with the cast of characters, i just don't know yet. feel free to tell me what you think (in a comment...) if you're reading this. it would be most helpful.

okay, enough blogging about blogging. i've been up since quarter to eight this morning, and i'm tired, and new guy's offline. i want sleep, or at least i want to read a few pages and then fall asleep, hopefully destined to sleep in a little later than a quarter to eight so i can have some energy for my friend's barbecue out in the suburbs tomorrow.

2003-07-26T08:46:00.000-05:00

7:45 on a saturday morning, when i went to bed at 2am? ridiculous, i know, but that's when i awoke. i was in the midst of this strange dream, about a girl from school that i hardly knew, a bunch of IM's on my cell phone (from both f-s-c no. one and this girl i hardly know), and vague plans to go to a drag king show with the girl, and ostensibly some of her friends. i run into the girl at a store, and tell her i'd love to go. i can't follow what she tells me next, but it had something to do with asking my permission to fondle me in public. that's when the dream started to make no sense whatsoever. i was like, what? umm...i don't think so. i had no problems with PDA's, and i was hoping to score a date or at least a one-night-stand at the drag show, but not her (she was short and thin, not my type at all.) and, that was pretty forward, even for me. i remember, in the dream, mumbling something and turning away, and then i awoke. i don't quite know what to make of the dream, between the strange encounter with the girl and the juxtaposition of instant messages from f-s-c no. one (a male i have a thing for, as we all know...) and the random girl from school (who i know to be queer). for right now, i'm going to stop trying to wrap my brain around it, and give it a while.

2003-07-26T00:49:00.000-05:00

well, my disappearing worked differently than planned. i was so TIRED when i got home from work that i bummed around at home and took a nap. i like naps, i don't get to take them nearly often enough, and they make me feel so refreshed. i was also in one of my moods this afternoon where the last thing i wanted to do is deal with people. that was probably helped along by the fact that SGF is all but making me send email to my ex. the good news is that he's pissed off at me and (according to SGF) entertains no further notion of getting back together with me. the bad news is that his anger is a defense mechanism that's hindering his moving on, and about the only way that he's not going to be so hindered is if i send him a note validating his existence as a good boyfriend...he's convinced that i didn't actually have feelings for him, that all our good times were a sham. that's a bunch of crap, because i did have feelings for him. not anymore, but when we were together, i did. i'm not looking forward to writing this email.

anyway, back on topic, maybe. i got up from my nap around seven and started looking for things to do, places to go. i finally decided i was just going to get on the el and then get off whenever i felt like getting off. this led me to old town. i ended up strolling a bit, and then eating sushi and people-watching. that was nice, the food was yummy and i got to daydream. when i'm in one of my antisocial moods, i enjoy daydreaming. i then went down the street, drank coffee, and wrote for a while. i got the idea for a short story (drafts and pieces will appear periodically among the flotsam and jetsam in my other, new blog, alone with all my wrongs. i don't quite know where it's going to go, it's sort of based on the choice i faced in breaking up with my ex, and it's sort of based on this odd mental image i got this morning, and i'm just throwing random things in there as i go, which is my normal method of writing anyway.

now i'm home, and i'm talking to new guy and to f-s-c no. three online. i'm so glad new guy's online, all the way home i had a thought that i really wanted to talk to him. not about anything in particular, but it's just that talking to him makes me very happy, and our random conversations are something i look very forward to, whenever they happen. it's happily very frequently. i still have no real idea what, if anything, will happen when we're both back at school, but i know that nothing bad will come of it, and something good will.

today just generally didn't make a great deal of sense. oh well...whatever. i guess it didn't need to.

2003-07-25T08:17:00.000-05:00

today i've made a point of disappearing. i'm going to work for three and a half hours, because i have to, because i only worked four hours yesterday, but then i'm disappearing. maybe i'll go home and sleep for a while. i'll probably go fill out a survey and get some spending money, since i can do that and since spending money is most necessary. still, the crux of this plan of disappearing is the fact that by late afternoon, my butt is going to be in andersonville. i think i'm going to sit around women and children first, a bookstore i've seen and never gone inside. maybe i'll go to the swedish american museum, since i've been swearing i'd go there since i started college and never do. other than that, i have little idea of what's there that i can do under the age of 21. i've also rarely seen the area in the light of day. still, i guess the crux of this is that maybe i'll meet a girl, seeing as how this is the lesbian neighbourhood and all.

i'm meeting all the guys i can ever deal with at my usual haunts, but no girls who let on to be anything other than straight. i guess i'm partially to fault, because i'm dumb and chicken and i still haven't told my friends that i'm not straight, but i'm still trying to steel the nerves to do that. i know it's not just a phase. i know my friends aren't going to look down on me or look at me any differently. i wouldn't be surprised if some of my friends suspected it anyway. still, i need to pull myself together here.

2003-07-25T00:28:00.000-05:00

i was thinking about sexual aggression, and sure, in a traditional sense, i'm sexually aggressive. as long as i have the attention of the person who i want, i can often find a way of getting what i want, when i want it. i don't think sexually aggressive means having to go ALL the way with anything that moves (because i refuse), but i think it does mean having whatever you want to do in mind, and going for that. that's the pretty traditional sphere of it.

still, i think another, often ignored, sliver of sexual aggression, something that i also possess, is being aggressive as to when you don't want sex. to be blunt, fooling around is no fun whatsoever if i'm not in the mood. in other words, God protect the person who wants to mess around with me when i don't want to, or go further than i deem comfortable. i will tell you no, and i will not waver. i will tell you that i don't want to do what you're trying to do. i will push you away if i need to. this includes random creeps at parties. this includes people i'm hooking up with. this even includes significant others; the three times that we actually had fights, they all boiled down to him wanting to have sex and me not wanting to then. let's just say, i got my way. anyway, i just think that's an important avenue for people to keep in mind, for people who are sexually aggressive, for people who want to be with people who are sexually aggressive, and for people who want to be sexually aggressive. it's common sense, i think, but i also think it's just as important and just as radical as getting the sex you want when you want it.

2003-07-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

my hair is a messy mop that's not doing what i want it to. my muse is screaming so loudly in my ear that i can't take it, that i can't take these four measly hours of work before i get to duck out and indulge them. it's screaming so loudly that i'm voluntarily working on friday so i can write and play piano and do whatever i want this afternoon. despite all this strangeness, today's alright.

2003-07-24T08:18:00.000-05:00

yay social ineptitude? yay stupidity? yay complete inability to read people, to read a situaiton?

so, i was pretty sure that this thing last night was going to be a date. i decided for once to not chalk it up to "so and so is just a huge flirt" and chalk it up to something else. turns out i was wrong. i go, and it was just kind of a group outing thing...it was me, Scavhunt Judge, and a person he works with. (and it turns out that he has a girlfriend anyway...oopsie.) i was a little confused and a smidge miffed at first, but i'm really not bothered at all. it was a fun outing, and i'll probably continue to chill with SJ this summer. terminator 3 was funny, and SJ and his friend were both very amusing and good to hang out with. i'm just now at the point where i can't decide whether i want to hide my face for being so stupid and getting worked up over nothing, or whether i want to laugh at myself for the same thing.

anyway, i'm, in a sense, glad that it didn't turn out to be any date-like-thing. sure, it would have been fun, but i've got enough on my plate with the plethora of things i've been agonizing about this summer anyway. in addition, i'm not particularly crushed...SJ is a nice guy, and he's kinda cute, but it's not like i was completely dying for him to ask me out. i would have enjoyed it if it were a date, but i would not have really thought twice before about asking him out.

to be honest, i find myself straddled somewhere between "fear of commitment" and "i really, really like one in particular"... i don't want to find myself in anything more serious than a fling or a few dates, just because i just got out of a relationship that got way too serious. i also have a thousand different little things for a ton of different people, and i'm still in the mood and the mode to want to run around and goof off and mess around with anyone i can. plus, i'm still trying to work up the nerve to come out to my friends, and it would probably be best to be single when i do that.

on the other hand, it's strange, i REALLY want to see if things go anywhere, and where things go, with me and new guy. i can't bring myself to forget or mitigate in my head how well we hit it off the night we met, the night before we left school. we talk online a ton this summer, whenever we are both online at the same time, which can be as frequently as twice in a day, but is practically never less frequent than a few days' lapse. i need to ask him when and if he's coming to chicago this summer, because it would kind of suck if the next time i actually got to see him were still two months away. i think we both seem pretty flirtatious over IM conversations, but it can also be impossible to tell because they are, after all, just IM conversations. still...my head wants me to have a very guarded optimism in this situation, but my heart doesn't want to put any guard up. this could be really, really good...or this could be a problem.

2003-07-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

i'm meeting Scavhunt Judge in about half an hour, and my stomach is tied in knots. it's been tied in knots for most of the day. i don't think it matters if you're in high school, college, or (God forbid) the Real World, first date jitters are first date jitters. i know him enough to be confident that there will be plenty of conversation, but i don't know him extremely well. i don't know how romantic or not this thing is going to end up being. i'm praying that i don't erect a wall around myself just because i'm only a smidge over two months out of a relationship that got too serious for my own good. i've got a zit or two on my chin that i wish would go away, but i know won't go away in the next half an hour. i can't decide if i want to wear my tight sexy jeans or my low-riding sexy jeans. maybe my low-riding sexy jeans (my original plan anyway), since i wore this same shirt (my black preppy one with the faux collar) with the tight sexy jeans the night i hooked up with f-s-c no. one. this means i have to go change, now, or as soon as i finish typing out this drivel.

i should get off the computer, put on some better music than is on the radio, start singing along at the top of my lungs, and change my pants. that, and channel the mojo that i know is inside me because i'm such a flirt (and that i also know is inside me because i'm wearing my sexy, matching sea green underthings. i have no plans for him to see them, but it makes me feel SO good to know they're there.)

2003-07-23T09:10:00.000-05:00

survived the conversation with SGF last night, and it was actually painless. SGF apologized for sounding kind of bitchy in telling me we needed to talk, but it turned out to be a function of it being five in the morning when he wrote that email, just off of a four hour talk with my ex. turns out the crux of my ex's discontent seems to be that i didn't send another "goodbye" email to reply to his reply to my "i'm not going to talk to you" email, something that would have (in his eyes) validated him as a decent boyfriend. i thought that would have sent extremely mixed messages, and he was so hooked on me (and emotionally so dependent on me) that any more contact with him, in my opinion, would have been false hope, which is more evil than the possible rudeness of not replying, which is what i told him i would do anyway. he wasn't a bad boyfriend, he wasn't patently evil, his life was just at a way different point than mine was.

the only interesting tidbits i found about my ex were twofold...he's, i guess, got a date this week with some girl he found off of an online law school dating site for his law school. good luck on that, hopefully it will go well, and hopefully it will help him move on from me. the other thing i found out was that he vaguely dislikes f-s-c no. one and thinks that he was part of the something that moved me to break up with him. no, i didn't break up my ex to be with him. one of the reasons i did break up with my ex was because i needed the freedom to be single, the freedom to see (and/or fool around with...i don't want anything lasting rightnow!) other people. yes, i have had a thing for f-s-c no. one since first year. yes, i did hang out with him a lot, even alone, last quarter. still, i didn't break up with my ex to be with him...there are really no odds of us getting together anyway, and i wouldn't be that evil to my ex.

so, all is right in the world. i gave SGF all the clarification he needs to get through his next marathon talk with my ex. SGF gave me his blessing for my date with Scavhunt Judge tonight. (and, he also told me that he finds Scavhunt Judge pretty darn cute himself...in his words, he was even getting a little "va-va-voom" when i introduced them at the gym last week). and, i can look forward to tonight with unfettered excitement, not having to worry about getting grilled about my ex, and not having to fear that i've been an evil, awful wench.

2003-07-22T09:31:00.000-05:00

it's never a good thing when something that makes you incredibly angry or sad finds a way to inextricably link itself with something that makes you incredibly happy. then, it mitigates the happiness, and makes the bad feelings even worse because it is dampering happiness. as in now...i'm ridiculously happy that Scavhunt Judge asked me out, and i can't wait to go out to the movie tomorrow night. it'll be ridiculously fun, and there should be nothing making me unhappy about having this date. but this is, after all, a case about timing. and, my relationship with my ex is rearing its ugly head through SGF, and the fact that i have a date only underlines the fact that my ex hasn't moved on from me at all, and that he's still bitter and angry about my breakup. i know it shouldn't be a big deal...although this is my first real date since the breakup (not counting the really weird bowling expedition with f-s-c no. one...), i have been interested in plenty of people, had enough random hook-ups, and been pursuing new guy earnestly enough to know in my heart that i've moved on and that i relish being single for my own happiness and devices. still, this situation is making me dredge up old feelings that just aren't there anymore, that i neither want nor need to dredge up. and, having to do this is casting a pall on the "love life" compartment, which is still casting a twinge of guilt over my date with Scavhunt Judge tomorrow night. maybe my discussion with SGF will help things, maybe it will hurt things, i don't know. this just sucks, and i need to try and separate the two and focus on the excitement at hand tomorrow night.

2003-07-22T08:32:00.000-05:00

so, no ominous discussion with SGF last night, we got back from the white sox game too late. i'm condemned to it today. i don't know if i should be more or less scared, he was telling me that he and my ex were looking over emails that i sent him after the breakup, around when i wanted to stop talking to him, trying to read between the lines and ascertain subtexts. i think that's crazy, i think that's out of line, but maybe that's only because i wrote the emails. i can understand my ex trying to do that, but i don't agree with him showing the emails to someone else, especially if that someone else is not only good friends with him, but good friends with me. it's awkward. it's annoying.

SGF says based on my ex's analysis of the letters, that his wounds from our breakup are festering even more than he thought they were, even more than he thought was humanly possible. this is not good news. this is not a good thing. since he was the dumpee and i was the dumper, i can understand that he would be bitter, angry, and unhappy. i can understand that he would take longer to move on than i would. but, i'm displeased, annoyed, and also feeling a little guilty that he's still feeling so angry over two months after the breakup. i'm annoyed and insulted that he thinks i bobbed and weaved in telling him about the breakup, just as i'm annoyed and insulted that SGF thinks the same thing. i feel a twinge of guilt, just because i know it was my decision that makes him feel this way. still, i don't feel that guilty, because it was unavoidable...either i broke up with him and made him very unhappy for a while, something that time could fix, or i stayed in the relationship and made my life hell, something that wouldn't be fixed until i broke up with him and made him very unhappy.

i think another few things this episode is starting to make obvious are how hooked on me he was and how overly needy he had gotten. i don't know what the proportion of one to the other is, but it's enough not to be a good thing. he was convinced i was the one for him, the one he would be with forever. i don't know, but i would say that a thinking person could at least justify modifying that thought if the person he thought was the one did not want to spend forever, or even a few more months, with him. part of being the one intended to stay with him forever would be, well, wanting to stay with him forever. i said no. i say no. as for his neediness, i don't know if it's emotionally needy or needy otherwise... he continued to want to talk to me with the same frequency as when we were dating after we broke up. i'd be a liar to say i didn't want to do that for the first week or so after we broke up, just because it was comfortable. so, we talked every two days or so. then, i realized how detrimental it was to my moving on, and i didn't want to talk to him often, if at all...since every time that we would talk, he would get all mushy and go on as if we were dating and strongly insinuate that he was holding out for us to be back together. i would hear that and want to either scream or puke. he would also make preposterous suggestions, like i apply to UCLA law school next year to be with him, or that i come to LA and he come to chicago just to see each other and have sex. speaking of sex, another thing that totally pissed me off, and something that made me so glad i broke up with him, was the way that he whined like a two year old when i broke up with him, not so much because i had dumped him, but because i told him that i didn't want to have sex with him anymore. he whined like a baby, as if i had taken away his cookie or his bottle or something. i was a bad person, and for the rest of that weekend when he was in chicago from LA i broke down and fooled around with him once or twice, but it was a dumb thing for me to do, a mistake i will never make again. i think i did it to get him off my back for the rest of the weekend. out of all the reasons ever to fool around, i'm sure that's one of the worst. anyway, i think he needs to grow up and become less dependent on me, become less dependent on significant others in general (because he is the type who was never single, he always seemed to be dating somebody, hoping for some sort of serious relationship to transpire). i would think that after dating so many people, he could see the value of being single, the value of being independent, but i guess i'm either wrong or just projecting my own personal opinion.