amplified to rock
Decadent Decatur...I sit here, drinking my gin and Strawberry Crush, looking at websites while Colin and Matty watch
Gladiator in the other room...and I found
this question on the Groupie Central message boards. So, has anyone got any information on those hotties from Jets to Brazil? Anyone, anyone?
Today's main activity was going to an awful bar, drinking, and prank-calling the Millikin University radio station to talk dirty to the oafs who were hosting the afternoon show. Why? Because it was very, very funny. They were asking (in typical oaf style) for women to call up and tell them their fantasies. Marsha told them that she wanted to play Jesus to their Mary Magdalene. Then she called their fantasies (the typical "two girls and a hot tub" thing) "bourgeois."
Something about being down here makes my maturity level decrease.
If you're bored, send me some email. I don't get very much on the weekends, and it's sad when I check my email and there's nothing new.
We stopped at a KFC/Taco Bell in Rantoul, Illinois because Matty was hungry. He ordered his two seven-layer burritos, no guacamole, no sour cream, and his one chicken soft taco. The disembodied voice behind the drive-thru speaker said "We're out of pot pies!"
Matty and I just looked at each other incredulously. We weren't sure how to respond to that. He got the mess straightened out by repeating his order, and everything was fine. But now, "We're out of pot pies!" is our official slogan for this weekend.
We may be out of pot pies, but we aren't out of gin. Yet. I can't say that I was drunk beyond belief last night, but I was pretty damn tipsy. I listened to Weezer and sang along, I engaged in typical social activites with my friends, and I watched The Silence of the Lambs until 4:30 in the morning. I haven't seen that movie since I first saw it back in 1991, and I had forgotten how cool it was. Yeah.
Now we're waiting for Colin to get home from his romantic evening in Peoria so we can get on with our day. Tonight's plan is dinner at the Olive Garden in Springfield. I am not a fan of the Olive Garden, I think they have just about the crappiest Italian food on the planet, but Colin's big on it so I'll go without bitching...too much. I'll just remember not to order anything in alfredo sauce, because Olive Garden's alfredo sauce tastes suspiciously like cornstarch mixed with water. Tomorrow we're meeting Matty's parents at El Matador. Yum!
For your reading pleasure and enjoyment: Decatur tales from the archives.
8/5/2000: All we do in Decatur is drink.
8/8/2000: Hit by a cow? Wha?
9/23/2000: No comment.
1/21/2001: They do smell like popcorn sometimes.
So I went and saw a play last night.
I went with a boy I met at the GBV show. I am not going to talk about the boys I go out on dates with in my weblog any more. Well, not for NOW. Since this boy is not a fellow weblogger/personal webpage keeper (he's not one of us, heh, and I must admit I find this refreshing) I'm not going to drag him into it. For now. This, of course, is subject to change. Let us just say that he is nice and smart and cute and all that stuff. I am in this "dating casually" phase right now and it is quite fun, though I'm starting to have problems keeping my shit straight and I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot when I tell my usual stories.
So the play was good and I had a nice time. We ran into Krystyn at the show, and she and Scott came out to Kopi with us afterwards. A pleasant time was had by all involved. The play was funny--it featured ham and jokes about ham. Really!
I'm sitting here counting the minutes until I get to leave here. Then I'll get home and count the minutes until I go to pick Matty up from the train station for our big weekend trip to Decatur. Colin's going out of town tonight to romance his girlfriend in Peoria (doesn't that sound *romantic*?) but he's left us with free reign of his house. If his roommate gets annoyed with us, we may adjourn to Aaron's apartment, where we won't be able to get on anyone's nerves but his cats'. The current plan for tonight is to have so much fun that Colin will be disappointed that he missed it. I don't know about that, but we can make stuff up if we have to.
I have a bottle of Seagram's gin and two two-liter bottles of Strawberry Crush in the trunk of my car. I believe Seagram's gin is Snoop Dogg's gin of choice, which makes it all the more decadent. Though I find it hard to believe that Snoop Dogg drinks anything less than, say, Tanqueray or Bombay Sapphire these days. He's not a broke student like I am.
I promise to take pictures this weekend and post them. Just what you want to see: a bunch of drunk Nanette pictures.
Bonus for this weekend: there will be no psychodrama. It's just going to be fun. Hopefully, the addition of Andy (and the removal of the psychodrama) will make this weekend even better than the last time I was down there! I can only hope. And double-bonus for this weekend: when I return to Chicago, I have a Sunday-night date (I can probably call it that) with another person who is *not* a journaller/weblogger! I think that maybe I have learned my lesson about people with personal webpages. I should rewrite Madonna's "Material Girl" to describe my experiences with dating fellow journallers/webloggers: "Experience has gained me hits and now they're after me..." Hah!
The time has come, the Nanette said, to talk of the SPRING TRIP.
I am taking a roadtrip this spring during my semester break. (This trip will most likely take place in early May, just so you know.) I need a destination, and I need a traveling companion.
Requirements for destination: I must be able to find free (or cheap) lodgings along the way. There must be something interesting to do while I'm there. I must have some sort of an unofficial tour guide who will show me both touristy things and quirky things. I prefer cities, but I can certainly deal with smaller towns as well. Multiple destinations are cool: right now, one possible trip involves Philly and DC. My heart isn't 100% set on this particular trip, though, so you can probably persuade me in another direction.
Requirements for traveling companion: You must be able to get along with me. In a car. For multiple days. This can be more difficult than it sounds, although Ray managed to tolerate me, and so did Amanda. You must have a good, healthy appreciation for bad music--I like to listen to the radio for some reason. "Cute" and "male" help, but I'm certainly not averse to hitting the road with another girl. If you're willing to take your vehicle instead of mine, that's even better. Ability to deal with minor automotive disasters (flat tire, running out of gas on the highway) without breaking down is a plus. Most of all, you must like to stop and do stupid stuff along the way. You must be willing to drive 20 miles off the highway just to see the sign for a town with a funny name. You must enjoy tourist traps of all kinds. You must understand that getting there is half the fun when on a road trip.
Interested? Email me with destination suggestions or traveling companion offers.
So I had to go to that stupid luncheon today.
It's amazing the lengths to which I will go to get free food these days. Being underemployed (and, for a while, completely unemployed) has turned me into either a very opportunistic person or a very resourceful person. I'm not quite sure which at this point. I sat through some of the most insipid speeches ever, including two by current students at the school, both of whom were exceedingly inarticulate. The guy who spoke said that he wanted to be a lawyer, and he described his ascent to middle management at some bank. I wanted to pull him aside and tell him that being middle management is nothing to brag about, but I guess some people think that's a big deal. I always thought that middle management was the name given to the lackeys who work too much but don't have the brains to really ascend the corporate ladder.
The woman who spoke was even better. She talked about her exciting trip to Philly (they send people to Philly? I should sign up for that...) to attend some political convention. She talked to Ralph Nader for three hours! Wow! You can consider my mind blown! And after she talked to Ralph Nader, she decided that she would become a card-carrying member of the Green Party! And she got to talk about his views on C-Span. My dad probably saw that, he watches C-Span.
Then we got to hear some heartwarming, self-esteem increasing praise from department heads, and a couple of speeches about something or another. I listened to almost two hours of crap just to get some lousy free food that was merely all right. The entree was fried chicken, which I do not like, so I loaded up on fruit salad, samosas, rice, and brownies. They had some other food that looked good, but they fucked up the logistics and forgot that when you leave hot dishes out for two hours, they get cold. I was only able to handle a bite of the cold, congealed macaroni and cheese before I just gave up.
I must say, I love my new boss. She's the antithesis of my last boss. My last boss would have thought up something as asinine as this luncheon and put his full support behind it. My current boss spent much of the luncheon shaking her head at how amazingly ridiculous most of the proceedings were. She is like me! She hates this sort of crap! Finally, a place where I fit in!
This morning, I got an email from Colin that stated the following:
To: Nanette, Matty
From: Colin
Subject: TODAY!!!
is Lupercalia!!
get out in the streets and fuckfuckfuck!!!!!
You heard it here. Just don't blame me when you get arrested for indecent exposure.
Oh, the best V-Day gift came from my brother: a
Space Ghost: Coast to Coast comic book. I had no idea there was such a thing. I intend to read it when I get home.
Okay, so it's February 14. Valentine's Day. Or, as a friend of a friend calls it, "Single Person's Awareness Day." Heh.
Last year, I wrote this. I still kind of like it, I still pretty much agree with it. Given my recent love experiences, it's amazing that I'm not way more bitter and angry about Valentine's Day this year. Admittedly, much of my bitterness is kind of a front. I'm a hopeless romantic and an irrepressible optimist. And the truth is, though I don't have a boyfriend, I have plenty of awesome people in my life who I love and appreciate. To me, Valentine's Day isn't just about romantic love. It's about all sorts of love. Love is something that really should be celebrated every day, not just one day of the year.
I got dumped on Valentine's Day in 1995. The person I was living with wanted to rent a movie and watch it together. That seemed like a fine idea to me. I had come home from student teaching, I had taken a shower, I had put on my warm comfy pajamas, and I was sitting on the couch waiting for him to come home with a movie. When he got home, he had no movie.
"Where's the movie?" I asked.
"I thought we would go to the video store together and pick something out."
"But I'm already in my pajamas, and I don't feel like getting dressed and going back out in the cold."
A fight ensued because I was "too selfish" to get dressed to go and rent a movie with him. We broke up. I spent the rest of the semester living in hell with him. He broke my favorite coffee mug. Fucker.
He's one of those people who I know I loved for some odd reason, but I can't fathom why at this point. I have a few of those in my past. And unfortunately, I couldn't do my normal post-breakup tactic of shutting him out of my life completely, because we shared a dank little basement apartment. There was no escape except going home for the weekend, but when I went home for the weekend he would eat all my Chips Ahoy and drink all my ginger ale. Eventually I started locking it up in a trunk to keep his hairy paws out of it.
Anyhow. I sent Valentines to some people today in an attempt to share some love. I sent them to the people who won my contest mostly, and to a few people I know in real life or who I talk to a lot online. I know I forgot a few people. The network has been off and on here at work all day, so I've been sneaking in and sending a Valentine here, a Valentine there. If I didn't send you a Valentine, rest assured, I do love you. Heh. That is, unless you absolutely know that I do not love you.
I only have one hour left of work. I actually have an appointment at 7:30, which kinda sucks because it means I won't be able to cut out of here early. Not that I ever get out of here particularly early, but still...five minutes means a lot, I guess. I'm trying to be on the computer less these days, trying to not spend so much time on AIM. I waste a lot of time sitting idly in front of the computer.
Tomorrow night, I'm going to see the opening night of the new play at the Neo-Futurarium. It looks pretty good. I also have that ridiculous potluck luncheon to attend tomorrow. I baked some brownies for that last night. I am not looking forward to having to wake up to attend the stupid luncheon, but it's free food, can't complain about that. And rumor has it that there will be door prizes.
So between noon and 6:15 tomorrow, I have no idea what I'll be doing, aside from going to the IUN library to return some library books. Fun, fun, fun! My life, it is so eventful.
I have had muchas problemas with Blogger today. I posted something at one of my other sites,
ancillary, so you can read that now.
I need to go to the library, then I need to make a phone call, then I'll be back to post some fun Valentine's Day stuff. Nothing pathetic and self-pitying, I promise. I have no reason to be pathetic and self-pitying!
After two consecutive days of complete and utter indolence, I've had a really productive day today. I'm off again (my class was cancelled, so I didn't feel like driving to GSU to do volunteer work at the library) so I decided to get some stuff done. First, I finished my book for tomorrow (
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, which I highly recommend). Then, I checked and responded to a pile of email. I still have more email to respond to, so if you've emailed me and you haven't heard back yet, give me some time. Amazingly enough, I managed to be online for quite a while without succumbing to the wily charms of AOL Instant Messenger. (Okay, okay, so I did pop on twice, really quickly. I was just seeing who was around, okay?) Then, I did the biggest and most exciting thing of all: I cleaned out my car.
Last time I took a trip to Decatur, Colin got in my car, looked at the sloppy, filthy, dusty mess that is my dashboard, and said "haven't you ever heard of Armor-All?" And he was right. My car is a filth pit. CDs are strewn everywhere, there's litter all over the place, and the inside windows are so filthy that they always look fogged up. I haven't vacuumed the car since mid-September, when I was trying to impress a boy with my beautiful and sparkley-clean car, so it was desperately in need of a deep cleaning.
I took everything out of the car and put it in a bag and brought it inside. Then I Windexed the hell out of those windows. The filth I cleaned up...oh, disgusting. The paper towels were all black with grime and crud. Then I brought down the vacuum and vacuumed up all the dead leaves, straw wrappers, pieces of candy, itinerant french fries and cheesy poofs, bits of CD wrapper, little tiny rocks, and other assorted mung that was on the floor of the car.
While the car is not spotless, it's certainly much cleaner than it was. After I was done with the scrubbing and vacuuming phase, I went through all the CDs that were in the car, put them back in their appropriate cases, and kept some in the house. I'm going to bring the rest back out to the car. I'm known for having way more CDs in my car than I should need, so there's still too many out there, but at least they're not strewn all over the back seat.
Now I'm going to go up to the local library and type a couple of scholarship applications. Fun! And I have a dentist appointment tonight. Hooray for clean teeth. Here, I'll tell you something exciting: I've never ever had a cavity. Never in my life. Let's hope this 26 and a half year streak continues tonight.
The older I get, the more I realize that my actions right now have a lot to do with patterns that formed when I was much younger. I wrote a
journal entry about this a long time ago, how I became desensitized to long-distance relationships at a very young age. It doesn't bother me to be hundreds of miles away from someone I care about, and it never has for some reason. Despite every wish I might have to just be involved with someone who lives, say, no more than an hour away (because nobody lives in the south suburbs of Chicago), I always end up going crazy over someone who lives three or more hours away. I don't get the comfortable luxury that normal people in normal relationships get, but I'm so used to it at this point that I don't miss it at all.
But I'm not really going to talk about long-distance relationships right now. It's a wound that's still a little raw, and something I'd rather not discuss in a forum where a lot of people read because I know at this point I would definitely say something I regret. I'll keep that it in my private paper journal.
Tonight, around 6:45, my doorbell rang. I wasn't expecting anyone, so I didn't answer it. My brother told me that the door was for me, and I asked him who it was, because I certainly wasn't expecting any visitors. My friends are all in the city, and most of them don't have cars.
Oddly enough, it was a boyfriend from high school, the one I discussed in that journal entry. The one I met at summer camp, knew for 12 hours, and stayed involved with for several months afterwards. I had only seen him once since 1989, for a quick hour of lunch back in 1997. He's working in the suburbs of Chicago, and he decided to drop by and surprise me. He's married, works as an engineer, has a nice house in the Milwaukee area, and is pretty much everything that I am not. He's settled while I'm still up in the air. He's married while I'm still vehemently single. It was completely unexpected, yet really kind of cool.
He's the only non-family person I knew in high school who I still talk to. I met him right after I turned 15. I think I was working in the library that summer; he had a job at a swimming pool. His letters were full of stories of urinal cake hockey and skateboarding. (I suppose this also explains my penchant for skater boys--most of whom, at my age, have become ex-skater boys.) We would talk on the phone regularly, even after the relationship fell apart. Even through college. Even after he met the woman he would marry, I'd still hear from him every so often.
It sometimes strikes me as very odd which ex-boyfriends I stay friends with. I'm incredibly close to some of them--Colin being a prime example, though I don't know that we were ever really boyfriend/girlfriend--and others, people who I felt incredibly close to at one point, end up dropping out of my life completely, either by choice or by force. This is not to say that my relationship with Charley was insignificant--I don't think it was. I actually think it was one of my more significant early relationships. But it's strange that he's the one that I'm still in touch with, rather than Tom, who introduced me to punk rock in the late '80s, or Josh, who was the great love of my high school life. Charley and I couldn't be two more different people, really.
In watching my actions as I become friends with Aaron again (you remember him, that guy from September and October), I'm being hyperaware of how I become friends with people I used to love in a non-platonic way. There's an undeniable weird tension between the two of us because a number of issues were left unresolved, and there's also some anger on both ends because of the fallout from when the relationship ended. It's odd that we're actually able to talk to each other as rational human beings, considering all the shit that happened. I know I said some really fucking nasty (and somewhat untrue) things about him in the heat of anger. And I know that some of what happened will never be forgiven on either end.
So what makes being friends possible? Maybe it's just the absence of that "let's just be friends" business. Nobody ever says things like that (or any variation thereof, I want to cover all bases here) and really means it. "Let's just be friends" is the ultimate cop-out, the way to reject someone without being blatant about it. No relationship I've ever had that's ended with the "let's just be friends" statement has ever ended in "just being friends." Relationships that end in bombast, like my relationships with Ray and Aaron, end up in my "just being friends" with the other person (after a reasonable calm-down period, of course). Relationships that run their natural course and just end, like my relationships with Charley and Colin and Abe, end up in "just being friends." Relationships where we both put on a cheery smile and say "oh, we're just friends now!" end in resentment.
I used to think, maybe, that time would tell how important a person really was to my life. Perhaps this is the case, and the importance of people I wrote off years ago will come back to me. I used to think that once you loved someone--if you really loved someone, because real love is incredibly rare--you would never stop loving them. But believing in that would equal believing that I had never loved people who I know I loved, whether I like to admit it today or not. I can think of at least one person who I know I loved at one point who could drive off a cliff and disappear forever and I'd just shrug and say "that's sad, he was so young." I'd be shocked, but I wouldn't feel some sort of deep emotional resonance.
It's just strange how things converge sometimes. Over the past week, so many different things have come together to make me think about love and friendship and their maintenance. It would be nice if things were just easy, if it could just be simple to walk away without feeling anything or to just shift gears from lovers to friends. I keep thinking I should be expert at this by now, but I don't think I ever will. I don't think anyone ever will.
Well, it seems that eau d'GBV show has somehow seeped its way into my fingernails. They still smell like cigarette smoke, stale beer, and general stench. And my foot hurts.
I don't know if the foot ache has anything to do with the show, but it didn't hurt before the show, so maybe it does.
Today is my day off. Thank you, President Lincoln. I know what I should be doing--working on the papers that I need to write for next week--and I know what I will be doing--sitting around on AIM and dicking around on the internet. I'm also off tomorrow because my class was cancelled. I might go in and volunteer at the library, or I might not. Depends on how I feel when I get up tomorrow morning.
This is shaping up to be quite the indolent week.
GBV! GBV! GBV!
God damn, I love that band.
Tonight's show rocked. I mean, wow. I'm going to do an actual show review for Kinda Muzik, so be patient for that part. But I will give you my famous unofficial show review, because that's what you want from me anyhow. You probably don't give a shit what they played and how they played it anyhow.
About halfway through the GBV set, Matt, MJ, and I weaseled our way towards the front. I somehow ended up among a clump of very drunk, very rowdy, very sweaty, and not unattractive boys. Beer was spilled on me. My hair was mussed by one of them. I was pushed and shoved and all that stuff. And you know what? It's been a long time since I've been up close and personal with sweaty concert-boys, and I had forgotten how much fun it can be. Of course, I left the Empty Bottle stinking like a combination of sweat (mine), sweat (of others), cigarette smoke, beer, and general funk. But still...good show.
The only icky part was that there was one guy standing in front of me who had this look on his face like he was going to puke at any second. Seriously. His mouth was sort of hanging open, he was swaying back and forth, and he just looked ready to burst. Every time anyone bumped into him, I thought to myself "please don't let him explode, please let him be able to hold it in..." Fortunately, Puke Guy never really puked. Well, he probably did when he got out of the bar or when he got home...I don't see how it could have been avoided. But he didn't puke around me so it's not my problem.
A boy played with the hood of my shirt during "Hot Freaks." I think he was flirting but my social skills are rusty. Post-show he examined the record in my handbag. Maybe he was flirting, and maybe I am a dumbass for not noticing that. Go Nanette!
Also, I met George and Jason from Splendid this evening. They are both cool. Jason and I sat down and interviewed Robert Pollard. Actually, Jason asked a bunch of intelligent, well-thought out questions and I asked one question and told Pollard that I named my website after a line from "Hardcore UFOs." I'm pretty sure he thought that was cool. The interview went well; like I said, Jason asked some really good questions and Pollard's answers were interesting. I'll link the interview once they post it over at Splendid.
I'm having that weird feeling again, the one that I had a while back that I'm entering a period of time that is going to end up being extremely memorable. I don't know why. But hey, I'd be totally cool with that.
Next weekend, Matty and I rock D-Town. Gin and Strawberry Crush cocktails all around. Weekend after that, there's a party to go to. I'm keeping busy.
I took a shower and my fingers still stink like I've been at a rockshow. Oh well...I'm going to sleep now.
No updates yesterday. Sorry. I was running around. Being social. Leading an active life. You know how that is.
Tonight: Guided by Voices at the Empty Bottle. Pre-show (and I've kept from discussing this because I hate being all name-droppy) I'm interviewing Mr. Robert Pollard with George and Jason from Splendid. Do I know what I'm going to ask? No. But it's gonna be fun. Maybe I'll say "you know, I have this little website that's named after a line from one of your songs..."
But then again, last time I told someone he had inspired a website of mine, he broke my heart into eighty million tiny little pieces a couple of months later, so maybe I should just ask him banal questions about his love life or something.
Joy of joys, I'm going to see Weezer in Chicago. I'm permanently indebted to Jackie and Nick for this. If I ever find some poor sucker who wants to reproduce with me, I'll let them name my first-born child. They're not even making me pay unreasonable prices for the tickets! March is shaping up to be quite the month for rockshows.
I'm off work tomorrow, joy of joys. Unfortunately, I have to go in on Thursday for some sort of potluck luncheon/appreciation banquet thing. It's one of those "let's all pat ourselves on the backs to improve our self-esteem" things. You know why I like my boss? Because she freely admits that this banquet is lame. She doesn't even pretend that it's something of importance or value. Finally, a boss who is honest.
I'm now going to make some attempt at killing time in a productive way. I'm sure I'll post something about the show when I get home tonight. Probably some sort of bitching about how I was stuck spending the entire GBV show with my head in the sour-smelling armpit of some boorish GBV fanboy. Hooray for small venues...
