Well, it’s been a rough couple of days, with not quite enough getting done, and not quite enough people being satisfied with the world, and general insanity that just wouldn’t be PC to put up on one’s website.
See, I DO have my boundaries!
Speaking of boundaries, the Quote Page is back up, and everyone’s got to promise not to get pissy about it. I only put fun quotes up there, and yeah, some may be sacriligous, or incredibly offensive on a moral level, but none were EVER said in anger (as far as I can tell) – just trust my judgement, will you?
Anywho – if you don’t know what I’m talking about, a careful search of the ilyaimy.com homepage will turn it up – (hint, try drag-high-lighting the text, you silly muffins)…
Christmas is coming, and the rob… if not actually getting fat, is definately not losing weight at the rate he was on the road. Heather’s parents – well, I’m beginning to feel REALLY guilty about eating from their kindly created feasts, and… and HEATHER’S DAD’S NOT helping! He made peanut-butter cookies last night. Sigh.
What’s weirder, is I’ve never actually witnessed this. We’ll go off somewhere, and come home, and there will be these piles of peanut butter cookies just lying around.
I’m feeling guilty spending so much time with the Lloyds, and I worry that I’m … somehow taking advantage of their hospitality, but I haven’t been uninvited yet (though perhaps they’re too polite to ever do this), but I somehow don’t think Heather’s dad would encourge my presence with the peanut butter cookie droppings if I was truly on thin ice… anywho, we’ll be doing holiday stuff with MY parents soon, and spread our presence around.
back at Mitzi’s party… it was an excellent homecoming, though I remember getting sort of weirdly depressed… a bit of the night turned to conversations of old shows and old friends at the Jahva House, with Mark on drums, and Mitzi and Amy singing with Audrey and I… good times.
I consumed the most alcohol I’ve ever consumed in my Life that night – 2 and a half glasses of wine, which is… sort of silly. But it was very sweet, and served warm, so… I sat with my back to the fireplace and played Monopoly and Scrabble till late in dark Baltimore night, and missed the beauty of the tiny Baltimorean apartment.
Jason threatening me with a knife after I ate some chicken or something. It was a rough night.
I worry sometimes that the reason I’ve been a sloooow songwriter for the last few years has been that I’ve left that muse. Baltimore City, with it’s sirens and syrens and murders and asphalt, was a spectacular place to Live.
I cried some nights when I moved away, not from missing the ciry, but because I wouldn’t lock my doors at night. That was a beautiful thing.
But now, I’m beginning to miss it a bit. The tension and the contrast. We’ve visited a lot of cities since then, now – and I haven’t encountered anything that quite compares. Though I think Bethlehem is beautiful, and it’s the home of the steel company that sort of made Baltimore what it is, it doesn’t have the distillation of rust and concrete that Baltimore owns.
But what DOES it have that I sorely miss everytime I visit my fair Charm City?
Bethlehem has PARKING.
Bastard parkingless Baltimore.
No such luck.
She’s just got mane coons… or however they’re spelled.
No, that’s the mascot of the Thai Gour, in Glenn Burnie. Unfortunately, it was too cold to go ice skating, so we played a gig instead. We had the honour of getting Dan Zimmerman on the stage as well
Ah… Maine Coon..
Anywho, you’re just getting these pictures now because a) I’ve been very very busy, and b) I kept leaving my camera in the car and forgetting to off-load the pictures.
This past Sunday, we went out to Strasburg, PA.
It’s odd to think that I’ve been doing anything for about 2 dozen years, but I believe I’ve been going to Strasburg since I was 4 years-old, and as such, have been going to the Railroad to Paradise for longer than many of the kids who are working the new tourist traps along the way have been alive. It’s strange to think that.
Especially strange to think it would probably be illegal for me to try to pick up the attractive not-goth blonde behind the counter at the gift shop…
Anywho – a weird day. A lot of strange undercurrents of emotion, a strange sort of pall on the day. Perhaps I simply hadn’t gotten enough sleep, perhaps it was the sharing of something that… somehow wasn’t up to snuff anymore.
Things are running down here and there, the conductors, never the most charismatic at the best of times, give the impression they’re working the till at Borders during the Christmas rush, with automated smiles and a marginally amusing script. I worry that the Joy is gone.
The Choo Choo Barn (the toy train exhibit on the previous page) was in disrepair, with many signs and people fallen over, lying in the dust on their sides. It hasn’t been updated in years, but I’d never gotten the impression that things that break weren’t being repaired – but there whole parades of circus performers stopped dead in their tracks, with onlookers’ bodies lying scattered on the green flocking grounds.
The woman behind the counter, selling tickets for admission, had never ducked her head behind the curtain – never bothered to actually go in and see what she was selling.
Everything is still beautiful, but it’s beginning to feel unLoved.
But we got home from Strasburg, and Justin had set up his own trains. I was so pissed, Justin (Heather’s brother) had stayed home because he had a Boy Scout meeting that he had to attend… the meeting was cancelled at the last minute (and no-one mentioned it to him), so he just got stuck at home all day.
Asshole Scouts, maybe.
I think Justin would have really Loved the trains – it’s a real shame he got screwed like that.
Should’ve gotten him a package of naked people from the model train shop next to the Choo Choo Barn. They were HO scale.
Hehe.
