What an interesting week. My brain’s been through a lot of highs and lows and ups and downs. I ended up staying over at Rowan’s for much of the week, which was really, really good. We had our differences when we Lived together, but they were few and far between, and I’d like to think none too major. Who’d’ve thunk we’d have stuck together so well after a simple offer of pie.
Wednesday night was band practice. Ups and downs aside, band practices are always fun. When it comes down to it, it’s hanging out with three of my favourite people in the whole world, and doing what we do best. We were mostly prepping for this tv show we did on Saturday, so our band practice was broken up by conversations of who’s doing what and where the camera should be focused. (Not just our own arrogance!!! They asked us to do this!)
After band practice we relaxed into an impromtu movie night. Rowan and I had run out to Borders while Heather took a phone call earlier in the day, and I’d had a moment of splurge where I picked up Sin City and Steamboy in a fit of spending that really CAN’T be repeated any time soon. That DVD desire resulted in such pocketbook sin so lowly that I haven’t eaten more than one meal a day since (with the exception of any Lloydholme time).
In any case, we stocked up on Twizzlers, chocolate chip cookies, popcorn and root beer and settled in to see what Steamboy was all about. Ladies and gentlemen, dear readers – my review would go something like “Yeah, it had this slow start, and hearing Captain Picard as an eccentric but buff grandfather was a little weird, but MAN the explosions were COOL.”
That night, Heather and Rowan went their separate ways, leaving Sharif and I to crash at Rowan’s apartment.
Out of all of ilyAIMY, Sharif is definately the guy I get to spend the least quality time with, which is a shame. We stayed up late talking about virtual reality and computers and the effect of the gaming industry on the rest of the computer world. He’s on a real-world schedule, so I didn’t keep him up TOO late – but when next morning dawned….
I wake slowly at Rowan’s place. The hum of fans and the fading patches of sunlight on my face. Always a very gentle bringer of consciousness… but this morning, something else drifted to my slow awakening….
The sounds of battle.
I crept slowly through the kitchen and peer around the corner to find Sharif deeply engrossed in war with small skittering creatures. They’re leaping and climbing on walls and generally making his Life difficult. Sharif is backing slowly through dimly lit corridors with a shotgun and a crowbar, shooting some in the air and giving a good thwacking to the crab-like attackers scuttling on the ground.
I figured I wouldn’t get another chance like THAT in a hurry. I sneak up behind him and do my best garthrim noise right in his ear as a let a hand skitter Alien-facehugger-style up his arm. In twenty other universes a Sharif lay dead of heart-attack, twitching at my feet. In my universe, I think he hit me with the mouse after screaming like a little girl. It was pretty satisfying.
Better than movies – I don’t play them myself, but I DO Love watching other people play video games. Watching the story unfold, rooting for my own team… I imagine it’s what football is to other people, except with, you know… like… a plot and a point? Half-Life 2 provided several hours of entertainment before we decided it was time for breakfast.
Over chicken noodle soup we talked strategies and objectives in military fashion – but of ilyAIMY. Trying to get a street-team that DOES something, and perhaps looking at breaking into DC. It was good to hear Sharif brainstorming on all this stuff – it’s good to know that he’s really invested in it. I often feel weird about asking Rowan and Sharif to become more involved than they are, since it’s Heather and I who generally are at the receiving end of most of the gigs. I mean, the end-goal is certainly to be in a position where I can pay everyone enough so that we can ALL travel and ALL gig, but that seems so far down the road, such an impossible promise… it was good to know that Sharif is dreaming too.
Friday morning was weird. I’d had strange dreams… Heather, my brother and I, and … for some reason… Ginny from Harry Potter were exploring a… I can only describe it as an Alligator Adventure with a voodoo focus. The place reminded me of a house in Ellicott City, in Maryland, where the hills are so extreme that multi-story houses are built out of them rather than on them. Floors are wooden and outer walls are brick, but inner walls are unfinished rockface.
Stone stretched a little further into this three-storey building, and everything was dank and dark and stank of old water. Moisture stains and rust and warped wood. Heather had gone in for adventure and we’d all followed her in, slowly and cautiously, but we eventually got separated… there were alligators draped over every surface, and at one point, one reared up and went for my brother’s head. George backed up and the monster grazed across his shoulder, ribboning his shirt and leaving deep cuts down his chest.
We stuck closer together at that point, but we couldn’t find Ginny. Somehow, I think she was Heather’s younger sister in the dream, or something – had been the one telling us we shouldn’t go in… but Heather was fascinated by something, some old story about a Queen or something. We made our way past shrunken heads, alligators either sleeping or stuffed, and more dripping… I found Ginny half wrapped in a shower curtain in an old, stained, claw-foot bathtub, torn torso from legs and still bleeding out. I could smell her over the chemical and reptile and stone.
I was wrapping her in the plastic of the shower curtain and pulling her out, looking into blue eyes/past red hair when I woke up. It put me in a bad mood all day. Jumpy.
Saturday was interesting. I picked up Rowan from the train station and then we ran out to Frederick.
I-70 is a lengthy road… I’ve taken it all the way out to Colorado and back, and I Love it a LOT. There’s a lot of mystery and adventure tied up in my head with Interstate 70. It seems a shame to waste time on it just to get to Frederick… or any other point in Maryland, really.
I remember years ago, dating Nicole, driving my Volkswagon Bus out to her place in Ellicott City… I used to take I-70 alot, and that was when I first started romancing that
highway. I remember looking at a map… and then unfolding it, and then unfolding it again… getting another map… I wanted to know where the damn road ENDED! Ever since, every time I get on that Interstate, my eyes go to the gas guage and think about…. just going. Heh. Not till ten years later did I just go.
Mangled sentence, I know.
In any case. En route, we hooked up with Sharif. He came up behind us, pulled around us. We good-naturedly either gave one another horns or finger and then proceeded in convoy to the TV station.
It was really nice, though a bit intimidating, to deal with something so apparently professional. Darkened studio, multiple cameras. Our cable television experiences so far have mostly consisted of a guy with a camcorder at one of our shows (which reminds me I have some contracts to sign) trying to keep up with us.
We’d actually been persued by this particular show (Frederick’s Backstage Pass) for several years, ever since their host first spotted us at a coffeehouse show hosted by Steve Key.
The moon over Frederick. I’ve been really moody recently, and driving back alone from Frederick gave me too much time to think. However, it also means I get lost every once in a while. A wrong turn brought me face to face with this spectacular beauty, and I was in the right place to appreciate it.
Schedules failed to lock up, snow was uncooperative… all sorts of things went wrong, but I’m so glad that we never just stood back and said “fuck it, not worth the effort”… It was a lot of fun and I think it’ll be a good portfolio piece for us. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it, though I don’t think it airs until November 15th or so.
Next time, though, I’m going to ask where we should be LOOKING, since I fear I spent a lot of time staring out into space.
Last night was one of Steve Key’s Acoustic Singer/Songwriter Showcases. Our first time visiting the Westside Cafe (which is also owned by a friend). I’m not sure that we would’ve accepted, cause the shows are generally playing to other musicians, and though a lot of fun, not terribly lucrative – with gas the way it is, we’re having to be a little more careful, making sure every show at LEAST pays for itself (for example, with Heather’s parents’ house as a starting point, taking one car and going BACK to Owings Mills, we now have to make $15 to cover the cost of gasoline used). But We’re About 9 was the featured act, and we Love playing with them. It’s rare that we get to see them twice in as many weeks, and it’s nice to be able to reform some kind of bond with them.
For our set, I broke a string and didn’t really give the best showing of myself, but Brian and Katie were their usual charming selves, and also as usual, Brian played something that dropped my jaw to my chest. He’s just … the best writer. Period. Unless Firedean is. Oh shit.
I left the gig early, hoping to make it to Amy’s house before they all turned in for the night – that’s when I saw the moooon. So glad I chose to leave when I did. Even as I was adjusting exposures to get my moon shot it had risen and shrunk, and by the time I was following it home, east-bound on I-70, it was white and pale and normal again.
