I’m kind of bleary this morning.
Hell, who am I fooling? I’m always bleary EVERY morning. My internal clock is set to “random” and it just takes me longer to get going, especially when waking out of dreams.
Last night I dreamt that a particular personal nightmare had come true. Finally, someone had come to support the band – they’d come to manage us, manage the hideous flopping around of our booking processes – and they came in and decided that I was the extraneous one. They wanted “the singer”. Cheesy visual wipes of posters that showed us as a duo flapping away and replaced with solo, close-up glamour shots of Heather.
Dumb dream to have, but I guess every once in a while, somewhere in my head, I very much fear that.
In any case, the Fourth of July has come and gone yet again. I spent the evening with Heather’s parents’ in Owings Mills, but before hand I went out and had lunch with Janna, wandering Baltimore, looking for something exciting and open. Sushi proved to be too elusive and we settled for the Mediterannean medley of Al Pacino’s. I haven’t been there in years and had forgotten how much I Love their food. I spent our time babbling possibly incoherently, trying to order the thoughts in my head.
Texas is troubling me on a large scale.
On the drive in to the city I’d heard that thunderstorms were on their way. While hunting our feast it was hard to believe, what with the hot July sun hammering down, reflecting between buildings and focusing on our frail bodies, but as soon as I turned my trusty steed North again, there it was: black wall on the horizon, bearing down with a swiftness. Sheet flashes of lightning. It was between me and home and I was probably going to get flattened on the way.
It was all I could do not to accelerate headlong. Lots of police on the Fourth of July, and God knows they wouldn’t have any compunction about giving me a ticket in the Wet. But HELL there’s a sentiment to rush into those things. Let there be tornados, let there be violence, lightning and thunder. Let there be the threat of eradication and let me Live on that edge.
It actually takes till 795 to be engulfed, with the first wave flashng to steam on the asphalt, but like any good Zerg-rush strategy there was more where that came from, and soon the steam-haze stood a full foot and a half off the road surface and the ricochets of the rain sounded like battle on the plastic of the Saturn.
It was good to push and pull, find the grip of the tires and push and pull again. I pulled up to the Lloydholme just as Heather’s contemplating departure, and I take my time soaking it all in from the car to the door. Shake like a dog and lament lack of company. I know almost no-one who gets off on this stuff like I do, and I’m feeling high on Primus and on promise – I enter the house dripping and grinning and Heather thinks I’m crazy. But the sensations fade and sense returns, and the thinking sets in. Possibilities cut down. Poor timing, a missed opportunity, the storm has come a week early, or a couple of days too late… and I’ve been looking at the calendar and realizing that even summer’s passing swiftly.
I’m too easily caught.
