Campfyre Stories

So I wasn’t feeling the open mic, but I forced myself to go anyway.  Once I got there, one of the two regular hosts wasn’t there and, looking around the crowd, I got a strong feeling of not wanting to play this time around.  So I didn’t.

Slockin and I hung around the bar, then hooked up with another friend and went to a different bar.  My plans to get home early and get some (fucking) sleep (already) were thwarted and I didn’t get home until 1.  I am reminded why I initially made the decision to do this every other week.

You see…

I left work and was subjected to a pathetic desperate loser on the bus who blatantly propositioned me at least three times, in increasingly desperate fashion ("How’s this, I’ll bring my kids over, sleep in your bed and we’ll have a sleepover with all the kids."  Um, ew.  Like, seriously, EW.)  Yeah, this wonderful catch has two kids and an ex wife who left him for another man and moved to Washington.  But he’s got a good job washing dishes at Denny’s!  Oh, and, he’s really tired of being single, and so lonely and don’t I want to rescue him from himself?

Yeah, not so much.

When I got off the bus, I ran some errands and then did my shopping for two weeks, encountering all of the slowest people on the planet in the process.  For example, the extremely elderly woman who insisted on digging through her purse for exact change.  And on and on and on.

Waited for 40 (!) minutes for the cab to come, though I, thankfully, got a very cool driver who had great stories to tell and a fun accent to listen to.  This made up for the wait, to some extent, but didn’t change the fact that I got home at 7:30; with barely enough time to eat and change before going out.  I did not have time to shower or to practice, so yeah, not a fantastic start to an intent to perform.

The point, if I actually started with one, is that I’m tired.  So very tired, and reminded of why I don’t do this every week anymore, or why I wasn’t, and probably won’t do it very often.

Ok, so I’ve been feeling and saying for a long time that I really need to find people to collaborate with musically.  That said, this is a HARD town in which to connect with people.  It’s all about who you know.

So I put a post on CraigsList.  Oh yeah, I’m pretty much doing the internet dating thing only with music.  The major difference is that instead of a pic, they want to hear my music, which is, unfortunately, what I want to break away from.  Fundamentally, the songs that are on MySpace are typical of what I write when it’s just me and my guitar - slow, sweet, unrequited love songs.  I want to do something else, something MORE and I need musicians who are better and more diverse, instrumentally, than I am.

I can write to anything.  I can sing to a lot of things.  I don’t want to stay stuck in this box.

Ok, so…  the responses have been in good numbers.  I think in two days I’ve gotten at least 10 replies, all of whom received responses from me, but few of whom have kept up an email volley.  I’m trying not to read in, they may just not have had time.  The possibility does exist, though, that they didn’t like my voice or found my style (which, again, I’m trying to escape) off-putting.  Again, trying not to read in.

So now I’ve been kind of chatting with these guys (all guys so far) and sending them the link to MySpace and telling them that I plan to be at my regular open mic tonight if they want to meet/listen to me/talk in person.  A couple of people have told me that they’ll probably come and check it out.

And I have no idea what to play.

I mean, ok, clearly I should not play any of the songs from MySpace because they’ve already heard them.  That said, most of my other songs are pretty damned close and typical of what I’ve done so far.  The handful of songs that are somewhat out of the box for me are relatively unpracticed and seem chancy to pick to play tonight.  As a result I am feeling pretty "meh" about not only the open mic, but my songs in general and my musicianship.

I know I’ll get over it by the time I actually take the stage, but at the same time, this is really not the week to be feeling "meh" about my music.  Not if I’m going to be trying to meet musicians to work with as time goes on…

So the rental place gave me a Dodge Avenger (Steel Silver/Blue).  Not a little car, like I asked for, but certainly a FUN car to drive.  As all my friends told me, "It’s the Iron Man car!"  As a result, on the way up to Maine, all kinds of Massholes wanted to race me.  I obliged all but the red Avenger, who probably got pulled over not long after his insane tailgating and passing and generally being a menace on the road.  I made good time, even with several stops and rolled into Portland around 11pm.

Spent some time catching up with Amber and Jason and then headed off to bed.  I was given the opportunity to spend time with each of them individually as well as together, which was especially nice since I am friends with them individually and as a couple, so it was nice to have those different levels of reconnecting and hanging out.

My primary thought was that I wanted to play guitar on the beach.  I got to do that with Amber and wound up playing for seagulls who landed on the shore and just watched and listened to me.  I was looking for inspiration and I think I found it.  I already have a chorus and the chord structure for the verses and plenty of material to work with to fill it out.

Downtown Portland is a pretty cool place, with funky shops and almost exclusively local businesses and an incredibly number of restaurants and taverns.  What little I saw of their local music scene was cover bands, but that’s not a bad thing and most of what I saw was pretty high quality.  I also noticed that there is an awful lot of visible ink (tattoos) around that city, and that the proportion of pale faces is so high that it’s rather disconcerting.  Not only do I live in a fairly ethnically diverse area, I work in a location with quite a lot of Indian and Asian faces.  To see such a majority of Caucasians is completely foreign to me.  Then again, Maine isn’t all that populous a state, so that may play a factor.

Saturday night, Jason and I hit the down for beer and food.  I got to sample a lot of the food and drink that Portland had to offer, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t even really scratch the surface.  The bars close early (1am) there (and stay open ’til 4 here!) so as I was just starting to get my second wind it was time to leave.  Also, they don’t keep their buses running that late, which is weird.  I’d think that if the city closes down that early, that they’d keep their public transportation available for an hour or so after, but no.  So we took a cab back to their place and wound down back at their apartment.

Sunday was more of a whirlwind, since I wanted to get home at a reasonable time to wind down and get to bed early (the latter didn’t actually happen).  We went back to downtown and wandered around, had some lunch, did some shopping.  It was the nicest day of the weekend, which made me not want to leave, but at the same time, what a nice send off from the state of Maine.

My trip home was much faster, mainly, I think, because the traffic didn’t really allow me to use the cruise control.  Without that set speed, the car really wanted to go 90mph (which is as fast as I’ll *admit* to driving with out of state plates at the end of the month…  heh).  Even though I got caught in the most torrential downpour I have ever tried to drive in and had a good 30 minutes of moving between 5 - 40 mph, I was able to make up the time (probably the going 90 helped) and made it home in 4h 15.

Got home, vegged out for a while, then hooked up with a friend at Borders to have some pretentious coffee.  That was a nice thing, but it kept me up later than I originally intended.  Oh well, good socialization with a favored person is always worth a little sleep deprivation.

My head is back on straight, I feel less bitchy toward most people and I only have a four-day week because we have no king.  It’s good.

Last week was a very interesting week, all told.  In addition to the "Dayum, you’re beautiful" comment that I got on Tuesday morning, I had a bus ride with a man who was making balloon animals (weird) and wound up having a random encounter with one of my dad’s oldest friends, and someone I hadn’t seen in many, MANY years.  It was quite fascinating.

The problem was that my head is all spinning and my thoughts were askew.  I’m all wrapped up in negatives and spent a tense couple of days in abject fear of having the wrong person push the wrong buttons that would lead me to flip the fuck out and say things that would probably be taken the wrong way and cause irreparable rifts.  It has all altered my mood for the worse and made me glad to be running away from home.

I’m not entirely sure if that would be a wrong move to make, but all of it required more thought and not an impulsive explosion on my part.

I played the open mic on Wednesday and found, to my pleasant surprise, that it is working and I’m starting, not only to develop a network, but to create new bonds.  Sitting at a large center table, all kinds of people were coming over to sit with me.  That’s always a nice thing.

Thursday also had some interesting moments, unfortunately, none of them are appropriate to blog about, and most of them make me look bad, even though my part in the whole thing was extremely minor.  Depending on what comes of it, I may write about it at some time in the future.

But the accumulation of all of it drove me out of town, which is certainly preferable to out of my head, and, while sorting through the random BS, I was also able to escape it and enjoy the company of good friends I haven’t seen in far too long (in large part, my own doing).

But that’s a follow-up for another time…

*beep*

Hi, you’ve reached the blog of the FyreGoddess.  I’m not available to answer your comments or to make any posts right now, as I am running away from home for the weekend.

Please leave your comment after the tone and I will get back to you when my head is back on straight.

*beep*

I attempted to wake up early this morning and failed.  I woke up on time and ran out the door, as usual, but not to a usual situation.   Dave, my morning "bus buddy" was talking to some guy.  They were exchanging contact information.  I stayed out of the way, but still at the bus stop when the guy turned, looked me up and down and said, "DAYUM, girl.  You are *beautiful*."

Now, I don’t know about that.  It seemed like a bit of a stretch, but, hey, at 6:30am I’ll take that compliment.  I will not be dating the guy I met on the sidewalk randomly, nor giving him my number, but I’ll definitely take the compliment.  It was a nice thing to wake up to.

Of all the things on my list, the only thing that didn’t get done was laundry.  In part because I was tired and feeling lazy, in part because someone (I don’t know who, but I have an unconfirmed guess) sent me a new game from Amazon Marketplace.  It’s trippy and bizarre and I freakin’ love it!

So…  party.

It was good, lots of people, lots of music, lots of really good food.  I saw people I hadn’t seen in at least a year, reconnected with people who had changed or grown up or whatever, met new people and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

That said, I’m rather disappointed in some of the people I consider my friends.  This is something that happens pretty regularly and, no matter how many times I go through it, it still takes me off guard.  I often feel like I am an exceedingly low- (or even non-) priority to people who claim to be my friend.  Not all of them, by any means, but most of them, and specifically, most of the ones who live in this area.

My friends who live out of state tend to be the most supportive and available, even if it’s only by phone.  Out of the people who live near me and I consider my friends, the ones who tend to be the busiest, the ones who I rarely actually get to see are the ones I know I can count on.  The rest of them just blow me off and do it without a word most times. 

It’s a problem I’ve run into over and over again most of my life.  It’s the reason I don’t throw parties - because few, if any people, actually come.  It appears to me that with some of these folks, they are my friend only under certain circumstances.  If those circumstances change, they may still consider me their friend, but, at the same time, they stop being mine.

Once again, I’m feeling like I need to do an emotional housecleaning and figure out what to do with these so-called friendships that don’t really seem to exist for me.  I’m well past the point of being the only one to make any effort, and I’m starting to feel like some of these are going to need that level of attention.  It will break my heart to lose some of these people, but I’d rather suffer a little heartbreak than wind up feeling like a doormat, or expending copious amounts of energy on something that is going to fall apart anyway.

I hate this part.  It seems like it comes around every year, generally close enough to my birthday to become a project with the birthday deadline.

It’s not even that I’m all that needy.  I can handle people canceling on me or not being available, but what really kills me, every single time is the repeated "yes, let’s get together" and then the complete and utter lack of communication and follow-through that happens.  It’s one of my own hypocrisies that I’ve battled quite a bit over the past few years, and I do not do it anymore.  If I don’t have time or energy, I don’t make those empty promises to "someday get together" and I ALWAYS at least make the point to let someone know if I’m not going to be able to make the plans that I either accepted or tentatively accepted.

Bah!

I’m really just tired of this happening so often.  And tired of having to weed through the people I want to consider my friends.

So tonight I’ll do my laundry and spend time with my boy.  Tomorrow I’ll have my regular movie night with the friend who I only see if we schedule the time with each other (which is why we do movie night).  Wednesday I’ll do another open mic and try to not care if anyone comes with (except for Slockin, who claims to have no good reason to bag).  And all the while I’ll start the sorting process and stop making quite so much effort.

Shopping
Dinner
Haircuts
Movie (the Incredible Hulk)
Home
Sleep
Pancakes
Cooking stuffed shells
Party - face painting, balloon animals and children
Party - pot luck, music, good friends, good time
Home
Sleep
Laundry

In that order. 

So there I was, minding my own business, shutting out the rest of the world, trying to get to my tattoo appointment.  There was this punkish/emoish kid sitting next to me and a mother and child in front of me.  A cyclist got on the bus and, you know, he *looked* like a normal guy, but it turned out he was a zealot.

He was handing out pamphlets to people who would make eye contact and trying to give them something that was fitting to each person.  To the mom he gave a pamphlet titled, "What Is A Mother?"  To the guy next to me it was one that said "I’ll Do It Tomorrow".

After the punkmo guy finished reading the pamphlet, the zealot started talking to him about finding God and coming (back?) into the fold.  He handed him a business card with a URL (CallHim) and tried to keep talking.  I thought the kid was receptive to the guy and turned my music up.

The punkmo kid put the card and the pamphlet very deliberately into his backpack and pulled out an old, gilt-edged book.  Being nosy and meddlesome, I tried to get a look at what he was reading, but all I could see was a chapter title of "HELL" and what looked like verses inside.  I figured that this was some kind of relligious book and that the zealot had somehow convinced the kid to pray or something.

He kept reading until the zealot got off the bus, at which point he pulled his backpack out and closed his book.  It was at this point that I was able to see the title, which caused me to "HA!" (and, unless you’ve actually witnessed it, you really don’t know just how loud that particular exclamation is coming from me, especially when it’s completely unexpected.)

He gave me a huge grin and a slight wink as he put away Dante’s The Inferno.

I’m not a sappy, sentimental person most of the time.  I rarely cry at movies, I don’t think I’ve ever cried over a book.  I’m outwardly pretty emotionally cold most of the time.  I remember when I was 9 and my grandmother died, I played the same sad song over and over and over again until it moved me to tears.  It wasn’t that I was unaffected, it was just that I didn’t have that outward emotional reaction.

Some would say this is unhealthy.

Sometimes it is.  Sometimes when things get really a bad, a good cry can do a world of good, but the older I get, the harder it is to force it if it just won’t come on its own, so I do the best I can.

But, I think, it only really applies to sadness.  I share my joy and laugh freely (as almost anyone can attest).  When I’m angry, I stand up for myself and remedy the situation.  I love with abandon, but…  I’m not allowed to share that with everyone because of the societal rules that are put on it.

I can tell my girls that I love them.  I can tell my family I love them.  With the boys…  not so much, though.  There are a couple I can say "…and that’s why I love you," but it’s more likely to come out as "…and that’s why you’re my friend."  Love is a four-letter word and its use is restricted specifically to romance among non-relations.

*sigh*

But I do love freely.  And when I say "love" I don’t mean "marry me".  It makes me wish that there was a wholly different word that means "in love" or "romantic love" because love is so much more than the boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife thing.

It’s hard for me, because every now and again, I find myself leaning toward that "in love" with people who I really just love, but can’t tell.  I think it’s something that’s been a problem in a lot of my romantic relationships - that the taboo of feeling love means that the only way to say it and feel it and have it be acceptable is to be lovers.  That sucks.

When I was a teenager, I adored the freedom of cuddling with my friends.  Of feeling like I could sit in M’s lap or lean against him with his arm around my shoulders and have it just be what it was.  It wasn’t until much MUCH later that I found out that he…   all the hes…  wanted it to be more, but were ok with taking what they could get.  I would have lived a happier, if more naive, life not having known about the "wanting more".

I probably only have one male friend now who I can stand next to with my arm around his waist and his arm around my shoulder and not feel like we’re doing something wrong.  He knows that I’ve "adopted" him as my brother and there’s no weird tension.  We’re both touchy-feely people and it’s not awkward, but he’s rare in my life these days.

And the problem is that my outlet for this lack of outward, identified, pure love for the people who are important in my life is to write love songs.  Romantic love songs.  Unrequited love songs.

Not written to the men who I wish I could tell in simple terms that they are important to me, but to men who I have created a fantasy of romantic love around.  I’ve fallen so far into this idea that I’m not even really sure what "in love" means anymore.  Not because I haven’t felt it, but because I’m questioning my own definition and the line between what it’s acceptable to say and what might make people uncomfortable simply because I have different parts.

I’ve realized that this is really my genre.  When people ask "what kind of songs do you write?" the answer is love songs.  Sometimes it’s not about a boy, or it’s some kind of departure, but fundamentally, they’re all love songs.  I may very well be in love with the concept of love in all its forms.

With one primary exception, I fall in and out of infatuation with people pretty regularly.  I fall for someone long enough to write a song about the feelings I’m experiencing and then I move on.  Sometimes it’s a friend of mine, sometimes it’s someone I only know a little, sometimes it’s someone I have created in my head, but it’s generally pretty brief and I get over it and move on to the next crush.

When I don’t get over it, it’s a little scary.  When I get over it for a little while and it comes back, it’s more than a little scary.  When it’s there so strongly that writing a song doesn’t even mitigate the feelings, it’s downright terrifying.  Since I’ve been really writing songs (let’s call it the past 4-5 years), that has only happened once…  and hasn’t gone away.

And I’m not one to be weepy and sentimental and gushing.  I’m a lot more prone to assuming that He already knows and isn’t interested or he would have said something.  This is stupid, I am aware, but it’s less stupid than losing an important person from my life entirely.  So what did I do?  Well, I wrote a song.  Not about him, but about my own knowledge of the risks of saying something and the difficulty of not saying anything and being resigned to never actually acting on the feelings that simply won’t go away.

And it’s pretty.  It’s another unrequited, romantic love song.  But some part of me can’t help but wonder if I could branch out from this niche I’ve locked myself into and stop myself from falling in and out of infatuation, if only it were possible to tell more of the people I love platonically how much they mean to me, in the words that define it in my head, and in my heart.