Corner of Bourbon & Division

The band played my song tonight. :D

Yes, I know that technically it's about all the girls in Random Colour, but I still think of "Rocking Thing" as my song. It makes me giddy and giggly and feel all fuzzy.

I took a "water heater" day. It saved my sanity, allowed me to get some errands run, *and* enabled me to attend both events I wanted to attend tonight.

I am extremely glad that I didn't miss the latest Invisible gig. I really, really missed watching the guys on stage, and every time they improve by leaps and bounds. They also have a ton of fun while they're up there, and thus are a joy to watch.

Got to see a ton of people I hadn't seen in forever, which was great as well. Too many to mention here all at once.

After that I put in an appearance at sultrysong and mellybean71's 10th wedding anniversary party, which was sadly already in the process of winding down when I got there. Still had fun, giggled with the girls, chatted with some acquaintances. I left when one of the people I didn't know got belligerent with me (he was both high and drunk, and was trying to expound on some conspiracy theory, which is never the way to get into my good books anyway), but I'm glad I went.

Off to go collapse now. Plane leaves in T minus ten and a half hours. EEP!

I'm listening to Invisible on my computer. It feels strange to be listening to them while not sitting in the Paradoxe Café, but luckily for me I have a reasonably visual mind and so I can recall a lot of what happened on stage during the gig.

I can hear myself cracking up at the beginning of "Zombie Chicken" on the recording. It's very disconcerting. I'm vaguely amused. I don't think I've laughed that hard in years. I honestly was afraid I was going to stop breathing for a while there. :)

I haven't been around online much lately, and I wish to apologize to my online friends who only communicate with me via LJ and/or Yahoo. I had a rough patch of about three weeks, which wasn't helped by the fact that I don't seem to have any time to myself at all these days. Usually hiding out for a few days allows me to regain an even keel, but there just weren't any days when I didn't have some sort of obligation which prevented me from doing that.

Anyway, life is pretty much good again. There are still a couple of random stressors going on that I don't feel particularly obligated to talk about overmuch. Taxes, other financial crap, good friends being diagnosed with cancer and undergoing chemo, stupid domestic shit that I shouldn't worry about but worry about anyway. Anyway, they range from the trivial to the life-changing, and all in all they make for something of a rocky existence.

However, what is reality good for, if not for getting up and motherfucking killing it? I will always be grateful to t! for reminding me of the scientific impossibility of bumblebees. Bumblebees, by the very design of their bodies, should not be able to fly. Bumblebees, as t! pointed out, have no time for this sort of thinking. Before people jump all over me, I will hasten to add that I am well aware that this belief is a myth. However, the metaphor serves nicely.

So I have been doing my level best to get up and kill. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Those of you who follow secret_history will know that I've been working on a number of writing projects lately, and I'm very excited by my progress on this front. After countless years of stupid old writers' block (about eight years' worth, give or take), it's nice to be back in the zone where I can produce anywhere between 1,500 and 5,000 words a day and, you know, actually enjoy doing it. I was able to produce the wordcount before, don't get me wrong: I just didn't want to because I didn't enjoy it and everything that came out of my pen (metaphorical or otherwise) felt like utter crap.

I'm working at fixing the things about my life that are still broken. They are in fact still very, very broken. I've tried to stop throwing pity-parties about it in LJ, because it serves no purpose (for me, please bear in mind that I speak only for myself) to rehash the problems in that way.

That's another reason that I haven't been posting all that much except fiction lately. For one thing, without net access at work, I only get online in the evenings when I get home, which is often quite late due to a number of committments I've taken on. I read my flist, and only if I have the energy afterward do I get around to posting. Energy is something I don't have in vast quantities these days, and I find myself increasingly unwilling to spend it on negative things. So, unless there is something particularly keen I want to write about, more often than not my days go unchronicled.

I think I will make an effort to post at least every two days. I'll try to think of nifty things about my day that I can tell you about without bitching about my job. ;)

So I just called the nice lady at Collège Montmorency, and she said there's still room available in the dispatcher course that I mentioned in this post.

So now I have to scrape together $250 and register.

The question is, of course, which course do I want to take? There's one in February, which means fewer scheduling problems but less time to scrape together the money. Money is definitely a consideration since Capricornucopia is in three weeks (official announcement to come sometime today), and that costs money too. It would be on the 18th and 19th as well as the 25th and 26th of the month.

The same dates apply to March, which would mean more time to scrape together the money I need to register, but it also directly conflicts with the next gig date for Invisible and Random Colour. Granted, the class lasts from 8am to 4:30pm, and so in theory I would be in time for the gig, but it also means no morning practice that day, which is a Bad Thing(TM).

Taking the course in March also has the advantage of being closer to the time when the next set of courses would start, namely the ones in which I'm supposed to specialise. Less chance of forgetting everything I know before taking another course.

Gah.

I hate it when Big Important Life Stuff conflicts with other Important Life Stuff.

I have spent the day doing nothing but post to Bluebook and sleeping. Sleeping is good. Sleeping is my friend.

The concert rocked hardcore. If you didn't come, you missed something really fun.

Invisible played first, opening with their hit single "Little Black Plane," and rocking out throughout the set after that. Highlights were

1- talyesin on backup vocals, which I had never seen in performance before. He made me choke on my water during "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend," and was generally awesome.

2- gmarc on drums. Watching the bass drum and the high hat bounce away from each other over the stage was hilarious. The high-hat grab and the "Oh shit I lost a drumstick! Oh well, I'll just improvise with one!" was awe-inspiring.

3- sandman7, the "Great Old One of Good Clean Fun," as a backup vocalist was great too. He does have a really nice voice. :)

4- baronscartop working the hair. I'd never seen him do it before, and I was very impressed. He has rock star hair and a pink bass named Honey. What more do you need?

5- The lead guitarist. I mean, that guy is hot.

"My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" is my favourite song of their set.


Random Colour kicked ass and took names. Not only that, but we did it amidst a plethora of technical difficulties. We covered "A, D, E" by Invisible, and our guitarist broke a string.

"A, D, E" was a last-minute addition to the set list. We decided to try it out last week, and ended up doing it in walz time, to the great pleasure of our audience. Of course, the joke was even better because Invisible performed that song just before we did it. :)

We got very nice feedback on "Do You Get High?" which I appreciated because it's our weakest song and I always feel as though I'm butchering it. It was good to hear from an outside perspective what we actually sound like when playing that song.

Then one of the soundboards went wonky during "Julia," because none of us could hear the right notes coming out of the cello. That worked out well in the end, and the song went really well after that. I didn't screw up the tempo either on that or on "Stutter," which I'd been doing all the night before, and I didn't even really need my metronome, although I took it onstage with me just in case.

And, of course, the final insult was karine's microphone falling apart at a crucial moment during "Bad Reputation," although to her credit she picked it up, put it back together and kept going almost without missing a beat, and the rest of us followed suit, and the song continued almost as though nothing had happened.

Naturally, our encore song was a big hit with Invisible. We'd tried to keep it a secret for as long as possible, but two of them figured it out. Still, doing "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" was a great deal of fun, and chews the hell out of my drumsticks.


So it was a night of triumphs, with a couple of frustrations to keep things interesting. I' d like to take this opportunity to say how much my friends rock. You guys are all awesome. You keep me on my toes, you keep me creative, you keep me from stagnating. I'm am very proud to count you all friends. Here's to many more years of rocking out.

And, today, I rest.

Rock on.