I just had an amazing experience. My A&P classmate brought her daughter over because she had expressed an interest in playing the drums. She was so excited - it was totally awesome. Also since my house clearly looks like I've never grown up, she thought I was super cool. Hah! Kid, if you think I am cool, I like your style, but you may be in trouble out there in the real world. It was really flattering. She said "mom, can I come live here?" What higher compliment from a 10 year old, I ask you?

So I was emailing her mom and I thought "I wonder if someone's gotten around to having a DC Girls Rock Camp." And lo and behold, someone has. So I am just gonna submit my volunteer application... it's highly unlikely I could get enough time off work to help but what the hell.

I think I may have survived the plague of March, but I don't want to count those chickens before they hatch... I am scared it will come back.



(Click through to see all the egg-dyeing action.)
Last Saturday I hosted this year's egg dyeing event, which would have gone better had I not been Typhoid Kim. We got some really great looking eggs out of it though!! And thanks to my friends for putting up with my sick ass.

After that day everything was kind of a blur until I had the lecture exam Wednesday, which was still kind of a blur, and then went back to work... no that was all a blur as well. I really haven't felt OK until today. Which is why all of my blogging urges went to Twitter. Which I like more and more all the time! Friday I went to lab and found out a) just how many muscles there are and b) that I did in fact ace the practical. My classmates embarrassed me a bunch and I still don't know how to handle it.

Saturday I went to my drum lesson (I'd barely practiced due to the fact that a) I am in the middle of reorganizing the house and the new drum kit and its new home and that is a whole other post and b) the aforementioned plague. So I bullshitted a bunch with the brushes and swelled with self-loathing. The pride to self-loathing rollercoaster has been in full operation 24-7 in my house, let me tell you. I then packed up all my tissues and cough drops and hit the road to Glenside, PA to meet up with 20-something crazy Genesis fans.

I loves me my Genesis fans. This experience was no exception as everyone geeked out and loved on my tattoo (except when they were demanding that I include this thing or not include that thing, which recieved polite nodding and smiling from me). We ate at Plush and frankly I don't know why because last time they treated us like crap and give us the hairy eyeball and this time was no different. The food was good but not good enough to warrant them being weird at us. I think they just have an inflated view of their importance as a fancy-ass bar. Nevertheless, we had a great time and Wilson and his wife brought more weird gifts (it involved a towel and ... pictures of sperms with little Phil Collins heads. yeah.) and I met even more awesome nice people and yeah.

Then there was the SHOW. There was in initial surprise in the form of an opening act - Ronnie Caryl - and that was nice. Then the main event... Oh my god - it was bliss! I was kind of ambivalent about the later material and the fact that Martin would not be behind the drum kit the whole time but I was totally blown away in the end. I hope someone on the forums posts the setlist because I want to try to piece back together my fantastic memories of things. Several things came together to make the show really stunning. Martin Levac, of course, is a showman and artist, and terrific singer and drummer, and to our great favor happens to sound and look like PC. But while obviously that is the point of this show, I'd go see him drum & sing the phone book. And I don't say this to slight in any way his fantastic band, because wow. Wow. I was sitting front row on the guitar/bass side and those guys were flat oodles of fun to watch. They were obviously having a good time and it was catching. The "Chester Thompson" of the crew was excellent too. The whole band were consummate professionals - at one point the keyboard player had a failure in the ARP Pro-Soloist, in the middle of "In The Cage"... everyone covered and communicated well and the show went on. And the final ingredient (apart from the music itself, of course, props to the composers ;)) was the audience. Really good form, really good energy, polite, and hella enthusiastic. The band kept looking out into the audience with obvious stark disbelief on their faces that we were so happy and so expressive. Jean-Pierre looked right at me at the end and gave me a thumbs up. Well, I do my part.

I was toast after all the smoke machines and stuff so I didn't try very hard to hang out with the band, and Tara and Chris had to go early, so we headed right back to their place and crashed, I got a terrific night's sleep and immediately ran back home to get to my week-neglected to-do list. Ha. I will say that I had yet another bad Guitar Center experience and I will be buying a bass pedal online thankyouverymuch and blah blah self-loathing due to crazy-good drummers all over the joint.

And now another week! I have plenty more words in me, ya'll, but I will save them for another day. Hometime!

Here's the problem.

You, by some dumb luck, get to buy the very drum kit you have been dreaming about. Not just the brand or type, the exact drum kit that you tried that made you want this particular style drum kit. Great!

Then you get it home, and it makes all your accessories look... shabby. Cheap. Amateurish. Wow, this snare stand is a piece of crap. These cymbals sound tinny and awful. This pedal... well I should certainly sell it with my old drum kit, to be fair.

This is how "a great and lucky deal" turns into "oops I spent the same amount I just spent on the kit on extra stuff".

Truth of the matter is I'm just going to get a new pedal. And a snare stand. If they're on sale. But definitely a pedal. At least.

If there was ANY doubt about what to get me for Christmas, let me erase it.

THIS. THIS IS WHAT I WANT. THIS CHRISTMAS AND THE NEXT AND THE NEXT!

New work is going well, I think. It's like that new show where they downloaded a whole mess o' information into that kid's brain, only I'm not the target of assasination attempts. I am getting more paranoid about credit cards by the day though! Yesterday my trainer/peer was squeeing with delight because I understood a bit map quickly. This is a double-edged sword, I suspect. I have already dreamed about payment processing. At the moment I feel free to compose a post only because I am busily printing things out and my eyes are crossing a little bit from reading specs.

Right now I am, if not flooded, then trickling with relief. The NC nanotour is done!! Lord knows I get nervous enough about shows when I feel like I a) don't have great material (not the songs, but the drum parts to the songs very specifically, which are really my responsibility) and b) don't even do that material artistic justice. But add to that c) playing someplace I don't know about and d) to a bunch of people who are barely legal to drink if they even are and e) hoping to hell I can use someone else's drums and it all just gets me uptight.

That said, there were plenty of ups as well as downs to this ( rock band weekend... )

When I got home there was a rock camp DVD waiting for me! So those of you who wanted to see about that, it's finally here! I'll have to dredge up last year's as well.

Last night we had our peril_book_club meeting; sadly everyone was so busy that only one person finished the book. I'll have to post about the next book when I get a chance. Something about the Hellboy guy Mignola and demon bats and world war I. Needless to say, my suggestion of Italo Calvino lost. :) After the meeting we watched Heroes which was Parkmantastic.

Which brings me to: I HAVE FREE TIME!! Dear god. I have free time. What is that! I can do whatever I want with my weekend. I want to visit the Solar Decathalon houses on the mall. Saturday. Who's with me??? Tiny green houses on the mall!! Come on!!

I have a bunch of documenting to do. May has been a bit of a whirlwind, has it not? Here's what I've been up to:

( this is my nooooooooow )

This is a fine capturing of the Moment of Truth at Ladies Rock Camp. Only, the awesome thing about LRC is that the moment of truth is all weekend long, and the truth is, fuck perfect. No, that's one truth, but there are plenty of them splattered all over rock camp and you can take your pick. "Fuck Perfect" was just our pre-show band cheer.

I put all the pictures that weren't total blurs up on Flickr, and if you check my other sets you can find the sightseeing stuff and amazing dime-sized hail and my generous hostess and me goofing around. (Also on the camera at time of upload were the easter egg pics... a tad late, oops.)

I'd love to get into every stinking detail. The positive energy was there like last year. Of course things were a little different, different group and all, but it was still the same awesome empowering experience. The thing I forgot: it's also hard hard work. And an endurance test, sometimes. Particularly if you don't choose to write a nice laid back song. :) I came back to B's each night sweaty and exhausted. In the good way!

Maybe later I'll get in to the feelings and bits and things, for now, pics. Check it out Shining fans: I also went up to the Timberline Lodge and got some pics where they filmed stuff.

I was very much in my own little world this weekend, even though I had a fair amount of contact with other humans. ( Read more... )

friday: saw music & lyrics. cute. basically i am a sucker for drew barrymore. amused by watching our dinner plans go from cloth napkin place to food court in 2 easy steps.

saturday: drum lesson, bass amp shopping (band-related), restringing the acoustic guitar, replacement heads for my toms, going to fletcher's to see Odd Girl Out, something wild (a horrible 80s piece of crap with jeff daniels)

sunday: band practice, tenacious d & the pick of destiny (ehn, had its moments)

i guess at some point i decided my life was going to be all about music. i might have OD'ed a little this weekend though.

tonight is peril_book_club at my place. i need some fiction ideas, because my amazon wish list is not inspiring me. anyone want to recommend something suitable for a book club discussion and fictional?

last night we went up to canton for traceracer's birthday party. new and old faces, and some i had not seen in a while. i did not hit the keg very hard at all as i just have not been in a drinking mood lately. much was made of my supposed last pack of cigarettes as well as what will now be known to me as the infamous breast self-exam party game. (no game. just self-exam discussion. but funny.)

today we had a fantastic band practice. although i hit myself in the thumb, twice, during our newly super-fast rendition of a song. to be fair it's because the tambourine was trying to escape.

so things were a tad more normal this weekend. a light at the end of the tunnel? i dunno.

My drumming hobby and my love of singing are completely at odds, unless I suddenly get WAY more talented.

*sigh*

ok, this is very exciting to see:



i had a truly fantastic weekend.

friday: we went to "Piratz Tavern" in silver spring for our friend josh h's birthday. the ambience was actually fun and despite being seated in front of the kitchen i left with a really good impression of the place. you pay a bit much for the food, but the food was really good. i have particularly excited things to say about the shrimp appetizer. hey tzel, i think we should try to recreate that recipe. :) i met new friends, among them lj-ers ravrhi and freakscout (ok i met freakscout before but was feeling shy). good fun.

ravrhi ensured that i will be enamored of her forever with this opening line: "I'm not good at small talk. So what are your passions in life?"

saturday: had my drum lesson (heard an excellent car talk segment on the ford festiva!), went home, took a huge and much needed nap, and then headed back to VA to visit oontzgrrl for dinner. she made us & others a tasty and healthy meal and we all shot the shit and petted the dog. she is still aces and is looking amazingly hot and i am jealous of her bangs.

sunday: i packed up my drums and picked up olya and her bass and we "auditioned" for a new band. the band has no name yet but we got along with them really well. i found that drum teardown and setup is a pain, but not dauntingly so. i would like cases for christmas if i am going to move them alot though. anyways, it's exciting and scary and i guess i am in a band now. when i got home we went and had kebabs with necrocannibal and msteleute because apparently no sushi can be had on a sunday evening in laurel.

then this morning nicolas woke us up at 3am for no apparent reason. ugh. my ability to think is suffering for it. tonight: Heroes at cheetahmaster and maroonmd's joint.

TMB show 2: Foxtrot tour recreation.

Tonight was a totally different experience. I went down and plunked myself right in front of Martin's drum kit so I could gaze longingly at his mad skills. Seeing the performance up close is something I did not have the luxury of at the Lamb shows what with the assigned seats, and I admit that it was worth it in the foot pain arena to get the up-close wall of sound. Two encores for this show: Knife & Salmacis. The band looked like they were having fun - they all stayed in character but I saw a stray grin here and there. The crowd was thinner than last night but the energy was great - everyone down front was in the rapture with me, I feel pretty sure.

I admit that a few times I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it must have been like. It is easy with Denis' voice being so authentic. Have I mentioned that Martin looks very much like Phil Collins? Yeah. I stuck around a bit and met David Myers, the 'Tony' of the group. He was very kind, and honestly curious what got me into prog rock. The super music geeks descended and I got outta there. I never know what to say to artists.

Me: I couldn't be grateful enough that you bring us this music.
Him: *deadpan* Oh, yes, you can be grateful enough.

I entreat each of you to consider coming to the Nov. 8th show in Baltimore with me. If not that, then come to the (much cheaper) Nov 11th prog night at Jaxx. More entreating will ensue. Experience something new!

Tomorrow I'm going to recofigure my drum kit - I don't like being penned up in the corner of the room. This may mean finding an alternate storage solution for my CDs. I'm also supposedly going to investigate the Fairland gym facilities, look around JoAnne's for costume inspiration, and hope against hope, do some cleaning in this pit. Oh, and I'm going to play softball. Last game of the year, I think.

I do want to get to the rest of my weekend before I forget things. Even though I took copious notes to avoid that.

( personal and detailed in a personal way that may bore you )

Monday night was peril_book_club. We have a new slogan: "Now with twice the colon!" There was pie. And the best salsa EVER (Trader Joe's Hot - in the fridge/fresh section). Poor meercat was the only person who liked the book. Her input was valuable! I still would think twice before I read another Ishiguro book. [edit] Spoilers about the latest book included in comments.

I kicked off the weekend in a rush - I rushed home, rushed through packing for my trip to Richmond, rushed through a tiny bit of drumming, rushed a salad into my gullet, and rushed off to pick up salami_salome. We went over to visit koira and talk through some shit. It was a good thing, and I finally stopped rushing. This is good, because I needed to not be in an anxious mood over the weekend, and I think we achieved that.

Woke up early Saturday for drum lesson. For as little as I practiced, it went well. Good, because I don't have another lesson until the end of the month due to October turning into Crazy Leaving Town Month. Didn't I just have one of those in July? Shit. Anyways, the main freaky part of my drum lesson was him tossing out that I should COME SIT IN WITH HIS VARIETY BAND FOR A SONG OR TWO. I cannot get over this. I am mildly relieved that I'll be busy for the next engagement, because OMG I am not ready to sit down with professionals! Apparently he thinks I am. Um, great! *sphincter clench*

From there I headed straight on to Richmond. I have been listening to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell for what seems like eons. The whole thing is an astounding 28 discs long or something like that. It's really the perfect level of interest and lack of painful cliffhanger for a commute book. Someone remarked that they couldn't read the book, it was too boring. I think this book will appeal to those who don't need much action. And by not much action, I mean virtually no action. It's a studious book - not challenging, just not button-pushing. I like it. The real fun of the book for me is in its subtltey and lack of clearly defined good and bad. Oh, and its intense britishness. I am clearly an anglophile. And still on disc 18.

First order of business on arriving in Richmond was to find my new friend John's house so we could go to lunch. We almost forgot to have lunch in the face of musical discussion. His prog cd array is formidable but the musical equipment part was what really impressed me. He showed me some of the stuff they are working on for the new CD and the software on which they produce it. Which was really intimidating. Realizing that we could probably listen to music all day and go hungry, we chose wisely and instead had some thai food. From there we hit Plan 9 (to buy music, of course) and then had to wrap up, sadly. I got Six Organs of Admittance's latest The Sun Awakens. Jury is still out on it. I said my goodbyes and headed to the south side.

I'll have to stop there so I can go pick up groceries for book club! More later.

Ant problem: Solved. Like, as far as I can tell, within 24 hours, there are no more ants. Whoah.

Weekend: kicked off with some tabling at the Red Emma's Radical Bookfair for the Women's Prison Literacy Initiative. We made a few contacts and saw lots of awesome tattoos. More of that tomorrow - potentially 8 full hours, we'll see. Hopefully a little more traffic for the saturday programming.

Softball: This week we won both games. The other team took it overly poorly. Hey guys? We've lost before. We're not trying to be assholes.

Drums: Inching along with everything due to not practicing enough. He has me doing a Backstreet Boys song for lessons. UGH.

WoW: Reactivated. I started up a new druid on Lethon and zarobi is helping with supplemental powerleveling. I even had to fill out an application for a guild. So insane. But at least it's fun right now.

Parents: visited last weekend. We had dinner at Donna's (in the torrential downpour) and brunch at Clyde's. I miss them a heckload when they are not around.

Smoking: I have gone 48+ hours without a cigarette. I can't call this quitting because I'm going to be going to the last night of Alchemy at Nation and, well.

Here's how to get me to interview you:
001. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
002. I will respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal.
003. You update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
004. You include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
005. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

(I am mildly concerned about my ability to keep up with #5 but I'll give it a shot. If all 260 of you ask for questions they could get boring. ;))

Interview questions from tirani:

1) Where would your dream wedding be?
( answer )

2) What's your favorite special treat now that you're on weightwatchers?
( answer two )

3) Why do you love your little aspire hatchback so much?
( answer three )

4) Why did you start drumming?
( answer four )

5) If you could go back and change one thing in your life, what would it be and why?
( answer five )

First game of the spring season and:

1. I hit the ball. Multiple times. In fact I did not swing and miss once.
2. I had more balls hit to me in right field than I did all last fall.
3. I did not have to catch.
4. I did all this for the other team, as they were down a lady.

It felt good and my tree-mendous anxiety dissipated, not to mention the other team was super, super nice to the stand-in. Point to the church people. I am sore but despite being heavier again this year, jumped right in on a cold night without pulling anything. It helped to hang out with my friends right before I left, stopped me from getting nervous and worked up.

If the pattern holds (I can barely move on the saturday after a game) drum lesson will be REAL interesting.

I just ordered cymbals and cymbal stands, I will now have a full, real set instead of one cymbal and one hi-hat. My BPAL order is a week late and I am becoming despondent. I am about to dive into something health-wise. I need to prove to myself that I can do change!

Just had the best drum lesson so far. I went in discouraged and disheartened and my teacher made me feel ten times better and ready to keep movin' on. All the way there and back I listened to 94.7 which is doing 30 years in 30 days, and today is 1969. So when I got home I emailed them to let them know that's the year the first G album came out, since I couldn't get through on the phone. I haven't called a radio station in forever. Listening to the callers talk about their experience of that year is pretty awesome.

+ Had my first drum lesson with my new drum teacher Kim. But not before having an anxiety attack that he lures innocents into his soundproofed basement for ritual sacrifices.

- The smelly cat now also has dandruff.

+ Having a fun Christmas (need to come up with a new and inventive way to say Christmas agnostically) decorating kerfluffle at the house.

- My glitter glue is stopped up and I may have to replace it. (How else am I going to make a stocking for the smelly, flaky cat???!)

+ Saw Rent last night and loved it.

+ Oh yeah, tzel reports that Peter Tork's band Shoe Suede Blues is playing Remington's in Laurel! On tuesday!!! I may go!