Things I love.

1. Chips and salsa.
2. Cheap margaritas, pigeons, happy cantina lights strung across
breezy decks.
3. Downtown Seattle, in small doses.
4. Being hit on. By panhandlers.
5. Fairy tales.
6. Music.
7. Hope.

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Things I don't love

1. Getting only bill notifications in my email. And junk mail
subscriptions that I signed up for.
2. Sitting in downtown Seattle alone.
3. Shakira.
4. Aloneness.
5. Feeling like I missed the boat. Or train. Or whatever it was that
took everyone else to happily ever after. Or at least ever after.
6. Being stuck in once upon a time.
7. Cheap margaritas, pigeons, breezy decks strung with happy cantina
lights, alone.

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thinking

It occurred to me that when I find myself signing up for advertisement emails from random companies just so my inbox won't feel so lonely, there might be something wrong with my life. Lopez, for the moment, has fallen through. I didn't get the bus driver job, I didn't get the dispatch job (here in Oly) and one of the houses I was hoping to rent fell through. The stone mason that interviewed me won't call me back, Leeroy did call me to let me know he wanted nothing to do with me again, and all of my friends are working on big fires in Oregon. But not I. I am here, creating debt like freshly knitted socks and proving my uselessness on a daily basis. I am angry. I want to blame the economy. David. My parents. God. Leeroy. The Avett Brothers. Ok, not them, but everyone else. Riddle me this: What is so fucking (and I FEEL like this an appropriate application of the curse word) unemployable, unhouseable, undesirable and just plain useless about me?

I had a dream two nights ago, where one of my kids died, and all I could do was watch the terror in her eyes as she slipped over the cliff into an unending abyss. My friend Jay-cup says that all of the characters in our dreams are different representations of ourselves, which is much easier for me to handle than one of the girls dying while I watch powerlessly. It is that sense of being so out of control of the circumstances in my life... In my dream I took a wrong turn down a road and couldn't get the car back up the hill, out of danger, the road was a steep washout with sheer cliffs up and down from it. Me and the four girls got out of the car and began to scramble up the hill to the main road. There was a ladder/staircase of sorts and we were grabbing at roots and rocks to get to the top. I was in and out between the four of them, but somehow, the one on the bottom began to lose her grip. I couldn't get to her. I can't even bear to write her name as I retell it because it gives it too much reality. She couldn't hold on and I couldn't reach her and she began sliding, quickly, down the slope towards the edge that had no end in sight. All I could do was watch the horror in her eyes and silently scream for her to grab something, to save herself at the last second. There was no other hope. I willed myself awake just as she got to the ledge. I couldn't stand it anymore. It was 5 o'clock in the morning and I was sick with terror. Whether it was me falling, or her, or just the representation of how unable I am to stop the downward spin we are in, I don't know, but the sense of panic and hopelessness that began with the dream and has escalated, and every door slammed in my face has made it more real. I fight every minute of every day to find positivity and to remember all the things I have to be thankful for. A roof, food for my kids, clothes. A job, even if it is at costco. And all of my girls (and Truck) safe. And alive. And pray to whatever crazy god is out there for some mercy. All of my upbringing scolds me from the past and tells me that something I did was wrong, that somewhere I took the wrong turn down that unreturnable, unsalvageable road, that I am being punished for ungratefulness, immorality, foolishness, something. Some sin that even I haven't learned yet. I hate this part of my heritage, the one of shame and doubt and mistrust and self-loathing. All I long for is safety, and security, and stability. And promise. Faithfulness. Protection for the babies that I so ignorantly brought here and who so innocently followed me into this world of unrelenting challenge. God help us.

I am fighting. I refuse to roll over. Or maybe the prozac won't let me. I chase the fantasies of piling my dying SUV up on a freeway medium away with mantras of delusional happiness based on warm fuzzies and copious amounts of wine consumption. No, not really. I "choose" to be fine. To be thankful. To be grateful that we aren't being kidnapped by Joseph Kony's Army, or brainwashed in a ridiculous slavish cult, or picking trash out of dumpsters to eat. I must be solid. Because nothing else for my kids is.

goes on and on, on and on...

Somebody got up to early. The bottle fairy Tim for one, I heard him and Josh tittering like little girls as they left the yard at some ungodly hour. Eventually even I rallied and we all devoured some awesome breakfast that Dusty made us, after some confusion about people not eating breakfast was quickly squelched by Tim. We headed for downtown and the free cup of coffee with the Avett Brothers at the Starbucks headquarters, where we waited for a couple hours in sling swings and tried to look unstalkerish as the bus was unloaded. Tim managed to connive a cup of coffee with half of the band, cornering Joe and Bob in Starbucks for the better part of an hour. The rest of us were content to bask in the glory of the four songs that the boys played us, up close and personal, and feel the connection of rubbing elbows with a small sea of Avett people in Seattle.

After the show, and too much caffeine, we went back to Dusty's and loafed around under the pretense of napping, which was only done successfully by a small handful of us. The pre-show meet up for Avett Nation was at the Capitol Club, a few blocks from the venue, and we all rallied to happy hour appetizers and a few drinks. I shared a bottle of wine with myself and even gave a glass to my hippie compadre Jacob who showed up with just enough time to scarf some food and stagger to the Paramount. The show was a unique experience for me, because it was a seated venue, and while I didn't stay in my seat for long, it was odd to be so far away from the stage and watch the brothers from such a distance. The show was amazing. Opened by the heartless bastards, who apparently gave the first few rows even a more intense show, courtesy of a short skirt and lack of undergarments. It may have been the wine, but I cried a couple of times throughout the show, and hated for it to end. But it did, and we trouped back to Oly in the wee hours, where we slept way too little and hit the road for Oregon and the Jacksonville Britt Fest. I drove solo down to southern oregon, "swinging through" Klamath Falls on my way to Jacksonville with some pathetic excuse to visit the one and only Elo. It was good to see the boy, after more than a year. He is still our Leeroy. I only had a couple of hours with him before I had to scurry back over to Medford and find the venue, and sneak my way into the front row of the outdoor amphitheater to my designated spot on the blanket of my beloved Timdog and his delightful daughter Payten. Since the Heartless Bastards had already started, I couldn't hear that her name was Payten until sometime the next day, but I nodded and pretended like I knew what they were saying, as she did for me, and we reveled in a spellbinding show of the Avett's once more, up close and personal. That was truly one of my most favorite shows ever, maybe it was just the tie-dyed colorshow shirts that everyone had (except me, but I stole Josh's for the show) and the commonality of an intense passion for the music that everyone standing in the audience seemed to share. It was a great night. And it ended too soon as well. I drove back to Klamath, foolishly, to see the boy for a little while longer and it was good. In spite of the driving. In the morning, I headed north. I meandered my way up through Bend and Detroit and eventually wound up in Portland, where by some freak chance I decided to stay for two nights and rewind southward for the concert in Arcata, CA. This decision of course got me in to trouble, but more about that later... my chili is burning.

...continued

We arrived in Seattle, crossing Mercer Island to the accompaniment of January Wedding and the vague aroma of fish wearing men's cologne. Dusty's condo was a little too nice to be hosting the ragtag bunch of beer swilling vagrants I found loafing around an all-too-out-of-place campfire right in the middle of urbania. I fell into the melee with an open can of "simple times" beer and a ridiculously childlike trust that I could sleep on this lawn with a few boys, a couple of bears and a bowl of unbaked cookie dough. I met Olychild, also from Olympia, who seems to grow younger in his mind the closer he gets to his fortieth birthday and the longer his reddish beard drifts over his shoulder. He was the epitome of the Olympian non-hippy redneck via hard metal rock and Cheney Washington, in his girls jeans and Team Avett tattoos. There was Randy, the first to introduce himself, and until his taxi carried him away at 3:30 AM, I had no idea that the story the boys told of him wandering randomly into their fairy ring from the bus stop hours ago was true. Turns out, he wasn't a TAB fan at all, just a drunk who smelled beer and an opportunity to tell obscene jokes in mixed company, and since he was a pilot who could hook Dusty's roommate Lindy up with a good job, he was tolerated. And also since every casual (and direct) mention of catching buses and calling taxis seemed lost on him, he was tolerated. Then there was James, the Keith Urbanite that Hollie beelined to when we arrived, and whom I have heard through the grapevine is an excellent musician and a distiller in addition to his fashion sense and skills as a stalker. Understated, but apparently very talented. As Olychild (or elfchild as he will from hereto forth be referred) pointed out, he and James shared the laid back and nonchalant demeanor of an educated, refined and mature groupies. Dusty, our hostess, was the picture of grace and tolerance, as the beer bottles multiplied and the duly warned neighbors filed noise complaints with the local authorities. JoshWobble. Now there was a bear to be reckoned with. A bear of great stature and greater comedy. To Josh I will be ever grateful for demonstrating, with great poise, the intrigue of wearing a beer cap embedded in the sole of ones bear foot for an evening. To him I owe a plethora of quarters for the magic fingers effect his snoring had on the lawn we shared for the night. And Ben. I don't know Ben's last name. Often, with the middle child, that happens. Ben was the middle child in that he always had to ride in the middle. Sit in the middle, eat in the middle, and when I rattled off names, his was the centrifugal force in a barrage of sibling chastisement. "Josh, Ben, Gabe... I mean TIM!" Tim. Timdog. LazerPants. (he has the shirt, after all). Tim was the glue holding the cardboard box fort together. more like duct tape, really. He was the common ground that a herd of misfit fans stood on to share stories that had nothing to do with anything that most of us cared about in real life, but since Tim was there, holding it all together, it all seemed good, and important, and mutual somehow. He was one of the bears. And if Josh was papa bear, maybe Tim would have been mama bear, except for some reason I think he might take exception to all that that infers. We also had Lindy, a handsome devil of an airplane mechanic, Hollie and "Sass", a blond named Marcus and a neighbor that I don't recall the name of that had to leave for work too early. We laughed until out sides hurt, and Josh and Tim, sharing my yard-bed for the night, even humored my attempt to back cookie dough on plywood over the open flame. enough said about that experiment in mobile home fires. The night was a song-lyric laced running inside joke of TAB experiences and just being human. All of this before I had even been to a show...And it was way too soon.

more to come. (I have to intersperse it between homework assignments)

Travels

There's a chance the speakers in my car will never recover. There's a
chance that I missed an opportunity to be responsible and get some
unknown monumental task accomplished over the last few days. there's a
chance that when I am old I will click my tongue and say, "tsk tsk, how
I wish I had stayed home and organized more, focused more on cleaning
my room, and such grown up things." Or there's a chance that I will
reminisce about my one week as a groupie and giggle bashfully, never
regretting the choice that I made that led me down a winding southward
road and into the campfire circle of an odd assortment of eclectic
people who share one of my passions.

On Thursday night at eleven o'clock I climbed into a blue subaru with
a total stranger. Someone I met online. Something I had never done, or
even come close to doing. Lucky for me, Hollie Ash was a thirty
something mother with her seventeen year old daughter Cassie in tow,
en route from Coos Bay, Oregon to Seattle, for the first of the Avett
Brothers west coast shows in August of 2009. A few miles from my
house, she asked if hearing the as yet unreleased album that wasn't
legal for another 4 weeks would ruin my experience. Obviously, the idea of doing something
slightly immoral appealed to me almost as much as hearing the newest
songs on I And Love And You. The hour to Seattle was passed mostly in
the speechless absorption of sounds that were both novel and nostalgic
and lyrics that, as always, made curious as to whether Scott and Seth
Avett had been the long lost emotional siblings I had never known
about. It may be one of the few times I ride in a car and the lack of
conversation is not only non-offensive, it is an understood and shared
acknowlegement of our mutual desire to soak up every note, lyric,
every intense harmony.

To be continued....

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