Yesterday at about midnight, I wrote this in my first-draft-before-the-internet journal:
I'm in one of my weird post-performance moods.
I've realized that that's what these are. They happen after every time I play. The better the performance, the weirder the mood.
It's music.
Music is like a drug. When you're making something beautiful like that with your band, and you're all building off of each other and complimenting each other's sounds, and the music that you're building flows around you and fills you up and spills out of you again like that, it's like your whole being just disappears - dissolves into the sound. And you kind of feel like you're floating in the melodies and rhythyms, and your entire personality is channelled into the way you play - The things you say with your improvisation. When you can read another musician's mind and the two of you change together and do exactly what you need to do to compliment each other, at the same time, because you just knew, it feels like you lose a little bit of yourself in that person too. Maybe I'm exagerating this. Maybe I'm romanticizing it. But God, it makes me so high. When you come down from that high, you feel weird. Little things don't seem to matter anymore, and you no longer feel the need to say anything. And you feel sad.
We read each other's minds constantly tonight. Julian and Jay transitioned smoothly into this great call and response thing, and I had this thing going with Rob where I played chords in between improv licks during his solo, and the way we coordinated it, it sounded like there was only one person playing. We looked at each other up on stage and decided on it right there. We ended together. And then everyone cheered. And I was happy.
Perhaps this ablility to communicate musically makes up for how hopeless I am when it comes to communicating verbally.
I am sick of chasing Julian around. I have decided this. It is annoying and takes up too much energy, and it is also completely fruitless. I constantly do whatever I can to attract as much of his attention as possible, and it is always just kind of stupid and obvious, and it never works. I am getting sick of it. Sick sick sick.
This was my last thought before I fell asleep.
The talent show was indeed pretty rockin time, and we were indeed pretty awesome. Not that many people showed up, and at first I was upset. But it was kind of cool, because it seemed like things were a lot more relaxed. A lot more... intimate. It made it okay that we jammed for ten or fifteen minutes. It made it not that much of a big deal when Jay asked if he could play with us as we were setting up our instruments, getting ready to go on.
"I don't want a solo or anything... I mean, it's your band, I don't want to screw you up, but if I could just play the head with you, that would be cool..."
"Dude, we formed this band like three days ago. Take a solo."
Noah tried to pull off that percussion jam thing again, but it didn't really work. It turned out being Rob and Mark Renaldi playing bass and guitar, Noah, Stonerdrummer, me, Julian, Dave, and The Sophomore Ska Band on random percussion instruments, and this weird kid doing a dramatic reading of the rules of proper concert etiquette out of the program from a band concert, with occasional screams, animal noises, and attempts on the part of Rob to throat sing. It was... The weirdest thing I have ever participated in. The audience definately didn't like it. But hey, there were only like, nine of them.
No, there were actually probably like fifty. But the Williams Center holds upwards of a thousand people, and that still looks pretty empty.
Most of the other acts were pretty good. There was this really nerdy freshman who was an amazing juggler. A bunch of teachers sang "Blowing in the Wind," and that was pretty good, even though they included Special K. The Sophomore Ska Band was pretty amazing and pretty amusing, as always. And Vicky the air-headed marching band guitarist, whose reaction to most things is, "Shit, dude," and who always takes about ten seconds longer than everyone else to get jokes, sang, and she has an AMAZING VOICE. Really low and mature and beautiful. I hate to say this, but it is always surreal when she sings. Her voice doesn't seem to fit her at all.
For example, this is the conversation we had after we had just looked into the Williams Center and seen the audience:
Rob: There are like nine people in the audience. And they're all my parents. Me: Holy Shit. Holy shit, this is bad. Julian: Well, it'll still be fun... Right? Rob: Hey Vicky, c'mere. It's really a full house tonight - the place is packed.
She opened the door and looked in for a few seconds.
Vicky: ...Dude, are you being sarcastic?
I don't know whether or not Dave was okay. He told me Thursday that he would be. And I thought he did well last night (even though it was clear at points that he wasn't using any particular scales for his solo). But there was something about his face as we played - and the way he acted afterwards while we were watching the show - that made me think that he might be a little uncomfortable.
In other news, I wish my mom would stop lecturing me about not being one of those girls who needs a boyfriend to survive. She does it all the time. Constantly.
I'm not, okay!
I'm not.
Am I?
Being female sucks. If a guy wants a girlfriend, he can still be taken seriously. But I feel like I can't. I feel like I have to choose.
I should just tell him. Get everything out in the open. Because at this point, I think rejection would be better than uncertainty and tension and forced smiles and pathetically following him around all the time without knowing what's going on.
But... I'm not going to, because I can't.
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