April 29 - May 5

sunday:
Lisa calls to tell me that she’s running late. I panic a bit, we have a little bit of a drive ahead of us, plus dinner, and I can’t miss one second of patty. I arrive at her place and she’s ready, and we head off. My nerves are put to ease. I play a patty mix for her so she can see what she’s in for. I assure her, that contrary to what her one friend told her patty is not a christian rock singer. The weather is insanely beautiful. The drive down through all that country and farm land is amazing. We arrive in the city in a little over two hours. We decide to swing by the venue to make sure we know where it is before we eat. Then it’s dinner at the spaghetti warehouse, better than the last time I was there. Lisa begins to grill me while we wait for our food. She asks me why I don’t wear any jewelry, she believes this would be more of a sign to others that I’m gay. I raise my arm to show her that I am in fact wearing a bracelet. She tells me that I looks more like a piece of string. I tell her that it is in fact a piece of string. She laughs. She then begins to ask me what kind of guy I would consider dating, running down a list. I reply with, “listen, I’m pretty desperate at this point. Beggars can’t be choosers.” at this I believe that she will choke to death while laughing at me. We laugh and joke and eat too much salad and pasta. I fear that the gallon glass of water that I drank is causing the pasta to expand in my stomach.

We make our way into the theater and I begin to freak out. I can feel my heart racing the closer we get to the stage. It’s one of the tiniest theaters I’ve ever been in so our row 9 seats are closer to the stage than I expected. The opening act was odd, and I still have no idea what their name was. I was pretty sure the guy said, “hi we’re Dean & Deluca and we’re about to take you on a musical journey.” so I just refer to them as Dean & Deluca. And I’m pretty sure the phrase a musical journey has never led to anything good. This time wasn’t an exception. They were late because they didn’t know what time they went on and were in fact five blocks away eating. Yeah, they could have just stayed five blocks away. Finally Patty comes out and I can’t stop smiling and my eyes water a bit. No tears were shed, but at this moment I came pretty close. She sang close to one million songs. Lisa said she was trying to count them all, but eventually lost count. I went there hoping to hear "Forgiveness", "Christina", and "Burgundy Shoes". I knew that no matter what she sang I wouldn’t be disappointed, but those three songs would make me a very happy boy. She sang so many great songs, and they all sounded just as amazing live as they do on her cds. While she didn’t sing "Christina", I did hear the other two. She is a tiny woman, in very high heels, who can seriously wail on a guitar. At one point she ripped the place apart with the ending of “When It Don’t Come Easy” which quickly bled into “No Bad News”. by the time she was done with both I thought that everyone in the place was going to have a mental breakdown at the very same moment. People went crazy screaming and applauding for a good solid minute. It sounds lame to say it was like a religious experience, but there were times that I was freaking out under my skin at how powerful her voice was. That’s really the best way I can describe it. The guy across the aisle from me was bouncing up and down and beating on his legs to the beat of some of her songs. Normally I would think that a person doing something like this was a freak, but I knew exactly how he felt. I’ve never been to a concert where the entire packed crowd is 100% silent the entire time the artist is performing. I heard a quarter drop at one point. And the applause after every song went on for an insanely long period of time. Every one there LOVED her and she kept thanking us over and over. After the show we drove around town a bit looking for signs of life. Sadly, most places seemed kind of empty. It was a Sunday night, but for a college town you’d think there would have been something. I was kind of tired myself, so maybe it was for the best. I fought off sleep for the drive home as lisa entertained me with many of her tales as she’s known to do. A) the girl has lived, you can’t deny that. B) she never runs out of new stories to tell or things to share, this blows my mind. I wind up getting home and crawling into bed around 1:30. Since I usually get up around 3, I’m very glad I decided to take the day off of work.

monday:
With some free time on my hands I decide to help my mother paint her living room and hall. I work on the tan for a bit, and just enjoy a lazy day off from work.

tuesday:
I finally check out the queen I got from netflix. That was such a great movie, I really felt bad for her by the end of it. They were very successful at making her into a sympathetic character by the end of that movie. I decide that the day calls for a blizzard from the DQ. I ordered a large, paid for a medium, and was handed a small. I mean what the?

wednesday:
I wake up to some sunshine and am dying to rock the new shorts and flip flop combo. I’m glad I did. The forecast called for low sixties and wound up being seventy-two and it was muggy as a mother out there. Found a sheet set at kohl’s. it was originally $75, marked down, then I rocked a coupon plus my kohl‘s cash, and walked out of there paying only $15. Why? Because I’m awesome. Then I checked out hot fuzz. It took forever to start, was funny and witty (not much of a shock there), but I didn’t laugh non-stop as I did with shaun of the dead. I’d rate it as matinee worthy, worth more than the price of a rental, but not worth a full priced ticket.

thursday:
Work is rough. I put in close to 10 hours without so much as a break. I feel my impending nervous break down coming along nicely. My plans to work on the tan after work are thwarted, I run to the bank, come home and check out Lost (it’s both good and bad since it mainly revolves around Sawyer, the good, and Locke, the bad). I’m still working through my second attempt at ordinary people, the book not the movie. The movie I love and have seen three times. The book is harder to get into.

friday:
Work, again not so great. At least today was only 9 hours. A text from Nikki lets me know she made it safely to her new town. I don’t think I realize yet how much I’m going to miss her. Maybe I’m trying not to think too much about it. A text from Chels lets me know that her job is trying to kill her. And a text from Keara informs me that she’s at our Dave & Busters, the place where we had our first date and subsequently fell in love. All of this goes down while I’m mentally creating a summer mix while working on my tan. I’m one multi-tasking mofo.

saturday:
Catch up on Earl, the Office, Jericho (which is getting so intense I almost can’t watch it. Now I want a second season). Pizza, of course. A couple beers, and I am out. Literally, I fall asleep way too early in the evening.