Learning the Rhythm

A conversation with A made me remember one of my greatest friends tonight.  Not that he’s ever too far from my thoughts, but still.  I still miss you like mad, babe.

Eddie was a sensualist. Not in the sexual way (although that certainly came into play as we grew older) but because of his love of beauty. All beauty, especially music. He could be brought to tears by a good guitar riff, or a spectacular piano melody. But rhythm was his true love and he engulfed himself in it. One day, when I was fourteen and he was sixteen, he arrived at my house. I was in a mood, one of those moods that spontaneously pounce upon fourteen-year-old girls, and was sulking in my living room. “Field trip!” he announced. We went to New Orleans and walked to a corner near a construction site. He grabbed my arm to stop me and closed his eyes.

“What are you doing,” I asked. “Are you sleepy?”
“Shut up for a minute,” he said patiently.
“If we’re just gonna stand here, I came out for nothing. There are plenty of construction sites in Slidell. Aren’t we gonna DO something?”
“I said shut up. Have I ever brought you out here and not shown you a good time? If you shut up I can find it.”

Suddenly, he did. He opened his eyes and smiled.

“Okay, do you see that big yellow thing over there? The one that’s pounding the street?” he asked.
“Uh…yeah. So?”
“That’s the bass drum. Hear it? It’s a real slow beat, in 4/4. Now pay attention.”

I looked at him with my right eyebrow cocked in sarcastic bemusement. I had no clue what he was getting at. My early teenage attitude was on the rise and I was about to say something, but he beat me to it.

“I said shut up. You can give me that shit when we get home, but for now I need you to listen. So, we have a bass. Alright, hear that glass? Like a crashing, tinkling sound. Those are the cymbals. The hammer over there, that’s the snare. The heels, hear em? Those are the rims. Now close your eyes and listen.”

I did. I closed my eyes, before he yelled at me, and leaned my head back for good effect. I stood there, thinking what a moron and then…I heard it. I heard it. I heard the beat of the bass start it off, I heard the clicking of a woman’s high heels at a faster tempo. Someone threw a bag of trash somewhere, crash.  Glass broke, cymbals shivered. I heard something new: swish, swish. A street sweeper had come along. I opened my eyes and looked at Eddie. He was thrilled; he’d always wanted to try brush sticks. He pulled me in front of him and began to beat a rhythm on my back. We stood there, audience for the street corner concert, and listened.

Stay tuned for a girly moment

My friend H bought me a bottle of Stella McCartney perfume for Christmas and it was delivered today. I looooove it. Rose, peony, mandarin, and amber. It is so nice. I smell awesome.

In the bell jar

I’ve been feeling down lately.  Unmotivated, tired, cranky.  M screams at me “Clinical Depression!”  I just think it’s lack of stuff to do.  I’ve said many times that I need a certain level of stress and tension to keep going and when I’m on break, I don’t get enough of either.  Of course, when classes start again, I’ll have both in abundance and be bitching about how I need a break.  Woe is me.

I was talking C’s ear off about “I want to move to New Orleans, you should apply to Xavier’s pharmacology program, we’ll live uptown and be happy and I can have seafood whenever I want and I’ll understand the weather and be able to breathe again!!”  She quite helpfully pointed out that I apparently do this every break and to please, for the love of God, take a deep breath and chill.

I’ve had a fun couple of nights, though.  Grabbed M last night and headed to K’s house for a night of martinis, wine, movies, and a few highly amusing rounds of Scattergories.  Good times.  Tonight I delivered sushi and company in an effort to keep a good friend from snuggling up to her own bell jar.  Which doesn’t sound fun on paper, but I always have a good time with her.  Somehow, we never run out of things to talk about, it’s kind of amazing.  I also drank a michelada and have become kind of obsessed.  How beer, clam juice, and tomato juice make a tasty drink is beyond me, but hey! I drank something with beer in it.  And for those of you that know me personally, you will admit that this is a huge deal.  So yay me.

Right, then, in an effort to stave off what is apparently my constantly impending gloom, I am going to pull my panties up (I don’t like wearing socks) and get back to working on my thesis.  This is my plan anyway, I might get sucked back into watching old episodes of Doctor Who and The Office instead.  It happens.  C and I are also planning a de-cluttering of our apartment, which might help a lot of things.  We’ve been looking around and observing the massive amount of CRAP we seem to own, including boxes that we have moved twice without even opening them.  That is just silly.  Furthermore, we have a whole stack of VHS tapes that we keep moving around, but our VCR hasn’t been hooked up in almost 2 years.  That’s just ridiculous—it’s all going away.  Today I started going through books to toss (a HUGE deal, for me) and found some books that we have 2 copies of!!  Definitely time to streamline.

And that’s all I’ve got.  Holidays were good, New Year’s was fun.  Time to get ready for the new semester.  At which point I’ll start complaining again.

Ended up being great

I started the day morose and cranky.  I was NOT looking forward to spending New Year’s Eve by myself.  But N invited me over for bad movies, pizza, and Wii.

I brought over Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, one of the cheesier dance movies ever made, and we sat and chatted while we giggled at the outlandish outfits and choreography.

At one point, I brought up the fact that while C and I have been listening to the last Harry Potter audio book, I keep hearing the narrator use “disorientated” and it’s driving me crazy.  I keep meaning to crack open the book and see if it was actually written that way or if the narrator is just horrible like that.

She pulled out a copy, and I found that it is, indeed, the narrator’s fault.  Happy, I screamed “Go J.K. I knew you weren’t that stupid!”

N thought I said “Jackée” (the actress from 227, remember?) and said in all seriousness, “Did she read it?”  That sent us off into gales of laughter and impersonations of Ms. Jackée reading parts of the book (“Haaarrryyyy”).  At some point, N had to run and use the bathroom and I could hear her still laughing from where I sat in the living room.

C wasn’t supposed to be home from work tonight until 1 am or so, but she called me at 11:40 asking where I was.  Turns out she got off work early and came home to surprise me.  I told her I was still out, very sorry, and Happy New Year.  N said “Go! Hurry! Race home, but be careful of drunks and cops.”  I drove like a barely restrained madwoman and made it home with one minute to spare, surprising the hell out of C.

So, it was a good night!!  Better than I could have hoped for, and certainly better than I expected.  Here’s to a great 2009.

Mighty fine

Another very good Sunday.  I love Sundays.

Woke up late, got some coffee.  Received a text from M inviting me over.  Made myself a pumpkin latte to go and headed to her place.  Upon my arrival, was given a mimosa and Greek yogurt sweetened with agave nectar and topped with fresh raspberries.  Spent the next six hours drinking mimosas, taking a quick break to fetch Osso Bucco and panne cotta from Mandola’s.  Sat on her porch all day, giggling, listening to music, drinking more mimosas, and staring at the dogs next door.

A very fine Sunday indeed.

Hork if you’re tired

So H evacuated Slidell and went north to Ruston.  I asked her how the process went, how her family’s doing, and how the cat, Mina, handled the evacuation.

Here is her story as told by H (and recreated as faithfully as possible by me):

Well, we had to board up both houses and we were trying to leave ahead of contra-flow.  But Mina had decided to hide in the depths of the house, you know, like she does when I really need her to be out.  And I realized I hadn’t seen her in hours and then I noticed the front door was open and I’m like “Oh my god, what if she got out.”  But I figured she was just hiding from noise and dogs and such.  So we went to my house because the renters didn’t do ANYTHING before leaving and, oh!  Did I tell you about the spiders?  So it’s late at night and we’re putting up a board and there’s a HUGE spider and I make Casey kill it by stomping on it but THEN there are like a gajillion spider babies exploding everywhere.  That’s when I say “screw this! We really have to get going like RIGHT NOW because of, um, contraflow!  That’s it!  Off we go!”

So we go back to the house and find Mina THANK GOD and pack her, the two dogs, and all the stuff into the car.  Also, I couldn’t find either of the cat carriers that I know are somewhere so I had to make one out of a box with tons of holes punched in it and tape.  So we put the box on top of all the stuff and Mina starts the pathetic “Oh god you hate me, I want to die” noises that she makes even when you pick her up so we don’t take her all that seriously.  After 30 minutes she stops scratching.  An hour later, I look back and her entire head is poking out of the box.  She had nommed one of the holes until it was wide enough for her head to poke through.  A few minutes after that I hear this weird noise, look back, and Mina has lugged her body through the nomming hole.  And now she insists on riding up front in someone’s lap, preferably whoever is driving.  So . . . yeah.

We FINALLY make it to Ruston and stop at my mom’s house.  And you know how during Katrina, even, Mina wouldn’t eat or anything on the trip?  Well, same thing this time.  And so we finally leave my mom’s house on our way to my grandmother’s and you know all those hills?  Well Mina freaks out and starts drooling all crazy and there’s like these clear threads coming out of her mouth and then it turns into bubbles and then I guess she’s trying to throw up from motion sickness but she hasn’t eaten so all this weird gooey shit keeps coming out until me, Casey, and the entire front of the car are covered in kitty hork and it’s just so bad.  Casey’s all like “Damn, I took a shower so I could be clean and non-smelly to meet your grandmother and now I’m covered in kitty goo, so . . .whatever.”

At this point, I was laughing too hard to hear any more story.  Because “kitty hork” is just too good at making me giggle.  Mina is fine, H is fine, the houses are fine.  And yes, it’s a sad story of a sick cat.  But it’s also funny as hell.