00:35 - Friday, Nov. 07, 2003 unearthly noises
ahhhh... HOW DO PEOPLE MAKE SUCH UNEARTHLY NOISES???
Every time I see Mike Patton (twice) it turns out being the best concert I've ever been to to date. And Rahzel may have been even more impossibly talented than he was. Just because of the notes he was singing that were lower than tuba range, and singing them at the SAME TIME as he was making snare drum noises with his tongue.
It was, at times, more of a comedy show than anything. Mike Patton had a radio on his table o' goodies, and twirled the dial in the middle of the show, trying to find a song that Rahzel couldn't beatbox to. He couldn't find one, but he did find the Rolling Stones' 'Angie' and warbled along with that for awhile in an impossible key. He also found the new Disturbed song and strutted around the stage trying to look heavy metal (before he hit the radio and screamed 'BULLSHIT!').
I will be buying their album when it comes out, if they aren't dirty liars and haven't made an album.
01:04 - Wednesday, Nov. 05, 2003 descent into absurdity
okay, this day could almost rival a dream in its oddities.
i go to class in the morning, come back, and go directly back to bed. at 1 in the afternoon, i wake up to someone running our shower in blasts. lara has latin at that time, but i assume that, for some reason, she's ditched latin to come home and take a shower. just in case it isn't her, though, i stay in my room with the door shut until i hear the person come out of the bathroom and exit the apartment. i tiptoe up to the door, ready to lock it, but it's already locked.
it wasn't lara. i asked her later. so whoever it was just came into our apartment, used our shower, left a few strands of hair in the sink, and unclogged our drain. yeah. our shower drain wasn't draining, but now it's working perfectly. and on his way out, he locked the door behind him.
then, at 11:30 tonight, lara comes home, runs into my room, and announces that she thinks she has TSS. i drive her to the emergency room at midnight, speeding ruthlessly down broadway, wishing absurdly that i had a siren.
she doesn't have TSS, but she has a heart murmur. while she's getting the necessary exams, i'm studying for my religion exam, which i would never do if i weren't in a hospital. there's a lady at the front desk yelling about how she needs to get home. i offer her cabfare, but the hospital decides to pay it. this would never happen in chicago. they'd just kick you out onto the streets.
anyway, today is just a really good way of expressing the sentiment: 'WHAT THE FUCK.'
23:07 - Sunday, Nov. 02, 2003 whispering 'breathe, breathe'
I looked in the mirror last night at midnight thirty to see if my face was melting or if I was crying. Neither was true. My eyes were weed-red and my hair was tangled over the purple plastic horns I'd bought that day, but everything was in working order, even my throat that felt like it was too tired to swallow, even my lungs that felt they couldn't expand to capacity. At the top of the stairs I'd parted ways with the boy who'd smoked us all up, after we'd argued about the merits of facing a crowd. I couldn't do it. He, apparently, could. There were some people asking me about my major and telling me to stick with it, and it all faded to a high pitched drone ringing in my ears and I said, 'look, guys, I can't...' and all I remember after that is them leaving. Trying to read a book and failing, I just ran into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. My breathing felt like a ribbon, twisted, but continuous... no breaks for the in, for the out, in, out, in.... each breath labours to break the ribbon and it's exhausting and it's terrifying. 'I hate marijuana,' I said to my reflection, shockingly enough, deliberating over the words and staring myself in my own luminous green eyes. I raided the bathroom, tried to focus on mundanities. Q-tipped my ears, drank plastic cups full of water, washed my face. The Beatles floated up through the air vent under my feet; I sang, I sang desperately.
When the pounding on the door grew more urgent I slipped out, slipped downstairs, perched on the edge of the table. 'Where were you?' asked the girl whose house it was.
'Actually, I was in your room freaking out,' I told her.
She got me some water and kept asking if I was all right. It was threatening to become another high-pitched whine... I'm fine, I'm fine now...
There are a million people in this apartment, squished in around me like sardines [in a crushd tin box] and none of them have throats like sandpaper. I'm looking around and seeing everyone talking and suddenly I notice a kid on a chair next to mine swallowing noticeably and darting his eyes back and forth with this nervous little grin on his face. I lock his eyes with mine and give a tiny nod. He breaks into a smile, leans forward. 'Are you freaking out?' he whispers.
'I'm freaking out,' I say back.
He swallows, gives a half laugh. We smoked the same thing, but he smoked more.
'I think we always recognize one another,' I say. He nods. Weed-comraderie.
'Sometimes I wonder about my stomach being like a bellows, expanding...' he rasps.
After awhile everything is funny enough that I forget I hate marijuana, but I remember it now. I stood in Nick's kitchen tonight and told him about it simply because I knew he was the only one who wouldn't have the tools to understand, even if he tried. I thought, it's so much easier at parties to have common ground without even trying (even if you're from different planets, you smoked the same thing, and you all understand the ribbon breath and the lung bellows) but nothing compares to the clutching warmth of his hands.
Courtni was rollerskating on the table by the end of the night. 'I know,' she said to Dan and I. 'Let's think of sentences that have never been said before.'
I still remember mine. After the snake eats you, he'll wrap his bottom half in a shawl.
It all fades into itself sometimes. Brendan tripping over himself and falling backwards into the bathtub and blaming it on Andrew. Buddy Christ hitting a joint, because it's a costume party.... a drunk freshman hugging Andrew: 'man, this has got to be the best party i�ve ever been to, man. seriously. so seriously, man, thank you so much for having this party. have you seen my jason mask? look, i might come back later. if you find my jason mask... this is such a great party.�
AK-47 from a hookah. I don't know, man, I don't know. If my head could do this on its own I'd spend my whole life in a bathroom. Whispering, 'breathe, breathe' with tears streaming down the face in my mind.
