mid atlantic trip - vol 2 (saturday & sunday)

Needless to say, I barely got any sleep, too much work related stuff on my mind and that had to get done, so I think I got a total of 2 hours of broken sleep. Fantastic. After laying in bed for an eternity, I decided to give up and wake up Mike and head out.

On the way to my mom’s place, Mike showed me the new “amusement park” and dirt bike park in the middle of the cornfields. What the hell?! There’s like a ferris wheel, a roller coaster, and a slide and it’s the best darndest thing to hit Bear, DE since the Walmart ;-).

Get to my mom’s. I have no room anymore. It’s storage for the stuff I didn’t bring with me to NYC and a lot of my riding crap. I don’t have a bed there anymore. All of my room stuff isn’t there. I don’t have a room. I also may not have my horses soon. Granted, I haven’t even seen them (Alexcia and Leaf) in months, but it just doesn’t make sense to still have them. Losing them may seriously be one of the hardest things I go through. So I grab my car and head to PA.

Get done early and head down to...Boonsboro, MD. It felt so awesome to be so free and drive with the windows down and the ipod blaring. Of course I got lost, apparently there are two Stinger’s in MD, but I was fine with it since it meant I could enjoy the road for that much longer and pretty much got the scenic route all the way through Maryland. Lloyd Dobler Effect needs to stop playing places where I don’t get cell phone service!

I walk in and see the bad to my left, a pit in front of them, and almost empty stadium seats. What is this place?! I couldn’t find anyone since this place was huge. Naturally my first thought was that this place would be cool to film at. I called Epler and then found everyone. Of course I talked a mile a minute since I hadn’t seen them all in so long and I was pumped full of coffee and energy drinks. I joined Mr. & Mrs. Williams, Jackie, Amy, Angela, Judy, Dave, and Janene a level up above the stage and behind blonde mullet man.

Blond mullet man grew an affinity for us and decided to show off during the show and make eyes at us whenever he caught us staring. Amy was going to give me $20 if I danced with him and I would have, but I didn’t want to jeopardize his future with any of the other girls. Amy got up, as did mullet man. He missed my look of panic, so Angela, Judy, and I engaged ourselves in a fake conversation. He actually came up and touched Ang and I. Ewewewewewew.

Ok, maybe I will write about the show, the hour that I caught of it. I missed “Land Down Under”, so I used “Stranger” as my rest room song. I like how this is now an ongoing joke. I actually made it back out before the first line was sung. The new songs sounded good, I really like “It Might Be”. Of course my initial thought was, “this sounds like Sting/The Police”. I know Phil really likes Stings work and have heard him dissect his tunes before, but I was never able to tell the influence until this song. “Birmingham” also gets a thumbs up. Big stages are fun, as are elevated drum kits. During the set break, I found out that I missed “London” so I joked with Phil that they should play it twice since no one here would notice. During the last set, they played an excruciatingly long “Two Step” but the ending was cool, nothing like beating the stage with sticks. Haha. Chris’s vocals were way tired and strained and sounded fuzzy during The Story. And the last song was name “Miranda Hafford Always Gets Her Way” – aka “Meet Me in London”. Too funny, sorry you all didn’t get to hear “Control”, I was only kidding!

We walked through the basement to get to the band van and passed through an antique shop. I asked Donnie if he’d buy me this ugly porcelain cat, but he declined. Weirdest venue ever. We talk outside as the van gets loaded up. There are three things that I will never live down when it comes to LDE. We’ll all be like forty and this shit will all still come up. Donnie will always be living in Tyler Ingersoll’s shadow. Just kidding. Donnie said he is going to have an Omnisoul dedication on his drumming video. Too funny. Oh, and Johnny is never allowed to touch me ever again. And shaving cream was busted out. Off to Sheetz!

Phil rode back with me because I wanted company and we had music stuff to talk about. We talked about other bands I know, their set list, cover songs, attitudes, images, interviews, etc etc etc. We covered a lot of ground and shared rock secrets. LDE is going to steal me away from NYC muhahaha. Personally I don’t think shaving cream outside of venues is appropriate, but what the hell do I know? Even if places or turnouts are awful, it is still someone’s place of business, and technically where the band is working that night. Phil and I also talked of other things aside from music, well, I guess it is sort of music related. This past week was emotionally draining for me, and 75% of it had to do with stupid things that stupid boys do. At least Phil substantiated my thoughts and his advice was to save my angst for a rainy day then let all hell break lose. Rock!

We get to the Kominski house and I immediately ran to the shower. I emerge to hear talking downstairs at 4 am. Of course there is no sleep, whenever we get together there is no sleep. Chris joined the house of girls and we stayed up till about 6 talking. I kept quiet on a lot of topics because I know that if I started I wouldn’t shut up, and I was just too damn tired.

Many weird dreams later, I woke up to the sound of my cell around noon. We got dressed and headed over to Panera - a Silver Spring tradition. After breakfast at lunchtime, we cruised around Connecticut Ave with the top down as Amy gave us a tour. Got back, collapsed, and decided to watch a movie. While Amy was on the phone with Beth, Beth said that she passed Mark, so I called Mark to tell him that I know where he is and what he’s doing. His response: “you’re over the Kominski’s, aren’t you?”. My phone barely got service so our conversation kept getting cut off, then he knocks at the door. Aw, so fun. So we go out to the car and chat and share stories. 40 minutes later, I’m back inside and join Judy and Angela and Napoleon.

As I was choosing music for my ride to Jen’s, Phil called. Guitar Center run for Donnie. So funny how I have done more runs to this Guitar Center for bands, than anywhere else.

Jen lives on Connecticut Ave so the ride was pretty painless. Nothing like singing with the top down. Found a sweet spot and ran to her apartment building. I think we squealed like little girls when we saw each other. We go upstairs and we tell of our adventures from the night before. It’s pretty easy to play catch up since we both read each others journals and talk almost everyday, so we know what’s going on despite the 220 miles between us. We decide to get dinner and continue our convo there. Stop in to see Hillary at work then to Potbelly’s because there is nothing finer than a strawberry milkshake when you need to wake up. I needed to tell Jen about Friday, and I was too tired to even speak, so I reached into my pocket and handed her a piece of paper. It was Tom’s number that he had written down. She said that she loves the fact that she knows how the story ends, but has no idea how it got to that point. Kinda like Memento.

After dinner, we went shopping. Or tired to. Why the hell does everything close early on Sunday. And seriously, it’s 2005. There are no more “days of rest”, especially not in the nation’s capital. Boonsboro, MD – sure, Washington, DC – no way. And if you have ever walked with me ever, you will know that I trip a lot. I can’t explain it, as Morita says, I am just not used to my new legs. Last time I walked around Georgetown, I tripped and skinned my knees, I came very close this time around, instead I just made a fool of myself. Radio stations now suck in DC. They also do in Philly. So naturally we had to sing whatever came on the radio as we drove through the district: Avril and Melissa Etheridge. What a sight to see.

We get back to Jen’s and realized that since we are pretty much jeans and basic tank top girls, we’re going to slut it out. And of course, slut it out to us means flip flops, jeans, and a non cotton tank top haha. Love it. But at least we needed safety pins, so I guess that counts for some sort of floozy points. In college, the group of girls we would go out with were called the Boobie Brigade (which I think Jen coined us all that during Slut Fest 24K...?) so that’s what this night was for us.

During the car ride we played some John Faye gems and realized that we’ll be doing this shit when we’re 35. We’ll get babysitters and going to hit up shows and bars on weekends. We also put in some Grahamy Colts and recalled when IKE and GCB played together at the Balloon. Then we remembered the debauchery that was the Balloon. Good times.

We walk in to “Land Down Under” and I find the girls. Instead of this song being my bathroom song, it was my “I need to get a beer” song. We get to Nottingham’s and the bartender serves us in 2.5 seconds. “And this is why we do the boobie brigade,” Jen said, beer in hand. We made our way back to the girls and danced and talked and made fun of the crowd. Guys are weird. Don’t touch us, ever. Don’t even look at us. Don’t be creepy! Ok, granted none of those guys were awesome, but seriously, you *may* have had an *inkling* of a chance if you actually came up and TALKED to any of us, but no, you had to be gross.

The band took a set break and I brought Jen over to meet everyone. Donnie and Johnny gave me a shot and I tried to keep Johnny away from Jen, but it was too late, she was done for. They played awful music in between sets. I am the whitest girl ever and can’t dance at all, so I had a good time mocking the other people who were really into it. But seriously, it was the longest set break ever. Enough that my ADD got the best of me and I pleaded with Donnie, Johnny, Doug, and Rusty to go play! I think I lost it when Hollaback Girl came on. Seriously, so ridiculous. Jen and I made it entertaining by “arguing” that it was “my shit”.
Finally the guys came on and Doug looked like he was in pain. It’s a wonder he made it through the night. LDE played the longest song ever and I warned Jen that it’ll be a while till she hears another original. Jen, Amy, and I stayed towards the back and watched the grossest guy ever. This guy was freaking hilarious. “Red shirt guy” was flailing about, with his tongue HANGING OUT, and he was rubbing his hands all over his body.

After Two Step we made it back into the masses. LDE makes me happy, I think I was beaming the entire time. The sound was great, the setlist was varied, and I was in good company. I can’t recall how it came up, maybe during Regulate, but Jen mentioned how she likes the direction that the band is going in and she probably didn’t go out to see them before because of what she heard on their site a year plus ago.

As we walked to the car we definitely got propositioned and shouted at. That is when we decided that we are too old for this shit, though oddly probably some of the youngest in there, and the Boobie Brigade must rest in peace. It just doesn’t need to happen anymore. Of course as soon as we got into the car, Jen put on Jonasay’s “Wish” (I hate that song), to be followed by deeper cuts from their first album.

I found the best parking spot ever in front of her apartment and we took random pictures in the foyer of her building. Miss Hillary had the pullout all set for me when we got home, saving us the trouble. How sweet, I wish I would have saw more of her than 5 minutes!