Hope you're ready for this one....
This is going to be a long update... and for those of you that know what my regular updates look like... I'm sure you're giving up hope already.
First off.... The ride home with Nick... after that lovely challenge the night before...
Well, neither of us said anything about it the whole night at work. It wasn’t awkward in the car ride there or throughout the whole night really… which was pretty cool I thought. Every once in a while one of us would crack a joke probably just to test each other’s reactions. He seemed more shy about it than I was… which blew my mind… he’s supposed to be Mr. Man… the guy with 100% confidence all the time… the one that walks in a room and owns it from the get-go. It was quite nice to see the not so much softer, but almost weaker side of him.
I surprisingly found him more appealing as a human than a god.
We were pretty slow that night so we had a chance to milk the clock and fool around the whole time… it was good fun. I swear to god he’s a trip. It was damn cold that night and he was wearing his blue hoodie. You know… I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone that can pull off wearing a hoodie with the hood on… and he does it just fine. He brought me his poetry to read and I was using it to avoid the subject of sex in the car ride home. We had talked about having a show and tell and he had brought pretty much everything he had… he brought it in this little book thing. I was looking through and I found all the old poems he let me read… and some new ones… and a few that I don’t think were ever meant to be read. The folded ones were folded for a reason. There was this one he wrote as a joke about seriously filthy hardcore sex (so much for avoiding the subject). The whole thing was dirty talk… I found it quite entertaining, but he looked embarrassed. Then I found something I really didn’t expect. One fine work day a good 4 or 5 months ago he came in from a delivery and showed me what he had thought of in the car by writing it on a sticky pad. It was really cute so I had to keep it going… we got into a poetry war and most of it was stupid, but it was a way to pass the time. He ended up keeping everything I wrote and he even kept the doodle I did on the last piece of post it paper. I asked him why (it was a really dumb doodle) and he said “Because it was from you…”
Everybody together now…. Awwwww……
I thought that… was the cutest thing ever… I really didn’t know he was seriously that much of a softy.
I eventually ran out of things to read…
And, then it came… just as I had been anticipating…
“So….”
Right then... I smiled. I’m such a loser.
I made you a promise…
Yeah you did… what’s up with that big talker?
Big talker?!
You heard me.
What is up with that…?
(Surprised by the serious tone in his voice) I don’t know…
Then, right before the turn in to my neighborhood (If you turn left you go to my neighborhood, if you go straight you go to his)… It hit me when he said “So, what am I doing… do you want me to turn or go straight?” … he wasn’t kidding. If he had said it with a smile on his face I still might not have believed him, but there was apprehension in his eyes. He was gonna go for it. I was caught really off guard… of course I told him to turn… because I’m a pussy. Let me tell you, I wanted to take it back the second I said it.
Later that night I realized I couldn’t have made a better decision… sex would have ruined all the respect I’ve worked so hard to gain from him in so long. I’ll bet he feels like shit for falling at the first mention of sex. I mean, I guess I have to give him some credit. He’s a guy… and he hasn’t had a girlfriend in a looong time. From what I hear he hasn’t gotten any action in a really long time. Some times I wonder if maybe I’m the last person he’s kissed. Probably not… I mean shit happens, but hey. He wasn’t an ass about it… he wasn’t pushy in the least. After we turned it wasn’t spoken of again… at all. We ended up sitting in my driveway talking for over 2 hours… that’s a long time to sit in someone’s car just shootin’ the shit… We talked a lot about our futures… about how we’re both too chick shit to pursue our dreams in the rock and roll business… He’s closer than I am. He’s supposed to be the new lead singer of his buddy’s band. The drummer is Jeff Durso (sp?) KC’s brother… which is damn cool because I’ve known her since last year and from what I hear Jeff is damn good at what he does. The only issue is scheduling practice dates because they all work… and Nick goes to school… and gives a shit about it. Talking about it let me see that it’s not always easy for him. He deals with more stress than most people because he works hard to get where he wants to be instead of riding on the coat tail of someone else and he may be better than most at dealing with it, but that frustration is still overwhelming some days. Seeing the aggravation in his face when he talked about it made me want to reach out and hug him. I wish things could be as easy as he makes them seem. We talked about the most important factor in building our future… eventual happiness. We both agreed that the most we want out of life is happiness. Even though that sounds so simple it’s the hardest thing to achieve. I’d be happy living a Normal lifestyle with people I love doing something that I feel makes a difference and at least having music as a hobby on the side… singing for local bars or small theatres.... something like that… as long as it’s a part of my life. He won’t be happy with a mediocre life. He wants more. He wants every bit of the success he’s worked for… and I don’t blame him a damn bit. His dilemma is that he wants to be a rock star… and he’s worked so hard building an engineering career to fall back on, but its come to the point where if he’s going to pursue his dream whole-heartedly he has to put school on the back burner. It would crush me to see him fail school to be a rock star and just simply not make it. There are so many unbelievably talented people out there that just didn’t play the right cards and didn’t make it to the big time. I wish I could give him a brilliant piece of advice, but I don’t even know what I would do in that situation… let alone what I think he should do. After our riveting conversation I had come to the realization that he plain out doesn’t have room in his life for me… or anyone else. That doesn’t make me angry… it makes me sympathetic. Maybe he really is wrapped up in himself… but not in the way I thought. Maybe more people should be wrapped up in themselves. Maybe more people should live for themselves instead of the intimacy of another person.
Maybe I’m just trying to justify this…
The next night at work was pretty busy… I made a good 70 bucks. When it was time to go home we were both really tired so we only talked for like 20 minutes… plus he had his famous buffalo chicken and hot pepper pizza in the backseat waiting for him… and everyone knows no one… not even I compare to that.
Saturday was the twin’s birthday party. There were a thousand little kids screaming and throwing things in my house and I was having the time of my life………..
We went to see The Incredibles… kick… ass… movie. It was a hell of a lot better than I thought it’d be. I actually laughed out loud… I don’t usually do that in movies. It was cool. I went straight from there to work. It was a slow night… Bobby was being a bitch. Nick was home studying for his exam on Monday. He called around 10 to tell me what time he was picking me up in the morning for Next Big Thing. That’s right baby… Next Big Thing 4. He said he’d be there around 8:30am… so I figured around 9am. 8:29 rolled around and I was just barely dressed… *knock knock*….shit! “Mom let him in and offer him a drink or something I’ll be right down!” I hurried my ass up and surprisingly didn’t forget anything. We were off to Zack and Kyle’s house. Zack drove down there because Nick drove last time and got a speeding ticket… there were plenty of jokes made about that on the way down and he pretended to be offended. I was inadvertently picked on a few times on the way there. They were making jokes about high school girls. Then there was one where Kyle was making fun of this one guy who I guess was their age trying to hook up with a 16 year-old… yeah that hit the spot. I knew Nick was looking at me out of the corner of his eye because he stopped moving completely when Kyle said that, so I looked at a non-existing interesting object outside the window and made my face look as unaffected as possible… I even weakly smiled at the joke for his sake. Overall the guys were really cool. They weren’t complete douche bags, but they were funny as hell. They were brothers so that added to the feudal comedy. Nick has known them since like middle school so he was pretty much the third brother. I felt a little out of place, but I didn’t let it bother me… I was on my way to Next Big Thing 4 for Christ’s sake.
When we got there we took the blanket out to the hill and set up camp. We got there early which was pretty damn cool. As soon as we got there I started seeing people I knew. Every 5 minutes I’d get up all of a sudden and take off and Nick would look after me like wtf? Kathleen was there… Robin… Essie…Taylor… Giz… Eric… Jessie…and of course my favorite person in the world, Amanda. It was hard work keeping her in a good mood. She had come with Jon, Rachel, and Morgan. She ended up ditching them to explore on her own. I can see how it would be enjoyable to be able to go do whatever you want without having to worry about people keeping up with you, but she probably could have been a little nicer about it. I guess her and Morgan are getting on each other’s nerves lately. She feels like a babysitter and he feels like he’s being treated like a baby. I’m just not going to get in that mess. I’m not going to take a stance on that matter at all.
The line up was awesome… First was Crooked Edge… a local band… they were alright. The Music (band) kicked ass I thought… the lead singer has some seriously kickass pipes… and I really like their style of music. Coheed did an acoustic set and I personally thought it sucked… but hey… if that’s what you’re into. Skindred rocked the fuckin house. I got a poster signed by them. Lost Prophets didn’t do as well as I hoped they’d do, but they did ok. TBS did pretty well I thought… and I don’t even like them a whole lot. Amanda went and got completely trampled… she came back with her hair all messed up and she was crying… scared the shit out of me when I saw her. She calmed down after a while and went to sit with Jon and Rachel I think. I didn’t go up into the crowd till Story of the Year. I had heard they put on a kickass show… and they certainly did. I went up there with Nick, Kyle, Amanda, Morgan, and a few other people… I lost everyone by the 3rd song… I was all the way up front. Naturally a mosh pit opened up right next to me and I got stuck in it for a minute… I tried to get away from the outer wall of it but no one would let me through. I got knocked around a few good times. Some of the bigger guys were just fuckin crazy. I ended up way up front where it was so packed it was seriously hard to breathe. I was pretty good about moving with the crowd and not getting knocked over. Some of the smaller girls were being tossed around like crazy. Crowd surfers were falling on my head every 3 minutes. It was great. When they were done I made my way back to the blanket with my hair completely destroyed… the guys had all come back and went to the bathroom already and I didn’t know where Amanda was. I hung out for a little bit and went back in for The Used. I made my way to the front at the very beginning… big mistake. They were crazy. I swear I was right in the middle of the jackass group. The first few songs were rough, but I was still having a good time. Then it got to the point where I was the shortest person around and I had to have people lift me up just so I could breathe. Then, people started falling down and people would just stand on them like they didn’t care. Small girls were underneath 5 or 6 grown people’s feet being trampled. I tried to move to a place where I wasn’t standing on someone but so many people had fallen… You could hear screaming coming from the ground and people crying “There’s someone under there!” and not doing anything about it! I swear I thought those people were going to die because no one would cooperate. One girl that was close to me was screaming from the ground and people were standing on her, but couldn’t move because there was literally no where to move… not an inch. So, I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her but there were too many people on top of her. I started freaking out so bad that I was flailing my arms trying to make people clear enough space for her to stand up. One of the big guys on the platform finally reached down and pulled her up after I got her arm far enough up. She was passed out when they carried her away. By then my strength was gone and I was trying so hard to breathe that my ribs felt like they might snap. People were stepping all over my feet and I eventually lost my shoe. I got elbowed in the face and busted my lip open. I don’t remember when it happened, but when I got out it was bleeding and shit. I was starting to see dark purple and I knew if I didn’t get out as fast as I could I was going to pass out and go under. I left before the last few songs and I was pretty pissed about it, but I didn’t want to die either. I went back to the blanket and I didn’t know a single person there… some group of bitches had taken over the blanket because they knew someone that knew Nick or some shit like that. I didn’t really care as long as there was enough room for me to sit. Eventually Amanda came back and we shared combat stories. The guys came back a little while after her and we shared our combat stories with them. Nick seemed pretty concerned about my shoe… but that was the least of my worries. Amanda and I ended up going back in for the very last set… the headliners; Sum 41. We had the best time we had had all day long. We entered from the side and didn’t go in very far. We were in far enough to be shoulder to shoulder, but not squashed. She guarded my foot since I still wasn’t wearing a shoe. After a while I just didn’t care. They kicked so much ass I went nuts. I was jumping and screaming and taking people’s eyes out with my hair and I loved it. Amanda and I were dancing in the middle of the crowd with out thinking to take notice of the faces on the people around us. That was what a rock concert should be. There was complete and total love for the music and the spirit of Rock in that set. I had completely forgotten that my foot was wet, freezing cold, and stomped on and the taste of blood in my mouth. It was absolutely fucking awesome. After that we headed back up to the blanket. They guys were there getting ready to go. I said goodnight to Amanda and headed to the parking garage. We stopped at Taco Bell on the way back and Nick ordered one of everything because he’s Nick… not really, but he tried. Food… was good… and soda… was even better. After we ate, we completely greenhoused the car. It’s not like I didn’t already reek of pot… everyone and their mother was smoking at the show. Towards the back every 5th person had a bowl or a blunt. Nick was polite enough to ask the day before and make sure that it was ok with me that they smoke… I’m like “Does that mean I can’t smoke with you?” and he laughed. We got back to Zack and Kyle’s house and Nick and I took off. He seemed disappointed when I told my mom that I was already on my way home. We turned the heat up and listened to Train. He made sure I had a good night despite my shoe going missing and getting popped in the mouth. I told him it couldn’t have been better. We said goodnight and I wished him good luck on his exam.
When I got it, my dad was up and I gave him a veeerrrryyy mild report of how things went. I told him I lost my shoe and he freaked out a little. At least I didn’t have to deal with my mom. I went up to my room and realized that I had expected to be able to finish my Night School work after I got home… and that wasn’t going to happen… so I decided I would use a sore body as an excuse to stay home the next day so I could finish it and get a ride to Gulf and turn it in at 3. That plan didn’t go over as well as I thought. Mom woke me up 3 minutes before the bus was supposed to come and I told her I couldn’t move and that this would be a good chance for me to finish the night school work because It’s due today and I don’t have it done… She flipped out. “No more of these concerts for you! You’re going to school get up and get dressed!”
“No…”
“Now!”
“No…”
Never in my life have I downright refused to do something I’m told. I just don’t do that. But, she was being ridiculous. I went back to bed and when I came down before she left for work she told me I had to take off this week………… Like that has anything to do with this at all… I don’t get her fucking logic. It’s so stupid. I was looking forward to working with Nick Wednesday too. Whatever. So, here I am… not in school… not finishing my night school work.
Hmm… I think there’s some Chinese in the fridge… catch you all later.
Thanks for reading if anyone did.
That wasnt really as long as I thought it'd be....