24 Hour Re-cap
Let's see, in the last 24 hours I...:
--started off Monday with orientation duties and then raced to the airport where I navigated the security check-in gauntlet from hell (they kept re-routing my poor little group of straggling travellers to more and more remote security stations) and managed to get to the correct gate on time despite a gate change
--read too much of my paranormal-romance-vampire-smut book on the plane and got motion sickness
--managed to use the directions I had printed off to tell us how to get from the arena to gracie's apartment comples to tell the cab driver how to get from the airport to gracie's apartment complex. very fortunate that both the arena and the airport involved us being on I-17.
--was so pleased with myself for getting to gracie's apartment complex that my brain short circuited and I made this little mix-up to the tune of confusing the clubhouse for the leasing office. some confusion ensued. I claim that it was not entirely my fault, but that signs giving information were faulty.
--in keeping with successful navigation exercises, managed to get gracie and I safely to the arena. only startled gracie into visible and audible panic via traffic maneuvering once. she was very forgiving about that incident. mostly, I think, because she really didn't want to drive.
--concert induced ecstasy soon ensued:
~Fictionplane (?is that right, gracie?) was pretty cool. Very bendy lead singer who sounds remarkably like his father at times was entertaining.
~Short break to acquire souvenir t-shirts and beer required some serious work on the inner calm. cuz, yea. big, loud, pushy people crowded us way too much. But we prevailed. And we have our souvenirs (including a pair of "rented" binoculars that despite gracie's initial protestations were NOT broken and that came in very handy for Sting oggling)
~the Police pretty much put on a fantastic concert on all levels...song selection, stage presence, just... yea... *sigh* Am not going to discuss arms. or abs. or torso type things overall. I will say that "wrapped around your finger" pretty much melted some pretty key elements of inner girlness and then I'll leave it at that...
--the traffic gods smiled on us and we got out of the parking lot and back to the apartment with relatively little trouble. other than the sort of strange conversational content we had, which pretty much consisted of short outbursts like, "fuck, fuck, FUCK!" and "oh. shit. did you see his arms?" and "wow. that was a great version of....(fill in the blank)" and then "fuck, fuck, FUCK!" (again)
--watched buffy while gracie did her quick LJ update and then headed to Denny's, where some of gracie's bad Denny's karma sort of haunted us, but oh well, the night couldn't really be entirely perfect, could it?
--hit the airport at about 3:30'ish and managed to stay awake long enough to ensure that I was at the right gate, where I napped for about 45 minutes in the floor while in line to board
--napped on the plane, am pretty sure I didn't snore, but I think I drooled
--Am now at my desk (again). Wearing my concert t-shirt and drinking the first of many diet pepsis that will be needed to get through the next 7 or 8 hours. Have realized that I left my makeup in gracie's backpack. so, now I have an excuse to go to the MAC counter and buy replacements. hooray.
So, at the end of this whirlwind concert experience, a person might be tempted to ask the question, "was it worth it?" And my answer is simple: Absolutely. Without a doubt. But probably not for any reason related to the concert itself. Here's the thing, I discovered at one point during the concert that I had pretty much forgotten about the 19,000 other people who were crowded into the arena singing and swaying along with the music. I had actually pretty much forgotten that I was supposed to be watching Sting. I was sitting in my seat, trying use my phone to take a picture of the stage for gracie and getting agitated because I couldn't get anything more than the glare of stagelights and the occasional "crowd shot" when it hit me. The best part of the concert--and yes, even better than the torso type things that I'm not discussing in detail--was turning to see a look of pretty much complete bliss on gracie's face. She is so fucking beautiful when she's happy and alive and in one of her elements. And I really can't believe how lucky I am to get to be part of those moments every now and again. I'd move heaven and earth to do this sort of thing again. I'd move heaven and earth to be part of anything that was going to make her that happy. And of all the souvenirs that I could take away from a fucking amazing concert, the best one is the fact that we can add one more really cool thing to our list of things we've done together.
Oh, and maybe when I've had some sleep I'll be back to talk about the torso type things... *grin*
--started off Monday with orientation duties and then raced to the airport where I navigated the security check-in gauntlet from hell (they kept re-routing my poor little group of straggling travellers to more and more remote security stations) and managed to get to the correct gate on time despite a gate change
--read too much of my paranormal-romance-vampire-smut book on the plane and got motion sickness
--managed to use the directions I had printed off to tell us how to get from the arena to gracie's apartment comples to tell the cab driver how to get from the airport to gracie's apartment complex. very fortunate that both the arena and the airport involved us being on I-17.
--was so pleased with myself for getting to gracie's apartment complex that my brain short circuited and I made this little mix-up to the tune of confusing the clubhouse for the leasing office. some confusion ensued. I claim that it was not entirely my fault, but that signs giving information were faulty.
--in keeping with successful navigation exercises, managed to get gracie and I safely to the arena. only startled gracie into visible and audible panic via traffic maneuvering once. she was very forgiving about that incident. mostly, I think, because she really didn't want to drive.
--concert induced ecstasy soon ensued:
~Fictionplane (?is that right, gracie?) was pretty cool. Very bendy lead singer who sounds remarkably like his father at times was entertaining.
~Short break to acquire souvenir t-shirts and beer required some serious work on the inner calm. cuz, yea. big, loud, pushy people crowded us way too much. But we prevailed. And we have our souvenirs (including a pair of "rented" binoculars that despite gracie's initial protestations were NOT broken and that came in very handy for Sting oggling)
~the Police pretty much put on a fantastic concert on all levels...song selection, stage presence, just... yea... *sigh* Am not going to discuss arms. or abs. or torso type things overall. I will say that "wrapped around your finger" pretty much melted some pretty key elements of inner girlness and then I'll leave it at that...
--the traffic gods smiled on us and we got out of the parking lot and back to the apartment with relatively little trouble. other than the sort of strange conversational content we had, which pretty much consisted of short outbursts like, "fuck, fuck, FUCK!" and "oh. shit. did you see his arms?" and "wow. that was a great version of....(fill in the blank)" and then "fuck, fuck, FUCK!" (again)
--watched buffy while gracie did her quick LJ update and then headed to Denny's, where some of gracie's bad Denny's karma sort of haunted us, but oh well, the night couldn't really be entirely perfect, could it?
--hit the airport at about 3:30'ish and managed to stay awake long enough to ensure that I was at the right gate, where I napped for about 45 minutes in the floor while in line to board
--napped on the plane, am pretty sure I didn't snore, but I think I drooled
--Am now at my desk (again). Wearing my concert t-shirt and drinking the first of many diet pepsis that will be needed to get through the next 7 or 8 hours. Have realized that I left my makeup in gracie's backpack. so, now I have an excuse to go to the MAC counter and buy replacements. hooray.
So, at the end of this whirlwind concert experience, a person might be tempted to ask the question, "was it worth it?" And my answer is simple: Absolutely. Without a doubt. But probably not for any reason related to the concert itself. Here's the thing, I discovered at one point during the concert that I had pretty much forgotten about the 19,000 other people who were crowded into the arena singing and swaying along with the music. I had actually pretty much forgotten that I was supposed to be watching Sting. I was sitting in my seat, trying use my phone to take a picture of the stage for gracie and getting agitated because I couldn't get anything more than the glare of stagelights and the occasional "crowd shot" when it hit me. The best part of the concert--and yes, even better than the torso type things that I'm not discussing in detail--was turning to see a look of pretty much complete bliss on gracie's face. She is so fucking beautiful when she's happy and alive and in one of her elements. And I really can't believe how lucky I am to get to be part of those moments every now and again. I'd move heaven and earth to do this sort of thing again. I'd move heaven and earth to be part of anything that was going to make her that happy. And of all the souvenirs that I could take away from a fucking amazing concert, the best one is the fact that we can add one more really cool thing to our list of things we've done together.
Oh, and maybe when I've had some sleep I'll be back to talk about the torso type things... *grin*