Give it to me straight, touch my heart... I'll sing along forever.
For crafts, I definitely need a better way to keep track of what I'm doing, for whom, when it has to be done by, what - if anything - I'm getting in return, and whether or not I've already gotten it.
For the most part, my current way of keeping track is: my memory. Which I already know to be less reliable than I'd like. I've been thinking of adding a large index card or something to the inside cover of my craft journal, but I'm not really sure how I'd secure it.
Hmmmmm.
In other news, I haven't posted about Warped Tour yet. And it was almost a week ago. Oops.
So, this was the second year for me of going to Warped Tour, that travelling punk mecca that is SO popular that last year, the traffic turned a 1 hour drive into 7 hours.
Yeah.
So this year, Kasey (the wheelman) decided we'd drive out the night before, and sleep in the van. The five of us - Kasey, Stan, Missy, Tom and I - made it out to the city with pretty much no trouble, but we had some difficulties finding the airport, where it was going to be held, and finding a good place near the airport to park and sleep.
Not that any of us got anything I'd call "sleep." I dozed enough to dream, on and off, for a while. I think Missy and Stan did the same, though Missy might not have even gotten that much. I don't think Tom or Kasey slept at all. Five people in a hot, humid van with mosquitoes, accidently parked next to a set of train tracks where 40-car cargo trains apparently go by every hour on the hour between midnight and 5 am? Not the best sleeping conditions.
About 5:30 am we decided it was time to get up for the day. We drove to a nearby McDonald's, since Missy needed to "pee like a banshee," and we all used the bathrooms, changed, didn't even pretend we wanted to buy anything, and went and ate some of the food we'd brought in the parking lot. The next few hours were filled with lots of waiting, disliking the dumb punks parked near us, finally going and getting our tickets, and then having to wait another few hours to get in anyway.
And once we got in, I felt like I was in a zoo. Well, no, animals in a zoo get more space. And more humane treatment. They'd only opened up a small portion of the venue, but they let ALL the kids who'd been waiting pour in at once, and they're really wasn't enough room. And there was no shade. And did I mention, it was the hottest day of the year? By 9 am, it was already hot enough that we were sweating while sitting in the van doing nothing.
By and by they opened up the rest of the venue. We checked the band schedule and found that the first of the bands we wanted to see, The Vincent Black Shadow, wouldn't be on until around 1, and then the other bands we were there for would start at 3:30. So we wandered around, checked stuff out, tried to keep cool and hydrated. I was getting pretty tired, and for the beginning of TVBS's set, I sat down, not really wanting to exert any more energy than I had to. (They were really rocking, though, so that didn't last long. I got up and danced.) Their guitarist was crazy charismatic. And sweating like nobody's business. His guitar was drenched. And the singer was talking about her sweat mustache... and sweat beard... and sweat chest hair. It was a good time.
And then there was more waiting, and more of me feeling increasingly tired, being very glad I've been able to bring in a backpack with 6 bottles of water - especially since the water they were selling was $4 a bottle. Tom and I spent a while sitting in the shade of a truck, first eating ice cream with strawberries, and then $6 fries that we'd bought simply to get some sodium back into me, but they turned out not to be salted. At all.
Around 3 we went to meet up with the others to see the first band up on our list of Must-Sees: my favorite band ever, The Bouncing Souls. But I kept feeling worse and worse. I drank more water, I dipped my bandana in a vendor's ice water and mopped my face and neck with it, but I still felt exhausted, and I was starting to get a headache and nausea. And, knowing that this would eventually lead to vomiting, I was starting to panic. After a good bit of trying, Tom finally found someone who could tell us where to find the first aid tent, and he very effectively got me through the crowd that had been between us and it. (It's so comforting, in situations like that, to see that look Tom gets that says, "All right, this shit isn't funny anymore. Things are gonna go MY way RIGHT now, or someone is going to get hurt.")
They wouldn't let Tom in with me, but he stood outside the gate, watching as they sat me in front of a misting fan and put a blessedly cold-and-soaking towel over my back and shoulders, and gave me a bottle of water. I stopped panicking immediately, and my headache and fatigue didn't take long to fade, but I was still just nauseas enough to not be sure whether or not I was going to puke.
So I stayed in the tent while The Bouncing Souls took the stage right beside it, and I sang along, catching Tom's eye and waving and blowing kisses whenever he looked from the band back to me (which was pretty often). They played all my favorite songs, and I kept hoping that by the next song, I'd feel up to getting up and going to dance with Tom, but by the time they finished the set with True Believers, I still didn't feel any better. BUMMER. There was more waving and blowing kisses and general dorky stuff for a minute or so, and then I started to feel a little worse.
So, I'm sitting with my head in my hands when someone plunks down in the seat next to me, and says in a voice I don't recognize, "Hey, Fallon, how ya feeling?" I looked up and said, "Better," and it took a second before I started to recognize him. If he hadn't been wearing an undershirt over the lower half of his face, I would have been totally sure, but as it was, I was pretty sure I was looking at Bryan Kienlen, the bassist/artist/sometimes singer from The Bouncing Souls: my all-time HERO.
"I heard you got sick right before the Souls' set," he said.
"Yeah," I frowned. "It sucks; they're my favorite band."
"Yeah," he said, "Your boyfriend told me." He tugged down the makeshift facemask and held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Bryan, from the Bouncing Souls."
I'm pretty proud of myself for not fainting then and there. I shook his hand, and said - a lot more casual than I felt - "I thought it was you."
We chatted for a few minutes. I'm not sure exactly how long it was, between having no sense of time and having that shock of OMGOMGOMGOMG that made it seem to last for an hour, but I'm sure it couldn't have logically been more than five minutes. I was suprised at how normal and casual our conversation was while my brain just kept repeating "You're my hero!" We talked about how inhumane it was for them to be charging $4 a bottle for water when it was so damn hot out. I told him about how I'd brought in 6 bottles of water, and Tom and I had bought and split two, and I was apparently still dehydrated, so he gave me the bottle he'd been carrying!
We agreed that it was fortunate that I'd at least been able to sit next to the stage and listen to them. "Unfortunately, now you have to sit here and listen to them," he said, making a face and jerking his head toward the stage where Motion City Soundtrack was playing.
He shook my hand and left about then, and that was when I dissolved into fangirl mode. I looked over to where Tom and Missy were standing, and mouthed "Oh my God!" a couple of times. I'm pretty sure I was doing the Wallace Hands, too.
Unfortunately, I shortly found myself feeling REALLY nauseas. The kind of nausea where I start to hope I throw up, just to get it over with.
And the rest of the story isn't as interesting, (and frankly, not as pleasant,) so I'm going to stop here and go to bed.
The short version is, I survived; I completely missed Less Than Jake, but I did get to see all of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts; and I bought myself a new Bouncing Souls shirt. And I adore it.
For the most part, my current way of keeping track is: my memory. Which I already know to be less reliable than I'd like. I've been thinking of adding a large index card or something to the inside cover of my craft journal, but I'm not really sure how I'd secure it.
Hmmmmm.
In other news, I haven't posted about Warped Tour yet. And it was almost a week ago. Oops.
So, this was the second year for me of going to Warped Tour, that travelling punk mecca that is SO popular that last year, the traffic turned a 1 hour drive into 7 hours.
Yeah.
So this year, Kasey (the wheelman) decided we'd drive out the night before, and sleep in the van. The five of us - Kasey, Stan, Missy, Tom and I - made it out to the city with pretty much no trouble, but we had some difficulties finding the airport, where it was going to be held, and finding a good place near the airport to park and sleep.
Not that any of us got anything I'd call "sleep." I dozed enough to dream, on and off, for a while. I think Missy and Stan did the same, though Missy might not have even gotten that much. I don't think Tom or Kasey slept at all. Five people in a hot, humid van with mosquitoes, accidently parked next to a set of train tracks where 40-car cargo trains apparently go by every hour on the hour between midnight and 5 am? Not the best sleeping conditions.
About 5:30 am we decided it was time to get up for the day. We drove to a nearby McDonald's, since Missy needed to "pee like a banshee," and we all used the bathrooms, changed, didn't even pretend we wanted to buy anything, and went and ate some of the food we'd brought in the parking lot. The next few hours were filled with lots of waiting, disliking the dumb punks parked near us, finally going and getting our tickets, and then having to wait another few hours to get in anyway.
And once we got in, I felt like I was in a zoo. Well, no, animals in a zoo get more space. And more humane treatment. They'd only opened up a small portion of the venue, but they let ALL the kids who'd been waiting pour in at once, and they're really wasn't enough room. And there was no shade. And did I mention, it was the hottest day of the year? By 9 am, it was already hot enough that we were sweating while sitting in the van doing nothing.
By and by they opened up the rest of the venue. We checked the band schedule and found that the first of the bands we wanted to see, The Vincent Black Shadow, wouldn't be on until around 1, and then the other bands we were there for would start at 3:30. So we wandered around, checked stuff out, tried to keep cool and hydrated. I was getting pretty tired, and for the beginning of TVBS's set, I sat down, not really wanting to exert any more energy than I had to. (They were really rocking, though, so that didn't last long. I got up and danced.) Their guitarist was crazy charismatic. And sweating like nobody's business. His guitar was drenched. And the singer was talking about her sweat mustache... and sweat beard... and sweat chest hair. It was a good time.
And then there was more waiting, and more of me feeling increasingly tired, being very glad I've been able to bring in a backpack with 6 bottles of water - especially since the water they were selling was $4 a bottle. Tom and I spent a while sitting in the shade of a truck, first eating ice cream with strawberries, and then $6 fries that we'd bought simply to get some sodium back into me, but they turned out not to be salted. At all.
Around 3 we went to meet up with the others to see the first band up on our list of Must-Sees: my favorite band ever, The Bouncing Souls. But I kept feeling worse and worse. I drank more water, I dipped my bandana in a vendor's ice water and mopped my face and neck with it, but I still felt exhausted, and I was starting to get a headache and nausea. And, knowing that this would eventually lead to vomiting, I was starting to panic. After a good bit of trying, Tom finally found someone who could tell us where to find the first aid tent, and he very effectively got me through the crowd that had been between us and it. (It's so comforting, in situations like that, to see that look Tom gets that says, "All right, this shit isn't funny anymore. Things are gonna go MY way RIGHT now, or someone is going to get hurt.")
They wouldn't let Tom in with me, but he stood outside the gate, watching as they sat me in front of a misting fan and put a blessedly cold-and-soaking towel over my back and shoulders, and gave me a bottle of water. I stopped panicking immediately, and my headache and fatigue didn't take long to fade, but I was still just nauseas enough to not be sure whether or not I was going to puke.
So I stayed in the tent while The Bouncing Souls took the stage right beside it, and I sang along, catching Tom's eye and waving and blowing kisses whenever he looked from the band back to me (which was pretty often). They played all my favorite songs, and I kept hoping that by the next song, I'd feel up to getting up and going to dance with Tom, but by the time they finished the set with True Believers, I still didn't feel any better. BUMMER. There was more waving and blowing kisses and general dorky stuff for a minute or so, and then I started to feel a little worse.
So, I'm sitting with my head in my hands when someone plunks down in the seat next to me, and says in a voice I don't recognize, "Hey, Fallon, how ya feeling?" I looked up and said, "Better," and it took a second before I started to recognize him. If he hadn't been wearing an undershirt over the lower half of his face, I would have been totally sure, but as it was, I was pretty sure I was looking at Bryan Kienlen, the bassist/artist/sometimes singer from The Bouncing Souls: my all-time HERO.
"I heard you got sick right before the Souls' set," he said.
"Yeah," I frowned. "It sucks; they're my favorite band."
"Yeah," he said, "Your boyfriend told me." He tugged down the makeshift facemask and held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Bryan, from the Bouncing Souls."
I'm pretty proud of myself for not fainting then and there. I shook his hand, and said - a lot more casual than I felt - "I thought it was you."
We chatted for a few minutes. I'm not sure exactly how long it was, between having no sense of time and having that shock of OMGOMGOMGOMG that made it seem to last for an hour, but I'm sure it couldn't have logically been more than five minutes. I was suprised at how normal and casual our conversation was while my brain just kept repeating "You're my hero!" We talked about how inhumane it was for them to be charging $4 a bottle for water when it was so damn hot out. I told him about how I'd brought in 6 bottles of water, and Tom and I had bought and split two, and I was apparently still dehydrated, so he gave me the bottle he'd been carrying!
We agreed that it was fortunate that I'd at least been able to sit next to the stage and listen to them. "Unfortunately, now you have to sit here and listen to them," he said, making a face and jerking his head toward the stage where Motion City Soundtrack was playing.
He shook my hand and left about then, and that was when I dissolved into fangirl mode. I looked over to where Tom and Missy were standing, and mouthed "Oh my God!" a couple of times. I'm pretty sure I was doing the Wallace Hands, too.
Unfortunately, I shortly found myself feeling REALLY nauseas. The kind of nausea where I start to hope I throw up, just to get it over with.
And the rest of the story isn't as interesting, (and frankly, not as pleasant,) so I'm going to stop here and go to bed.
The short version is, I survived; I completely missed Less Than Jake, but I did get to see all of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts; and I bought myself a new Bouncing Souls shirt. And I adore it.