The Variety Show went over great! I decided to do three songs after all. And then I did that electric song with Devon (piano) and Daniel (beatboxing). My pedal wasn't plugged in right. My dad insists it wasn't plugged in at all. Whatever. I just wish he didn't have to criticize me all the time and make everything feel like crap when it shouldnt.

I remember... like.. various tidbits of the night. I remember sitting on a stool backstage with my electric, waiting to go on, while Scotty was standing a few feet away looking out onto the stage. I remember being onstage... I remember the lights and the rows of empty seats at the back, and when I tried to walk offstage at the end, one of the announcers grabbed me in a hug and it was a teensy bit awkward and I grinned nervously. I remember Kevin Hudson telling me I owned that stage. I remember the way I was looking at the neck of my guitar in the beginning of my second song and the light touch of Galen's hand on my back as he congratulated me, Galen, who had never spoken to me in my life prior to that, Galen, the sort of boy you admire from afar but never actually exchange words with. I remember wakling up to the stage at the end, and John running up and hugging me and giving me fake pink flowers...

So many people came up to me at the end, it was incredible. People telling me they'd buy my CD, if I were to have one. The Girls In The Fur Lined Jackets who actually talked to me for once. One guy asked me if I'd play at his club. Some people talked about making demos and recording contracts. And there was an offer to join a band, too. It was such a whirlwind. Fifteen minutes of fame.

Last night I wrote insanely in my comp book and it seemed incredibly intelligent and witty at the time, but likely means absolutely shit all right now. Regardless, I thought I'd share my musings.

"I've got to write this down before it writes me up and the words climax, possess me and blind me into screaming at words the Gods wrote on my ceiling. It has been two years. We still don't talk. But then again, we never did. I wish I had quit the addiction but I can't stop the way you fall towards my lips. All I can do is inhale and breathe out your lines like second hand smoke. Everytime I crave a light, I crave your cure. You disease me! So many times I cried myself to sleep with the candles burning and your picture lit with salty tears but now your face just makes me sick; your timing, even sicker. The middle of the night! The beginning of a class! But they don't write the warnings like the used to anymore when all the words about good and bad get confused on the anti-smoking signs. So if this is the second you choose to want me, why should you get me when I've been waiting for years? and just because it's been forever doesn't mean we can pick up where we left off. But your lies are thick and poisonous and buried in my clothes and it's hard to be a stranger in your bed shirt. So how do I tell you that I can't make this the way that you're expecting? And will you accuse me if i can't love you enough to be honest? This time I don't care whose face you catch me gluing into our wedding portrait. I never led you on. You always led me astray. I can't drop everything the second you decide that you're ready now. But I can't be a liar when you know me way too well. So what do I say to the guy across the counter that I've been flirting with for days when you're standing next to me and ordering stuffed crust pizza? Do I flirt while you're in the bathroom? stand behind you and roll my eyes? Or do I wait outside like a cigarette between fidgeting fingers so he doesn't have to think that I'm with you? its not my fault that you had to wait too long. I never promised that I'd be honest. But he makes me laugh and smile! And everybody knows that when you got the cash you don't buy cheap cigarettes. So I'll save the skirt for another night and pretend that we're just friends. Cause even if you thought you'd love me, you'd never act like you could. But I love the boy who offers me rides to trashing house parties in cars so full. I like the boy who comes up from behind and scares the fuck out of me! I like the way he dances and I hate the applause signs that make him take his arm away from me! And this is the only time that I can feel RIGHT in the spotlight when I'm standing alone with fake pink flowers. I don't want this to mean anything but it's impossible to come off casual. I'm blind in every other eye! I can only be the cigarette you light but never smoke! and like every other girl in a fur lined jacket, I can only tell you that it's over, and we tried too hard. And I can lean over the counter and smile. you can be jealous if it makes you try harder. And you can be sad cause then you'll finally know what it's like to keep trying when all you ever do is fail! You can be lonely cause I've always been beside you and I guess the games are done."

April 18, 2005
6:36PM

I think I've changed my set list a teensy bit for the show. I was going to play "I Am Super Lame" (for lack of a better title) and then I Belong To, and then Romeo and Juliet. But I think I'll only do two songs, and just so I Am Super Lame and Romeo and Juliet, cause it makes my fingers hurt way less.

Dress rehearsals went over okay today but that could possibly be because I didn't have to do my electric song. Devon wasn't there. I'm kind of sad. Alex left after his set, so I wouldn't have to worry about making an ass of myself in front of him. I dont know why its specifically him that freaks me out the most. I mean, there's a lot of talented people in the Variety show, and I ought to be nervous in front of all of them if any of them. But mostly it just scares me because of the fluid ease that Alex can solo with. He's too confident to be nervous... and that intimdates me.

So at the thingy I did my two emo songs and then they were all "dont go! do another song!" So they made me play Fall Easy Fall Hard. I couldn't really remember the words so I had John go and look through my guitar case for my comp book. <3

And I talked to Taylor before he went to Rugby practice. I haven't talked to him in a while, and for some reason I couldn't shut up. Probably cause I had just finished playing, and that always makes me reasonably giddy.

Today I borrowed Caelin's glasses. I still have them cause I couldn't manage to give them back... so my parents questioned me endlessly and kept telling me I shouldn't wear other people's glasses, but then mom tried them on and deducted that they're not incredibly strong, not enough to screw my eyesight over. It was just great, on the drive home, that I could actually see the trees again, not just a light grey smear of bare tree trunks.

<3

April 17, 2005
2:19PM

Three days until the Variety Show at school! Ooh that makes me shiver. Or maybe cause it's I'm wearing a halter top in my freezing basement. Yeah... it looks like spring... but its definitely not summer yet. I have to say, the weather isnt usually nice like this in April. My birthday always has lots of grey skies and melted brown snow everywhere. This is so... uncharacteristic.

I think my dad is taking me out driving at 3, so if you were planning on going out, I suggest you stay in unless you'd like for me to KILL you. I've never driven anything before, so if you drive past on Commercial street and see some moron driving into those big parkinglot lights at the mall, well, thats me.

I played guitar for three hours this morning and my fingers are killing me... I stayed up until 3am last night on various chat programs and watching this episode of Clone High that I downloaded. It's not bad. I'm downloading another one right now. I'm hoping it'll be done before too long so that I can watch it before I go total my dads car.

new entry to the guestbook by John.

April 15, 2005
6:48PM

Tonight is the big "punk show" at Acadia. It starts in about... fourty minutes? And then Zoe is having a big crazy party. I heard some people talking about it on the back of the bus... people whose social lives are so far away and separated that they can only exist on those fifteen minute rides home at the end of the day. So, that pretty much sealed my confirmations that I WASNT going to that party... sounds like... well, last night's episode of the OC.

The band concert last night was okay. We kind of were really horrible, and there was a weird intermission in there. I didnt have the right color pants (too grey to be black) or the right colored socks (too grey to be black.. again) and no shoes. And I didn't tuck my shirt in either cause its prettier when its sloppy. I hate band concerts, but I decorated my flute with pretty ribbons. They're pink and purple.

The Jazz bands at Horton are so lovely and talented that it makes me sad inside cause I'm not like that. I wish I was better at playing with groups and ensembles but really I like playing solo cause if I humiliate myself... I dont have to drag down anybody else with me, or make them look bad.

Today I got to practice with Devon for the Variety show next week. I'm really nervous about playing, again. Well, I'm not too nervous yet. I wasn't this nervous before the Coffeehouse... or maybe I was... I dont know, there wasn't that many people at the March Break coffeehouse. The Variety Show will be bigger... better... darker. And longer. So I must practice like a crazed child with no social life, and that is what I will be this weekend.

I'm happy cause my Converse shoes are still nice and pretty and clean. Theyre neon pink and beautiful, just like these ones. I don't think I could live without them. Well, I guess I could but I'd cry inside a little first.

The weather is finally getting warmer and I want my parents to come back from Cuba so I can claim the spot in the living room as my own again. (For the time being, my grandmother is always in the living room and would disapprove of my loud playing of the Get Up Kids.) In the evenings the sun makes really pretty long rays of golden light and for about twenty minutes you feel like wondering if your whole life is a dream and this is the sweet and beautiful part in the end that you always end up waking up from in the morning. I like to leave the front door open and play the Get Up Kids really loud and sit in the big golden beam of light with a comp book. And just write stupid delirious songs about MacDonalds and first dates. And I can't tell you how FUCKING HAPPY I am to look outside at SEVEN OCLOCK and see nothing but bright beautiful shades of blue instead of darkness!

plus new additions to the guestbook.

April 13th, 2005
4:13PM

The weather is so nice today. and full of lumpy clouds. It'a good weather to sit outside and write stupid papers on philosophy. woo woo.

Auditions for the variety show are tomorrow... so I get to lug around a huge hardshell acoustic case again tomorrow. Great. If Will cancels the stupid auditions again... I'll... I'll... throw a guitar tuner at him.

Band class was incredibly annoying and stressful and I spent a good solid twenty minutes biting the inside of my lip and wondering if I could switch out of band this far in the year. Most likely not. I could just stop attending, and fail the course. Or maybe I'll just not attend when Mr. Kindopp conducts (student teacher), or maybe I'll just forget about all the concerts.

We do our band concerts in the perfomance centre. The purpose of these concerts is to give the kids something to aim for, something to practice for, and to show off our talent to our parents/guardians. The seats in the performance centre are designed so that the rows can be pushed back and folded under to make more space on the floor infront of the stage.

Last year we decided that because we were doing a piece of fairly simple music, we would combine all the bands - the nines, the tens, and the seniors - to make one big song. And so, we needed the stage for the seniors and the floor area for the nine and ten bands.

So, I guess, in THAT context, it made sense that we all be crammed in there. For the sake of... one song, we were willing to sacrafice our personal comfort, the quality of the arrangement, the quality of our SOUND and our parents ability to actually spot us from the crowd.

But this time, it looks like the music directors feel its necessary to use this same setting. And cram us all in, yet again. I have to sit on the very far right edge of the front row. Which means, I hardly have enough place to lift my fucking flute without hitting it into a nice wall of folded steel. And due to the fact that we have over a hundred students trying to play all at once, we are reduced to using cafeteria chairs and lame stands that can't even hold our music folders or mere sheets of music. It ends up looking incredibly shabby and disorganized.

Also, it affects the quality of the sound, not just how we look. Our percussion section ends up being atleast twenty feet away, because the percussion is set up at the very back of the stage. Let me point out: our band isn't even ON the fucking stage. Because the room echoes, it is nearly impossible to get the percussion to the proper beat of the music, which also makes us sound musically retarded.

And the entire purpose of showing us off is completely lost and FAILED because the only people who have a smidgeon of a chance of being seen by their parents in the audience are the people in the percussion section, and thats only if the audience has 20/20 vision - the actual bands are put too close to the chairs that it is literally impossible for the first few rows of the band to be seen by anyone, save for maybe somebodys perverted father who gets to look down somebody's shirt. in the end, nobody gets to really LOOK at us at all.

way to make it a family affair, bitches.

But, I guess, its all worth it, right?

Seeing as we're sacraficing our sound, our look, and the entire purpose of the evening for one song. The one song where all these bands are actually needed to play at the same time.

oh yeah, I forgot. WE ARENT DOING A FUCKING JOINT PIECE.

If we decided to share the stage instead of letting grade 12s bogart it, there would be SO MANY ADVANTAGES. Firstly, we could use ACTUAL stands so the music doesnt fall off, if, say, someone happens to EXHALE. We could use proper chairs that dont fall apart if you lean in the wrong direction. We could pull the row of chairs futher down so that we could fit more parents into the performance centre. My parents would be able to come to a concert and for the first time, actually see me play. Am I the only person who gets how fucking pointless it is to hold concerts when parents come and can't even see their kids play? Thank God they dont make them pay admission or there would be RIOTS, people. (most likely only from me.)

And so what? we would end up extending the length of our programme by like fifteen minutes to get people on and off the stage? is it REALLY that difficult? This is a skill we all learned in about first grade when having Christmas concerts. Why is it, that now that we have matured, we aren't expected to be able to do things we could do since we were six? Like walk off a stage? or are we just that fucking LAZY that a lame, pointless concert is better than, God for-fucking-bid, we happen to miss the first thirty seconds of the OC where they sum up every pointless event that happened in the last three weeks?

In conclusion, the human race is slovenly, lazy, and incredibly stupid. And high school band concerts at our school are perfect examples of how laziness runs our lives. And the OC has been incredibly lame this season.

April 12th, 2005
4:19PM

I have popcorn kernels stuck in my teeth. I'm not even supposed to eat popcorn because of my wisdom teeth. Oh well, I think I can survive... after all... there was the one weird time when my whole mouth swelled up and yet I never ended up going back to the hospital. Anyway.

Today was supposed to be auditions for the Variety show next week, but our techie boy was otherwise occupied and so I have to get my grandmother to drive me to/from school again on Thursday. That parkinglot is utter hell. You see like, five kids sitting on each others laps in the backseats. Then you get your FUCKING ASSHOLES driving muddy pick up trucks and practically rear end ramming the car in front. I dont know, maybe the fuckwad driving knew the people in the car ahead, but I swear, he was stopping centimetres from the car ahead. So, bitches, watch out for the fucking moron driving a truck with the license plate of CDA 893. Yes, I wrote it down. But I'm too lazy to report it. So whatever. Be humiliated on the internet. Its better that way. Stupid freaking moron drivers.

Anyway, okay, a little bit of transference there. Maybe I'm not really that angry, but need some sort of a vent for teenage angst. Anyway.

I think I'm going to a friend's house tonight. I have a crappy biology test tomorrow. Bleh. Not fun.

gonna go listen to the blood brothers now. <3

April 9th, 2005
10:16AM

Hey! Je suis en DARTMOUTH. It is a Saturday morning, the sun is brigh and shiny and I have been up since before 9:00. Wheee. I hate sleeping in on days like this, especially when there's so much to do and sooo mucch to seeeeee.

Yesterday I got up at 3:30AM to go with my parents to the airport. They're going to Cuba again. After they checked in and dropped off their luggage, they dropped me off at Jack's house, where I'll be staying for the weekend. Then they went off to enjoy their trip to Cuba.

So I spent the day hanging out with Barb (while the kids were at school). We ran some errands... she had to go to the dentist, which is in the mall, how strange, so I went and got my hair cut. Its shorter and a lot thinner but thats probably due to the 57632085623523 products that girl put in there. I enjoy it greatly.

Then the kids came home and we went to the Chocolate Factory. And then a small show. it was greatly enjoyable. <3

April 7th, 2005
5:00PM

Whoa, writing exactly on 5:00, the dot. I probably won't be online for too long tonight, or maybe I will, I'm not really sure. Theres a boy I kind of want to talk to on AIM, so I'm going to see if I can get a hold of him tonight.

My Birthday was yesterday, it was okay. I got my beginners licence in the morning and did about five hours of homework. I'm spending the weekend in the city and hoping to not get assaulted and beaten up, because apparently that's been happening a lot lately. The guy I'm staying with kind of lives either in Dartmouth but close to Halifax, or in Halifax and not dartmouth anymore, I don't really know, oh well. All I know, is I'm leaving home at like 4AM and getting at his house at about 7AM ish, so I'm going to miss school tomorrow (obviously) and just sleep all day. And possibly get my hair cut, I dont know. it all remains to be seen.

Anyways, I'm only really updating cause I haven't done so since Sunday, or something, I'm bad with days of the week, don't ask. Maybe Saturday, Whatever. Okay. Anyway. bye.

April 2nd, 2005
8:19PM

Well, I am content to say that I wasn't really the victim of any April Fools day jokes this year. Except Ben Taylor sent out emails to everybody, saying that he was moving to Texas. The time on it said about 3:00, so I assumed the general wussy's rule that April Fools ends at noon. It was a joke, regardless.

I've been reading a lot lately. I started with Nothing Feels Good, by Andy Greenwald. Then Caelin lent me a book called "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, which is incredibly good. And now I'm working on reading the nasty Driver's Handbook, which isn't really book, because it makes me want to shoot myself. Its so incredibly hard to read because the information is presented in a way that makes the smallest details seem incredibly huge and confusing with large words and diagrams, and baaah. Either way, I'm apparently quite horrified of driving, and I hope they fail me a million times, cause I dont ever want to drive if I'm not ready.

This weekend is kind of dull, so I'm really hoping I can go to the show tomorrow night. The GIG. Whatever you want to call it. You know, my ex used to call them gigs. And he also used to say "later on" which was incredibly annoying. But I don't know. Whatever.

It is incredibly cold in this room and Im sitting with my head propped on my knee, which makes my foot numb. Sigh. Saturday nights are boring. I'll just sit around and do my homework. Because, I'm super BUSY all the time with my amazing social life... slash... not.

love Crissi and the lion.