Present Imperfect

The motion keeps my heart running.

March 25, 2005

Ah, the saga continues.

Yesterday, Lille, today...THE WORLD! Okay, no. Amsterdam again. But whatever.

I managed to talk our way backstage at last night's show, but chickened out well short of meeting the band and confessing undying, regressive love. It all goes back to my long-standing fear of celebrity. But better still (honestly), we met their lovely road manager who showed us around the stage during the sound check and looked in on us repeatedly.

And that's pretty much par for the course where this trip is concerned: We've met so many kind people who forgave us our nationality and seemed genuinely interested in talking with us. From the guy we met on the streets of Paris who happened to live down the street from Jen in Hermosa to the two British couples with whom we exchanged beer tabs to the girl at the Aeronef bar who turned us on to the only available alternative to Amstel (Yes, I do think that highly of beer recommendations. The girl deserves a medal for her Affligem tip.), everyone has been tear-jerkingly dear. I rarely felt like the pariah I imagined I would. Nor was it all novelty.

It helps when you have music in common. Frankly, language is barely a barrier when you're standing shoulder to shoulder and singing at the top of your lungs along with people from no fewer than five different countries. It sounds completely corny and lame and ridiculous, but the simplest, most basic, universal desires for love, understanding and acceptance just sound better when they're sung out loud. To three thousand people.

Okay, yes, I'm about five glasses of vin rouge to the wind, but that doesn't make all this any less poignant, right? Right?!

May We?

March 21, 2005

I'm in Paris, yo.

It's the second leg of the Jennifer and Bronwyn Vainly Attempt to Recapture Their Youth by Following Keane to Three Cities in Europe Tour 2005!

First stop was Amsterdam, where I finally met the kind and talented bicyclemark, who cooked us dinner and poured us out some tasty vla: pudding in a milk carton. Incidentally, in Googling this tasty item, I came up with far too many "...the Impaler" references.

Anyway, today we walked about 10 miles (I'm serious. We checked.) through charming neighborhoods, past famous landmarks, over ancient stones, even past a bunch of hookers. That last bit was primarily due to the fact that I have the worst sense of direction EVER and am henceforth prohibited from simply "going with my gut" in order to find our hotel. Maps are good. Maps are your friends. Especially in cities where the flipping street names change at every intersection. (London, I think you hear me knocking. I think I'm coming in.)

I haven't spent even this measly amount of time in Paris since I was 15, and I'm sad to say my French was marginally better then. I still find some amusement in telling people, in French, that I do not speak French. But they don't seem to appreciate the irony. Still, we were asked for directions no fewer than three times today, which means we don't look like stupid Americans. We only sound like them when we open our mouths and commence that pesky talking business.

In European blogging-related news, I have a plea: If anyone honest and generous is going to Amsterdam or thereabouts from Northern California in the near future, email me or the aforementioned bicyclemark. It's a long story, but we'll be happy to tell it.

More later. Must sleep. Feet feel like large Easter hams. Have lost all ability to conjure pronouns.

...Eighty-eight bottles of beer on the wall...

March 10, 2005

Okay, I lied. I do have something to blog about. I neglected to mention that my boyfriend broke his brain on Monday, because it was upsetting and I thought it was a bit too personal to blog about. Then I changed my mind. Which I am allowed to do. Read his account of the 'sode first to better understand roughly my train of thought as events progressed:

Eric is being a big whiner about his stupid blurry email.

Eric needs to change his contacts more often.

Whatever. Eric needs to take a little walk or something.

Um, Eric's IMing me a bunch of gibberish.

Holy shit! He did it again!

Oh my god! Eric can't talk!

Braintumorbraintumorbraintumor

Shit, shit, shit! Even Allen's freaking out and Allen never freaks out! Well, he's not "freaking out," but he's all for taking Eric to the ER! Hey, Eric's name starts with "ER." Weird.

Shit!

Braintumorbraintumorbraintumor

Oh, now his HAND IS NUMB?!

Strokestrokestroke. Hey, that's actually better than a brain tumor, right?

Okay. Eric's talking again. I probably don't need to drive to Berkeley behind a police escort.

Why! Doesn't! Somebody! Call! Me!

I have to pee and what if I go to the bathroom and accidentally drop my cell phone into the toilet? Say, don't cell phones cause brain tumors? Oh, wait, never mind. Eric's just had A FUCKING STROKE! No big deal! Who doesn't like a nice little STROKE every now and again?!

I'm going on the Internet because the Internet has all the answers. About people having strokes. Or migraines.

Should I be driving to Berkeley behind a police escort right about now?

I'm not freaking out. There is no point in freaking out. Freaking out is not helpful. Besides, there's nothing to freak out about. Except for that whole stroke thing.

Anyway, there was a lot more of this, and then I left work to pick Eric up and drive his contactless, half-blind, probably non-stroke-suffering, possibly retinal-migraine-having ass home. We've got an appointment with the neurologist on Monday, and since the CAT-scan and blood pressure reading came out fine, we both feel a whole lot better.

Now, I realize that the above account may at best sound blasé, at worst, downright insensitive. But you know what? Fuck you! Sorry. That was also insensitive. I did completely freak out and imagine the worst. I did have stupid, pointless, shallow, lame thoughts at the same time. I am going to continue to waver between dismissive optimism, despairing pessimism, blissful denial and sardonic humor until we see the neurologist on Monday. Possibly after.

See, you can chalk this up under the too much information column, but I lost my dad to cancer six years ago on Sunday, so I'm quite familiar with all the profoundly inappropriate weirdness that takes up residence in your head when you simply cannot reconcile the facts at hand. And I have learned to embrace the profoundly inappropriate weirdness because my father, my uncle, my grandmothers, my friend and countless other late loved souls no longer have the unique pleasure of experiencing this profoundly inappropriate weirdness.

Think of this post as exhibit A.

Respect my inactiviTAH!

March 10, 2005

Bad blogger! Bad!

Okay, enough of that.

Perhaps I should start taking public transportation every day just to give me some juicy blog fodder (Ew. Actually, I'm not sure that fodder should be juicy.) When Eric takes BART, crazy dudes give him beer and chicks make eyes at him. The best I can muster is waving to the guy hanging off the back of the garbage truck this morning. And that's only because I was the passenger half of the carpool. Generally, when you drive 45 miles to work every day, you're not really reveling in the rich, strange tapestry that is the human condition. It's more about maintaining that safe, two-second following distance. (I took driver's ed. very seriously.)

So, without much to blog about, I give you South Park me and this link.