Project 365: April 1-7 Some Spring Under the Covers, Family, Good Times

April 2, Wednesday
The sickos are running the library.  Nearly half our staff was illin' today.  No fun.  However, my cold isn't as bad as others and I actually like my job, seeing people, and funning around.  Plus I guess we're all tied by those binds of being chained to the dollar and social/work-ethic obligations.

April 3, Thursday
Family taco night

April 4, Friday
Oil change at my guy's.  He comments, "Weren't you just in here?".  I love my car; I love that I have a mechanic.  I should probably learn to just change my own oil; I know it's not that hard.  Another resolution on the horizon.

Under the Covers @Looney's.

These two complete strangers really wanted me to take pictures of them.

My ladies!

The wary Mandy

I took this selfie while hearing the "Selfie Song" for the first time.  Terrible.

Ya'll know how much I love rocking to my friend's aspiring cover band.  I love pop music; I love dancing.  I dislike Looney's 'club scene' and I dislike dancing with gross people.  On the floor I shimmied away from a creepish guy just to get my ass oh-so-delicately grasped by an anonymous harasser.  It was the gentlest sexual harassment I've even experienced; I imagine it was someone typically shy trying to show off for his/her friends.  I turned around; in my previous experiences folks are either up-front or play-dumb about it.  No one owned up, which is good b/cs I would have totally gotten thrown out for a lil' assault and aggravation.  Not the best way to spend a Friday night.  

So anyway, other than that, the night was a blast.  Lauren and I stayed until their final set; they closed with Killing in the Name Of.  Quite a pop and 90s night.  Good times.

April 5, Saturday

fam and gang @Looney's

A lot of odd head-touching going on here, just getting missed by my camera's gaze.  Also, I love how Mandy is so smiley in these pics.

I decline attending prom (on a boat in the Inner Harbor) to see off my brother-in-law, who leaves for Spain and the Atlantic this week to help neutralize weapons out of Syria.  Serious business.  We hope to see him in two months, but it could take longer.  Ah, life.

April 6, Sunday
First free brunch!!  Free bacon is always welcome in my world.  I have to work a short shift this day and am feeling we---iiir---rrddd.  I attribute this to perhaps: day drinking (free brunch comes with free mimosa!) and drinking the night before.  Now, most of you may say, "What's the big deal?", but you don't know my habits.  I drink very rarely.  This actually may be the first time I've had alcohol two days in a row.  I've never been hung over.  I can think of only two or three times I've ever been drunk.  So feeling weird at work was a red flag for me.  Gotta get off that sauce!  
Aside from work, a lazy day.

April 7, Monday
Monday is going to get its own entry, as is the rest of this busy, event-packed week and weekend.  Stay tuned!

Under the Covers @Looney's Pub North January 10, 2014

Looney's Pub North

January 10, 2014

Bel Air, MD

Under the Covers

Getting Under the Covers on a cold January night

"Maybe... you're gonna be the one who saves me..."

The ladies and lovely birthday girl.

Be sure to say hello to Mr. Bourne and Mrs. Baker the next time you see them.

   Early each January, Lauren Angelini gets to celebrate another turn around the globe.  For her birthday, these past few years we've been celebrating by going out on the town and shaking it at Looney's Pub North, a loud-as-shit, sensory-overload sports bar that dominates the shopping center at the corner of Route 1 and Main Street, in downtown Bel Air.  

   This year our event wonderfully coincided with a homecoming show of Under the Covers, a local cover band fronted by ex-school teacher and cohort of mine, Mr. Brian Bourne.  I'm not sure anyone in the band actually calls Bel Air home, but it is where Bourne hails from as a youth, and where he started his chops as a singer.  (I wasn't there, but I hear there was a stellar performance at a Battle of the Bands some years ago at C. Milton Wright.)

   If you haven't seen Under the Covers, GO SEE THEM.  Especially if you've got a hankering for radio hits of the 90s, you've gotta go see them.  Who else is running up and down the DelMarVa and PA seaboard playing that one song from James (you know it:  "You think you're so prreeee--ttttt--yyyyyyy eeeeeeeeee!"), selections from The Killers, Oasis, Pearl Jam, Lady Gaga, and the Counting Crows?  I'm pretty sure they played that one song by Third Eye Blind.  You know it: "Doot doot doot... Baby, baby - I want something else..."

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   The last time we partied down for LaurenFest was actually a couple of years ago and the cover band was not UTC.  They were good; I can't remember their name, but something else memorable did happen.

   We were near edge of the dance floor gathered around a high top table observing the other party goers of the night.  I catch glimpse of a former co-worker whom I didn't know very well, hoping to avoid him.  Unfortunately, he recognizes me and slurs my way, "I'm in so much trouble... I'm in so much trouble..."  In trouble at his job?  In trouble with the women he was dancing with, one of whom I assume was his wife?  (There was a lot of affection being shown amongst his group of friends; I could not tell who may be a couple.)  "I'm just here with some old Calvert Hall friends..."  Indeed, they were.  These once athletic, handsome, lacrosse-playing men had come to the bar after a week's work to loosen their ties, unbutton their oxfords and untuck them from their pleated khakis.  Let it all loose.  They had become red-faced and doughy.  Their women, although a bit heavy with product, were attractive and maybe a fraction less sloppy.  All, however, a bit toasty.

   After some drunken, friendly chitchat, he returns to his crowd and I turn back to my husband.

   Josh and our friend, Rob, are giggling.  
   "What?" I say.  What's so funny?  Was my coworker silly and entertaining to them?  I felt mildly uncomfortable and feel slightly dirty after our hello; what's so giggly about that?

   Josh said, "Look over there," and directed me to my coworker's friends.  They were dancing.  One of the friends had a drink in his hand; both hands were raised as he contorted his post-peak body between two women.  He was loving the music, loving the attention, eyes half open, heavy-lidded.  And he had a massive erection just hanging out under the pleats of his pants dancing along with him.  

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   LaurenFest 2014 had no visible boners in attendance, at least aside from the figurative boners who lasciviously hang out in sports bars.  I didn't see any former coworkers (other than the Bourne Ultimatum), but I did see former students.  There's nothing like seeing your former students at a bar and having them do a double-take when they see you.  Don't worry, kids, I won't embarrass you on the dance floor.  

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Josh's pancake stuffed with meat and egg.

   The next morning we got up later than usual and ate a recovery breakfast at BagelWorks.

xoxoA 

January 14, 2014

James, Laid

Third Eye Blind, Semi-Charmed Life

The Pilgrim Record Release Show at the Wind Up Space with The Convocation, Windhand, and Serpent Throne

The Wind Up Space
January 12th, Saturday
Baltimore, MD
The Convocation
Windhand
Serpent Throne
The Pilgrim (record release show)

The Convocation, from Baltimore

Windhand, from Richmond

note the owl, red curtains, and Charlie-Brown-shirt-motif flooring

My pants vibrated during this set.

Also, my fucking heart was having a hard time watching Windhand; they were that heavy.

The Pilgrim, from Baltimore

This show was a long-time-coming as The Pilgrim's record release event.  This record, their first, has been in the works for four years.  And I'm not talking 'working on it' as in writing, developing, rehearsing, creating; I'm talking they've had their songs together, finished and ready: they just needed to press and bring the thing into physical being and to the public.  I won't go into the dirty details, but the Baltimore City Paper wrote a feature on The Pilgrim's situation a year ago here.  Crazy!

So, yeah, going to this show and being a part of it was pretty awesome.  The Wind Up Space was a nice size: not too big, not too small, just right, with places to sit around and a bar.  They even had a coat rack.  As I get older, I am noticing the different things I care about.  It used to be:  Do they have a working toilet?  Now: a coat rack and a venue gets points.  Who would have thought?

All the bands were good; I had never seen any of them live before, although Josh found out the drummer from Windhand was in Face Down in Shit, whom we saw at a cabin-in-the-woods of North-Carolina show over a decade ago*.  Windhand, I must make note, made my clothing vibrate: I could literally feel my pants shaking from their sound.  If you have a heart condition you may want to take a pass on seeing them live; I seriously felt my organs wobbling around inside my chest and my heart felt like it was working hard to have an independent beat apart from the music.  They were super heavy live. Just a warning.

Again, The Pilgrim: loads of fun to watch and hear.  Check out their music here.   Late night, but good times.  Enjoy the pics.

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*A small house, in the middle of nowhere.  I can't recall how we got there; I remember a mini-camper van, driven/owned by a friend's Richmond boyfriend.  I remember hours on the road.  We were with the singer of Zegota.  Were they playing that night?  They must have been.  Zegota and Face Down in Shit (what a name!), I'm sure others.  I don't remember seeing the show.  I recall a dingy house, but that could be any strange one-off house show I remember:  Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina...  Enter through the kitchen door.  Yellowy floor tiles, plastic garbage can.  Dishes in the sink.  I think the show was in the living room.  

I'm sure the music was loud, very loud with the absence of neighbors.  What I do recall is the darkness, the silhouttes of the trees against the black of the surrounding hills, the mountains.  We slept in the camper, parked to the side of the dirt road that led to the dirt driveway.  It was cold, so cold.  The Richmond boyfriend, tall and brunette, does not seem concerned.  "We'll spoon!"  Did he really say that?  I thought he might sleep with Moe.  He ends up with me(??) and Josh- some weird snuggle-spoon threesome.  This probably plants the seed in my subconscience that snuggle-spooning is normal and platonic.  (My apologies to anyone I later snuggle-spooned who may have been too uncomfortable to say anything!)  I'm uncomfortable, but desperately cold.  As much of a planner I'd like to think I am now, we neglect to bring blankets or sleeping bags this night.  We sleep.

The stillness of the dead dark of night, all but the rustling of the pines.

1998/9

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