Rock Star Hour

Tink happy toughts

I feel stiff and my stomach is swimming. My heart hurts a little. But it's somewhat nice to feel sentimental stinging pains creep up to me through the words of my dearest friends.

I'm glad I read Ellen's blog tonight. Just yesterday four of my best friends here were let go.

I came here completely alone and found comfort in the vagabond counselors surrounding me. I felt like we were all supposed to be here, and now I am searching for some interpretation of why they had to leave. I comfort myself in that my last two weeks here can be spent serving my earliest intentions of making this journey. I have a lot less baggage to carry and I'm not so much in need of help as I was when I arrived, but things sure did pass a lot smoother when I had so many to laugh with.

And still the Northwestern Beauty meets me every morning. That can't go away. And even when it is cloudy there is daylight. One more thing to count on.

I can console myself with all the new possessions I have. I am no longer going through the phase I was in before I left. The one where I wanted to get rid of it all, although I know now that I could. I kept saying, "It's just stuff." But it isn't. Not to me. Music could not be just stuff to a musician, not any more than words could be stuff to a writer or oxygen could be just air to a newborn baby.

It's fuel. When you're hungry and your stomach is growling loudly you don't tell yourself that you are being superficial and "it's just food." You get yourself a sandwich.

Music is my sandwich. My grilled three cheese sandwich with tomato and cottage fries and ketchup. It's my cup of coffee. And I can't get up without my coffee.

So you can now understand maybe slightly how I feel to now be the proud owner of my very own brand new Cara's going to rock out super excellent bad ass makes you feel like a rock star just to hold it '95 Fender Strat. It's red and white and it rocks and its all mine.

And its from a store called Smash Your Guitar, located in the heart of dazzling Downtown Bellingham. The place I can think about while smiling forever and ever.

Bellingham is a healer too. As much as music. As much as karaoke.

It is a happy thought. I feel a definite change in mood here, and rather than edit this I'm going to leave it the way it is.

The anxiety has not subsided, but one thing coming here has taught me is to like myself, to be proud of myself and to not be afraid of looking like an ass (I had a bucket of freezing cold water thrown on me tonight. I also ate a whole bowl of vanilla pudding last night in 1 minute and 15 seconds without being allowed to use my hands). That's three.

Pardon my rambling, but it feels sort of purposeful(?)-ish.

Oh yeah, and I've been listening to still more punk music (MXPX, NOFX, the Warped Tour Compilation, and this old new wave punk compilation I bought that has the Buzzcocks and Bow Wow Wow and lots of other cool shit on it and they all make me happier than now).

OK time to go so I can play guitar and go to bed and get up for summer camp in the morning. Love you.

Bellingham, Bellingham ...

Bellingham is 20 miles from the Southern Canadian border. It is an hour-and-a-half north of Seattle. The people of Bellingham read the Bellingham Herald, an evening paper with a circulation of 5,000. Bellingham is actually a combination of four smaller towns, including Fairhaven (Fairview? I can't remember). Bellingham is home to Western.

I read all these things and more in the weeks before I left Houston. I was broke as hell and I would go to bookstores and get a coffee and then read all the books for hours. It has been hard for me to concentrate on any particular novel for months, but I read everything I could find on the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco and parts of Canada.

I loved Bellingham before I read all this. I loved how it looked in this old photograph. One day a few months ago I created my own version of it with my soft pastels. It felt strangely spiritual, drawing a picture of a place I had never been. I made a frame for it out of hot pink posterboard and hung it on my living room wall.

I miss those walls. And the maps. I had hung one of Washington, one of Texas and one of the West Coast, although not in that order. I bought the Texas one at the Dallas airport on my way back from visiting Ellen months ago and put tacks on every place I had seen.

During my last month in Houston I dreamed about adding tacks to the other maps. And this night, I am in Bellingham.

Maybe dreams can take you places. I feel like I'm living the proof. I want to dream forever I think, but if I decide to wake up I hope I'll remember where I left off. Because sometimes the best place to start is the place where you left off, even if it's cold and damp and far from where you want to be.

Bellingham is neither cold nor damp. It is quiet and beautiful, peaceful and endearing. I will write more later when I have more to tell, but for now I'm going to rest my head and sleep with the window open while the Seagulls enjoy the night sky in the short distance for my listening pleasure. And I'll let the breeze flow in and out of the room like the cars passing on the neighborhood streets as I breathe in the silky perfume air and pretend it belongs to me.

Speaking of music

Somebody called me a freak last night because of my obsessive need for music and I liked it.

Music is more important to me than just about everything. The fact that my discman can play as loud as a small stereo when you leave the headphones off with certain CDs really comes in handy since so many of us flew here from far, far away and weren't able to pack so much.

It's mood control. It keeps my energy high and helps me focus. It keeps me inspired. It's happy. Epecially Bleed American with its positive, nothing's going to knock me down, going to start living life even if it has to start at 25 way. It rules so much.  Even now I've got it playing. "Kick start my rock 'n' roll heart ... wanna fall in love tonight." Woohoo! Rock on.

One of the songs on the album that got lost under the glow of my more favorite ones hit home with me tonight. You could be rockin' out in a good mood sometimes and then something super personal can just come out for air in line with the lyrics.  I don't know what causes it. It's like your heart pays attention even when your mind is somewhere else, or the other way around.

Three miles or so down the road from camp, or up a winding hilly road rather, is a lovely bar. It's a restaurant too, with a bunch of regulars. It's small and you rarely see more than one soul working at a time. This bar has a jukebox, one quarter table that costs 50 cents, an electric dart game and an outdated Megatouch machine. Only Bud, Bud Light and MGD flow from the tap. Pitchers are $6, and on our less than 24 hour breaks we've become quite popular there with the locals. 

Saturday nights is karaoke night. Karaoke can save you if you let it. It really can.

You want some more?

I found my CDs. Listening to The Execution right now, in fact. And hidden with them was my Phrenology album, so you can imagine the gratitude I feel now, can you. Can You?

And I'm still playing my guitar. I've got some new riffs that I'm going to make into songs with lyrics and cool shit when I get home, which is going to rule because when I get home I'm buying an electric and an amp. And playing more. Yes.

But I am learning stuff. I brought some tabs with me, and I can now play my two favorite Bright Eyes songs. Only I want to play happy music, so I'm working on that. I wanted to learn some camp songs and my director gave me a book of them. So now we have sing-a-longs at campfire and I can play "If You're Happy and You Know it" and "This Land is Your Land" and "Home on the Range" and another song called "One Finger, One Thumb." And if I get the time I'm going to write a camp song because we don't have one and I think that's a damn shame. A crime really.

Oh, and I also bought the new Modest Mouse and Sugarcult albums and they both rule. You know, and this is not to be-rate Ben Gibbard as the songwriter of our time, but Sugarcult's breaking me to pieces and putting me back together in that same way with "Memory" and "Worst December." I don't know what life was like before them. I guess it was similar to life without this.

Oh, and Jimmy Eat World. Everybody always gives love to Clarity, including me, but lately I've been rocking Bleed American. It just makes me so happy. Like the Cracker Jacks I had at the ball game the other day.

And tonight we got the kids in bed super early as the sun slided down over the water. The day was clear and mountains were out, looking bigger than usual. It might have been the soft pink stripe fading into orange above and around them. The mountains were Periwinkle. Remember that crayon in the box of 64? It has always been one of my favorites. It looked like some really talented artist cut out cardboard and painted it. Except that the artist just tries to express what it sees so it can be shared. The humanity you can find in nature is a beautiful thing. Very hopeful indeed.

If you're still with me, know that I miss you. Peace and color in your dreams. Good night.

The Bright Side

Ladies and gentlemen, did I mention how much I love it here? Because I do. We have a theme every week, and last week we had Pirate Week because during the second week I kept telling all these shitty pirate jokes and it ruled. All the cabins made pirate ships and hats and stuff in arts and crafts. I mean, Arrrrrrts and Crrraaafts. Cause we said almost everything in a pirate voice. And at the end of the week two pirate counselors had to walk the plank for putting their elbows on the table too many times at lunch. So they walked the pier and jumped into the Bay's 45 degree water and swam back.

Lalala.

This week is circus week. Luckily we don't really have campers who are afraid of clowns ...

And at night, every night when I don't have to sleep in the cabin, the Bay sings to me in the language only nature understands. You can see lights in the distance over the black rhythmic waters. And if the fog is low the mountaintop sillouettes watch over the land like angels. The stars all come out to light your path and put on a shooting star show for amateur gazers. And on the pier, you can look up and just take in the images as much as you can in your mind while you rock out the music you've been missing or have some of the best conversations you've ever had in your life.

And then you can go to bed in a warm and cozy sleeping bag and think about how good things can be when you look at them with the right pair of eyes.

Three Hopeful Thoughts

In February I wrote in my diary at home that I've never been anywhere. A few months later I wrote that I was thinking about going to the Pacific Northwest after dreaming about it for at least the last three years. And you know what? I'm here damnit.

And you know what else? I now am a proud owner of the Ghost World comic book and I'll be getting the Enid doll soon. Daniel Clowes is our god. What else can you say except he rules.

And you know what else? I saw the director's cut of Donnie Darko last weekend. And I liked it. I love that movie more every time I see it. Uh-huh.

And you know what else? This weekend I'm going to a baseball game. For Free. And it's going to rule. I love going to baseball games, so long as my friends Steph and Tre don't tease me about getting super drunk and falling asleep in the Eighth at the last Astros game I went to (hey, I had a big performance that day in Acting and I only had two hours of sleep the night before).

And I'm going to get Cracker Jacks. Uh-huh.

That's five. Good night.

They say home is where the heart is, do they?

I want love in my life. I want my life to be full of love like that Bjork song Ben Gibbard covered on the Stability EP. I want to love my family and friends and job and place. I want it all.

And I want to love. And to be loved. And to be a lovely person.

Do you think god would give it to me if I would use it good? Because I would.

It doesn't all have to be easy. It doesn't all have to smell like Chinese-gardened Portland roses. Wouldn't hurt ...

I want to stop all the reflecting and hurting. The desire to purge myself of the life I've known for the last year and wanting to go to places like Canada and Mars ...

I want to take these things and bury them so deep in the woods and forget where I left the plots after a long, hard rain.

One day I went down to the Bay. Took a walk with my headphones. And before I knew it "Everybody Hurts" was playing, and I was picking up the biggest sea rocks I could find and hurling them into the sea -- I'm not even sure what for.

I know I scared the wits out of the fish. Lots of fish. And little minnow ones too. And jellyfish -- poisonous and not. With yellow and white tops and long dangly tentacles that glide like wings on birds. Dancing with the currents ...

It's hard to be brave when your heart is broken because your heart is what holds your courage. Your compassion. Maybe your brain holds your strength, but it's pointless without hope, which is also at home in your heart.

I wish there were a Heart Repair Store. It would make a lot of money. It could probably get bigger and richer than Starbucks and Microsoft. Songs work some, but my perception of them keeps changing -- quicker than seasons within a Washington summer day sometimes.

I wanted to leave something. I wanted to find a home. Sometimes I lie awake at night here or stare at the sea, or watch the trees move and the drifting tide, and think about how home is what I left.

Don't Say it'll Stay This Way Forever

Listening to that song over and over again doesn't help ... that album really. But I had to hear pop punk tonight.

I just realized today that I only have one full day off in the next six weeks. That day is July 24.

Three other thoughts do not make me happy:
1) I broke my Takeoffs and Landings album.
2) I can't find The Execution of All Things.
3) Transatlanticism and The Execution must have gone parasailing together er something, which leaves me minus both Rilo Kiley albums and the latest Death Cab release. What's a girl to do.

I have been to Seattle twice now and I still have not met Ben Gibbard, so we haven't set a wedding date yet ...

However, Seattle is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I am head over heels. When I walk down the streets my heart pants, and I seriously don't just think it's the hills that do that to me.

I already know my way around half the city. I took many detours off from my friends just to hang out lonestyle and shit. Two things were disappointing. One, I have lost all hope of finding any remotely good Mexican food in the Pacific Northwest. But the mountainous views and all have to compensate for something (though I'm not sure it's that). Also, well, I already forgot the other one so it must not be that important ...

I love, did I say love? absolutely love Belltown. And the little Belltown paper. It's online, but I forgot what it's called. Imagine, a tiny community paper with more than decent writing and editing. It made me happy. And there are coffee shops on every corner. Sometimes more. And do you know how many people said hello to me and smiled on the street in the morning? A whole lot. I'm not sure if everybody there does that though. They might have just been amused by my small girl, big city, wide-eyed, dreamy, giddy look. I know I smiled at them ...

Seattle must be one of the top 10 most romantic places to be in the world, which you think would suck when you are so alone as I am, but it didn't.

I watched the fireworks on Elliot Bay on the 4th. Their reflections glistened on the water and reflected on the sides of the boats and in the eyes of children sitting with their parents near me on the grass. I wanted to videotape it all in my mind. I saved a little bit.

Beautiful Losers is going to break me if it doesn't heal me. I would link it but I'm lazy. If you haven't read it you should because Leonard Cohen just might be one of our gods or angels or something.

I've been thinking about that a lot -- god and angels. Haven't figured it out yet. But you know what I have decided?

That this is too long, and so I am going to end here. Goodnight world. I love you.