Trying to recognize someone you’ve never met before is just a little tricky, but my guitar and mod-squad jacket were definitely a giveaway. She was a bit more obscure, but somewhere between the bright blue eyes and the bright purple kiddie band-aid on her finger i had it figured out.
I have to say that Rabi was a lot more effervescent than i pictured her (although, how many vegan astrophysicist rugby players do i really know to judge by?), and i can’t even begin to imagine what about me was suprising to her. Swarthmore would definitely turn me into the kind of metaphorical blogger that she’s become known as, because nothing i saw there translated literally the way things do in Philadelphia. We wound up getting right under the sun as if it was just a spotlight and trading poetry for songs (literally: she took home a demo and i took home my favourite of her poems), and finding things we had in common (bitten up fingers, music fetishes, and obviously obscure writing) and some differences (my fingers are just bit by my guitar and i can’t wear band-aids, my music fetish is slighty less rare and much less under control, and how taking the middle step out of word association makes it much more mysterious) . It felt just like talking to anyone, and i’m not sure if that’s because we know too much about each other’s thoughts and things or if it’s because we’re just two too friendly people. Except, this is all about my life and Wockjabby is all about her thoughts on life, so i think we almost swapped my thoughts for her life. Or something.
Three and a half hours later felt like a much longer time, though not long enough. I had more fun playing “Under My Skin” for her than i have for anyone since i recorded it. She read a poem she’d never read out loud before. Maybe i’ll see her again in the fall.
memories
Okay, so, don’t hold me to this at a later date, but i’m really happy that my crush on Teri wound up nowhere. Any tiny kiss or single date that theoretically could have taken place in the last half year pales in comparison to the continued elation we have when we see each other or the way i like to just sit and listen to her talk about anything. I love to listen to people talk about their lives and their future, but most of the time i just feel like i prattle on endlessly about myself for lack of anything else to talk about. But, today i just got lost in a conversation about drum corps and houses in Northeast Philly and bullets and everything and by the time we got back to me all i had to talk about was how my life was just a flatline with no indication of movement in any direction up until just a handul of years ago and that i’m not really used to it yet.
I kept staring out of the window at green leaves waving like hundreds of tiny flags on the wind. I guess all you need is something to carry you along.
Somehow “I Kissed a Girl” gets slightly more ironic and tongue in cheek when i sing it to a room full of lesbians. First there’s the angle the song is meant from, and then there’s the hilarity of my singing it, and finally there’s the point where you just assume i’m the natural narrator and the song becomes about how i was supposed to marry Larry but instead i kissed a girl for the first time.
I had a good time playing for the Dyke Auction, and i sounded good. I had control over all of my own sound, so instead of flipping out about not getting my microphone to work on “Bridge” i just raised the whole song an octave so i could belt it out at the top of my lungs. Demos were to be had, and i might show my face at other dyke-y events billed as (of course) “Peter, the lesbian boy!”
So, last night i did one of my favourite things in the world .. ran down the middle of the street in West Philly with my guitar strapped to my back at 2am. Okay, so… maybe it’s not really one of my favourite things. There’s sorta been a few muggings in the blocks surrounding my apartment, and while i’ve never once been harrassed in my nineteen years here in Philadelphia i feel something akin to a bullseye with legs and frizzy hair when i’m walking around with a three hundred dollar instrument and nothing nearly as threatening as a can of pepper spray. Or even just some pepper.
I had been at Bill’s place (Cast Page Update Coming Soon) just messing around with his sweet keyboard and my guitar … we managed to get a few ad-libbed songs off the ground but eventually i got tired and all i could muster were very strummy E minor chords and various and sundry Ani DiFranco lyrics, so we called it a night. I don’t think it was until i got outside that i realized how much of a night it really was. But, anyhow, i made it home in one piece, and even got into the building (despite having earlier locked my keys in the admissions office). So… yeah, that was my big adventure of the day. And, i ate a crepe with my little brother from PiNu. Very exciting stuff. Now i’m gonna go file something…
I wrote a letter today, and sent it. I can’t remember the last time i did that. I sortof feel like every time i go somewhere other than here to write that i’m failing in my attempt to broadcast my life 24/7 to the boundless ends of cyberspace, and that one day i’ll want to look back at something and it won’t be here. But, i can’t always manage to have all the people i want to talk to read this page, and sometimes they aren’t even on the internet. And, sometimes it’s better to just have a memory rather than a written transcript, memories are much more flexible. So, i wrote a letter. I’d type it in just so you’d have something to read, but it’s really not about anything except being friends. I think we’ll just leave that one in the envelope where it belongs.