Asking an adventurous pesco-vegetarian, a finicky omnivore, and the master of Lipton side dishes and grilled cheese to decide amongst themselves what meal they can collectively cook and eat is somewhere between comedy and challenge. Last Tuesday Laurel came over to make dinner with Kat and I, and after a limited amount of fussing we wound up taking a stab at a spinach quiche recipe that my mother and i have been making for years now. The quiche met all of our pre-requisites … meatless, cheesy, and relatively basic in preparation. We added a side order of perogies and suddenly we had a healthy (and rather yummy) meal assembled within the span of an hour. While serving up the food i lamented that i wanted a cookbook that was “Vegetarian, but with meat. You know, like, a cookbook for lapsed and reformed vegetarians.”
We all got a laugh out of my meandering description of the perfect cookbook, and yesterday while wandering in and out of used book stores in New Hope with Elise i actually found what i was looking for. Almost Vegetarian is a smartly compiled book that veers between rare herbivore delicacies and more modest meaty fare, peppered throughout with tips on advanced preparation and vegetable shopping in green ink. I bought it immediately, for a surprising eight dollars, considering it’s in absolutely perfect condition.
I love those coincidental moments that life offers up, as though a bookstore was fated to carry a particular book on a certain day just because i was too inarticulate after baking for nearly an hour to describe what my ideal cookbook would really feature. Chalk one up for serendipity, i suppose.
laurel
Cast Parties are always an experience that involve nearly as much drama as the show they are celebrating, and last night wasn’t an exception. What was an exception was that i didn’t drink; i’ve never drank at a winter show party, and decided to turn the trend into a tradition. It was interesting, if only because everyone finally got the point that i am really a fucking lunatic whether or not i’ve got a couple of drinks in me. There was simulated sex with multiple cast members. There was a contest to see who could grab the most genitalia, both male and female. There was me singing along and bopping around to the entire Immaculate Collection.
Oh, and i might have attempted to kiss someone.
When i’m drunk i flirt, but i’m usually doing it in a generic drunken way. Being sober, last night i was flirting with some amount of purpose. And, oddly enough, i was being flirted back at. I still don’t quite understand what was going on, personally, but apparently Laurel knows the whole story and will explain it to me before the show tonight.
See, i’m a stupid fucking lunatic who can’t even manage to lean in for a kiss whether i’m sober or trashed. Don’t you love the consistency?
I’m not sure what came over me.
Okay, i’m actually quite sure of what came over me. I had been having a shitty depressing day and i didn’t want it to continue into a shitty night and possibly an altogether miserable weekend. I decided that a Best Friend was needed to salvage what was left of my evening, so i put in a phone call to Laurel.
What’s strange is that i don’t do this; i don’t call people up on a Friday night to see what they’re doing. If there’s a party i’ll be there, and if we’re all going out to eat i might show up, but i’m not really into the whole one-on-one hanging out scene. It’s like dating without the date. Or something. But, anyhow, tonight i really just needed to get out of the house, and Laurel was heading out to see a mutual acquaintance of ours play at the NorthStar, so off we went.
I had never been inside of NorthStar bar, because every time someone i want to see plays there it’s not an all ages show. Being an all ages show, tonight was heavy on the college crowd and what had to be a couple dozen fourteen-year-olds who were definitely more punk than i’ll ever be. I am, let’s face it, about as non-punk as it gets. Well, other than Laurel. Although, Laurel at least has boppy ska-grrl potential if we were to get her into a plaid skirt. I, on the other hand, looked like i got lost on the way to a very touching Emo concert; i self-consciously shoved my token studded bracelet into my pocket with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Laurel happened to be less punk than me precisely because of her bopping … she’s totally unembarrassed to dance around and have a good time, regardless of whether or not she’s fitting in with “the scene.” I, on the other hand, am definitely intimidated by scenes — so much so that i feel desperately out-of-place even at an Ani DiFranco concert (where i probably have as much scene credibility as anyone in the room who isn’t a lesbian). In light of this, i was of the more toe-tapping head-nodding persuasion until the last band came on and we pushed our way up to the front, at which point i actually exhibited some shoulder-movement and general rhythmic body-bopping. With much awkward self-consciousness, of course.
As embarrassment goes, we were definitely a distant second to the massive fist-fight that broke out when a Neanderthalic mosher crash landed too many times on a highly strung hard-core guy. Aside from the frightening part where i had to catch Laurel and ascertain that she hadn’t been struck with a ham-sized fist it was rather amusing; i’ve never been at a concert small enough that the performers stopped mid-song to admonish the moshers. But, anyway, it certainly drew attention away from our toddler-like dancing.
You know, i bet if they bopped more they’d be less violent.
The other day in Public Relations we were talking about dealing with emergencies. The section was entitled: Crisis Management. I turned to Laurel and said “This is so cool! He’s going to talk about me.”
I definitely caught me teacher looking at my strangely as i headed each page in bold red letter with my personal spelling of crisis. I think he might speak the language that actually spells it that way. Did you know that the three attributes of a crisis are that it threatens central goals, involves short decision making time, and involves an element of surprise? It is a stage in which all future events will be determined. It is a situation that threatens the effective completion of high priority goals.
Sure, he was talking about the Exxon Valdez more than he was making veiled references to my personal life, but i still managed to take six pages of notes just in case any of it applied.
Two years.
Seven hundred and thirty one days, exactly.
Nearly right down to the minute.
It’s hard to say something important or unique about a song that comes up in nearly every conversational context possible. I’ve already described writing the lyrics, talked about the recording process, uploaded take after take of developmental recordings… and here i am two years later at a loss for what i’m supposed to be saying.
All i can say is that i’ve spent one tenth of my life living with “Under My Skin” … not only living with it as a song, but living with having written it and with why i wrote it. Living with the song is sometimes the hardest part; “Under My Skin” is easy to like, even for me, and i feel like it eclipses other songs that i’ve worked much harder on. Living with having written it isn’t so bad: at first it felt like a wall i had built to avoid having to express myself in any other way, but now it stands as an emotional landmark rather than a roadblock.
Living with the reason i wrote it is still strange. In the past I would agonize over it, asking myself “how do you kiss someone and then just let it go?” Now i know exactly how, because i’ve done it. It happens. I guess the real question i have is “After life crystallizes for one perfect moment, how do you go on living imperfectly?” I don’t really know the answer to that one, and i don’t expect to find it out any time soon. Sometimes that one moment i lived is almost like a fantasy in my head that never really happened, and sometimes it’s the only thing i can see. It is still both, and all the shades found in-between
“Under My Skin” became more than what i originally intended it to be when Laurel came into the studio to sing it with me last year. Ever since she willingly added her voice to mine i feel as though i don’t wholly own my words… they aren’t only mine anymore. Laurel’s voice singing them on Relief, and any other time i’ve caught her humming along, suddenly transforms “Under My Skin” from a song in the first person to a shared narrative — with its words and all that they are saying awkwardly shared between us both.
It doesn’t bring the moment back. Life doesn’t suddenly make sense the way television does. But, one moment that seemed so selfish and impossible when it first happened is now just a tiny seed that has sprouted into a flourishing garden of songs, friendships, and memories that will last me a lifetime.
And one very good song.