Now I remember why I get nervous about seeing musicians I love perform.

Let us not forget the Hayden incident... (I know I can't.)

It's best to keep the musicians far away from Chaara, she gets a little edgy when faced with the prospect of communicating with someone whose music is so damn fab. Ulous.

Oh Susanna is an incredibly kind girl. Woman I mean. (I've no clue her age, I assumed mid twenties till she said she had a birthday recently that made her not so young anymore.)

When Oh Suzie wuz playing "Old Kate", "You'll Always Be" and, "Tangled and Wild", the ever-unstable Chaara wuz trying to be discreet in scrambling in her purse for tissue to dab the tears of her melodramatic sensitivity out of sight. Hard to be discreet under neon lighting in a bookstore. And hard not to get all weepy on those songs...

I tend to get carried away here. Though she is an intensely hardworking musician, and an amazing songwriter; she's not going to be on next month's SPIN. But in my head she is. I said I get carried away. Nervous.

After her set, which wuz probably an hour long, I got her to sign my copy of "Johnstown". "Do you want it personalized?" she says, as we stand by her (incredibly fashionable-looking) mother.
"Um, sure. It's Chaara."
"Oh Chaara, I thought it wuz you. I have a picture of you, so I thought I recognized you."
And she writes my name down on her CD. She said something about my music to me (I sent her a tape a while ago), and commented on my bike road trip, we had e-mailed eachother a few times and I sent her those mass e-mail updates while on the road. (What a damn good memory she has! That she'd -A) remember that, and B) give a damn. Who am I? She's been crisscrossing Canada on tour to promote Johnstown for months now, and she's commenting on my little trip? (I gave her a copy of my demo CD, and I just realized, I think I added those songs onto the tape I already gave her. I hate getting caught in naive enthusiastic redundancy like that... )

As I said, she's very kind.

If I wuz where she is I would have already turned into a fit-throwing diva. And if some spazzy little hermitic conversational retard, like (say..) myself, approached me at a gig I highly doubt I would owe up to ever having chosen to associate with her (me) in even the vaguest way. I wouldn't let her/me linger. Though if by chance I didn't get her/me to back off quickly, I certainly wouldn't comment on her life. If she wanted to stick around she'd have to be talking about me me me.

Part of the beauty of being a musician, in my eyes, and in my small experience, is getting away with being a jerk. Maybe no one told Oh Suzie that. Or maybe... she is a genuinely kind person. I think that may be the case.

He even had gifts for me! He gave me an RCA cable adapter to hook up to my PC so I can use the cakewalk program he gave me. And he gave me this silly little game called "Elf Bowling"(he tied a little bow around the disc he put it on). What a guy. Bohdan is so great to me. He's been my music teacher since '95. Went from violin teacher, to singing teacher, to recording assistant, to general musical mentor, supporter. He's cool. I like knowing him.

Anyways, I didn't know those two had once been a couple. What sordid 'love' tales they shared. Bleah. I don't want to ruin this in my failed delivary of it, but I'm going to anyway: There wuz some woman, an actor in some dinner theatre murder mystery evening, that Ben fooled around with while he and Janeane were together, and, as, Janeane put it (as paraphrased by me): "Out of respect for her privacy I will refer to her as Goddamn Motherfucker."

Got Anne's "Violin" today. Though whether or not I read it is another matter...
I'll read it, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to assert power over my Anne Rice addiction, that's all I've ever tried to do...
I am dddddddddddsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa dfjkajlkjlkj
(I paid for that one.
And no I didn't actually get the Ben & Janeane book.)

Finished reading "Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas" last night. Reading Tom Robbins is more for his writing than his stories. His stories are fucking great, extreme, wild, celebratory, slippery, joyous, sexual.... But his writing is ...even more so.

- "Belford sounds so low he would have to stand on a ladder to change the bulb in a flashlight."

- "..a saint or a kook: he was young enough to think there was a difference."

- "Salvador Dali and and fifty cents will get you a cup of clock melt."

- "..you are not prepared to admit that personal wealth and emotional stability are inadequate substitutes for savoir-vivre. Nor that unrelenting decency can wear on a person's nerves. What you will admit though is that if you knew you had to spend the rest of your life with a social worker, you would blow your brains out. You might do that anyhow."

- "The sun is rising like it isn't street legal."

Just another day,
in the life of a fool.