post-show round-up; or, a blog in which I over-hyphenate.

This week feels like it will be the death of me. That includes this past Friday. And to top it all off, I’m now wide awake thanks to hearing the familiar yet horrifying skitter of mice in the walls of my room. Having only just found the last of the now liquefied dead mice from last season nestled in their eternal sleep in a bag of school papers I’d moved from Gorham the summer before this past one I’m not looking forward to dealing with them again. Let’s continue, though, with headphones on and Crane Wife blasting because, honestly, I don’t have time for mice and their misdeeds.

Friday began at 5am and then flowed into Pilates class, which flowed into German class, which, once over, turned into a torrent of me flailing like Kermit the Frog about everything I had to get done. I drove back home and shoved everything into the back of my car: outfit, keyboard with new batteries, computer, firebox, donation jar, the whole damn lot of it. I then drove over to Vanessa’s house, missing a call from Ahna about dance rehearsal, and spent an hour with her trying to make my hair look good, which didn’t end up happening. She tried, but now that my hair is longer it’s less cooperative.

I then jumped into my car again to drive over to Alex’s house where we ran through “Color Scientist” three times fast. I love playing with him. It’s too bad it doesn’t work on a constant basis. Ah, well. There was the good news that he found out that Rose, the cat he’s been taking care of since the summer, is now officially his cat. That makes me happy since I grew to love her cranky, accustive meows whenever I visit. She’s feisty and I love it, plus it makes him happy to have her around so that’s awesome he gets to keep her. She’s got more character than any cat I’ve met in a while:



I then had to park a two mile walk away from The Dooryard to pick up a video camera before then driving over to Target to buy a mini-DV tape and AA batteries, all while singing along to the set list which I’d stored on my ipod. Despite which, by the way, I forgot the words to four of the songs once I got on stage. That’s actually a good example of what stress does to me. I might as well be ADHD or on speed when I’m stressed—I shake, I grind my teeth, I can’t form sentences, I generally stumble. Most people don’t get the full effect of it, but I think, if Alex’s reaction is any indication, I’m terribly annoying when I’m like that. The worst that happened other than forgetting lyrics and how to work my keyboard was actually something only two people saw: before I went on stage I had to run over to the Dooryard to get something to bring back over and, being out-of-it and therefore not observant, I ran with full force into a spring-loaded solid wood door, hitting myself right in the face. I stumbled backwards and fell into the two people smoking on the front steps. Embarassing and my nose hurt for the rest of the evening. I’d be a horrible, conspicuous speed junkie. I can’t fake internal balance for the life of me. Even as a kid I was always falling down staircases and off playground equipment. It’s a wonder I’ve never broken a bone.

Below are the three most important men from that night providing, respectively from left to right: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and sound. I love this picture:


I’m not intending a rockstar pose here. This is my “where the fudge is Irina, we have to start the show?!” look. She was just outside, no big deal. It seemed panic-worthy at the time, though.

Here’s the first number, “Don’t Tell Mama.” The waver you hear in my voice when I’m kneeling on the amp is not from nerves but because I almost fell over. My voice doesn’t shake when I’m nervous. It’s about the only part of me that stays calm at all times:


The other videos are there on my youtube page. I won’t embed every one of them.
Here’s another example of the law of round faces. For those who don’t recall my explanation of it before, it means that if Alex and I are in the same photograph one of us has to look bad. This is my turn to look bad:

Actually, there’s only one exception to the law of round faces. If we’re at a carnival we both look good. Case in point:

It’d be interesting to see if this law extends to pictures of me and other people with round faces. I’ll have to find a few and test the theory….

It was good to play Geno’s and have it go more or less right. The first time meant me crying in the back parking lot and having beer spilled on me. This time it ended with a $10 profit on CD sales and short, flavored make-out sessions with attractive girls at the kissing booth. A clear improvement, I think.

I miss being on stage already. Especially now that people seem to have some interest in what I’m doing. Which reminds me—there was a girl who took photos of me applying my make-up pre-show in the bathroom at Geno’s. She said she’d find me on facebook but hasn’t yet. I hope she does, I want to see how those turned out.

I’ve been thinking of some sad things that happened this past spring. So, in honor of that, I’ll end on a picture of me from that time. With bonus Alex-before-I-wasn’t-afraid-of-him and with people I’ve not talked about cropped out cos, well, there’s no need to drag them into blog-land:


Also- am imposing Alex embargo on this blog. I know he made up a large part of my summer so in referencing the past four or five months of my life it’s inevitable, but I’m sure there’s other things I can talk about. Although if I knew or thought anyone read this other than myself and my sister I’d be more inclined to branch out into other topics. No matter.

-Aubin