don't be fooled, this isn't normal.
Last night John and I went back to Largo to see Jill Sobule. It turned out to be a kind of strange evening.
To begin with, I started listening to Jill Sobule, sort of, when Sara and I were preparing for our trip to California in early summer 2003. Now, whenever I hear that music, some part of me thinks of Sara. Even when it's the new stuff that didn't come out until after I'd moved out here. Her voice is just that unique.
We got there really early. Stupid early. But we tend to do that. We're never sure how long things will take and tend to overcompensate. We do this so often, in fact, that I brought a book along. We sat in the car for about 45 minutes.
The book I brought, the book I've been reading, was The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers. I'm hoping, but am relatively certain it won't happen, to finish it tonight after dinner. One of the characters, for reasons I couldn't begin to explain (I know this because I tried to explain it to John last night and it didn't work and I regretted bringing it up), reminds me of my grandmother. I won't call her my "late" grandmother because that strange little euphemism has always irked me for some reason, so I'll be blunt: She reminds me of my dead grandmother.
Sitting there, in her old car, at dusk in a quiet neighborhood in Hollywood, a block off Fairfax, I got lost. I can see her face, imagine her smell, remember the sound of her laugh...but I struggle to string them all together. She's become a collection of disembodied half-memories and sensations. It hurts. I can't dress it up. I don't even want to. It's just pain.
Just as the sun was disappearing, we walked through the neighborhood and stood in line, waiting for the doors to open. We got the same table as last time, when we saw Jude. We ordered.
They brought us soft bread with stiff, cold butter in little foil wrappers. I held the butter over the candle in a jar on the table. Then it was partly stiff and partly liquid. Because butter doesn't melt like I want it to.
Jill Sobule, as John said later, looks like a pixie. She's tiny and the end of her nose points down. She had on a sleeveless dress and black Converse sneakers, like the ones Sara used to wear.
It takes a lot of energy to miss someone. And I miss lots of people. I'm starting to think that's why I feel like I've never gotten enough sleep.
The music was great. She was much better than I expected, actually. Then someone requested this song off her latest album called "Joey." I know the song and most of the lyrics. She didn't. So because, like I said when I talked about the last time we were there, we were practically sitting on the stage, she asked me to stand next to her and hold her little Mac laptop with the lyrics. So I stood there. On the stage. Holding a laptop.
"Joey" is kind of a rock song. So there was a band for that one. A band that came on stage after I did. They sounded really good. Absent-mindedly, I mouthed the lyrics. On stage. She smiled at me.
Then came the chorus, where she grabbed the mic and leaned toward me "50's doo op" style, so I could, you know, sing with her. So I did. And the audience kind of laughed. Because I'm sure it was funny to see the girl from the audience holding the lyrics because the singer can't remember them suddenly lean in and start acting like one of the Supremes huddled around one mic.
And it was both awesome and mortifying.
I'm a little too shy and way too neurotic to have been able to just enjoy it. In my head, I've replayed the scene a hundred times, searching for the point where I must have done something ridiculous. But actually, I don't think I did anything but stand there and say "Joey" a few times into a microphone in front of a crowd of people I'll never see again. Except for John, who promises me I didn't make a fool of myself.
We got home late. And I was still wide awake. I stayed up too late and regretted it this morning.
A photographer was supposed to come to the store this morning to take pictures for a magazine. So, naturally, this morning I hated most of my clothes. I wore something I was trying to not wear for a while because I feel like I've worn it too often lately, but it's still something I really like--one of the only things anyone ever compliments.
I looked okay. I needed sleep. I was going through the morning, doing fine.
I picked up the phone to call the book buyer and go over today's order. As it was ringing, I looked up right into the face of Jake Gyllenhaal. He was walking by with a cup of coffee, on his way to the patio out back (the bookstore is inside a cafe), and he looked at me and smiled a "hello, you're on the phone, I won't bother you" smile and left.
As a married woman who is madly in love with her husband, I still have to say I nearly passed out. A shiver went down my spine and I got goosebumps all over. I'm actually glad he left because I don't think I could've handled him hanging out in the store. Imagine me screaming, "I love you, Donnie Darko," at the Jake Gyllenhaal, like the biggest hick loser ever because he smiled at me to say hi. I'm like Elly May Clampett or something.
After he left, he sat down at the table right outside our mostly-glass back door. There's a window in the children's' section that looks out onto that patio that has shelves in front of it that are covered in toys. The displays at this store are really important because we have so little room. So there are these little dolls with blue hair and butterfly wings hanging off the shelf right about eye level.
Last night, I sang on stage with Jill Sobule. This morning, I stood at work and looked out a window at Jake Gyllenhaal through dangling tiny feet and the bottoms of tulle doll dresses.
This is not my life.
To begin with, I started listening to Jill Sobule, sort of, when Sara and I were preparing for our trip to California in early summer 2003. Now, whenever I hear that music, some part of me thinks of Sara. Even when it's the new stuff that didn't come out until after I'd moved out here. Her voice is just that unique.
We got there really early. Stupid early. But we tend to do that. We're never sure how long things will take and tend to overcompensate. We do this so often, in fact, that I brought a book along. We sat in the car for about 45 minutes.
The book I brought, the book I've been reading, was The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers. I'm hoping, but am relatively certain it won't happen, to finish it tonight after dinner. One of the characters, for reasons I couldn't begin to explain (I know this because I tried to explain it to John last night and it didn't work and I regretted bringing it up), reminds me of my grandmother. I won't call her my "late" grandmother because that strange little euphemism has always irked me for some reason, so I'll be blunt: She reminds me of my dead grandmother.
Sitting there, in her old car, at dusk in a quiet neighborhood in Hollywood, a block off Fairfax, I got lost. I can see her face, imagine her smell, remember the sound of her laugh...but I struggle to string them all together. She's become a collection of disembodied half-memories and sensations. It hurts. I can't dress it up. I don't even want to. It's just pain.
Just as the sun was disappearing, we walked through the neighborhood and stood in line, waiting for the doors to open. We got the same table as last time, when we saw Jude. We ordered.
They brought us soft bread with stiff, cold butter in little foil wrappers. I held the butter over the candle in a jar on the table. Then it was partly stiff and partly liquid. Because butter doesn't melt like I want it to.
Jill Sobule, as John said later, looks like a pixie. She's tiny and the end of her nose points down. She had on a sleeveless dress and black Converse sneakers, like the ones Sara used to wear.
It takes a lot of energy to miss someone. And I miss lots of people. I'm starting to think that's why I feel like I've never gotten enough sleep.
The music was great. She was much better than I expected, actually. Then someone requested this song off her latest album called "Joey." I know the song and most of the lyrics. She didn't. So because, like I said when I talked about the last time we were there, we were practically sitting on the stage, she asked me to stand next to her and hold her little Mac laptop with the lyrics. So I stood there. On the stage. Holding a laptop.
"Joey" is kind of a rock song. So there was a band for that one. A band that came on stage after I did. They sounded really good. Absent-mindedly, I mouthed the lyrics. On stage. She smiled at me.
Then came the chorus, where she grabbed the mic and leaned toward me "50's doo op" style, so I could, you know, sing with her. So I did. And the audience kind of laughed. Because I'm sure it was funny to see the girl from the audience holding the lyrics because the singer can't remember them suddenly lean in and start acting like one of the Supremes huddled around one mic.
And it was both awesome and mortifying.
I'm a little too shy and way too neurotic to have been able to just enjoy it. In my head, I've replayed the scene a hundred times, searching for the point where I must have done something ridiculous. But actually, I don't think I did anything but stand there and say "Joey" a few times into a microphone in front of a crowd of people I'll never see again. Except for John, who promises me I didn't make a fool of myself.
We got home late. And I was still wide awake. I stayed up too late and regretted it this morning.
A photographer was supposed to come to the store this morning to take pictures for a magazine. So, naturally, this morning I hated most of my clothes. I wore something I was trying to not wear for a while because I feel like I've worn it too often lately, but it's still something I really like--one of the only things anyone ever compliments.
I looked okay. I needed sleep. I was going through the morning, doing fine.
I picked up the phone to call the book buyer and go over today's order. As it was ringing, I looked up right into the face of Jake Gyllenhaal. He was walking by with a cup of coffee, on his way to the patio out back (the bookstore is inside a cafe), and he looked at me and smiled a "hello, you're on the phone, I won't bother you" smile and left.
As a married woman who is madly in love with her husband, I still have to say I nearly passed out. A shiver went down my spine and I got goosebumps all over. I'm actually glad he left because I don't think I could've handled him hanging out in the store. Imagine me screaming, "I love you, Donnie Darko," at the Jake Gyllenhaal, like the biggest hick loser ever because he smiled at me to say hi. I'm like Elly May Clampett or something.
After he left, he sat down at the table right outside our mostly-glass back door. There's a window in the children's' section that looks out onto that patio that has shelves in front of it that are covered in toys. The displays at this store are really important because we have so little room. So there are these little dolls with blue hair and butterfly wings hanging off the shelf right about eye level.
Last night, I sang on stage with Jill Sobule. This morning, I stood at work and looked out a window at Jake Gyllenhaal through dangling tiny feet and the bottoms of tulle doll dresses.
This is not my life.
Labels: books., friends., los angeles is weird., music.
