Here's the scoop on last night for those of you who care. The reading was one of the best I've seen. Rick Ruple performed (*gasp*) and kicked much ass. Which is great, because now I can look forward to a battle of performance in the finals...at least I hope. He's easily a much better poet then I am...yet, and he's coming close to being as good of a performer, if not better. This should be good. I could not complain if he makes the team and I don't, but I probably will anyway. I'm going to pull out the best crowd pleasers I have for this one. The only thing lacking in last nights reading was Jack. He's having knee surgery...oh fuck...I just remembered that I forgot to sign that journal that Dave bought him.
Dave is an odd one, sometimes he seems like such a bloody prick, no better than LeBlanc. He's also a very nice guy though, as this demonstrated last night. Sure he tried to play it off, but I think that much like Trav...err LeBlanc he's really just trying to make everyone think he's an asshole. He certainly does a much better job of it then other people I know like that, but unlike Travis, I think the wanker really cares for the poetry crowd. Sort of a battle of extremes, to be cliched for a moment, too sides of the same coin.
Back to last night. I was in a particularly odd mood for most of the night. Just like I've been since the bit of sickness Monday. My mood kept going from nostalgia to sadness to anger (at myself) to resignation, and then back to nostaglia again just to repeat again. This continued for all of the reading, and most of the "get together" at Thomas' later that night.
This gathering was actually quite fun, Tapestry (WP) was there. Miranda (WP), Remy (Mustang/Yukon kid), Lauren Poe(WP), Cassie (one of Shai's friends), Melissa (Thomas' ex-girlfriend and cool chick extraordinaire) her boyfriend Fish (I don't really know enough about him to make a description), and a few other people who I'm not listing because I don't want to take an hour explaining who they are, how I know them, if I know them, and all that rot.
We drank and watched "Sleepy Hollow"...yay! Just one more reason that Christopher Walkin is the spookiest bastard on the face of the planet. For a while I just layed on the floor, drank and generally felt shitty. I talked to Tapestry for a bit, and he accused me of reading better stuff than him, to which I said he was full of it. This is true...my best work is about equal to his okay pieces, I really don't think anyone out there who has heard him can argue with me on that point, and you poor people only get to read it on this page rather than hear it...so why do you keep coming back? I know my stuff isn't really that great, a little amusing maybe, overly romanticized yes, and certainly melodramatic. If only you could actually hear me do them, I think you would enjoy it a lot more, but alas, no way for me to upload sounds to this page without the gold membership (which I can't afford just yet), and I'm not even sure if I can then. After that, I'd have to get this bloody microphone to work...but I'm off on another of my tangents.
The point that was lost somewhere in that nonsense is that I'm a good performer, but not a very good poet, I know that and accept that. I will get better some day, I promise. Until then I perfer not to think of the things I write as poetry, but rather as spoken word. Poetry is art, anyone can do spoken word. Tapestry is a poet, Rick Ruple is a poet, Jack Craddock is a poet, I'm just a wanker with a big mouth who likes to perform.
Okay, back to last night. Remy was hitting on Lauren, and I wasn't sure why, but I didn't like that idea. I realized today that in dunken stupidity, I was actually jealous, isn't that odd? I talked to Lauren for quite some time, and after Remy left I found myself watching her reactions to the things around her, almost studying her. At around this time my mind went into stupid mode, and I started thinking about the time when I had something for her (call it a crush if you must, but she kind of reciprocated). I realized after a little while of this that I was very likely to make a complete ass out of myself, so I decided it was time to go.
Just after I got down the stairs, Lauren walked out of the apartment. I'm not sure why, but I decided to keep talking to her, she had decided to go because there was hardly anyone she knew left. She expressed a little concern about her safety considering when she parked, so I asked her if it would make her more comfortable if I walked her to the car. When we got to her car she invited me to Denny's, out of concern for my well being as I was still a little tipsy. So off to the meeting hall of insomniacs and weirdos we went.
At Denny's we talked on a wide variety of subjects. From the Wayward Poets to stories of high school and beyond. Always only barely touching the subject of how we used to want to date, but then changing the subject rather quickly. Whew! A few confessions were made by me...but nothing really embarrassing. After quite some time of this I get "coffeed out", and she notices the sun coming up. Oh shit! Back to Norman before I fall asleep at the wheel.
Once I got back I couldn't sleep for a long time...I don't know why. Sometime around 10:30 I signed on AIM and talked to Jen and Emmy, so I guess I went to sleep around 11 or noon.
There ya go, that's where I've been, thanks for coming along!
~Matt
