Gonna start off by saying I feel like crap.
I need at least 6 hours of sleep to function and since I got less than 4 last night my stomach is all acidy - does anyone's get that way or is that just me? Like even if I stay up all night on purpose like at lock-ins and stuff when I was a kid - my stomach turns into complete acid and hurts and I'm nauseous and it throws off my whole day. Plus I was burning up this morning but too tired to go get thermometer so I'm really hoping I'm not getting whatever flu is going around cause that means the boyfriend will now get it and he's been sick enough.
Needless to say I slept all day, finally waking up around 5:30 to eat and then crashing back on the couch to watch Bones, Malibu Country and NCIS.
I did however, register for not only summer classes but fall ones as well and did some homework before getting on here to post so the day wasn't a complete loss.
This summer I'll be taking Foundations which is a 1 credit class completely online that you can apparently finish in like a week - yay. And then Library Systems which is 3 credits completely online but it's only in June so with that combination I should be fine for camp in July.
In the fall I'm taking Youth Services which only makes sense since I'm in it and then doing my practicum at the Regional Center. Did I mention Tom is in? I about jumped up and down but then realized that would look bad and I don't want to scare him off already.
Anyway, 3 credits for Youth Services and 2 for 90 hours of Practicum and then I'll be done completely.
After taking comps of course.
Which is going to suck big time.
It's the equivalent of writing a thesis, except that it's four of them basically. She told us to take that week off of work completely.
Oh joy.
I'm already nauseous this is just making it worse.
Okay new topic. Let's go with yesterday.
So, from the beginning, since apparently me not posting means I'm dead on the side of the road.
Sunday, March 2nd,
scratch that, March 3rd,
See, can't even function properly. Good thing I wrote down the class names and numbers before attempting to register today.
Anyway, woke up at 9:50, went to church. Mom was there cause of Grams birthday party, she came early to help the Cool Aunt set up. After church went out with Oldest Sister's family plus Mom plus the Cool Aunt to the awesome Greek restaurant for some flaming cheese - which my niece and nephew are obsessed with cause they light it on fire and yell opa - and some eggs and sausage, cause apparently they have a breakfast menu.
It was awesome.
Afterwards I came back to the apartment, showered, and figured out numbers for classes and added them to a cart so all I had to do was hit enroll and I'm good. Which I did so I'm good.
Then headed over to Grams place for the party. It was a good turnout, some of her siblings were there and their kids, then the Cool Aunt's family and a couple of uncles, one with his wife and a daughter and then ours minus Second Sister who is sick.
So I'm basically screwed cause our family is sick and people at work are sick. I'm hoping it'll just be today and then I'm over it. Granted it's worse cause of the lack of sleep but I don't think that's the entire cause of the thing. Got the gross runny nose and cough to go with it too but I've had that all week.
Blah.
Anyway, we sang and ate cake and jammed out for about an hour with the family. Nice to see some extended family I haven't seen in like years. And Grams was happy so that was good. We took a lot of pictures and I got to talk to my uncles about some family history that I've been attempting to collaborate. Scroll down a few posts, well it might be a few pages by now since you've gotten Jax and Matt Harper since.
I know all this stuff about my Dad's side but really nothing about Mom's side which is weird cause I lived with Grams.
Anyway, I asked my uncles about a family legend - basically my grandpa was a kickass baseball player. And I'm not just saying that. He was a pitcher and no one could hit off him. He played for a farm team in Kansas in the semi-pros and legend has it he got called up to the big leagues, but the day before he was going to leave his throwing arm got hit by a stray ball and his career was over.
But it's legend because my uncles have heard it through extended family and not from their own dad because grandpa was never about showing off. He wrote a book - a novel - and it got published and they didn't even know about it until after it came out.
Which was posthumous, btw.
But he didn't tell them. He was good man, my grandpa, and I'd like to learn more about him but with Grams the way she is with the Alzheimer's I'm almost too afraid to ask her. Cause I don't want to upset her if she doesn't remember.
And it's a hard topic anyway.
I have his journals. Well, sections of his journals that my artist uncle uploaded. But those only go so far, like I said he wasn't one to show off.
So I shall continue to attempt to get my facts from extended family.
Where was I?
Oh yeah, birthday, Grams was happy and it was fun.
After that came back to the apartment to get ready for the concert. The boyfriend has this thing that DRIVES ME NUTS where I tell him to be here at 5 and then he'll text me at like 4:55 saying he's just leaving - there's an hour drive between his place and mine - and then I start freaking out and then 5 minutes later the buzzer on my door goes off and he's here.
Cause he's full of crap and was in the parking lot the whole time.
Mean.
So we left about 5:15, got to the arena around 6:30 and parked in the lot cause we don't really know that area as well. I go there with the Cool Aunt for the CWS but she drives and really, whenever I go there for school I stick to 72nd and Dodge. That's literally all I know. BTW lot parking, bad idea, but I'll get there.
Went in, showed our tickets, found our seats - front row mezzanine on the balcony it was awesome I was like 50 feet away from Adam Levine, holy crap.
The boyfriend said if he lost his voice - like last week - his sister could fill in for him.
First off, Adam Levine and Avril Lavigne are not related.
Which he knows, but did I mention that he's often full of crap just to bug me?
So the seats were great, the guy a couple seats down from us was not so great. We were on the end - and being on the end is awesome - except when people keep insisting on getting up to leave and go talk to the people in the row behind you. Eventually they just went and sat back there but there were at least 5 times he had to walk back and forth in front of us before that happened.
Anyway, Owl City was first.
They did about 5 songs - I knew 2 of them, apparently I need to listen to their new album cause all I could sing were Fireflies and Good Time. Fireflies was super cool cause everyone had their phone out in the pitch dark and it looked like fireflies.
Then came Neon Trees - whom I love.
See, I got their single Animal free off itunes way before they were on the radio. So then when I heard it on the radio I went nuts - same thing with Hey Monday and La Roux. They played Animal, Everybody Talks, some others from their new album and then covered Don't You Want Me by the Human League. The audience went nuts, we went nuts. The boyfriend even sang that one.
But the sociology minor in me kicked in during this whole thing cause the majority of the people in the audience were either 40 or teenagers. And then there was like me and him and Beej (who was there with a group of teenagers.) Anyway, so it was hysterical because when they covered that all the "old" people - they're not old, don't scoff, I'm just saying in the context of audience members they were old compared to the teenagers - so all the "old" people were yelling out the lyrics while the younger ones sat back and went, "what the hell is this song and why do you know the words?" So they rocked it, but not nearly as much as Maroon 5 rocked it.
Holy crap. So while Owl City and Neon Trees sang about 5 a piece, Maroon 5 sang about 20, and it was awesome.
They started with Payphone and it all went uphill from their, even including classics like Sunday Morning, She Will Be Loved, Harder to Breathe, and This Love. Other ones you might know are Wake Up Call, Won't Go Home Without You, Makes Me Wonder, Misery, Moves Like Jagger, and then their newest One More Night, Daylight, Lucky Strike, and Love Somebody - amongst others. It was awesome.
So they sang 3 out of my top 5 - Won't Go Home Without You, Misery, and Moves Like Jagger only missing Back At Your Door and How. But I love them all and making that top 5 and leaving others out like Man Who Never Lied, Doin' Dirt, Get Back In My Life, One More Night and Lucky Strike are painful, but they're in my top 10.
Did I mention I was a fan?
Blame Second Sister.
She's the one that gave me the Hands All Over CD that brought them back in my life - after the first album I got distracted by other artists. Now they're back full-force.
And she's the one that called today demanding details.
Anyway, one of the coolest things was how much he featured James Valentine. Kept calling him a native and saying how excited he was to do the show for months and how he deserves the most camera time.
Held up his guitar pick that said Jimmy V.
Loved it.
For those of you who don't know James Valentine is his guitarist.
And he's from Lincoln.
Plus he's awesome so it's a trifecta.
And speaking of natives - Neon Trees' sound engineer is from Omaha so he and his kid ran onstage before the performance and took a picture in front of the crowd.
I literally cannot ramble enough about how awesome Maroon 5 were live.
I mean, Neon Trees was fantastic. Tyler has some excellent dance moves - and cool shoes - plus their female drummer is phenomenal, but Adam, James and the rest of their crew were even better.
It was amusing because at one point they gave Adam a camera and he went around introducing his band members.
They sang for a while then left the stage and I'm like, are they not gonna sing Moves Like Jagger? I was in shock. Then they dropped the bridge which was up in the ceiling to the platform in the middle of the crowd and they came back out and sang that was plus She Will Be Loved - acoustic with James - Stereo Hearts, and Daylight.
Instead of Xtina it was some brunette, who I'll have to Google cause I have no idea who it was. She was good just not as good as Xtina. She did has kickass boots though.
As do a lot of people lately so apparently I need some. Which Oldest Sister keeps insisting but see the only place I go is work. And the last time I wore boots to work was on a dare - the cowboy ones after Myers, sorry Connelly's wedding - and they kicked my ass. That was painful.
There's a reason I don't wear heels, you should have seen me in drama senior year, oh geez.
Silver high heels as Elaine Harper in Arsenic and Old Lace attempting to flee Jonathan and his henchman Einstein (who just happens to be the current boyfriend.)
"Run across the stage in these and don't make noise that the floor mics will pick up."
Yeah, right.
I got so much crap from Juwanna. Still have a picture of us holding them after a performance.
Where was I?
See what I said about ramblings? Amped just talking about the concert - it was this times ten last night which is why I couldn't sleep.
It rocked, so they sang and we sang - boyfriend included.
Which he will deny I'm sure so please bring it up in the future.
But he did good.
Was the perfect present.
So of course afterward he's like, you know I'll never be able to top that, right?
Ever the romantic showing up at work with flowers and all that.
He'll think of something.
After we got out of the building we got stuck in the lot for an hour, and like I said they sang about 20 plus the other 10 so it was way way way late by the time we got back.
Which is why I'm going to bed early tonight - early meaning midnight.
Which is 5 minutes from now.
So I should stop rambling and post the music and fiction and then crash.
As expected you're gonna get a lot of Maroon 5 for the next week.
Or two.
So get used to it.
Figuring out how I'm gonna divide this up. Think I'll go by album so favorites from Songs About Jane - came out 2002 - of course I can't post them all so you'll get 3 and then tomorrow you'll get more from SAJ and then it'll go from there on...
Harder To Breathe
This Love
She Will Be Loved
THEY LOOK SO YOUNG!
alright, all fantastic and now it's on to the Jax's finale. or should i say beginning.
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - Part Six
I get about halfway done with my own grave before my arms start shaking and I can’t dig anymore. The taller man looks at me, then at the dead girl, then at me again. I shake my head no. It doesn’t matter what I say, I’m dead anyway.
The taller man points his gun at my head. “Any last words, Mr. Jameson?” he asks.
I just stare at him.
“Go with God,” he says, cocking his gun.
“If there was a god, there wouldn’t be people like me,” I reply, closing my eyes waiting for the gunshot.
“Jax…Jax,” says a female voice.
Who was that? How do they know my name? I open my eyes and look around, seeing only the two men in front of me and the dead girl to my left. None of the three have moved since I closed my eyes or seem to notice another female presence.
“What?” I ask.
“Your alarm is going off,” says the voice.
Alarm? I blink and I’m gone. Ceiling. No stars. A dream. “Right, sorry,” I say reaching for my phone and turning off the alarm. Eight A.M. I sit up, throwing my legs over the side of the bed, and run my hands over my face. It was a dream. Stop sweating. In my stomach I can feel her eyes on me. I turn around and see the girl smiling at me. It’s probably against regulations to sleep with your assigned partner the night before a mission but I’ve never been one for following rules. She looks a lot better without the blood-splattered face. I should really get her name before the op tonight. She only knows mine, or one of my aliases rather, because I paid for the hotel room with a credit card.
I grab my duffel bag and walk to the bathroom to take a shower. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. After I’m done I return to find her dressed and cleaning her gun. Eight-fifteen A.M.
“Ready?” she asks, looking up at me from the chair in the corner.
“Yeah.”
She pulls a phone out from her bag and hands it to me. I hold down the number two key, activating the speed dial. It takes two rings before someone picks up.
“I can get you what you want,” I say simply. There is a pause.
“Blue building, corner of thirty-third and Thomas,” says a German voice. “Eleven P.M. Through the back door and up the stairs to the second floor. Come alone.” Dialtone.
I look at the girl. “Phase one, complete.”
***11:15 P.M.***
“Do we have an understanding, Herr
Jameson?” the German asks, staring at me through the darkened office.
...
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - We go into the circle by night and are consumed by fire.
and then it starts over again. cause it's a circle.
...for more pictures see facebook album...
