Is there anything more disturbing...

...than finding out that your mother has a Facebook page?

If she ever gets a MySpace, I'm fleeing the country.

I HAVE THE POWER!

As if I don't spend enough time online, now I've been given the ability to waste time on the hnterwebs vha cell phone without worrying about the extra charges on the bill. *evil laugh* Now you'll never be rid of me! Except when I'm asleep.

A year of mostly fail

So, at some point early this year I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish during 2008. Don't know why I felt compelled to do so, since I suppose chances were slim that a significant portion of it would actually get done. But since somebody on the nin.com boards started a thread on New Year's Resolutions (I think the best one so far was 1260x1080 lolz), it got me thinking about this list and how I kind of forgot about it.

Let's see how I did:

I want to get at least one more tattoo, as I went all the way through 2007 without getting inked.

Fail. But that's probably for the better, as I haven't had the dough to be doing things like that. Plus, when we did spend extra money it was for stuff like NIN shows that were more satisfying. And it's not like I've really had anything specific in mind for a tattoo until recently. I do want Kourt and I to get matching tats comemorating Tambourine Incident 2008.

I want to get 5 stars on all the songs on Expert on Guitar Hero II and III.

Fail. Heck, I've barely gotten the chance to play. We just got Rock Band, so these days when I have gotten a chance to play video games, I've been drumming instead of playing guitar. Someday I'll want to get back to Guitar Hero. Someday.

I want to at least be able to drop down to only working three nights a week at the Kum & Go.

I'm down to four, so that's only a partial fail. I certainly couldn't afford to drop to three at this point. Heck, I really need to be working a full five nights for my budget's sake, but we're dealing with it. When I work five nights, I get overtime, and our district manager doesn't like that. So I'm stuck with four for now.

I want to get the house really clean and really organized and have it stay that way for at least a whole month.

EPIC FUCKING FAIL! It might be marginally possible to get the house really clean by New Year's, although I'm not holding my breath on that. It's just so discouraging.

I want to actually see an entire Neurosonic show, instead of just the first two songs before having to rush back to work. And if that's the only concert I get to see in all of 2008, I'll be just fine with that.

Finally, an EPIC FUCKING WIN! We did see Neurosonic, and it was epic and awesome (even though I was afraid for a full week afterwords that I might have accidentally given the band the flu) and we got sweaty rock star hugs. But, of course, it didn't end there! We saw LP, which was epic in ways that can't all be classified as good. And then, of course, the two NIN shows, which were epic in ways that nothing else can ever come close to, especially since we're looking into a not-so-distant future where there won't be any NIN tours to see.

I want to get over 1000 friends on my store page!

Not quite total fail. I'm getting closer.

I'd love to find the time and proper frame of mind to finally finish that damn novel and see if I can't get up the guts to send it to an agent or publisher.

More fail. I just haven't had the time.

I want to be able to buy myself and Kourt something really great for our birthdays and Christmas, without having to agonize over how much money I DON'T have to spend.

Sigh. Fail. Although for Kourt's birthday we did see both LP and NIN -- but those weren't really on my dime, so...

I'd like to have the time and clean kitchen to actually cook a meal or two from scratch.

HA!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!

I want to go to Silver Dollar City at least once this summer.

Nope.

It would be great to not have to stay at work two hours later just to take another damn "random" drug test with zero notice (which is why I'm still up at this hour today. GRR! I hate peeing in cups.)

I think I had two additional random drug tests this year, but after throwing a royal hissy fit I've gotten my boss to give me at least enough warning that I'm not stuck screwing up an entire day's schedule because of a stupid ten minute drug test.

And I really want to get through 2008 without any major weather disasters, family crises, emergency vet or doctor visits, floods in my store, or occasions where I might be compelled to call some pathetic tech- or customer-support person rude names out of sheer frustration.

Hm. Maybe win? We did have that tornado, but it didn't really have a significant effect on my life other than to give me a cool story to tell. Otherwise, things have been pretty smooth.

So, for 2009? See, here's the problem with resolutions or goals or whatnot: All that stuff I listed up there? Here we are at the end of the year, and there's a lot of that list that I just don't even care about anymore. My only really big concern for 2009 right now is my store -- nine months left on the lease and I've got to figure out where to go from there. If it's not a lot more profitable by then, I'm going to need to find a way to really start reducing my overhead costs. Like finding a smaller building with less rent to occupy.

I guess to sum up my resolution for 2009: Get money, get paid.

NIN, take 2!

I believe in the blog I wrote about the NIN show in August, I expressed a fervent desire to be in the pit instead of in seats for the next one. So, if the curiosity has been killing you, we did indeed get presale GA tix for the show last night in Columbia. Also, while I have decided that I am in no way too old to be in the pit, I am really out of shape for it. My legs are killing me already.

Anyway, a probably overly long recap of the day:

We found out a few months ago, after we got our tickets, that one of our friends was also a NIN fan and wanted to ride up with us if she got a ticket. Which was fine with us, except the presale was already sold out and she'd have to be in a different line and everything, and we knew there'd be little chance of staying together once we got to the arena. But with all of that understood, she got her ticket and wanted to go anyway.

I decided that if we were going to do this, we were going to do it right, and that meant being right down on the rail. So we left town at 6am with plans (and an arsenal of cold weather gear) to wait outside in the freezing cold all day like real die-hard fans. I was half afraid that we'd get there and find a whole line already waiting, and half afraid we'd get there and have nobody else show up until hours later. Reality was a bit more on the side of the latter. When we arrived, there was little sign of an impending concert besides some security barriers outside and a couple of empty chairs that looked to be waiting for the first two people in line to return. We went to the box office area in the lobby, and then spotted about four people already camped out down at the other end. Kourt was worried that we were going to end up in the wrong place or miss something, so we asked them where we were supposed to be, and they said that the presale line was around the corner, but that we could wait in the main lobby for the time being.

Over the next hour or two, a handful more fans trickled in, and we started to actually socialize with each other. We played a few rounds of Uno and Bullshit, joked around with each other, and had a pretty good time. One girl remained passed out totally asleep in her sleeping bag for the entire morning, snoring even, in the midst of all our noise and her cell phone ringing off the hook.

All through the morning, one of the staff at the arena would pop in periodically to tell us what the plan was for lining up and such the rest of the day, and he asked how many of us were presale and how many of us had just regular tickets. When our friend Lauren said she just had a regular ticket, another guy who was waiting with us said he had an extra presale ticket with nobody to give it to, and that he'd let her take it so the three of us wouldn't get split up.

I just have to say for the millionth time now really awesome NIN fans are.

So yeah, they actually let us wait inside the lobby instead of out in the cold until about 2pm, when they moved us down to the basketball office entrance and, again, let us line up and wait inside that little lobby area. Of course, by that time comatose girl had woken up, and it became quite clear that we all liked her a lot better when she was asleep. Turns out she's one of these superfans who, somehow, has the means and time to go to half the shows on the tour, has all sorts of (probably exaggerated) stories about meeting various band and crew members, knows what hotels the band is going to stay in, has Trent's autograph tattooed on her back, etc, etc. Couldn't shut her mouth to save her life. Also couldn't put her cell phone down for more than ten minutes. Oh, and also hadn't showered in at least a day.

Anyway, we waited around in the little lobby for several more hours as the fans trickled in. We met some really cool people in line, including some that I know from the nin.com forums, and we all had a really good time talking and sharing snacks and playing the occasional card game. We talked a bit, even, about what we'd do if one of us caught Trent's tambourine, and decided it would be cool to pull it apart and take the little cymbal pieces out and let everyone have one, because they'd make cool necklaces.

Around 5pm the line started to finally get pretty long, and we prepared to get our tickets and get down to our spots on the floor. That process didn't quite go as smoothly as it could have, partly because the staff at that part of the process had a median age of around 70, and seemed to have very little clue what was going on. But the NIN crew got things under control and made sure we got our tickets, got through security, lined up again, and got taken down to the floor without the line order getting messed up and people mauling each other.

When we finally reached the rail, Kourt and Lauren and I were just off front center, slightly to Robin's side. We chatted a bit with the security guy in front of us, who was really cool.

Annoying girl got slightly more annoying once we hit the floor. A friend of hers, who had just arrived prior to us being let down onto the floor, made her way to the front. They talked a bit, and Miss Superfan goes into this lecture to her friend about not letting people push their way to the rail, all the while making room for this girl to do just that.

It was a bit of a blessing in disguise, though, since it meant Kourt had a one-person buffer between her and the other chick.

The opening act was a Japanese band called Boris. They're okay. I honestly couldn't believe that anything that loud could actually lull me to sleep. Yet it can. No thirty minute long strobe light solos this time, just a ten minute feedback solo, during which time the security staff gave several people earplugs.

The NIN show, however, was beyond amazing. There was one small technical glitch before Me, I'm Not, but it was quickly resolved without Trent resorting to smashing anything, and everything else seemed to go off without a hitch. The setlist was similar to last time:

999,000/1,000,000, Letting You, Discipline, March of the Pigs...

I really expected the pit to get really brutal during MOTP. There was a lot more crushing going on and people were definitely jumping around behind us -- not like we weren't jumping too -- but it wasn't anywhere near the brutality we experienced at LP this summer. Granted, being on the rail is a lot easier than being back in the crowd with nothing to hold on to, but still...

...Head Down...

We knew Trent would be throwing the tambourine during Head Down, and he lobbed it high and hard enough that it came down a few rows behind us. One guy managed to catch it, and the douchebag behind me tried to grab it out of his hand. There was a little bit of a scuffle, but there were enough of us around trying to get the second guy to back off and not be an asshole that he finally wised up and let go. Yay for fairness!

...The Frail, The Wretched...

One of the guys near us had a set list before the show because his mom was part of the arena event staff and brought it out to him, so we already knew we'd be getting The Wretched after The Frail. I'm almost a little sad that I knew what was coming, because it took the suspense out of things. Still, though, I was super excited to finally get to see ALL of the Wretched without being pulled aside and chewed out for shooting videos. In fact, the security guys were actually going out of their way to move out of the way so we could shoot pics and video unobstructed.

...Closer...

Trent's got some cool new visuals to go with Closer this time around, and he actually sang as part of the chorus of The Only Time instead of just using the breakdown in the middle.

...Gave Up, Me, I'm Not...

Like I said, there was some little technical glitch before the song started. Trent was actually kind of funny about it. I think we got some video. Once they got everything working, the song was great.

...The Great Destroyer, 5 Ghosts I, 17 Ghosts II, 19 Ghosts III, Ghosts Piggy, Pinion/Wish, Terrible Lie, Survivalism...

They SO should have had the cameras on our part of the rail. We were going nuts. The girls who were on the screens were just standing there being dorks. FAIL.

...31 Ghosts IV, Only...

It's so much cooler to watch the effects on that from the floor than it was from the seats, as cool as the view from the seats was. In fact, I think that was true for the whole show.

...The Hand That Feeds...

I was super happy that he didn't skip it this time like he did in St. Louis. Thankfully he's stopped having to do the whole "picture of George Bush morphing into a pic of McCain" visual to go along with it. It's fine on its own.

...Head Like a Hole. And then for the encore: Echoplex...

After which Trent gave his customary band introduction and speech. We just got a short couple of sentences in St. Louis, but he was kind of talkative tonight. He asked where he was, because he said it was the part of the tour where they just get off a bus, go into the arena, do the show, and get back on the bus again. He asked if there was anything cool to do in the area and if it was a cool place to live (and got mixed responses) and said he grew up in a place where there was nothing to do. Then he introduced the band, and made some joke about how he'd called Justin the wrong name at the beginning of the tour, calling him Jeordie White. Then some guy held up his iPhone with a scrolling request for Trent to play The Big Come Down, and Trent told the guy that if he downloaded the iPhone update he could get the words to scroll faster so he wouldn't be wasting everyone's time. And then finally he told everyone to go get The Slip for free at their website, and to get every other album they'd ever done for free from everyone else's websites, because he doesn't give a fuck anymore.

...The Good Soldier...

Here's where it takes a little turn for the worse. At the end of The Good Soldier, Trent had another tambourine to toss. He'd looked our way a few times during the song, and when it came time to throw it he lobbed it our direction. The problem was that the lights cut out just as it came into reach, so nobody could see well enough to grab it and it fell inside the rail in front of where we were standing. We'd already joked with the security guard about how if a tambourine fell down inside the rail he should give it to us, but when he picked it up and the lights came on again the annoying chick screamed and reached for it. She's taller and louder than us, and he handed it to her. We protested, pointing out that it landed in front of us and that she not only already had an autographed tambourine from another show, but she also was going to another handful of shows on this tour. The guy apologized and said he didn't know that. Kourt tried to reason with the chick, but she wouldn't give it up. So at that point we figured there was no point in putting on a nice face to her like we'd been doing all day for the sake of peace in the line, and got hateful. Kourt pointed out that it's really no surprise she goes to all these shows alone, and as we were leaving I made a point of stopping to tell her that every time she'd left the lobby during the day, everyone else had made fun of her. Not that it helped, and it certainly wasn't mature, but the bitch needs a fucking reality check. Nobody likes her. The NIN staff obviously barely tolerates her -- you can tell by the looks on their faces when she talks to them. She only thinks she's special and isn't a "stalker." I'm sorry, having a list of all the hotels the band will be staying at officially qualifies you as a stalker.

...Hurt, In This Twilight.

Again, I cried a little at the end. Maybe it was exaccerbated by the fact that I was pissed off about the tambourine. I don't know. It's hard not to tear up, though, when he's singing Hurt just ten feet away from you.

So, after the show, we planned to go grab some dinner with a friend we met in line from the nin.com forums, but we couldn't find a place close and she didn't want to drive too far out of the city because she had a hotel room to get back to. So the three of us ate dinner in Jeff City. We were starving and exhausted by that point. The drive home was harder than we thought, since we were all not only tired from being awake something like 20 hours, but also from the exertion of being in the pit. But we made it safely home with no major catastrophes, and only one minor one -- I accidentally sat on my purse while we were playing cards and put a dent in our digital camera. It still works fine. Just now it's got a NIN concert battle wound. Sort of.

We got a crap ton of good video clips this time. I'm sure Kourt will be uploading them soon.

I hope they tour again in the States next year sometime. I wanna go again!!!

All over the place...

For some reason I feel like blogging. Don't know exactly why, as my thoughts are really pretty scattered right now. I can't even decide if I'm in a good mood or not. I'm not in a particularly bad mood -- just vaguely apprehensive or stressed about something I can't put my finger on. It probably has to do with money. It always has to do with money.

On the mostly good side, today is the presale for the NIN show in Columbia. Totally pumped about the show. Totally wishing the presale wasn't until next week or the week after. But whatever, I guess. Can't argue with it. But the amount we have to spend to get the tickets (while not the most we've ever spent on that sort of thing) is an amount we probably shouldn't be spending. But it's pretty much buy now or not go, so...

I'm getting into another phase of being totally addicted to internet time-wasters of various levels of stupidity. I'm pretty good about only checking stuff inbetween doing more important things, but I still have a certain amount of guilt over it. First it was Mobsters, and then I got a couple of bimbos to take care of (one on the French site and one on the British site), and then it was the new nin.com forums (nothing says time waster like spending time on a forum with a bunch of other geeks, debating which is the best track off of each NIN album or laughing at badly photoshopped pics of Trent or trying to figure out if NIN fans generally fit into certain Myers-Briggs personality profiles...), and yesterday I signed up for a deviantart account. Yeah, okay, that last one isn't really a waste of time, but I'm sure it will take up plenty of it.

At least we're past the exhausting month of August, where Kourt and I tried way too hard to pretend we had an active social life. I don't know what we were thinking. Probably that we didn't really need sleep, which is totally false. Really very totally false. Heck, we went to a little informal get-together to celebrate Kourt's b-day and another friend's b-day, and I was so tired I kept dozing off. How sad is that?

I guess that's what's good about keeping one's social life centered on the internet. You can interact when you want to, and then turn the computer off and do all those other things you have to do in your life without interruption or disruption. And if you doze off in your chair while in a chat room, you don't have to worry about somebody writing on your face with a sharpie.

Not that anyone did that, but I heard that the idea was discussed.

Anyway, I suppose I should stop aimlessly blogging and actually get some sleep. My to-do list really isn't getting any shorter.

Not as exciting as NIN, but probably more important... I’m getting locked up!!

Seems by opening my own business, I've become one of those members of the community who gets called upon to participate in charity-type things. Specifically, I'm participating in tomorrows "Lock-Up" event for the MDA. You know, Jerry's Kids. The telethon and all.

So, yeah. I'm going to go to Bass Pro tomorrow and put on the convict stripes and sit in front of a telephone for an hour trying to raise money. Both the MDA and I would prefer, though, if I showed up with some of my bail already raised.

Okay, yeah, it's short notice. See, I only got the necessary materials maybe a week ago, and then NIN kind of intervened, so....

Anyway, even if you dear friends of mine could just find it in your heart to give five bucks, that would be AWESOME! And there's two easy ways to help out:

1. Go to https://www.joinmda.org/springfieldmo2008/artist and donate via the MDA's secure donation page just for me. There's an option at the bottom of the suggested donation amounts to just give the amount you want, so don't freak out when you see the amounts they suggest.

2. If you're around downtown today (Monday) or tomorrow (Tuesday) before about 2pm, feel free to drop by my store (Fashioned By Jaye) at 212 South Campbell and donate there. We can take cash, checks made out to MDA, or credit cards. Even if you want to dig the change out of your car or couch and bring it by, that would be cool. Seriously.

Thanks!

Jaye

Best. Concert. Ever. So.... Now what?

After last week's concert escapades... or whatever we want to call what transpired last Wednesday... I had pretty high hopes for the Nine Inch Nails show tonight. Or, I don't know if hopes is the right word. More like I sure as hell was not going to let tonight go down in anything but awesomeness. And as I'm sure you can tell from this blog title, it was fucking... indescribably amazing. But I'll try. Not that there weren't a few less-than-perfect moments, but I don't think anything short of complete catastrophe could have ruined tonight.

First off, we actually left ON TIME! Yeah! Really! I was going to pretty much go straight home from work and go to bed, but I was on the verge of bouncing right out of my skin all Tuesday night, so I was in no mood for sleep when 6am rolled around. So I took Kourt to breakfast, then stopped to get the cash and energy drinks and gas for the trip taken care of so we wouldn't have to worry about it later, and then we decided to make good use of the box of black hair dye she had sitting around in the bathroom. And for the first time ever... really... I painted my nails black. Because it just seemed like if I ever had an excuse to be a little silly and absolutely stereotypical that way, a NIN show would be it. Anyway, not much sleep was had, but way more than I had last week, and I was running on adrenaline anyway.

So, yeah, out of the driveway at right around three, as planned. Quick stop to pick up some cheap lunch at McDs, and we were on our way. Uneventful drive up -- as it usually is to StL since it's impossible to get lost -- with NIN blasting most of the way and me bouncing in the driver's seat. Well, okay, we listened to Eddie Izzard part of the way, too. We only kinda got lost once on our quest inside the city to find the arena. Not my fault -- the directions didn't tell us which way to turn, and I guessed wrong. Quick correction, and we found the venue with no hassle, and even had an easy time finding parking.

Picked up our tickets at the special nin.com window ('cause we're cool), and still had a bunch of time to spare. I had to pee after the drive and the caffeinated beverages I'd consumed, so we walked over to Union Station to find a bathroom (the venue only has bathrooms past the turnstiles -- what's up with that, anyway?) and an ATM (kinda forgot, when I was getting cash for a t-shirt, that we'd probably have to pay for parking). Conveniently enough, the ATM was Bank of America, so I didn't have to pay a fee on the transaction -- which is what I was trying to avoid by getting the cash out before we left -- so bonus good news on that one. And I showed Kourt that arch thing where you can whisper on one side and the person across the arch can hear. She thought that was pretty cool.

By the time we got back over to the Scottrade Center, they'd opened the doors. So yay! No lines! There was a special entrance for us cool nin.com presale ticket holders, so we got right in. And bought t-shirts, which of course are awesome, and cost exactly the amount of cash I'd pulled out at the ATM, which of course was awfully convenient. And then we went to our seats...

...WHICH WERE FUCKING AWESOME, TOO.

We thought from looking at some seating charts beforehand that we were in the second section back from the stage, but we were actually the very first section of seats, right off the side of the stage, ten rows back. Great view. Sat next to a couple of pretty nice guys, too. As I predicted, the crowd was considerably older on average than the one we were in last week, and far less... um... high strung, maybe? Assholeish? I mean, let's face it -- it's not like Trent's been busy making super commercial, "this sounds just like Downward Spiral so I know everyone will buy it" type albums for the last 14 years, so it's the older folks who have been fans for years and years that show up. (And me -- who kinda just now caught up, but whatever.) I mean, for fuck's sake, the man plays a freakin' xylophone in his show now. You can't mosh to a xylophone. Knocked a few things over, but didn't break anything (though he did throw a mic stand during March Of The Pigs, but it wasn't even close to hitting anything or anyone else on stage, and he pushed his keyboard over at one point). I saw three guys try to start a mosh pit during Wish, I think, and nobody around them would join in and they gave up. Funny -- somebody on the ETS message boards said it looked like the "pit was in full force tonight" but compared to the LP/Atreyu pit last week it was nothing! Which in my book is a total thumbs up. That's not to say that the crowd wasn't into it -- it was a really great crowd -- but it didn't look like anyone was getting mangled down there. Looked like the most noteworthy thing happening in the pit was when somebody started tossing around a roll of toilet paper.

That was actually damn funny.

Anyway, we shot the breeze for a while until the opening act that nobody had ever heard of took the stage. A Place to Bury Strangers. They weren't bad, I guess, though I couldn't understand a single lyric. Probably would help if the singer stepped an inch or two away from the mic instead of trying to eat it. It was somewhat entertaining, though, until their last "song" which involved a half-hour long strobe light solo. I'm sure they were playing their instruments during that time, but it didn't matter since my brain was incapable of registering anything sensory other than the too-fast, too-bright, pulsating light that I think could be used as an alternative to pepper spray or a taser. I'm surprised nobody had a seizure. Kourt spent the time with her face buried in our new t-shirts. I spent it laughing hysterically out of sheer discomfort and staring anywhere but in the direction of the stage. The dude next to me said he couldn't stop staring, but he didn't know why. Most agonizing half hour ever. Okay, it was probably just ten minutes, but still. Everyone applauded at the end, but I think we were all applauding the comfort of darkness and not the band. And then the half of the crowd that hadn't made a run for the hallway during the strobe light assault made a run for it to get their senses back in order for NIN.

Seriously, it was that horribly uncomfortable.

Back in our seats, it was a fairly short wait for them to set up for Trent and Co. Lights went down, 999,999 started up, and the awesomeness commenced. Trent is evidently still battling his throat problems (he's had to postpone two shows already this tour), and is still pretty hoarse, but I didn't even realize it until near the end of the show when he finally talked a little bit.

They played just about every song I was hoping they would, with the exceptions of The Hand That Feeds and Getting Smaller. Love the new version of Piggy -- didn't know what it was at first and everyone kind of looked around bewildered for a second before the lyrics kicked in, but it's awesome. Just in case you're curious about a set list... 999,999, 1,000,000 (got good video of everything after the first verse), Letting You, Discipline, March of the Pigs (got awesome video), Head Down, The Frail, The Wretched...

Okay, at this point I was super excited about them playing The Wretched, and I was catching it on video. And I know the signs on the doors said no audio or video recording devices, but they always say that and people do it anyway, and I know I wasn't the only one. But the security at the Scottrade Center are video nazis and we were close to the end of the row so they could see us, and they fucking pulled me aside and up to the landing to jump all over me for shooting video. Kourt followed, because she was afraid I was getting thrown out. I was afraid we were getting our camera confiscated. He just asked me to delete the video, which I didn't know how to do, because the camera is brand new. So Kourt grabbed it and deleted what I'd gotten of The Wretched, and said she thought that was all, so he let us go back to our seats. If I'd lost the other two, too, I'd have been pissed. But still not as bad as getting our camera taken away or getting thrown out.

The bad part was that while we were getting scolded by the miniature security guard, we missed getting to pay attention to the first half of...

...Closer (but we got back to our seats in time for that The Only Time breakdown part), Gave Up, Me I'm Not (I'd been SOOO hoping they'd include it!), Great Destroyer, Ghosts 17, Ghosts 28, Ghosts 19, Ghosts Piggy, Greater Good, Pinion, Wish, Terrible Lie (thankfully, because some 40 year old idiot behind us kept yelling "TERRIBLE LIE!!" during the Ghosts, so after that he shut up -- I just wish the "I LOVE YOU, TRENT" girls behind us would have done the same), Survivalism, The Big Come Down (yay!), Ghosts 31, Only, and Head Like A Hole.

And then for the encore, which they've been starting with Echoplex for I think every show so far. And then they played Love is Not Enough, which I think is a first this tour, so that was fucking sweet! Then Reptile, God Given, Hurt (which I'd been saying he could totally skip for this show because it's not one of my absolute favorites, but I have to say I'm glad he did it), and finally In This Twilight (at which point I kinda teared up).

I'll try to get pics and video up soon. Pics were hard to get with all the LCD screens and lights and visual effects and stuff -- either there was too much light for the camera or not enough -- but I think we got some good ones.

And once it was done, we didn't even have any trouble getting back to our car and back on the road. Probably if we'd parked in the parking garage we'd have waited in a line forever, but we were inadvertantly smart that way. The only hitch on the way home was the on-again/off-again torrential downpours and Kourt's contact-induced migrane, but we got home by just after 3am with all four tires intact. So yay!

Now, though, I can't sleep. It's like I've become an addict -- now that it's over and I've experienced the high, I don't want to just go back to the everyday crap. I WANT MORE! I want to go again, and not wait until fucking November (not that I'm going to complain about two NIN shows in close proximity in one year). I wish I'd gotten the video footage I wanted to get, so I could at least relive the show. Security bastards. It's not like Trent cares.

Sigh.

It was just so good, I'm bummed it's over.

I so want to be down on the rail (or at least close to it) for the show in November. I know Kourt's not all that excited about the prospect, but I think this is one of those things I'm going to have to be selfish about. Me want!!!

And I totally agree with her, even though I've only seen video footage of Trent from back in the day, that fit-and-sober Trent is an infinitely better performer (and songwriter, IMO) than drunk-and-strung-out Trent.

Is it November yet?

The whole story...

So, Kourt skimmed the highlights, but I figured I'd weigh in on the whole Linkin Park concert experience. It had it's highs and lows -- actually, by the time I got home I wasn't the happiest camper on the face of the planet, but that could partly have been due to sleep deprivation. I get cranky when I'm tired.

Anyway, we had GA tickets, like Kourt said, so since I knew she and Jerry were pretty excited about the concert I suggested we leave around noonish, so as to be there and in line by about four. Actually, the last time we drove to a concert in KC, we got there in about two and a half hours, so I was counting on a long afternoon of sitting in line in the sun.

Don't worry. I remembered to get sunscreen. If I'd burned to a crisp in addition to all the rest of what happened, I'd probably have passed out in the pit during Atreyu.

I planned to catch four or five hours of sleep before leaving, and then catch a few more while Jerry drove us up, since I had to work the night before. Well, I guess adrenaline got the best of me or something, because all I caught was about an hour and a half before we left, and it proved impossible for me to sleep in the back of a VW Beetle. **insert Mall Rats joke here** But I was pretty solidly awake all day, despite all that. However, during my attempt to sleep in the car, I wasn't paying attention to where we were going. All I knew was that Jerry said he knew a way to cut some time off our drive, so I just crafted in the back seat and paid no attention.

If not paying attention to what route we were taking was mistake number one, number two was not drinking enough on the way up. I had a Guava Rock Star (best stuff on the planet, by the way), and then a strawberry shake with lunch. No water. Don't know what the hell I was thinking.

We arrived in the late afternoon -- I think maybe somewhere around 5-ish. Granted, since Kourt and I can't ever seem to get on the road in a timely manner (this time it was getting me awake, and then having to run around for things like a bag to carry our stuff in and the sunscreen and a bandanna so my head wouldn't burn), we didn't leave until 1 or maybe a little after. Still, seemed like it took longer than it should. But hey, when we got there they hadn't even opened the gates to the parking lot, and we were only two cars back, so it was all good.

And yes, we do all know the words to "As Long As You Love Me," but only when the windows are all up.

They let us line up at about 6:30, I think, so we really weren't in line that long. Good thing, too, because by then I was already getting dehydrated. Kourt had about half of a one liter bottle of diet Mountain Dew in the car, so I got that and drank it all, which helped a little, but not quite enough. First thing I did when we got through the gate was go drop six bucks on two little 20oz bottles of water, since they made me throw the empty Mountain Dew bottle away at the gate. Even with us stopping for water and a t-shirt, though, we ended up just about four people back from the rail.

Not too shabby, I say.

Now, it should be said that, since I'm not really a veteran concertgoer, I'd never been in the pit before. In fact, this made the first non-pop arena concert I'd ever been to. The Neurosonic show was GA, but that was just a club show. And even though we were GA for a Justin Timberlake concert (VIP, actually, to be accurate), it's not like JT fans get rowdy. They just deafen you with the uber-high-pitched fangirl hysteria.

So, yeah, four rows from the rail. I felt like we'd done good, and Kourt would be happy to be that close to Chester.

The first opening act was Ashes Divide. They were really good, the crowd was in a pretty laid-back mood at that point, just enjoying the show, and didn't even crush in when Chester came out to sing with them. All was good, except that I'd finished off my bottle of water and was still thirsty and, even though I'd gone to the bathroom and come back once before the show started, I hadn't even thought to refill the thing at the sink. Yeah, I can be dumb sometimes. But really, everyone was having a good time.

And then they started setting up for Atreyu.

And the hoard of Atreyu fans began to descend. In little groups, like fan-tanks, burrowing through the pit. As if a few 100-pound waify chicks in Atreyu t-shirts with their bony little elbows are going to move 250 pounds of me when I've got my feet planted. Ha.

Yes, we did make a girl cry, after she spent the better part of what felt like half an hour digging her elbow into my bicep to try and muscle in front of me. And then there was the drunk guy with his girlfriend on his shoulders, who kept breathing his beer-breath down my neck. I can muster an extreme amount of patience if it means pissing off assholes.

Oh, and then there was the guy who got through the crowd by coming up behind people and just informing them that they were to move aside. Nearly came to blows with the guy beside us.

Plus, to win the award of "Worst Suggestion Ever," the band encouraged the entire pit to form a big mosh circle. I could be totally smoking crack on this, but I thought moshing was one of those consentual things. If you want to, fine. If not, stay the hell away from those who do. I'd have been really pissed if I'd been one of the LP fans caught up in the hurricane of Atreyu fans that, indeed, managed to get the whole middle of the pit moving in a circle. Or so I assume from the way we got pulled around down front. Thankfully, we managed to hold our spots, but it wasn't easy.

And frankly, the band sucked copious amounts of ass. I just don't even get it. But I was having fun being a bitch in the pit. Turns out that despite what I've been saying for the past few months, I am not too old for the pit. I do have a bit of an uber-bitch confrontational side. It used to only come to the surface when dealing with tech support operators on the phone, but it was in full force in the pit that night, too.

Unfortunately, by the last song in Atreyu's set, Kourt had had enough and wanted out. So we bailed and sat on the grass for Linkin Park. Frankly, if I'd realized we were going to do that, I'd have suggested we leave three hours later so I could have slept.

The concert was good, though. And in retrospect, I was bordering on real dehydration by the time we left the crowd behind, so who knows if I'd have stayed conscious through LPs set anyway. Next time I'll remember to hydrate myself in the morning. But it should be noted that a) the asshole factor in the crowd seemed to drop dramatically after Atreyu left the stage and b) at one point Chester came down off stage, right where we'd been standing.

Anyway, yeah, concert was good, Chester's voice held up well live, and we had a pretty good view even from the lawn. And then we headed back. I got us back on 71, and told Jerry to just let me know where the turn-off for his little shortcut was. Kourt sacked out in the back seat (she hadn't really slept at all the night before). Somewhere around Rich Hill, I think, we suddenly spotted something strange in the road in front of us. I swerved as far as I could to the left without rolling us into the ditch, but still clipped the HUGE PIECE OF LUMBER with the front passenger tire. HUGE hole. Had to stop and change the tire, and all I can say is thank god for a full-size spare.

We got back on the road without too much hassle, though. I was freakin' exhausted. I figured since we left KC at a bit before midnight, we'd be home by three or three thirty, even with the tire malfunction. Except we weren't. And it didn't occur to me until after we went through the "shortcut" that we'd gone all the way down almost to Carthage!!! No wonder it took more gas than we'd budgeted for. My plan had been to go up 13 to 7 to 71. You know, because the quickest route is usually the one that's the closest to a straight line. I REALLY wish I'd paid more attention on the ride up.

Sigh.

So much for getting to bed way early (well, early for us third shift workers) the night after the concert to make up for the sleep we didn't get the night before. I think we rolled into the Kum and Go at around 4:30. And so much for having t-shirt money for NIN this week, because I'll have to scrounge more money to cover the gas to St. Louis and back since Kourt's pretty much out of cash now. Well, maybe I'll still be able to do it, since my parents generously stepped in and got a new tire for Kourt's car -- hers gets better gas mileage so we don't have to take mine, and now we don't have to worry about scraping up the cash for a new tire ourselves. And I still have one more plasma donation I can squeeze in before Wednesday. Still, I think we'll have to pack bologna sandwiches or something to eat on the way instead of stopping for fast food, and just hope for no major catastrophies.

For a little while I was a little disappointed that we have seats for NIN instead of being on the floor, 'cause now that I've survived the Atreyu pit, I'm DYING to be down on the floor for Trent. But hey, he just announced yesterday that they're adding another leg to the tour and are swinging through Columbia in November. And if the crowd doesn't look to be full of assholes on Wednesday night Kourt might be game to hit the floor with me then. If not, it's cool. But I'm kinda hooked on the rush. By my reasoning, Nine Inch Nails fans should be a bit, you know, more mature about the whole thing. Smaller percentage of those "hey, I'm cool because I'm into the same flavor-of-the-moment band that all my friends like, and even though I'm really too much of a wimpy girl to survive by myself in the pit, and didn't get there early enough to be down front because I took too long to do my hair and pick out some really awesomely dangerous hoop earrings to wear, I'm okay because I've got my drunken frat-ape of a boyfriend to protect me and back me up while I piss off everybody else" girls.

Or at least that's my hypothesis.

And shouldn't crowd surfing have died off in, oh, 1999 or so? Seriously. Taking a crowd surfer limb to the head isn't my idea of fun, and I don't know about everyone else, but lifting people over my head all night does not add to my enjoyment of the show. Might be fun for the surfer, but everyone underneath just gets pissed off.

A note from a gallery owner who would like to save you artists out there some trouble...

Hello all. Yes, it's me, the shopowner who almost never updates her blog.

Today, though, I wanted to take a moment to share some of my thoughts with those of you out there who are local artists/artisans/crafters who would like to ever have a gallery or boutique consider selling whatever it is you create. And in the interest of brevity, I'll do it in the form of a list of DOs and DON'Ts.

Pay attention, please. Seriously.

DO...
...call ahead or drop by ahead of time to find out who you need to talk to, what to bring, and when they're available to meet with you. This also saves you from wasting a lot of time in the event that you don't meet the basic requirements for inclusion. And in terms of artists exhibiting for the Art Walk, it helps to make contact ahead of time so that you can find out important things like the fact that we're currently booked up until January.
DO...
...know how to talk about what you do. Be ready to answer questions about technique or your inspiration or how you got started, even if you think those answers might be lame. They're not. Just be honest. It's fine.
DO...
...have an idea in your mind about what your work is worth. If you're not sure, look around at the work of others around you who do similar things, check out the internet sites like eBay or Etsy for similar items, or just figure out how much you spend in materials and time and put a number to it.
DO...
...be professional, polite, organized, prepared, and friendly. This isn't about how you look -- hell, I've been known to dye my hair blue from time to time -- although cleanliness and not smelling bad are a good thing. But you should still be able to come in, introduce yourself, shake my hand, show that you're organized and have a professional mindset about what you do, and speak the most proper English you're capable of. And smile.
DO...
...look around and see what else is in the gallery/boutique. Be interested. Don't fake interest in the stuff you don't like, but it does pay to show that you're curious about how your work will fit in with what's already here.

DON'T...
...drop into a store unannounced with a box full of your work, hoping the shop will just fork over some money for it to help you pay some bills.
DON'T...
...be an arrogant bastard. It doesn't matter to me if you trained at some obscure knitting commune in the Himalayas or if your granny taught you when you were three, I just want to see what you make. If you're good, it'll be obvious. And frankly, some of the best artists and crafters I know were self-taught. So spouting off about how you got your degree in New York and how that is supposed to set you apart from all the ignorant locals around here isn't going to win you favor points.
DON'T...
...badmouth the work of other artists already in the gallery/boutique. One of the worst things you can do as an artist hoping to have your work in my shop is to look at one of my artists' or consigners' work and tell me their technique/eye for color/choice of materials/etc sucks. After all, I liked their work enough to put it in my shop. So keep your opinions to yourself, because they don't matter to me, or anyone else, and they make you look like an ass.
DON'T...
...treat me unprofessionally. Yes, I'm a short female who doesn't look her age (or so I'm told.) I can't grow taller, I'm not interested in a sex change operation, and I haven't yet found a way to make myself look like I'm 45 (nor do I want to). Deal with it. And by "deal with it" I mean leave the sexist comments and condescending attitudes at home. I own the place. I don't have to deal with you if I don't want to. And if you talk to me like a child, I won't want to.

That is all. For now.

Very clever, Mr. Reznor

I finally got it yesterday. You know how the newest Nine Inch Nails album is free online?

It seems Trent Reznor is giving us "The Slip."

Funny.

Finally, it’s done!

After much trial and error, a bit of procrastination, and some frustration, the store's website at www.fashionedbyjaye.com now has fully functioning e-commerce capacity!! Yay!

It's been loaded up with some products, and many more are coming in the near future. Right now you can mostly go online and get some great deals on some of the older items in our inventory. Like an online clearance sale!

You can use credit cards or paypal, or even arrange to pick up your purchases at the store (if you're local).

So if you haven't yet been in to browse the store in person, you can now get a little taste of what we're all about without leaving your computer desk!

Have fun shopping, and let me know what you think of the new site. (Except the front page. It sucks. I'm coming up with something better as we speak.)

Jaye

p.s. Be sure to click the link on the left-hand side of the store homepage called "Street Teams"

Totally worth the 8 hours of driving (and we didn’t even stay for the headliner)

So Saturday night was the much anticipated Neurosonic show in Oklahoma City.

Okay, technically our tickets say "Puddle of Mudd," but whatever. Neurosonic could have been opening for Up With People and I'd have driven to OKC to see them. (And we DEFINITELY wouldn't have stayed for the headliner.)

Anyway, having never been to OKC before (and remembering how it took us two fucking hours driving around Kansas City last year to find the Kemper Arena thanks to Mapquest being a total waste half the time...) we intended to leave at 2pm so that we'd have an extra hour of time to get lost/deal with random catastrophic events/etc before the doors opened. Unfortunately, I kind of stopped taking my Claritin a while back out of just plain old forgetfulness, and by Friday afternoon my sinuses were going haywire. I made the mistake of taking some decongestant cold medicine at work Saturday morning (the "non-drowsy" bit on the box is total bullshit) and hadn't quite slept it off by noon when we were supposed to go to the 'rents for lunch, so I decided to put my makeup on and eat my lunch in the car so I could sleep a while longer and get out from under the medicated stupor. Long story short, we pulled out of the driveway at, oh, something like 2:30, stopped at my Kum & Go to get coffee and gas and such, then realized that I'd forgotten to get cash for the tolls in Oklahoma (and spilled the coffee in the Beetle's floorboard thanks to crappy German cup holders) and had to stop at yet another convenience store before actually leaving the city limits at about 3pm.

Fortunately, the rest of the trip went pretty smooth. Thank you, Oklahoma City, for being infinitely easier to navigate than KC, even when you miss an exit. And Kourt did a really good job driving up -- no real episodes of vehicular claustrophobia or traffic anxiety or anything, not even when we missed that exit.

We arrived at the Diamond Ballroom just after 7, and got in line in front of the loudest, most drunken redneck family I've ever had the pleasure of sharing space with, which was a real treat. At one point the loudest of the loudmouths (who were mostly pissed that they'd had to stand in a second line to get in after standing in a first line to get their tickets from the Will Call window -- um, isn't that how it usually works?) made a loud comment about wanting to shiv the security staff. I hoped they'd get their drunken asses thrown out of the line for that, but they didn't. We lost track of them after we got through the doors. I'm not even sure they made it inside. If not, score one for sanity.

While we wandering around waiting for the festivities to begin, I decided to go check out the Neurosonic merch to see if maybe I had enough cash to buy something after Oklahoma stuck it to us with tolls all afternoon. And what's with a venue that has no credit card machines AND no atm? Huh? Anyway, no luck on getting a shirt or anything, but Jason Darr was running the booth himself so we got our ticket stubs signed and got pics with him and all.

We milled around a little more, and I spotted Shane, so I got a pic with him too, and at that point figured we'd spend the time during the first two bands' sets trying to track down the other two. (Not that the first two bands were bad, but... eh. Note to Airbourne: Climbing up on the amps with no shirt on is really very 1986. Especially if you don't jump once you're up there. Pussy.)

We caught Troy by the bar (who told us to take one of their posters and bring it back after their set to get it signed - so yay!), but Jacen was nowhere to be found. Kourt asked me to describe him so she could be on the lookout, as she's not as up on who's who in the band. I'm horrible at describing people, so the best she got was, "Well, he's like... um... dark hair and it kinda looks like... um... ::random hand gestures:: like hair... and... um... he's got eyes." Let's hope I never get robbed at the Kum & Go, 'cause I'll never be able to give a usable description to the cops.

We'd invited my sister Amy to go with us because I've got her hooked on Neurosonic, too, but she decided that she was too old (which is bull, 'cause she's only 8 years older than me) and too uncool to go to a rock show (whatever) and stayed home to man my shop. As were were standing around we spotted a guy who... well... the only way to do the description any justice is to say that it looked like he'd shown up for a Mötley Crüe show in the mid 80s and just never went home. Sad. So we texted Amy to say (again) that she is totally not too uncool or too old for a rock show and should have totally come with us. And while I was volleying texts back and forth to MO, Kourt started assaulting my arm to let me know she'd spotted Jacen. (She was pretty proud to have figured out it was him all by herself.)

So, now that I was four for four on pics, we just milled around on the edge of the crowd until they started setting up for Neurosonic, and then we started our stealthy moves to the front of the crowd. Unfortunately, we got halted next to somebody with some really bad B.O., and Kourt bailed. I managed to gradually work my way farther in (and out of the cloud of stink), so I had a good spot for the show. Kourt stood out of the way with the poster so it wouldn't get mangled -- and it would have. Some drunk girl decided to take the "flail wildly, face down, at waist level and hope everybody just thinks I tripped or something" approach to getting through the crowd, who of course quickly ejected her back to the perimeter, but not before she made everybody spill their drinks and mangle their cigarettes and generally get pissed off at her. Fun times. Don't know how I managed to make it through the show without getting holes singed into my White and Nerdy hoodie. THAT would have really pissed me off. I love that hoodie.

Anyway, Neurosonic was AWESOME. Totally worth the drive. Kourt's added Darr to the list of celebrities she'd be willing to bear children for. And, okay, I just have to say that Darr grabbing Troy by the hair was one of the hottest things I've ever seen. Rarr. (Maybe I'm just weird like that.) But more importantly, they sounded great and put on a great show and it totally rocked.

So afterwards we went back and got our poster signed. I mentioned that we'd driven four hours just to come see them play, which got us big sweaty hugs from Jacen and Troy.

We did hear the first three songs or so of Puddle of Mudd's set while waiting for Shane to arrive and sign our poster, but by that time Kourt had realized that we'd left the iPod plugged into the cigarette lighter, turned on, and playing in the car, and she didn't want to have to try and find somebody to give us a jump in the post-concert parking lot madness. Plus, we had four hours yet to drive, and that damn daylight savings change. And dinner to stop for. So we left early. What we did hear of Puddle of Mudd sounded really good, though. I'm sure they were great. But I'd seen what I came to see and had rock star sweat in my hair, so I was all good to go.

To sum up, and I know I've said this before in blogs and such but I really mean it... if you haven't heard Neurosonic, go check them out right now. Right this minute. Like, go to their MySpace page or look them up on iTunes or Project Playlist or something. They're fourteen kinds of awesome.

Even if they are from Canada.

No more tornados, please / I kinda want to buy my Neurosonic tickets now out of spite!

If you've read my blog on my store page from Monday, you know my store flooded in the first round of storms that came through. I was in here hunkered down while tornados ripped up everything around Springfield -- like they always do, never really coming close to downtown. I'd sandbagged the back door of the store, which is what we have to do in heavy rains because of how far below street level the back of the store is, the inadequacy of the drains, and the fact that everything back there seems to be constructed to dump water and debris directly into my stairwell. Well, the rains came up so fast and hard at about 7:30 that the stairwell got about 18" of water in it, which is far higher than we have ever had to sandbag before. It gushed in around the door and flowed through to the front door. No damage, luckily, but definitely a pain in the ass.

Thinking things were pretty much over for the night (once I squeegied water out the front door for a half an hour, leaving solitary puddles to mop up), I headed to the Kum & Go. Second shift had endured a short power outage and dealt with some water of their own, but things were under control when I got there. I figured the shift would proceed as normal, since usually these kinds of storms kick up in the evening, tear shit up for a while, and then move on up I-44.

About 2:30am I was counting down the registers and doing shift change. There were a couple of police cars in the lot, three paramedics in the store, and one customer. Two girls came in out of the rain (which had just suddenly kicked up), totally drunk and saying they'd walked from Ziggies because one of the girls refused to let the other girl accept a ride from a creepy stranger, and they didn't want to get a cab. They proceeded to make complete idiots of themselves for about fifteen minutes before finally heading down National. On foot, because by then the rain had stopped.

Evidently that was the calm you always hear about right before a tornado hits.

We were there at the counter laughing about the girls when the rain suddenly kicked up again. Hard. Winds, too, to the point that the rain was going almost horizontal.

Then it went something like this:

"Oh, man, those girls are going to be sorry they didn't get a cab." ::wind starts blowing doors open, can barely see through the rain:: "Um..." ::everyone backs away from doors:: "Guys, I think maybe we should..." ::80 mph winds slam both doors open, debris appears out of nowhere, definite feeling the windows were about to shatter:: "AAAAAAHHH!!!" ::everyone runs for the back room::

Okay, nobody actually screamed, but we ran like hell. Everybody but one of the EMTs, who was in the bathroom convinced he was about to die a very undignified death while peeing.

I don't know if it's been confirmed, but whether or not it actually touched down I'm pretty sure it was a tornado that demolished Harry Cooper Supply, skimmed over the Kum & Go (luckily), and then hit the AT&T building, whatever other warehouse it tore down, and the Krispy Kreme. I know the only reason we didn't lose all our windows was that the doors open either way on both sides of the lobby, so the wind just threw them open and the pressure didn't build up enough. We lost power for about five minutes, the EMT who was just getting off duty had her car window smashed by a flying trash can, we lost most of the panels from our sign, a bunch of the metal face plates on the gas pumps were torn down as well as one of the endcaps, and a crapload of insulation and wood from Harry Cooper ended up in our parking lot.

I took those with my cell phone, and they really don't adequately capture the scene, but whatever.

The good thing was, though, that I had an ambulance crew and a half there with me, so if anything had happened I wouldn't have had to wait for a dispatch.

So, you know, I was really glad when my shift ended. I was exhausted by the time I fell into bed.

Then yesterday (and here comes the big rant -- I thought maybe if i let it stew overnight I'd be less pissed off, but no) I go to my store only to be ambushed by my mother over wanting to see Neurosonic in Oklahoma City in March.

See, a few months back I ordered a K&G polar fleece to wear at work. Well, actually, I mistakenly ordered two, and couldn't return the extra. I was going to post it on eBay or something, but my mom volunteered to buy it instead and rip out the logo stitching, since they really are very nice jackets -- thus the $55 price tag. She wrote me a check. I thought I deposited it right away, but evidently I forgot about it because she called my Sunday night saying that it hadn't cleared her bank yet. I found the check still sitting in my purse and, Monday afternoon, told her that I had located it and would deposit it. She said, "There, now you have an extra $55." And me, like an idiot, said, "Yeah, I can use it towards those Neurosonic tickets."

After 32 years in this family, you'd think I'd know better.

See, I've had to borrow quite a bit of money from my parents to get Fashioned By Jaye running. I still borrow just a little here and there to fill the gaps. I don't get much money for myself. The only reason I was able to buy Kourt a Christmas gift, dye my hair, and go out for New Years (the subject, of course, of another of mom's little financial lectures) was that Kourt's parents sent me a monetary gift for Christmas. I mooch food off mom and dad on a regular basis, and otherwise I mostly eat Kum & Go food that I don't have to pay for. We've eaten out recently only because, again, Kourt's parents sent us restaurant gift cards. They bought us Guitar Hero III as well, or else we still wouldn't have it. I buy gas and cigarettes, food and litter for the cats, household necessities, and occasionally fast food or snacks at the Kum & Go when I feel like I've got the five bucks to spare. Other than my work uniform and the stuff I got for Christmas (thanks to Kourt's parents sending a gift card), I haven't bought clothes in probably a year. Haven't made an iTunes purchase of over a dollar in at least six months. Honestly? I didn't even buy Neurosonic's album. I got it from Lindsay. Every concert I've seen in the last couple of years -- a grand total of 2, mind you -- were on either Kourt's dime or her parents'. If it weren't for Kourt's parents, I wouldn't really have much in the way of non-necessities, and Kourt can attest to the fact that I really don't like accepting so much stuff from them. Really, the vast majority of my money funnels right into the store.

But evidently I don't know anything about making sacrifices or setting priorities or any of that. I'm not entitled to occasionally do something I really want to do, even if it's not expensive, unless Mom approves, because she basically owns me. And, of course, there's no way in the world she would understand why going to a concert might be something I really want to do.

I'm 32 fucking years old! What the hell?!?!

And the money I've borrowed is a loan. A loan. Like, we have a contract and an amortization schedule and the whole nine yards. No bank would be able to swoop in and tell me I couldn't buy tickets or spend gas money to see a concert. It's not like I wanted to be indebted to my parents like this, and it's not like I'm not trying like hell to get to the point where I'm not under their financial thumb. And I know that if I was this gung-ho about going to see some gospel quartet in concert, she'd just buy me the tickets and give me the gas money, because that's an entirely noble thing to want to do. Rock concert? In a bar? Nope, can't possibly be worthwhile.

I know I pissed her off pretty royally, too, though, because the last thing I said after a twenty-minute yelling match was, "You know now that you've brought it up and we've argued about it, even if Kourt bought them or somehow I got the tickets for free, you'd never believe me that I didn't just go buy them myself, which is exactly why your kids don't tell you things!" Which, yes, was a teensy bit meaner than I usually get when arguing with her, but also very true. And no matter what happens, I'm sure we'll have this fight all over again in March, 'cause there's no way in hell I'm not going.

I don't know why I didn't just do the smart thing Monday afternoon and say, "Yeah, that's $55 you won't have to lend me this month," buy the tickets anyway, and then make up a story to tell her in March about getting them for free or really cheap or somebody else buying them.

God, it's like being in junior high and high school all over again. Back then I chalked it up to me hitting puberty at the same time she hit menopause (oh what fun it is to have parents old enough to be your grandparents), but really I think she's just like that. Encouraging and supportive right up until you make a choice she wouldn't make if she were in your shoes, at which point she steps in to make you conform to her way of thinking. I told her that, too. She ought to still be nice and pissed off when I come into the store tonight.

It's not like I don't appreciate the fact that they work in the store with no pay so that I can work a second job, because without that help I'd have been totally screwed a long time ago, due to quite a few circumstances I had no way to forsee (it's not like I didn't spend extensive time writing a 60 page business plan or anything). But most of the time I don't even feel like I have control of my own business anymore. Not to be discriminatory, but a 70-year-old couple would not be my first choice for employees, from the standpoint of the store's image. She shares way more of my life story with customers than I'm comfortable with, and feels way more entitled to making off-hand decisions about the business than any real employee would. But I don't have to pay my parents, so that's what I'm stuck with.

I guess on the positive side, she does clean like there's no tomorrow and I know she's not stealing from me.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that dealing with the stress of working a full five days at the Kum & Go (life really got a ton easier when I dropped down to four nights a week) is better than the stress of being financially shackled to my mother, so I'm putting myself back on the "work myself to an early grave" track. The less free time I have, the less excuse I have to deal with my mom. So there's two bonuses.

Maybe with the raise I'm getting, I can get her off my back totally.

A stormy day in the life of the entrepreneur

The adorable, quaint old building in which Fashioned By Jaye resides is great in so many ways. It used to be the home of Sass' Jewelry -- from about the turn of the century until I belive the mid-60s or so -- and was built in the late 1800s. It's sturdy as all hell -- even after sitting vacant and abandonned and water damaged for decades, it's structurally very sound. It's got those great display case windows in the front. We love the vaulted ceiling and the mezzanine space. If you haven't seen the old safe in the back of the store -- rusty and unable to lock now after decades of water damage, but still a really neat piece of history to look at -- come in some time and ask to see it. It's the kind of safe that you'd need to keep Bonnie and Clyde away from your diamonds -- literally.

But it's also below grade in the rear. If you've ever come in the back entrance of the store off the parking lot by the bus depot, you know just how far below ground level the back part of the store is. Makes a great tornado shelter. Also makes a great swimming pool if it rains too hard too fast.

And boy, did it rain too hard to fast tonight.

It's flooded in here before. Actually, the first time it flooded was the weekend right before our grand opening. I was sitting in my tent at Cider Days on Walnut Street, watching the little concession-stand-container boats float down the river that was running down the street, when my landlord called to say we had a bit of a water problem in the store. That was a bit of an understatement. When I got to the store, we had about an inch of water in all the back rooms. Thank goodness most everything I had back there was stored in plastic bins, and my landlord (who's really great) had moved anything not plastic up out of the danger zone. No harm, no foul.

It's actually a good thing it happened then, because from that point on we knew to make sure nothing sat on the floor that could possibly be damaged by water. We've also devised a sandbag system for the back door, where most of the water tends to flow in. It's worked pretty well so far.

That is, until about 7:30, when the rains and winds kicked up really hard. I was on the phone, assuring everyone that I was okay sitting here in my little brick and plaster cave, when I turned around and saw the water. I'd sandbagged the door, so I was a little taken aback that the water had come in anyway, especially the amount of water I was suddenly standing in. I headed toward the back door to see what could have possibly gone wrong.

The water was coming in around the sides of the door, about a foot ABOVE the sandbags.

Of course, there was no stopping it.

And thus the FBJ River was born.

I just spent about a half an hour pushing water out the FRONT door with a squeegy, so much of the standing water is gone. Nothing's really been damaged, but I'm already exhausted and the night is still young. Let's hope there's no more flash floods coming our way.

I hope everyone makes it through tonight's storms okay.

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but...

...it is awfully weird. They were at it on Thanksgiving, too.

Google "chemtrails" and decide for yourself.

What I want for 2008

I want to get at least one more tattoo, as I went all the way through 2007 without getting inked.

I want to get 5 stars on all the songs on Expert on Guitar Hero II and III.

I want to at least be able to drop down to only working three nights a week at the Kum & Go.

I want to get the house really clean and really organized and have it stay that way for at least a whole month.

I want to actually see an entire Neurosonic show, instead of just the first two songs before having to rush back to work. And if that's the only concert I get to see in all of 2008, I'll be just fine with that.

I want to get over 1000 friends on my store page!

I'd love to find the time and proper frame of mind to finally finish that damn novel and see if I can't get up the guts to send it to an agent or publisher.

I want to be able to buy myself and Kourt something really great for our birthdays and Christmas, without having to agonize over how much money I DON'T have to spend.

I'd like to have the time and clean kitchen to actually cook a meal or two from scratch.

I want to go to Silver Dollar City at least once this summer.

It would be great to not have to stay at work two hours later just to take another damn "random" drug test with zero notice (which is why I'm still up at this hour today. GRR! I hate peeing in cups.)

And I really want to get through 2008 without any major weather disasters, family crises, emergency vet or doctor visits, floods in my store, or occasions where I might be compelled to call some pathetic tech- or customer-support person rude names out of sheer frustration.

I DID IT! I TOTALLY FUCKING DID IT!

Finally, after just giving the game and my fingers a rest for a while, I just now got five stars on the one song that was giving me trouble on HARD on Guitar Hero II! Woot!

I'm fairly confident that I'll be beating Expert on Guitar Hero III in the very near future -- we took a break from it, though, to try out the multiplayer stuff on II that we'd never tried before. It's more fun to have two guitars.

So now there's just one more guitar to unlock on II -- the one for getting all five stars on Expert.

My new favorite spam email subject line of all time...

ironing hamster

I’m bored, so I’m making a list! Probably won’t check it twice, though.

The last two weeks have been, well, blah. It's not that blah things are happening, but more that I'm just burned out. Totally. I'm sick of making Christmas stuff, I'm tired of spending every waking hour not already scheduled for other things sitting at the shop churning out merchandise. And mostly, I'm just tired. So very tired. I've bitched for, like, half a decade about how energy drinks are probably just death in a can and that someday we'll find out we've totally done ourselves in by drinking massive amounts of them -- and yet in the past few months I've developed a really bad RockStar habit. Hell, when you run on three or four hours of sleep a night for long enough, you've got to do something to stay awake.

Anyway, after staying up for over 24 hours between Thursday afternoon and Friday night, I decided maybe it would be good to just take the weekend off. Sleep in. Sit at home. I even broke out the Guitar Hero III Saturday night, even though I swore I wouldn't sit down to play it until after the Holidays were over. And now I'm messing around on the computer and listening to Neurosonic's Drama Queen album for, oh, the 50th time since, um, Monday.

So in the interest of totally wasting time doing unproductive things, I'm going to make a list.

I like a lot of different kinds of music. Most of the time, when I find a song I really like, I just add it to my iTunes playlist or whatever and appreciate it however often it pops up in the shuffle. Back in the day of cassette tapes, I'd rotate pretty evenly through the albums I had, and was a big fan of mix tapes. Now and then, though, I find a particular group or album that I latch onto. And when I say "latch onto," I mean really obsessively. My old college roommate has a list of albums and artists she'll never be able to hear again without suffering post traumatic stress after being subjected to constant and repetitive play for weeks and weeks at a time -- and that was a decade ago. (Then again, after rooming with her, I have a permanent hatred for chick flicks and their accompanying movie soundtracks, so I'd say we're pretty even.)

So, here's the list of albums which have spent very extended periods of time in my CD player on "repeat":

1. The Bangles Greatest Hits -- What is there to say? Best girl band of the 80s, hands down.

2. In The Zone -- Okay, I hate to even put this one on here, but I feel like being honest. And as a little disclaimer, I would like to say that I just like some of Britney's songs and not really her as a performer -- what she puts out is all the product of her producers and stuff anyway, and given that so many of her songs are really enjoyable despite the fact that she can't sing worth crap, I can just imagine what somebody with a decent voice could do with that material. Anyway, it's a good record for working out, and, you know, fun.

3. Stripped -- Great album, and now that we've seen Christina in concert, I have to say she sounds even better live, which is saying something. Back to Basics is an even better album, but I never did get that itch to just play it over and over like Stripped.

4. Decade -- I'm an 80s chick, and you can't have a good 80s pop collection without Duran Duran. I was listening to this album over and over back in the day when I had to take the tape out and flip it after each side was done. My first copy was actually dubbed off from a friend's cassette, and I nearly wore it out before cheap CD players came along and I replaced it.

5. Garbage / Version 2.0 -- These were long term CD player residents back in Chicago, especially when I was at work. I think I kept them at my desk for something like three months, alternating them now and then. Shirley Manson kicks ass.

6. She / Star Turtle -- One of my housemates at Missouri Scholars Academy in 1992 was totally in love with Harry Connick, Jr. I'd never really heard of him, but I liked what I heard. It wasn't until he released She, though, that I really developed an intense appreciation. The big band stuff is okay, and I know a lot of his fans didn't really appreciate it when he ditched the jazz and headed for funk, but I couldn't get enough of it. In fact, "She" is right at the top of the list of albums my college roommate never, ever wants to hear again. By the time Star Turtle came out, I had a CD player and listened through headphones to spare her the "torture."

7. Schizophrenic -- Funny thing... Back when *NSync was still together, I used to make fun of JC's lyrical abilities and praise Justin's. And then Justin released Justified and JC released Schizophrenic, and I was left making fun of Justin instead. There's not a single track on Schizophrenic that I don't like, which, I suppose, is true of all the albums on this list. Thus the repetitive plays.

8. FutureSex/LoveSounds -- As I said, I was never very impressed with Justified. So I wasn't all that excited about a second album. But when Kourt bought it and played it, it turned out to be really great. The thing is, though, that you have to basically listen to the whole album in its entirety, because whenever you hear just one track your brain automatically goes to the next one right after, and you just have to hear the whole thing to get your brain clear of the earworms you know come next.

9. Eye to the Telescope -- I heard Black Horse and the Cherry Tree on VH1 one night and immediately had to get the album. KT Tunstall is brilliant. I expect her second album is just as great, but I haven't gotten the chance to hear it yet. I'm hoping, maybe, for an iTunes gift card for Christmas so my broke ass can get it.

10. Contraband - The Best Of Men At Work -- Again, great 80s band, great stuff even beyond the really popular singles, and I found it to be a great album for working in the architecture studio in college.

11. Celebrity / No Strings Attached -- Yeah, I'm an *NSync fan, and probably always will be. Yeah, I get laughed at about it, too. And everyone can kiss my ass. Like I'm the only one. Over two million albums in a week doesn't happen to an album that sucks. They broke up at the peak of their popularity, and if Justin hadn't gotten the itch to go solo I think they'd still be around, still making progressively more interesting records. And you should have seen them live back in the day.

12. Drama Queen -- Okay, if you haven't heard of Neurosonic yet, go over to their myspace (they're in my top friends) and check them out. Or, hey, just go buy the album. Trust me. I've already gotten my sister hooked, and that's saying something -- she's picky.

13. Best O' Boingo -- Anyone who can't appreciate Oingo Boingo is insane.

14. Discography -- That's the best of the Pet Shop Boys, for anyone not familiar. Everybody's got to get their gay 80s synthpop on from time to time, right?

15. The Hits -- I've said before that if I had to pick one artist whose music I had to listen to for the rest of my life exclusively, it would be Prince. He's a frickin' genius. His newer stuff is just as great as his 80s fare, but being the 80s freak I am I have to lean towards the old stuff.

16. Flood -- I don't think it would have been possible to spend 5 years in an architecture school in the 90s without falling in love with They Might Be Giants, this album in particular. It's the best for long car trips and allnighters.

There. I've been random. Maybe I'll go play some more Guitar Hero now.

Two in one day. Must be some kind of record.

So it's past noon, and I'm not really tired, thus the messing around on the internet. My sleep schedule, screwed up as it always is anyway, is totally shot at this point. I was running on just a few hours a night as of last week (and had gotten to the point where I just wasn't motivated to do all the things I was staying up to do), so after work on Friday night/Saturday morning I decided to stay up until time to close down shop at FBJ and then sleep the sleep of the dead until I just couldn't sleep any more. The idea was that I'd try and play catch-up and get my wake-up time set back to around noon or 1pm. But then I stayed up later than I meant to yesterday morning and now I'm right back where I started -- albeit without the severe sleep deprivation. Still not entirely motivated, either. Really, that's probably just a natural consequence of being hyper-focused for the last month or so on production -- eventually I have to focus on something else. The timing is just really bad.

And then this morning my boss called in because of a family emergency, so I felt like I should stay and put away as much of last night's delivery as I could to cut the first shift a little slack. Since I ditched my production duties to see Neurosonic last night, I'd planned to go to the store and do some sewing this morning, but ended up on the internet instead. Then there was laundry to finish, and now it's 1pm and I haven't slept yet.

Bah.

Profitable or not, I'm going to be super glad when the holiday season is over. I think I'm going to spend all my free time in January sleeping and playing Guitar Hero.