3This post is obscenely long. I mean, really. But I am writing it more for me than anyone else, because I am stressed and need to vent. Continue at the risk of your own boredom.
This past weekend, like the title states, was pretty much a disaster weekend from hell, though, unlike the title states, it definitely had its bright spots. Like any good re-cap, I will begin at the beginning.
A while back, I made plans to visit a friend in Virginia who was to teach me how to use Mark’s mom’s SLR camera, which I borrowed just for the occasion. I was pretty stoked about this, because I have never used a fancy camera before, much less a film-based fancy camera, so I bought some special batteries and four rolls of film.
Anyway, my friend had never been here before and said she wanted to visit, so we decided she should come here instead, which was great, because it saved me some driving and gas money. On top of that, it’s incredibly scenic here and would make for good picture-takin’. A few days before she is supposed to come, though, she changes her mind, because it was going to be, like, nine degrees here and snow, and she is not accustomed to driving in that kind of weather, much less in the mountains. Also, it just would have sucked to have taken pictures in that kind of weather. The camera probably would not have even worked, and since it wasn’t mine, I wouldn’t have really felt comfortable taking it out in those conditions.
So while I understood, I was a little disappointed, because this left me with a three-day weekend stuck in shitty mountain weather doing absolutely nothing special with anyone.
Or so I thought.
I mentioned all of this to Mark. Just, ya know, general, like, “What a bummer” type commentary. Well, Mark had recently bought a new bass and sold his old one, which meant he had a little cash lying around. He was saving it for the proverbial “rainy day” and decided that, hey, this qualified as one of those and suggested that I use my friend and/or CouchSurfing connections and come see him. Well, Memphis is, like, 12-13 hours from here, depending on how fast you go and how often you stop, and I couldn’t afford the gas anyway. We calculated it on GasBuddy, which I used on my mega-CouchSurfing trip last April and found to be very accurate, and figured out that he could not afford to come here either.
Well, me being the clever girl that I am, I suggested that we - wait for it - MEET IN THE MIDDLE. I calculated that Knoxville is approximately six hours from both of us. And get this: after doing a little research on my favorite bands, I discovered that my pal Austin Lucas was playing at a new venue booked by Matt Woods called The Well in Knoxille that Saturday evening! Soooo, I spoke to my Senior Editors at The Vinyl District, and we decided I should do a show review. I asked for two guest list spots: one for me, and one for my photographer, Mark Egan, who just so happened to have previous experience takin’ the fancy pictures and who had access to a fancy camera. I got the spots.
Sounds clandestine, right?
WRONG. But I’m getting to that.
Soooo, I went to plannin’ and found a cheap-but-safe hotel via Booking.com for a mere $35.00 total including tax for one night. (It was the Sleep Inn North. Ne’er ye mind some of the reviews. Place is under new management and was awesome.) As for the second night, I arranged to stay with my friend Kayla, who I’d met via CouchSurfing last April, when I was in Knoxville seeing Ben Nichols (of Lucero) perform at The Square Room on his Solo Motorcycle Tour.
Honestly, I was pretty stoked. Mark knows I write for a music web site and travel all over to do interviews and show reviews and such, and he thinks it’s awesome, but he’s never seen that side of my life. I was really excited to share it with him. I wanted to show him that while it’s hard work and lots of sacrifice is involved, people really can do what they want to do. In my instance, and, I think, in the music industry in general, it’s just about being creative and living a low-cost, low-maintenance lifestyle and just doing it because you love it. Because you can’t not.
Well, I had arranged to stay with some friends in Lewisburg, WV (where they are currently filming Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God, by the way) the night before. It’s an hour and 15 minutes from me and would have shaved that much time off my drive the following day (Saturday). It also would have given me the chance to go grocery shopping and pick up some items for the trip to save both me and Mark some money. (I have food stamps, and more than I can use, so I was more than happy to use them, because I like saving money.) While I still managed to go grocery shopping, I was not able to stay the night before with my friends, because I just had too much work to do for my AmeriCorps VISTA position before I left, as well as some writing I had to do for The Vinyl District for a record store show I attended in Richmond, VA earlier in the week. On top of that, I had some unexpected expenses come up that were stressing me out, because it meant that Mark and I could not eat out or spend any money on the town.
I was the first to arrive at the hotel. Google Maps was bunk or something, because I got there with an hour to spare. I was able to check in early, though, which was helpful, because ugh driving long distances. I get to the room, and it doesn’t have a microwave as advertised, because people who pay discount rates don’t get rooms with microwaves, and I had missed that. It was no big deal. There was one in the lobby we were free to use. But then the phone and the alarm clock don’t work, so we get upgraded to a room with a microwave. Yay! Sorry, I am lazy, and this made me very happy, as I was toting gluten-free and regular frozen pizzas for me and Mark to eat during our stay.
I will make the rest of the trip description short and probably non-chronological, as this has gotten way too long already (apologies):
Mark arrived an hour and a half late, as in an hour and a half after the time we had set to meet. There were three reasons for this: 1) He forgot to account for the time change, 2) He went the wrong way for about 30 minutes which cost him an hour total, and 3) There was a wreck on 40-E. I was kind of cranky about it, because I hate tardiness, but eventually I got over it, because, really, we only had 12 hours together.
Which brings me to the fact that Mark forgot he had to go to a Grammy thing Sunday night, which meant he had to leave earlier than we had initially planned on Sunday. We were supposed to meet up with Kayla and gorge our faces on cheap, low-quality seafood (Red Lobster), but lack of money and the Grammy event prevented both those things.
The Well is a new basement bar and venue and doesn’t have a sign yet. It’s still being welded. No one we asked had heard of it or knew where it was located in the shopping center it was in, and it took us 45 minutes of driving and gas we couldn’t spare to find it, which we only did because Austin was outside it smoking a cigarette.
The show goes well. Austin does an awesome job, Matt was a great host and gave both me and Mark a copy of his CD, Mark took pictures, and I took notes. We can’t eat or anything, because we have no money to spare, so we decide not to stay very long for the three bands after Austin and go back to the hotel to watch cable television and stuff our faces with pizza and cuddle, because we are taking things slowly in that department, and we are very romantical still, because we haven’t seen each other in about a month. I give him his combination Valentine’s Day/20th birthday present I had bought way back when I actually had some cash to spare: a pair of classic black and cream checkered Vans, some used Star Wars books, and some chocolates of which I ate half, of course.
Mark and I eventually go to bed. He snores very badly, has pretty bad sleep apnea, has restless leg syndrome, and gets sleep paralysis. I had ear plugs and a noise machine, and I still did not sleep. At all. It was horrible. Finally, I kick him out, and he goes to sleep in the room we had originally been assigned, because I still had the room key, and I was desperate. I managed to sleep a few hours. I went and got Mark in the morning. We ate breakfast, and he went on his way, extra groceries in tow, because I bought too much food and most of it was things I could not eat, and I thought, heck, late night snacks never hurt any college kid, amirite?
On his way back to Memphis, Mark runs out of gas and money and has to call his parents and family for help. While he rarely calls them for money for emergencies or things he doesn’t need, I can’t imagine that went well. Plus, ya know, being stranded sucks. As a result of this, he ends up missing the Grammy event, which was the whole reason he had left early to begin with.
In the mean time, I am without a cell phone and a way to contact my friend to meet up and end up sitting outside her apartment for four hours waiting for her to come home and watching all her neighbors stare and point at me like I am some sort of stalker creepster because I do not have the gas or money to spare to go do anything. Turns out, I had my free ghetto government cell phone that barely works buried in my purse. No charger, but it came on. I sent her a message, and she replied saying the door was unlocked for me. THE EFFIN DOOR WAS UNLOCKED THE WHOLE TIME. Also, I HAD A CELL PHONE ON ME FOR FOUR HOURS AND HAD NO IDEA.
My friend doesn’t get home till after I pass out, and she is gone for work before I wake up, so I never get to see her. I wake up to a sweet note and $10 which I was embarrassed to need/take but did anyway, because at that point, I did not think I had enough money to get home. Turns out, I didn’t. Kayla was a lifesaver. I woke up, wrote her a thank you note, left some West Virginia pumpkin butter and a fancy soup blend by Bob’s Red Mill and go downstairs to find I left my headlights on all night. ALL NIGHT. My car doesn’t start. I wait about 45 minutes for someone to come out of a building. Any building. I end up flagging down a complete stranger who helps me by jumping my car and vrrooooom! I am on my way home.
I come home to a seriously cold apartment, because while I left my heat on a little for my cat, I didn’t leave it on much. Oh, and frozen plumbing that didn’t completely thaw till today. It’s Tuesday. I was pissing in a pot till a coupla hours ago, because I never heard back from my landlord, who doesn’t have an answering machine at home and whose cell phone voice mail is always full. ‘Twas fun.
On top of that, most of the photos Mark took at the show came out all blurry, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I bought the wrong speed film, because he used all the proper settings and everything. He took two rolls, but I am too broke right now to get the second roll developed and put onto a CD, so I have to use the one or two good photos I can for the TVD write-up. Not a major deal, but it was, like, Debbie Downer icing on top of a Bummerville cake.
Then Mark and I get into a disagreement, because, well, I was/am fucking stressed, because this trip is not the only source of MAJOR stress in my life. But we made up with no damage done.
Seeing Mark was great. I just wish it hadn’t been so stressful. (I think it might have been more so for me.) I am broker than all hell and am sick with something I thought I had fended off just a few days before I departed for the trip, but I dunno. I don’t care. Mark was wonderful and sweet the whole time, and I really did have tons of fun at the show and thoroughly enjoyed his and everyone’s company. He is fucking worth the hassle, and I know he thinks I’m worth it too, and, well, that makes all the difference.
