I am immersing myself in the details of promoting the band.
The way I see it is this: we're going to do shows, very soon. We will, thanks to the proficiency of our new drummer, be ready within two weeks. It would be nice, when we do shows, for people to have already heard of us, via a little word-of-mouth advertising. It would be even better if some of the people have heard at least one or two of our songs, right? Maybe it's just me, but I love knowing some of a band's songs when I see them play. The number one reason I don't tend to get into the bands I see at local shows is that I've never heard of them before. That's where I came up with the idea of giving away tapes. Fully fleshed-out, the plan is: we record two songs (one for each side of the tape) that we plan on playing at gigs. We can do this on the four-track. The quality doesn't have to be perfect; after all, we're giving the tapes away. We get short tapes (fifteen-thirty minute) and copy the recordings. On the cover of the tape (still working this part out, not sure what kind of covers tapes this short come with) we will put the address to the band's web site.
Which is where the other part comes into play. There is a site up for the band, but it's horridly outdated and shoddily-done. I love Dirk, he is the apple of my eye, but he's not very experienced with programming HTML. He admits this openly. The site is also lacking in focus. I propose we do a new site, better-coded (of course) with updated info, booking info, and pics. I need to ask the other band members to find out what they want on the site.
I think this will work very well.
I'm also trying to determine whether or not I can manage to put my hair into liberty spikes. I have this bad feeling it isn't going to work, because my hair's too long and too thick. Perhaps if I cut it.....but that doesn't bear thinking of as yet. If nothing else, I can put it into ultra-perky ponytails and temporarily dye it with that spray-on wash-out stuff. I don't know if it will linger because of the things I've done to my hair with Sun-In to keep it blonde. We shall see.
I am just getting more and more psyched by the upcoming anniversary. It's only four days away!
Dirk's first class was Monday night. We got there without a hitch, and found the room easily. Dirk's really liked being back in school again. He's like me — he feels out-of-place if he isn't learning something. He said his professor was something of a flake, and that he's the most outspoken student in that class. His self-esteem has grown in the past couple years — when we were in high school, he sat in his classes quietly, trying not to be noticed.
He has another class tonight. My class isn't until Thursday, at 7:00.
I felt like such a betrayer today. I finally told my supervisor at this office that I wouldn't be staying with them permanently. They love me here, and I adore them, but the office is moving to Silver Spring in the next six months, which would add an extra half hour to my commute each way. Considering the fact that I am going to college at night, as well as transporting Dirk to college (thus ensuring I have time to do my homework), I'd have to leave the house at 5:30 in the morning to leave work early enough to make it to class. Is it just me, or does this sound like a nightmare proposition?
So, I suppose I'm assigned here until they hire someone new. Then they'll find me another assignment back at the national office. I put off telling my supervisor here because I knew she'd be hurt. Of course, she didn't say anything. It would be completely unprofessional of her to do so. But I knew anyway; her eyes widened with semi-shock before she controlled the reaction.
My mother's going all-out for my birthday this year. She speaks effusively of me reaching the age of ‘majority'. The celebration, she says, is as much for her as for me. Celebrating the fact that she didn't kill me off long before, I suppose. So, on my actual birthday, I am expected to have dinner with her and my father. A loooong dinner, at a fancy place.
How fancy? Two words: Dinner Cruise.
I'm not one to turn away a free, expensive dinner, so I'm going. I don't know what I'm going to do for the real celebration. I can't have a party at my house, because my parents are freaks. Maybe rent a hotel room? Nah...can't afford it right now.
I don't know.
Okay, very odd dream time.
I was standing at a window, in a house that was built on a bay. The house wasn't set back from the water; rather, it extended partly over the water. It was a huge house, with six stories, that had been something before. Some business. It was a mansion now, a mansion over the water. I looked to my right, and saw my cousin lying on a bed next to an electric candle. He was about seventeen or so, and sleeping. I got the impression that he slept a lot.
I didn't want my aunt to notice me. I knew she was somewhere in the house, and I knew that there was something very odd about her. She made me nervous. As I looked out the window at the bay right in front of the house, I saw a giant octopus swim out from under the house. Instantly, I knew that it was my aunt, because the octopus was the size of a town house. My aunt could change forms to that of any aquatic animal. At a ninety-degree angle from our mansion was another, of similar size and positioning. A giant squid swam out from that house. I knew that it was the man who lived in that other house, who also had the power to change forms. They met and embraced in the bay, still in their giant mollusk forms. I assumed they were about to mate. I turned away, semi-disgusted.
I wandered around the house, feeling free since my aunt was having sex in the middle of the bay. I tried to wake my cousin, to find out how to get out of the house, but he wouldn't wake up. I looked out the window again and saw that the man had changed forms to a giant hippopotamus, and was swimming back to his house. Cold fear trickled down my back, because I knew my aunt was in the house again. I turned from the window to find her standing behind me.
Her head was oddly shaped; it looked rather like a wine glass. Her eyes were odd as well, putting me in mind of the eye of a whale, except more plastic-looking. She smiled at me reassuringly and said, "So I see you found out."
She put a hand on her son's head and confided, "He's going to be one of us, too, when he comes of age. They tried to exterminate us, you know. All of us who were changed because of the government experiments on Jews."
Suddenly, I was back in 1940 or so, in a supermarket. The supermarket announced that matzo balls were only being made with yeast. I was horrified, because that was sacrilegious. Then, it announced that it would sell ‘special' matzo balls without the yeast added to people who waited by the meat counter. I waited there with three older men in business suits, all looking nervous. Another announcement was made — we had to go up to the sixth floor to get the matzo balls. The upper floors were slaughter rooms. I compared the structure with my aunt's mansion and realized that this was the building that had been converted into her mansion. A slaughter house!
The sixth floor was something else altogether. There was a room with a desk, and a friendly man behind the desk. Behind the man was a door with smoke pouring out of it, as well as an eerie light. Screams could be heard. Human screams. People crawled out from the door, trying to escape, and the friendly man, with a smile on his face, kicked them back into the room. He joked to us about ‘coming to visit for a while'. The men I was with looked like they were about to cry. I pretended not to know what he was talking about, and agreed stupidly.
The friendly man looked more and more incredulous. A girl came out who'd obviously been lobotomized. He patted her on the head and told her what a good girl she was...she sat on the floor, naked, and stared blankly into space. Then, with a look and a seemingly innocent comment, I let the friendly man know that I was aware of the fact that we were slated to die. Somehow, that saved me, and the friendly man only let me escape.
I was suddenly back in the present, no longer at my aunt's house. I was driving around looking for something, and C-- was in the car with me. People were chasing us, and we got stuck in an abandoned gravel lot. There were huge ditches, and it took all of my driving skills to keep us away from one. C-- took over driving, but I noticed he wasn't looking very well. I kept telling him we needed to stop because there was something wrong. He had cuts all over his face, and his eyes looked glazed and furious. Eventually, he couldn't drive anymore and we pulled over. I dragged him out of the car and realized that he'd been dead all along, I simply hadn't realized it. Someone had killed him long before. I started screaming, kept right on screaming until Dirk came and took him away. I knew C— hadn't been the first to die. Nor would he be the last.
Then I was in a unisex public restroom with Dirk. There were two couches at a 90 degree angle from each other. Dirk and I were on one (or was I alone?) and Krisco and this guy from Grease ‘n' Go were on the other. Krisco had short blue hair. Krisco was pestering, telling me that I was scared of her, because I'd taken down my site on aol. Even in the dream I realized that the site on aol was gone because someone broke into my account and got me banned, so I kept telling her to shut the fuck up. I called her all sorts of names. Eventually, she pissed me off because she wouldn't shut up, so I took out a pen and started drawing on her boyfriend's face. He pushed me off, so I started drawing on Krisco's face, while she ineffectually pushed at me. I drew random lines and fake tears in blue ballpoint ink on her fact. I was laughing really hard while I did it, too. Her boyfriend tried to pull me off, but I kept kicking him.
When he finally pulled me off her, they went to one of the bathroom stalls and didn't bother us anymore.
That's when I woke up.
