I just realized what an awful friend I’ve been lately. I don’t call anyone, I don’t e-mail anyone, and I’m lousy about returning phone calls and e-mails. Part of the problem is the fact that my answering service (my mother) doesn’t actually remember to pass the messages on for up to a week at a time. It’s only partly malicious on her part – mostly she just has a bad memory.
I only hang out with band-related people and other musicians.
I only have time to do band-related things and go to college.
Well, not really, but it’s easier on my conscience to think so.
Anyway, I talked to Katie A- on the phone last night. She called while I was at college, because I’d caught her attention by talking about Josh in the last entry. I tried the lame excuse that I didn’t call because I didn’t have her new number, but the truth was that her number hadn’t changed; I simply never wrote down the original number. How I was supposed to know the number hadn’t changed is beyond me, but we’ll let it rest. I ended up talking to her until past one in the morning, which resulted in me leaving the computer on, leaving my purse and keys downstairs, and leaving my leather jacket on the back of a chair in the kitchen. Big mistake.
For those of you not familiar with my leather jacket, let me introduce you. I’ve had it for 7 years. The outside’s made out of lamb skin and the inside’s made from this silky stuff called Thinsulate. This poor jacket’s been through a lot in the past 7 years, mainly my backpack and my cats. My backpack has given my jacket a Dr. Jeckyl/Mr.Hyde aspect. The right side, where I put the first strap on, look[ed]s perfect. The left side, that I force through the other strap because the first strap bunched up all the leather while I was putting it on (because the straps have never really been big enough for the sleeves, which are very large) is really worn. One of the cats, in the long-forgotten past, left claw marks in the left shoulder of the jacket.
Now the cats have had the opportunity to put claw marks on the right side, in an attempt to balance my jacket’s karma.
It’s still a really comfy jacket, it just looks like ass now.
Band practice looks to be interesting; Aaron and Dirk are feuding. Dirk came home on Monday to find Aaron using his (it’s really Katie’s, but I’m going to say ‘his’ for brevity’s sake) word processor. To be specific, Aaron was on the phone with Nikki making endless copies of his lyrics with Dirk’s word processor. Fact one: the ink cartridges for that word processor run about $45 each. Fact two: Aaron uses up all the ink and doesn’t ever pay Dirk for the ink cartridges. Fact three: Aaron can make copies for free at his job. Fact four: Aaron freaks out if anyone touches his stuff, but he has no respect for other people’s belongings. Fact five: Dirk’s already told Aaron to ask before he uses that word processor.
With all those facts in front of us, let’s proceed with the story. Dirk comes in, finds Aaron using his word processor, and asks him what the hell he thinks he’s doing. Without pausing in conversation or stopping the endless printing, or even acknowledging in any other way that he heard Dirk speak, Aaron just flicked Dirk off. Dirk turned off the word processor, whereupon Aaron threw it against the wall (it wasn’t damaged). Dirk followed Aaron into his room, asked him what his problem was, and Aaron shoved him out of the room, followed by throwing (literally) all of Dirk’s guitars out into the hall (they’d been stored in Aaron’s room because Dirk’s had no space). I don’t think we even need to discuss how much that could have damaged the instruments.
So, Dirk took Aaron’s lyrics out of his binder, put them in Aaron’s room, and took back his T.V. (which Aaron had been using for the past year or so in his room).
Since then, Aaron’s been trying to sway Nikki over to his side by exaggerating what Dirk did. I think he’s completely leaving out all the parts where he became utterly enraged for no reason. Nikki even went so far as to tell Dirk, “That was really fucked-up, what you did, tearing Aaron’s lyrics into little shreds.” Nikki’s not the smartest boy on the planet, but he’s going to learn something real damn quick: Don’t take sides. If he gets the brilliant idea of taking sides, I’m going to make him wish he’d been born dead. I don’t need division in this band right now, especially over the fact that Aaron made an ass out of himself, and I’m not going to tolerate it.
The fact that I’m not the official band leader does not leave me powerless where the band’s fate and major decisions are concerned. I don’t have the patience for people with fucked-up attitudes.
Anyway, it’s all on Aaron now. Dirk’s perfectly willing to set the whole incident aside, but Aaron’s holding a grudge. Like I said, practice is going to be interesting.
