Aaaand we're singing the split-lip symphony.
I've been very sick this week-end; a side effect of sickness is very chapped lips. When you've got big lips like I do, chapped lips = split lips. I am now repaid for calling my cousin's best friend in San Francisco "horse-lips".
I managed to piss off Joe & Aaron simultaneously this weekend. Joe wanted to continue practice indefinitely...now, I'm one of the most dedicated members of this band, but it was about 10 degrees below in that practice room and I was getting sicker; so much so, in fact, that I was afraid I'd end up with something more serious than a severe cold. Everyone was responding in a rather unenthusiastic way to his insistence that we go through the entire set again, and Joe started shouting and getting belligerent. He said that we were lazy.
I think right now is a good time to point out all the times Joe's ended practice early because he's pussy-whipped. I think it's also a good time to point out that he'd shown up for practice an hour and a half late on that very day. It's also a good time to mention the fact that he stopped practice so he could tune a single fucking drum for 45 minutes. And he was calling us lazy?
Let me also add that we were not, in fact, attempting to end practice then & there. We simply thought it would be a more useful expenditure of our time to go over the material we were weak on, as opposed to wasting energy going through all the songs again.
Anyway, I went off on him, and I got up in his face and yelled at him. He ended up storming off (because I'm not someone you want to see yelling at you. It takes me a very long time to get pissed off enough to say something, so when I do, it's time to run.) and Aaron followed him to calm him down. Eventually, everyone was calming him down except for me. I was standing perfectly motionless in the ice-cold practice room listening to what they were saying in the break room. People always assume I can't hear very well because I often don't seem to be paying attention to what's going on around me. Nothing could be less true. I hear astonishingly well. Especially when people are talking about me.
Far be it, of course, for Aaron to do anything but suck up to Joe. I could hear him saying that the fact that I was sick wasn't an excuse for not wanting to practice – after all, he'd worked when he was sick and that involved a lot of being out in the cold. Of course, of course, the moron conveniently forgets that I have a history of minor illnesses turning into major ones....I don't have a strong immune system. I never have. He also conveniently forgets that I was the one who insisted we practice, and I was the one who made arrangements so that we could stay later.
So, I went in there and quietly told him off (because Dirk and Nikki were desperately sticking up for me, but they're hopeless in arguments). I also pointed out that I was not opposed to continuing practice. I simply didn't see the point of practicing everything, when a lot of it was stuff we could play in our sleep, rather than focusing on the stuff we were weak on. There was a little more irritation from Joe's end (because he tried to be a smartass), but we ended up in the practice room again.
Things were tense for a while, until I made a show of warming up to Joe. Eventually, Dirk insisted that I go into the other room and sit down because I was coughing so hard I could barely stand. Joe came up a bit later and apologized for being an ass. I apologized for yelling at him and hurting his feelings, and everything was okay. There's no point in holding grudges when you know it happened because you're stressed.
Aaron, however, told Dirk that he thought it was inappropriate for me to yell at Joe (despite the fact that Joe was yelling at us). He also said that it was bad to yell at Joe because Marie yells at him. I don't give a shit, and neither did Dirk. We are not babysitters, and Joe needs to understand that he can't talk to people like that without expecting to be treated in exactly the same manner. I don't want to go into the details of that discussion, but basically Aaron came out looking like an ass. I wasn't there to hear it – it was an after-hours talk.
I don't regret yelling at Joe at all. I just wish I'd been meaner when I'd done so, because that boy needs a wake-up call.
I do wish Aaron had attempted to tell me off. I would have reminded him of every time he & Joe had ever slacked off or behaved like assholes. I can't stand hypocrites, and I can't stand people who aren't sufficiently self-aware enough to understand that all the things they criticize in other people are the exact same things they themselves do, but they do them ten times more.
For the record, Aaron and I get along just great when he's not being an ass.
