Tori Amos, Siren

After I left the library on Tuesday night, I was quite pissy. 5 minutes before they closed I screwed up my simplenet account files a bit, and therefore didn't have time to finish what I wanted done ... also, the computer with everything I had saved (how's "80+ images and 42 pages of collected quotes for my PJ Harvey page" , eh?) crashed for the entirety of the day. Files I'll have to recreate. Y..e..y..

On the walk home I was overwhelmed by the usual "This is the last time" sensation that always hit me before I leave Sweden. I was still not really .. thrilled.

So I got home, had dinner (".. last time I eat this particular frozen pizza"), and began packing. Yes, you heard right. I'm leaving for 9 months, and hadn't packed a thing when it was 5 and a half hours till us driving to Malmo. I like it that way - if I pack ahead, I'll forget what I've packed, it's as simple as that.

It took me about 3 hours to get it right, and I -still- had to leave a quite large pile of random stuff behind .. you have no idea how hard it is to try and fit everything you want to bring for 9 months into two suitcases and one backpack without exceeding the airplane weight limit.. Especially not when they allow you 2 suitcases with 40 lbs in each case, and you're bringing 25 lbs of just CDS.. YES, I brought my entire CD collection (well it's only 125 or something like that, but it's heavy enough...) What, you think I'm gonna part with ANY of my CDS, even the one's I never ever play like Enya at home?? YOU CRAXY!! :)

At 11, I decided 2 hours was what I needed to fix my hair, and so .. I did. I went downstairs to my place to get privacy, started taping Tori for my friend Monica, and smeared bleach all over my hair.. For some reason, I was so certain it wasn't going to really bleach my hair very well, because it was a cheap brand and my hair is both rather dark, and got previous red dye in it still. Well. It bleached my hair. -A LOT-. It was amazing to just see slowly how the roots were turning pale blonde.. I kept tugging at the hair every now and then to make sure it wasn't burning off, because that was my biggest fear. I can handle a lot, but being bald without a say in it? I think NOT, heh.. now, if I got paid like Demi Moore.. ;)

Half an hour later, I felt it was done, so I went up to rinse my hair, and ended up getting "caught" by my brother, who got in a hissyfit about the whole bleaching thing, and decided that "No you can't use the bathroom, I'm using it .. in a minute in a half. You'll have to rinse it elsewhere." He must have forgotten how panicky it is when it's time to rinse bleach out and there's nowhere to do it. I made do with the kitchen sink, and later the bathroom when he was done being a dork.

Pale yellow with white roots and orange tinted hair ends. It looked INSANE. Let's just say I've found the one haircolour that suits me incredibly bad. It seems there's a reason I was created with dark hair.. hehe. My mom.. was a bit alarmed, even though she knew I wasn't keeping it.

I hurried downstairs, and started smearing the red hairdye in. I had Tori's Purple People on in the background, which helped me not to freak when the dye insisted on getting stuck _everywhere_, and I had to wipe my face and neck repeatedly to keep from getting huge icky stains on the skin. And so, it was done, a big wet mess that was my hair, only bright cartoon red with a pink tint to it. Nervously I waited the 40 minutes requested before washing it out, painfully aware that I really didn't have that much time to spare..

So, I washed it out, and it was ..um. I can't describe how it looked. It had several colours melt into each other all over my head, yellowish red in front, pink red in the back, a few shades of orange .. My first thought was 'OH MY GHOD I'M A SUPER HERO!!". It has since washed out slightly, leaving me an AMAZING shade of deep orange, not at all what I expected, but _very_ welcome - in fact, it looks like the Leeloo character's hair in The Fifth Element!! A shade of orange I've dreamt about ever since I saw it, but never dared even think about really acquiring.. and now it's there! I'm so thrilled :)

So it was time to leave .. I rushed and showered, did a lameass job at shaving my legs, but was too hurried to notice. Finally, it was really time. Lucky me, my cat Sammy was actually indoors (he better be, I told him I was leaving several times the days prior to this) so I snuggled him for a full minute, said a lame 'Bye' to my brother, hugged my mom extensively, and off my dad and I went in his car..

We arrived at a perfect time at 4 am in Malmo at the trainstation where I was to board the shuttle bus taking me to Copenhagen's Airport. I was freezing half to death in my shorts, but I knew America was gonna be shit hot so.. From that on, it got kind of lame.

I got on the shuttle, we got on to the ferry to Denmark, I got starred upon, or rather, my hair did, got to the airport in Copenhagen, I checked in, found the gate (I'm really getting familiar with that airport, I've been there 7 times now), waited till it was time to board, boarded, and off we took.

On the plane to London

I opened up one of the English magazines provided, and found a small news report on the movie PJ Harvey's in. How cool is that? To my right, 3 people got seated that annoyed the shit out of me.. one blonde woman and two guys, all looking like they stepped right out of the latest fashion magazine.. The thing is, I didn't think they looked good because it looked so obviously like a "This is trendy oh I must have it" thing. They kept playing their walkmans really really loud, loud enough to disturb me across the aisle.. and they were playing inane techno. Figures.

So eventually we got breakfast and.. it was so shitty! I -love- airplane food, but this vegetarian meal was AWFUL, I only got two small plates with soggy fruit pieces, and a tiny piece of bread. I wasn't aware that ordering a vegetarian meal constituted a "veggy food - diet food" deal. Ah well. Eventually, we landed.

This was a bit weird, because I'm used to Dylan greeting me at this point in my journey, and I know he couldn't come this time, so I just rambled about and tried to figure out what to do while waiting for my next flight. I ended up just circeling the shopping area a few times, getting severely starred at because of my hair. I didn't really mind, until it was time to get to my flight, and this person checked my boarding pass, and just gave me this cautious look, and then kept looking seriously in my direction as I went away to have my backpack x rayed.. It was pretty much a "We should probably search her, I bet she just came in from Amsterdam loaded with things..." look, so I put on my silliest most inane grin, giggled and almost skipped about to look as innocent as possible.. I guess it worked, because no one pulled me over. Yey.

Boarding the plane to Charlotte, NC, I noted that it was probably the yummiest aeroplane I've ever had the pleasure flying with. _Everyone_ had a little tv screen on the seat opposite the seat, even us Economy skanks, the operating buttons was located much easier than when they put them on the INSIDE of the arm rest (well since I'm a big girl, I always end up pushing buttons by mistake simply by changing my position. -Very- annoying.)

I got a great aisle seat once again, really close to the lavatory, and as always, where the wings are. For some reason, I've gotten to sit by the wings _every time_ I've flown some place. I really love those seats, because I so love to see how the plane tilts and turns as it flies, it just gives me a silly feeling of really being on a _plane_, and I adore whenever we fly through clouds, and I can tell the wing cutting through a thin small cloud... reowr.

I saw the movie Lost in Space which was.. okay, I guess. Gary Oldman is always a cutie, especially when he plays something mean. I read halfway through my copy of Polaroids from The Dead by Douglas Coupland, laughed _hysterically_ at this funny snippet of Eddie Izzard (British comedian whom I adore) on the aeroplane radio (In fact, I laughed -so- much, two flight attendants came by to ask me what I was laughing at, and when I gasped "Eddie Izzard", they just nodded and grinned "He's funny alright, you keep it up, hehe").

I encountered the same food experience as earlier.. Fruit thingies, and crappy dessert. I got SO pissed when I saw that the people around me got _chocolate_ mousse thingies, -AND- a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam, whereas I got stuck with a hideous sour red berry mix. NOT FAIR. Dammit. I mean, I never heard of anyone using meat products in chocolate mousse, so what was up with that? Blergh. It's the first time I haven't landed all stuffed by yummie food.

On the plane, I talked to the girl next to me, she was from Paris, and her name was ... Laurence. Hehe :) Beautiful. Now I really AM psyched to try and get into a french class, it was so exciting when I _actually_ understood her when her English failed and she resorted to french words and phrases.

We landed around 2:30 pm Charlotte time. I waited an obscene long time in the line for us Non-American citizens, but luckily two girls ahead of me were also coming here to study (just different schools), one Swedish and one English, so I had some company. It was so weird, because I realized that I was behaving towards them a bit like the girl I met on my first trip to America, Francesca, who was Italian and had studied here 4 years already, behaved towards me.. A bit like a veteran, actually. I can't describe it, it was just so funny because the two girls had never been to America before, so they were all excited, whereas I was all blase and bored by the whole thing.. I tried to give them helpful things about school and stuff, so I hope I at least was to SOME help.

I was so scared that I'd forgotten some important paper when I got to the checkup point, but it turned out everything was perfect. The customs guy barely asked anything like he did the first time, he commented on my American accent and all that.. not at all as solemn questions as in January about where I live and about the school. It was really okay.

GOOD NEWS: I got my bags within 5 minutes of getting to first baggage claim! I was so thrilled.. Everything seemed to work much faster this time around, so I suppose it just gets easier with experience to handle this traveling thing.

And then I was off to go sit and wait for Lee, the girl I was staying with in Charlotte, to show up. I noticed how much friendlier the reactions to my hair were. Wonderful. And so I sat down and waited.. And suddenly I heard a voice to my left going "Are you Jennie?", I turned around, and I could just SEE that this was Lee, I think I would have even without her saying anything. She was this cute girl with hair about my length but better cut, and slightly shorter than me.

I must say, it was wonderful to notice that we really hit it off immediately, no embarrassing silences or anything. We got outside and onto a shuttle to get to her parked car, and the bus driver couldn't stop laughing about my hair. "Are you gonna do green next?" .. hilarious.

Eventually we got to her car (Volvo!), and drove to her house, with Tori blasting out the speakers and the open windows (I can't believe this HEAT and HUMIDITY! Ick!).. the house was amazing, and Lee was just.. great. She already told me that she sings in an a cappella group on campus and play the piano, but she really surprised me at her house because we went to their music room (everyone in the family seem to play something, there was a piano, guitars, a set of drums, etc etc..), I finally got to see the Tori Amos sheet music books, and suddenly Lee is sitting there, playing this amazing Tori song I've only heard once before in my life (Black Swan, featured on the right), and singing it.. I really loved it, and it was extra thrilling that she sang it with her own voice, instead of trying to sing it exactly how Tori sings it. I was soooo impressed. She even played/sang a few bars of Pretty Good Year.

(insert break because after that the Tori experience will take place, and I want to write about that in a lower part of this entry)

So, suddenly, it's Thursday morning.. I woke up at 6 am after only 4 hrs of sleep, but I just couldn't get back to sleep, so I read some more from my Coupland book. At 8 I took a well needed shower, organized my bright orange hair, put my sunflower back on the right side, and went to my room to wait till 9 am when I was going to wake Lee up. Suddenly I heard this Tori like piano tune coming from the music room downstairs, so I thought mebbe she was up already, got downstairs and.. no one was there. Odd.

Eventually she woke up, we got ready, I phoned my mom to tell her I was alright (she was so cute, asking about the concert and all), and we were off to Chapel Hill in her Volvo.. if the Tori music was loud yesterday, it was ecstatically loud this time, blasting through the car and out the windows, taking our breath away. When we got to Raspberry swirl, it was so loud you'd think we were next to the concert speaker, and we were both dancing in our seats and howling along. Wonderful :)

After a few hours, we finally reached Chapel Hill, and after some fuss.. Aziza's house. I just ran up to the house, knocked on the door, and awwwww we hugged and jumped around. I introduced Lee, and then she left after we both promised to e-mail, and there I was, with Aziza. At this point, I just felt sooo amazing, all doubts about this trip were gone.. wonderful. And GUESS WHAT? The first thing she told me was that she'd FOUND US AN APARTMENT! What's even cooler - it's only $475 or so/month! That is INCREDIBLE, especially considering when we called around in may, all prices were around $700-$900. Isn't this great?

It's still going to require two buses for me, but I'll be alright, I mean.. it's cheap! We even got out there so I could see it and sign the lease, and I gotta say.. I'M IN LOVE! It's second floor, two bedrooms and a cute living room, curtains, and the sweetest flowery wallpaper in the walk in kitchen, that is so much roomier laid out than the one we had before... I think the only thing that was a bit blahy was the olive green stove and refrigerator, but I'll live ;) They told us the train passes twice a day, which alarmed us a bit, but it turned out it's at 10 and 4 in the day, none at nighttime, so it'll be alright. Not to mention how CLOSE it was to the swimming pool, the laundry house, office, and BUS stop (across the street).. no more huge HILL and stairs to walk up when we get home! Lovely.

Needless to say, I signed the lease.. we're moving in on Monday. Something I really loved was that the size was just PERFECT, and the size difference between the two bedrooms weren't at all big like before, so it's not a problem.. I get the big room this time for 6 months, and then we'll shift. Also, they had a special offer, so we didn't have to put up a DEPOSIT!! That's an entire extra rent I got :) The size of the place also means we won't have to buy a zillion furniture things - we can go with our original plan of beanbags and pillows and plants everywhere, PLUS - they're okay with small nails and tape used to fasten posters onto the walls, AND they grant permission to have pets (though we of course won't get any..) All and all, it seems truly fabulous.

After that, we drove into town center and walked around the shops for a while.. I bought a used copy of the Great expectations soundtrack, so I'd finally have Siren.. yey! Then we met up with a friend, and went to eat .. it was so lovely to go to a restaurant I've missed and get my fave dish. Wonderful. Around 5 pm, we headed out to Wal-Mart to check out the price ranges on tv's, VCR's, phones and pillows.. We saw a possible beanbag and several possible pillows, a combo 19" tv with a VCR for about $260, and a phone for around $30, but decided to check Best Buy and Circuit City as well before buying anything.. WE'RE SO RESPONSIBLE! ;)

At Best Buy we found nothing.. well, I bought a Tori single (I had all the songs on CD previously, except for the Talula(tornado version) song, so.. I just had to have it. He's chasing tomatoes.. I mean.. He's chasing TORNADOES, I'm just waiting calmly..), nor at Circuit City.. until we found a cute cordless phone for $20! Nothing seemed to be the matter with it, and we got a warranty, so it was okay.. we bought it. Due to chocolate icecream, I was on a sugar high, so I skipped around in the store, shouting things at Aziza like "This quickcam is the CUTEST I've ever seen!!!".. Things felt great. Our first apartment purchase! yey!

We drove back to Chapel Hill, spodded a short while from the UNC campus (I found 3 e-mails screaming for me to put up information about the new PJ Harvey promo single that's been sent out to radio stations. Hello? I've sort of been.. busy? Sheesh :), I finally heard from Jessica (yey! She's had a good time in Toronto!) and other..tidbits. Soon enough we left and drove home to Aziza's place, where I ended up watching some VH-1 specials about Madonna while Aziza was online, and then I fell asleep.. she woke me up around 3/4 am, and.. here I am, I've been composing this for 2 and a half hour now, and I'm finally ready to LASH INTO THE TORI PART!! YEY!!!!!!!!

I'll just finish by saying - I'm thinking about becoming a double major student... English and Drama. Lee really inspired me, and Aziza think it'd suit me too.. I've dreamt of daring to be a drama student for ages, but never had the guts to admit it to myself because.. I'm just scared I'm not talented in any special field. Whatever happens doesn't really matter, though.. I'll give it a go for a semester :)

THE CONCERT

Around 6 pm Wednesday night me and Lee began to get ready to go to the concert. I made sure my hair looked okay, snapped the yellow sunflower back in there, put my makeup on (Can you say FACE GLITTER? It was like a star exploded into my face, but I loved it :), let Lee borrow my red hair flower that I got for Aziza, waited while she put on HER glitter (more..subtle ;), and just waited for her friend Jenny to show up. I also got to meet her dad, which was real cool, I was hoping he wouldn't freak because my concert appearance could easily be described as.. freaky. Pale blubby girl with orange hair, icy purple lips and loads of glitter and a big yellow flower in her hair can come off like that I've noticed.

So.. Jenny arrived, and she was just sooo nice, but I think the more conservative looking of the three of us, it was just funny.. we had 'normal', 'dressed up to really go out' and 'idiot clown'. :) So..we got in the car, and drove someplace to eat quickly.. my first Mac'n'Cheese in MONTHS.. yummie. And then.. we headed off to the Ovens AudiTORIum. At this point I could barely keep still, I was so excited, and we were all bubbling and giggling. I exclaimed a dramatic "I'm gonna die!!" repeatedly.

We get to Ovens, get a nice parking spot and start walking towards the place and pass.. Tori's TOUR BUSSES!! That alone was just such a thrill.. I couldn't believe that this was really happening. It was also so exciting to be surrounded by all these other fans, goths, preppy girls, regular couples.. It was really cool. I was afraid I'd have problems getting my ticket because it was in Jesse's name, but it all worked out beautifully.. in fact, when we checked, I had a slightly better seat than Lee and Jenny, they were seated in the M row, and I in K..

And by that, we were IN! We immediately went to the merchandise spot, where fifty six big dollars were spent on 3 Raspberry swirl Girl necklaces (for Ninnie, Maria and Monica back home, I don't need one coz Lovely Bren bought me one in April :)), and a magnificent tour t shirt that is black, with an amazing blue image of Tori sort of curled up against something, and her hair and lips orange tinted, with lyrics from Liquid Diamonds floating over the background.. TWENTY SEVEN FUCKING DOLLARS. But it's okay.. I really wanted it :))

And then we went to get out seats.. These old ladies followed us in to show us our seats, me slightly behind Lee and Jenny. It was weird because I knew that wherever they were assigned to, I was going to get two extra rows forward, and the ladies just kept walking and walking and walking.. When I saw the seats we got, I almost fainted. We discovered that the rows didn't start with A-Z, but instead they begun with C, so I was in fact on 9'th row! Also, I was slightly to left center, so the entire concert, I had THE most AMAZING view, close and perfect enough to see individual sweat beads on Tori, and still be able to enjoy the whole stage and lighting effects fully. Breathtaking seat.

I was a bit jellys to see that so many of the fans seemed to know each other .. I just sat quiet and waited for it all to begin. Well, one guy got ecstatic about my hair (His girlfriend added a "He's got a thing for redheads, heh" as I looked startled), and later I noticed that all four to the left of me were fake redheads.