Layers

While making bread this afternoon, I swayed a bit, leaning back and forth from foot to foot. Karen Berquist from Over the Rhine belted from my living room "My Funny Valentine." I realized that I could no longer feel my toes. In their place, I felt nothing but cold. Fingers stiff and covered with flour, I forgot, I forgot the flour. I reached down to touch my shoe, just to make sure my foot was still there. Yes. And now my Doc Marten Mary Jane was also covered with flour. The cold is unusual to me. I guess I've been spoiled by 8 years of Alabama weather. Our cavernous apartment has tall windows which still seem to let in little light. I've invested in leggings and long-sleeved knit shirts to put under every piece of clothing that I own. How could I forget? How could I forget the quiet bitter cold of the North? It stole so quickly into my days. The summer hung around so long, lazily reclined upon our living room couch, throwing his drunken stare in every direction. Fans and air conditioning units were installed and shifted from room to room. And instead of the bumbling, snail-like exit I had expected, Summer stole away in the middle of the night, leaving in his place this hollow dreadful chill.

Autumn Sweater

"What time do you want to meet up? 9pm? Does that sound okay?"
My head tilted left, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear, my hands busy cutting the corners of one more little bucketboy picture. "Mmmmhmmm, Trav, that sounds fine. I think I'm going to take a nap before the show." My stomach growled, I closed my phone and tried to get the tape sticking to my fingers off of one, then another, transfering the little spare pieces in a Charlie Chaplin type of innocent confusion. What? What? Eyes darting from one hand to the other. I WAS tired. I rubbed my palms together, gathered up my coat, turned off the light and collapsed on the couch.

"What are you doin'?" My feet stretched across the arm of the stale, paisley couch. I kept my head underneath the warmth of my deep wool coat, pressing my ear closer to my phone. Gorjus's voice drawing me from slumber with a yawn. "Sleepin'. What are you doin'?"

"Shouldn't you be getting ready for the show? It's almost 8'o'clock."

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Brooks and Rebec-co and I stood underneath the staircase to the left of the stage. Leaning up against the railing in the room full of so many surprisingly unfamiliar faces. Who were all of those people? Seriously? We'd become so used to the returning crowd at the Bottletree, the carousel of regular customers coming out to every show, we'd kind of decided that was it. It was a little jolting to be amongst this sea of strangers and it was also decidedly inspiring. They had come out for the show. Maybe they would come out for more.

I found myself completely taken in by Georgia's pale and quiet grimace of intent. I sketched her face again and again, trying to capture that perfect concentrated gaze as she set the pace through every song.

Halfway through the set, I walked down the steps to the floor and caught the eye of my friend Greg who was standing to the right of the stage. He motioned for me to come to him, and I turned and pushed and turned and slipped past the crowd to his side. I stood right under Ira's Compact Deluxe.

My eardrums were vibrating with fury. The boys next to me were wavering with every note that Ira played, the girls with their arms held tight to their chests. In my head I kept thinking that this moment was meant for something else, for someone else, not for me. It was too much, too much for me to hold. I was wrapped in the distortion, this mess of sound. I was taken to nights, roads, driving, in the dark, around Highland Avenue in the winter chill. I was turning up the road and up the stairs and into my old apartment, in the dark, in the aftermath of a storm. Jessica was there, candles and darkness, blankets and beer and hours of conversation.




When the song ended, I had to step back and look around. Travis had appeared at my side, smiling. The guy next to me was still dancing. The faces around us were fixed on Ira's crouching form. James approached the keys and with one quiet measure the journey began again.

By the Time It Gets Dark

One foot on the ground, one foot pushing upon the side of the bar, I sipped my redneck corona, and swiveled back and forth in the barstool. Merr sat at the end of the bar, pushing a pen across a blinding white page. Brock stood across from me, looking to the rather large movie screen that filled the south end of the room. Garbage Pail Kids were sitting in a semi-circle, moving gruesome heads from side to side, most probably discussing evil plans in the glowing light. Nicole pointed out their creepy muppetness. We all nodded and turned back to the screen, eyes bright. Midlake's "Roscoe" flowed over the speakers and I found myself singing harmonies, my lips pressed onto the cold metal tab of the beer can, a sigh of lime catching my inward breath.

"Thought we were devoid....
A change or two...
Around this place..."

I picked up my little leather bound notebook and began to scribble form after form, the back of stripey shirt guy, the squares upon the wall, Brock pushing the hair off of the tops of his glasses with inside of his arm, the awkward cut in the stacked cinnamon cake under a thick glass dome.

This was the end of my day, Sunday evening, the end of my weekend. Not at all what I had planned, but better than I could have hoped.




*Taylor Moore and Sunni*


Friday night was Taylor Moore's going away party at Cosmos. The great Book of John played a set as Taylor Moore wandered around the room, sitting at one table and then another.



*Bekah, Taylor Shaw, and Alex Mitchell (also featuring the floating head of Amber Quick on magic tambourine)*


It didn't seem real, that he was leaving us, this smiling, smirking creature. I think back to so many moments from this last year, this extraordinary year, how many moments did he take part in, how many songs had he sung, walking around Sunni's living room, sitting on the front drive, the back yard. How many quiet notes had he whispered from the stage in stooping, bouncing way and how many instances had I been completely enchanted. Here he stood, in front of the microphone as Taylor Shaw and Alex and Bekah took a break. His arm was up in the air waving several bound volumes of Hemingway. He reached into a coffee mug and pulled out a peice of paper "C-7". Door Prizes. I cheered every time. These random gifts, the last of his things packed in boxes at home, this was all that was left: a cassette of Christopher Lee reading Edgar Allan Poe, a half a pack of pez, some 3-d glasses, a glove from his sister (a large red one designed for use while helping with artificial insemination of cattle), a DVD set...um, borrowed from Amber (she won it back, of course).

Taylor Shaw started to sing some Jeff Buckley, his face so earnest, we smiled around my small table and sung along under our breath. Another round of drinks, a phone call from Gorjus, too many text massages to count. Rebec-co and I made our way outside, winding around conversations through the Pickwick walkway and down to the the Upsidedown Plaza.



*Sara Leah & Rebec-co in 3-D*


Saturday morning, 10:45 in the morning, I rolled over into the pillow beside me, covering my face as my cell phone rang, the piercing sound breaking through the tequila still in my head. Grasping the phone through the haze and pulling it to my ear, Amber asked about the plans for the day. Scottsboro? Unclaimed Baggage? Sleep a little while longer? Yes please. Covers up over my head, Grizzly Bear's Yellow House playing on my stereo, I drifted back to slumberland for another hour.

We piled into the car, one after the other, Pelham, then Highland Ave, then Roebuck. The French Kicks set the soundtrack for our trip into unfamiliar territory. Destination? Unclaimed Baggage, the fabled Solomon's Mine of Bargainness, a Treasureland of the lost and found. The drive up was beautiful, the curves of the Tennessee River, Clay Mountain, the hills sinking into the dreary January day in the distance.

Unclaimed Baggage (-)
Picked over and over priced. But I did find a very cool picture for my friend Merr:



Dinner at Rebecca's Cousin's restaurant The Docks (+++++)
The best broccoli I've ever had (gorjus said that I'm most probably the first person to ever say that phrase in the whole world. I disagree. I'm sure people have said it before, as broccoli can be very tasty).

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This morning I scraped the frost off of my windshield with the CD case for Yo La Tengo's Prisoners of Love. The muffled dreamy licks from "Did I Tell You" drifting up from clouded windows, I couldn't wait to get inside the toastiness of the car and be on my way.

Tomorrow, Yo La Tengo will be playing at Workplay.
Saturday, Jeff Tweedy will be at the Alabama.

It will be a Mike Moore sort of weekend. I'm so excited.