Concert on a School Night

Over the weekend Elizabeth fell in love with this band, and since they were playing a show, she wanted to go.  She asked a bunch of us to come along, and as I got an invite, I said sure.  Jane and Ruth were both going to come, but they didn't show up, so we left without them.  I was disappointed, since I like hanging out with both of them.  Ruth recently complained to me about Jane's behavior, so I wonder if neither of them showed up because they thought the other one might. 
We took a cab, which I about never do.  We split it four ways, so the good news is that I only owe Miriam five dollars for the night.  (I am miserably bad with change, and didn't have any fives or ones to give her.) 
The cab driver was totally awful.  He sounded totally confused with Claire told him where to go.  He kept repeating it as if he'd never heard of it before, and this makes me nervous.  What is it with non-native English speakers repeating everything you say to them?  It makes me wonder if they aren't understanding, which would be fine, if they would just ask.  There's a guy at the caf that does the same thing.  When he first started working there, this would really irk me, but now I mostly ignore it. 
It took him a while to find it, and then he sort of just left us in the middle of the street.  Um, gee, thanks?  Claire told me she thought he was "absolute crap."  Amen. 
The concert was at this hotel.  Actually, I'm honestly not sure if it was a hotel, because the ground level was a very dark bar, with all this wood paneling so it looked super fancy and old, like it would be the sort of place Victorian playboys or Edwardian lords or even flapper girls.  I hate the phrase "old-timey" but that's what it reminded me of. 
We went up these stairs, where everything was painted a kelly green.  At the top was this bizarre room.  It was a greenhouse on the roof of the building.  The floor had hexagonal white and black tiles, like a bathroom (and again, an old bathroom, like something from the fifties) and Victorian streetlamps in the middle of the room.  In one corner, the band was setting up.  On the side opposite of where we entered, a very large and fancy bar was being set up.
We were early, which was weird, because Elizabeth thought we were going to be late. 
No, instead we spent a lot time sitting around waiting.
The music they played while we waited was all very mod, very forgotten bits of the London 60's.  I rather liked it.  I used to listen to this music a lot as a young girl, but I haven't for ages.   
I feel a little badly about admitting this, but I was not happy with the other sorts of people at this gig.  There were a lot of women there, and a lot of them were tall and leggy and clearly could be models.  I am not a beautiful person; I felt uglier than normal there.  There were also a lot of hipsters there, and I could feel myself roll my eyes internally at them. 
Claire asked me where I had gotten my outfit, which was the same one I had worn out a few weeks back when I went out with Erin and Carrie.  I told her I had mostly gotten it second hand.  The dress, belt and pants were all very cheap, and considering how good I looked, I was pretty pleased with this.  The sweater was my Mom's, on loan.  And the underwear and panties I had on underneath were mine, along with the socks and tennis shoes.  (Aren't you glad to hear that?)  "I spent about fifteen dollars on this outfit, overall" I told her, which is pretty damn good.  She was impressed. 
At this point, a man sidled up to us.  He was with a girl.  He looked Mediterranean, with the dark eyes and hair and beard.  Usually, I would find someone like this attractive, but the skin around his eyes was all red and there was something about him that was off. 
For some strange reason Claire felt the need to tell him I was a bit rambunctious.  He didn't grin but said "Tell me more."  Oh ew.  Okay, moving on. 
The opening act was this young man from a band who was just playing solo.  He was okay.  He was playing a very country/blues kind of sound, which normally would be fine, but the crowd clearly wanted to party, and here he was, sort of killing the mood with all these sad songs about girls leaving him.  He had one about, I kid you not, driving out on New Orleans during Katrina. 
How old is this guy? I thought.  He looked my age or slightly older.  He was near New Orleans during Katrina? 
He was also weirdly egotistically.  Like, he had this whole thing where he acted as if he was amazing, and although his playing was quite good, there was nothing about him that was memorable (other than maybe his strange self).  He seemed to be playing mostly as a way of pushing himself on the audience. 
He talked to much, and Claire didn't like him or his music and she didn't like that he was swearing.  At one point, she said something under her breath about the swearing, and it was at the perfect moment, because a hush just happened to fall on the audience right then, and everyone heard her.  Claire covered her mouth in embarrassment, and I roared with laughter. 
The guy continued playing slow songs.  There was something about him that was really awkward, but he also seemed really oblivious about it. 
"Did you think you were the best I ever had?" he sang.  I found myself thinking that if anyone had him at all, he'd be terribly lucky. 
Finally, he realized his slow songs were slowly killing everyone, because midway through one he said "Fuck it.  I'm going to play something uptempo."  And he did and it was surprisingly, mercifully, better than what had been happening. 
Afterwards, he announced he was going to send free zip files with full studio albums from his band to all of us, and curious, I signed up for it.  Unfortunately, this meant having to go up and talk to him in person, which honestly, I wasn't really interested in doing.  He shook my hand and he seemed okay, though still a little full of himself.  He talked to me as if I should immediately think he was a genius, and this annoyed me. 

Out with Erin and Carrie

Since I couldn't find Carrie and Erin when I first got there, I just went to watch the band.  The people at this thing were sort of making me wonder about this place.  There was a young girl wearing what looked like a little girl's dress from the 1840's, with vertically stripped tights a la Alice in Wonderland.  She had all of her hair on the sides of her head shaved off, and just the top of her hair was growing down around it asymmetrically on one side, curled and bouncing in a way that indicated it must have been sprayed with massive amounts of hairspray.  And then she had a nose ring to complete the look.  Her boyfriend looked like an Edward Gorey character, but with an emphasis on pedophile-like creepiness.  There was another woman wandering around wearing no shirt but tape X's over her breasts, and then a suit jacket over that, and was carrying a massive, professional camera.
All of this is to say that I was really wondering where the hell Carrie had gotten me to come.  When she told me about this, it sounded fun, but being here now made me wonder what the appeal for Carrie was.  There was not her kind of place at all.
The band played, and the first woman, the one who was rocking the little girl Alice-punk look screamed out occasionally to the band, telling them she loved them.  "It's because we love you!" she yelled them at one point. 
Near the end of the set, Carrie and Erin found me.  They were both surprised to see me.  They tried to talk to me, and I really should have just left, but the band was good, and I really did want to hear them.  Erin and Carrie's loud talking clearly annoyed some of the people around us. 
Once the band finished, we wandered around a bit.  There was art on the walls, and I pretty much hated everything I saw. 
Carrie is rather fearless when it comes to talking to people.  She just went up to this woman, an artist, named Val.  Carrie just talked to her.  When she introduced herself, I made some jokes about Madonna and first-name basis. 
Val's husband, Curtis, was particularly friendly.  We had a nice time talking to him.  He was sort of floppity looking, like Juicebox, but with darker eyelashes and taller, but just as lean.  Unlike Juicebox, he dressed in clothes that showed off how skinny he is, which is the exact opposite of what Juicebox does. 
Val and Curtis had a very attractive friend with them, but he sort of disappeared.  What a disappointment.  After a while, so did Val. 
I get the feeling Curtis was mostly just talking to us to be nice, not because he was genuinely interested in what we had to say.  This struck me as a little embarrassing.  I would rather not be patronized. 
Eventually people sort of dropped away and left, and near the end, Erin and Carrie and I decided to leave.  Carrie got the art she had bought, wrapped up in bubble wrap. 
We wandered around for a while.  The cold was really bothering me, and I wished I had a warmer coat.  Erin wanted to get something to eat, and we ended up at this greasy spoon. 
The waiter was weirdly rude to us.  He was an older man, and asked for separate checks made him said he would only make two separate checks, not three.  We weren't far from a university, and a large one; I'm sure he's been asked to do that before. 
I had a burger and fries and was mostly happy with that.

Spending the Day Doing What I Didn't

Erin, Nori and I were outside, dancing and fooling around.  Erin and Nori were taking pictures of the night.  I had my camera with me, but I didn't feel like getting it out. 
I was too busy dancing.  I dropped my shoulders low, looking down at the ground.  I put my arms out, slightly above my head, making it look like I was pushing walls away that were closing in on me.  Then I moved my legs so that one foot was in front of the other.  When one leg would move, I'd wobble just a little bit.  I did this for a while. 
I turned around.  Both Nori and Erin were staring at me.  "What was that?" Nori asked. 
I really couldn't tell her. 
They both kept taking pictures, including some of me.  "You always make your pictures look nice," Erin scoffed.  So sue me. 

"Post them immediately!" Erin commanded.  Nori told her that she had to go down to Ann Arbor the next day to see Frontier Ruckus, this band I saw a few years back.  I would like to go myself, but more because I took a class with their drummer and admired how smart he was.  Mark later tipped me off that he was in the same band I had liked.  I suspect Ryan, the drummer, wouldn't even remember me, because why would you remember some girl from a class a year ago, even if she was one of the smartest and talkative kids in the class?
While we were dancing and taking pictures, a janitor came out and looked at us weirdly.
"We're not doing anything wrong," Erin said to her as way of explanation.  And we weren't, though she skittered around us oddly. 
"You would think she was used to drunks," I mentioned to Nori, even though we weren't.  Usually when I've had a lot I feel like I'm swimming, but here I just felt like I did when I wake up from an unrestful sleep: tired and wishing for something better. 
"We should try to break into Morrill Hall!" Erin exclaimed.

There's a long story here.  Morrill is where the English department is located, and it has become a tradition for English students to "break in."  By break in, I mean go through the often-unlocked front door or climb up the fire ladder.  Almost ever creative writing kid I know has written a creative nonfiction piece about it.
I always had this weird fantasy of camping out in an office I had the key into.  In this fantasy, there was a particular young man with me.  We'd share a sleeping bag, and get up right before the sun, and watch it rise from the roof, admiring campus at dawn.  This never happened, for a wide variety of reasons. 
In the meantime, I had spent the day doing what I didn't get done when I was actually in school.  I went for a swim with friends.  I went to a co-op party.  I have a long lunch without regarding the time.  I had an evening of being silly with friends, regardless of the rules or time.  Breaking into Morrill Hall, another thing I never got around to doing, seemed right somehow. 
We drove over there, we parked in the nearby ramp.  Several cars passed us.  We stood outside the front door.  A cop car drove by.  Something about it dampened by mood. 
Erin couldn't get the door open. 
"If that door's not open, the rest of them aren't either," she said.  "Let's go home."