Strange Pulse

Lisa’s post over at Feminist Mormon Housewives about an Evil Boy she knew in junior high reminded me of my own junior high Evil Boy story. (And her post was inspired by someone else’s.)

The Evil Boy I knew was named Anthony. He was a football star on our school’s football team. And he liked to feel girls up without their permission.

My two best friends were much more well-endowed than I was. I wasn’t flat, they were just very big! Anthony’s locker was next to a locker we all shared, so we were often there at the same time. And in a crowded hall, it’s not that hard for a guy to grab a quick squeeze with no one but the victim knowing. He pestered my friends for a bit before he ever tried it on me. When he did, I was standing with my right side against the locker, and while my instinct was to slap him hard across the face, I had no room to draw my arm back and swing. I don’t remember what I said to him, if anything, but I wasn’t going to stand for it like my friends did. They were upset about it but were too embarrassed to go to any teachers about it.

I went to my English teacher, who at the time seemed way cool for such an old guy. Of course looking back on it now, he probably wasn’t even 30 yet. Or maybe in his early 30’s. I told him before class started I needed to talk to him about something. He called me up to his desk during silent reading time.

I said, “Do you know who Anthony Soandso is?”

He said yes.

Here’s where it got hard. “Well, he…Uh. He’s been bothering me and Chris and April.”

“What’s he been doing?”

“He, uh…he sort of…” Big, embarrased pause. How to put it? “He has WANDERING HANDS.”

Mr. K sat up straight in his chair. “Say no more,” my teacher said, “I’ll take care of it.”

And he did. He told his friend about it, who just happened to be the football coach. The coach threatened to throw Anthony off the team if he didn’t knock it off.

Anthony never bothered us again.

My husband and I started dating right after I graduated high school. In fact, our first real date was my graduation night. We got married about 6 months later. We were so young and clueless! But we’re still happy 16 years later. Sixteen, holy cow!

When we were dating we used to go places where we could just sit and talk a lot. Sometimes it was a park, or a beach, but often it was Dairy Queen. We’d get blizzard sundaes and sit in the Serious Booth.

Our local Dairy Queen had a corner booth that was slightly separated from the other booths by a partial wall, or maybe it was a post, but it created a real sense of privacy in the restuarant. We often found ourselves having really serious conversations whenever we sat there, so we started calling it the Serious Booth.

I don’t remember any specific conversations, but I know we talked about things like what friendship really means, what we wanted out of life, what our values were, and different experiences we’d had. You know…life, the universe, and everything.

Daniel never really proposed to me. We just switched from talking about “if we were to have kids…” to “when we have kids…” I wish I’d written down some of those statements, now that our kids are getting to be teenagers it’d be interesting to see what we thought we’d do as parents. (When we ourselves were still teenagers!)

I’ve been really busy lately–started working fulltime. I’m enjoying the people I work with, and liking the job a lot. But it’s a long commute, which is hard.

Dead Meadow’s playing tonight, and I really want to go, but it means I’ll be too tired tomorrow to get anything done, and it’s my only day to get anything done. Plus my son wants a friend to spend the night, since he doesn’t get to have friends over after school now (my kids can’t have friends over if mom or dad isn’t home).

Anyway, I’ve been listening to Patty Griffin and Low a lot during my commute this week, and thinking about time. There’s a song by Patty that goes,

Time will do the talking
Years will do the walking
I’ll just find a comfy spot and wait it out
Time will do the talking
Years will do the walking
Time will tell you baby what you can’t hear now

Someone on a web forum I frequent posted a thread, asking if anyone there had ever attempted suicide, or thought about it. I don’t think anyone admitted to actually trying it, but a few people definitely have problems with depression. And a friend of mine posted and mentioned something I think about a lot–how young people don’t realize how quickly things can change, and that time goes by faster the older you get. And as you get older you gain experience and perspective on tough times, and learn how to recognize patterns and prevent bad things from happening again. It’s really true.

Low have a song that takes a different view on time:

Yeah, time’s the great destroyer
Leaves every child a bastard

I love that line…time’s the great destroyer. Because it’s such a paradox…life and death. I read in some novel, can’t remember what book it is now, a character says in response to a comment about death that life is indestructible. I love how two different perspectives on things can both make sense at the same time.

Here’s a couple pictures I took of Patty at a show I saw last year:

Low/Pedro the Lion 3-31-05 Los Angeles

I`ve never seen Low before and have been wishing for awhile now that I`d gotten into them long ago, because I`d have loved to see some older material done live. But their new album I really love, it`s a big departure for them but has all the elements I love about their music–the songs still build and crescendo. It`s just not as slow and quiet as their earlier stuff. So I was really looking forward to this show.

It was at the El Rey, a theater I`ve never been to before. It`s the largest venue I`ve been to in LA, probably comparable to the Showbox in Seattle–holds a thousand, maybe? It`s an old place with a lot of character. I managed to snag a spot on the very far left of the stage.

Pedro the Lion are a pretty poppy indie band I`ve heard of but never really heard any of their stuff. They were better than I was expecting. They had some die hard fans there who knew every single word of their songs. I found myself wondering why music like that can`t be on the radio. There`s nothing objectionable about it, and it`s more sincere and intelligent than most of the crap you hear on the radio.

Before they came on, they had the venue stop playing Built to Spill, and put on Mitch Hedberg`s cd instead. During their set the singer filled the crowd in on who he was and how he`d just died and encouraged people to check him out. I thought that was really cool. He also stopped after a couple songs and asked if anyone had any questions. I think he must do that at every show, because several hands were immediately in the air, and people waited for him to call on them. He took a few questions–Is the rumor about you guys disbanding true? No. Will you play such and such a song? Let me check–yeah, we stick to our set list, but it`s on there.

After they played, Mitch Hedberg came on again, and I wish every band would play a comedian between sets. I love him and it was really entertaining and made the time go by fast.

Low were excellent. Mimi was sick with the flu and had no voice, which was disappointing–their harmonizing is one of my favorite things about their music. But Alan does the majority of the singing anyway so it still worked. They broke out acousitc guitars twice, since Mimi wasn`t feeling well, and that was pretty cool. Alan said if anyone thinks playing an acoustic is wussy they should bear in mind that Chuck D signed it.

I can`t remember what song it was now, but they were joined on vocals by Gerry Beckley of America. I didn`t know who it was until my husband filled me in.

They opened with one of my favorite songs, which isn`t available on any of their albums, only a limited release vinyl EP, called “Murderer.” There`s a videoclip of part of it here. And if you don`t think Low can be doomy, you should check out this one.

Alan was very verbal and very sincere about apologizing for Mimi`s illness. At the end he was walking off the stage but came back and commented on what a great guy the bassist is, and that he`s great at drawing comics and has a book out that everyone should go buy. “Forget the cd, we`ve sold plenty, go get his book!”

Here`s a rough list of songs they did, that someone posted to the Low email list:

Murderer
Monkey
California
(That`s How You Sing) Amazing Grace
Everybody`s Song
Walk into the Sea
I Remember
Death of a Salesman
Dragonfly
Pissing
When I Go Deaf

Encore:
Canada
Lazy
a new song

Also, someone mentioned seeing Cate Blanchett up front for Pedro`s set, but I didn`t see her.

More pics and videoclips here: