Despite my atheism, I am a firm believer in celebrating Easter. To me, the holiday represents all those things that are great in life. Namely: chocolate bunnies and fuzzy chicks (or any variation thereof). I’m a big believer in the commercial aspect of holidays. Who the heck came up with the idea of associating rabbits with this holiday anyway?
Friday night, I stayed up far too late after bringing Dirk to work. I went online and talked to Matt until after two. I also did some reorganizing for Poison Ivy, and came up with the concept of “personal best” entries. It’s like doing a collaboration, except I don’t have to think of topics. I’m really bad at thinking up topics.
I was having a moment of hilarity when I wrote the e-mail to the ring members (I want to call them constituents, but I’m not an elected leader), so it came out more flip than I intended. I hate it when I do that. I’m not the best ringleader (webmistress?) in the world -- I tend to have a laissez-faire approach to upkeeping the ring. The only thing that really pisses me off is when the people in the ring don’t have the code up.
Saturday wasn’t as good as it could have been. Dirk yelled at me on I-95, accused me of trying to cut off this bitch in a red Mustang who darted in front of me. He wouldn’t listen when I told him that I had not, in fact, sped up at all. So I yelled at him for telling me how to drive, and he made some snotty remark. The rest of the drive was spent in silence.
We got to practice, and Dirk went to open up the rehearsal space while I took out a couple of the guitars. I got inside, and Dirk was standing at the second door (there are two doors to unlock), looking expectantly at me. “Well?” he asked. And I remembered that his key to the second door didn’t work..so I opened the door, and the ADT started buzzing. Dirk just stared at me, looking arrogant as hell. I tilted my head to one side, told him that I didn’t know the code, and walked out to get more equipment. I ended up bringing all the equipment in by myself. This wasn’t just the four guitars and my bass, it was also Dirk’s head (heavy) and his cab (much heavier and bulky to carry). Plus a couple bags of wires and pedals.
When I’d brought all the stuff into the rehearsal room (sans Dirk’s guitars. I left those in the hallway when he made me open the door), I stood there for a second, catching my breath. Dirk piped up with, “So, are you going to bother taking your bass out of the case to practice, or are you just going to leave it there all day?” Snotty as hell. I tried to stay calm. “I was just getting to it, after I caught my breath.” He made some remark about people who didn’t “carry their weight.” So I screamed, “Look, I fucking brought all the equipment out to the car while you were in the shower, and I hauled all the goddamn equipment in here while you piddled around. Isn’t that fucking enough? Why do you have to be so goddamn hostile, you fucking bastard?”
Dead silence while everyone stared at me....then Dirk lost any hope of the other members being on his side by making a remark that he’d “have to have a [vagina] to understand.” So Dirk got glared at for the rest of practice. Greg suggested that if he kept being so hostile towards me (everyone agreed that his attitude was way out of line), we should end practice early. I wasn’t about to cater to Dirk’s little pissy-fit. I hated it in the old band, and I’m not going to take it now. And while I played with brilliant technical accuracy, I wasn’t putting any effort into it until we got near the end of the set.
We recorded this set, and the recording came out pretty good. The only thing I’d change is move one of the monitors back towards the tape recorder so the vocals can be picked up better. We sound a lot better than I expected. It may only take a couple more weeks before we’re ready to start looking for gigs.
That is, if I don’t strangle Dirk first. By the end of practice everything was theoretically okay, aside from a couple points. 1) Dirk claimed that he apologized for yelling at me in the car (about cutting off the girl in the Mustang), and I yelled at him anyway. That never happened. He didn’t apologize. When I denied that I’d sped up to cut her off, his only response was, “You fucking did so! I felt it!” 2) He won’t apologize for being shitty at practice. I’m really very angry about this, and I made sure to remind him of it yesterday. Fucking unprofessional, that’s what it is.
After practice, we went out with Aaron and got pizza. Marilyn Manson was playing at the Patriot Center, but the show started at 7, just as we were getting out of practice. Anyway, the Patriot Center traffic is really lousy.
We dropped Dirk off at work at 11:00, and I brought Aaron home, intending to just drop him off and get some sleep. We started talking, however, and it evolved into us standing in front of our cars with the hoods up, pointing out the differences in the engines and the stuff we’d like to get repaired. I was also asking Aaron’s advice on how to do a couple things he’d already had some experience with (like re-attaching the door lining).
Before we knew it, it was 1:00 and I had to get home...I didn’t know if Aaron was going to mention it to Dirk. Apparently, he had, and called it a “bonding experience.”
Sunday was hectic. My parents gave me a really nice stationary set in a fabric-covered box. Then, we set to work cleaning the house. My mother had invited her sister to Easter Dinner....around 11:30, my mother decided that she didn’t feel like having anyone over. When my father objected, because it wasn’t enough warning to call it off, she started getting really mad. She screamed at my father and I for “not moving fast enough,” and repeatedly lay the blame for the fact that she had to cook on my father’s shoulders. Eventually I just walked up to her and told her to calm the hell down. It wasn’t our fault she had PMS.
I went over to Dirk’s house at 1:30 to collect Dirk. He was still in bed, and I couldn’t get him up...I had also taken allergy medication (I’m extremely allergic to dust, and we don’t keep an immaculate house), so I was passing out on a chair, rousing myself every five minutes or so to tell him he needed to get up. Eventually he did, and took a looong shower, and we got back to my house at 2:45. I was worried, because dinner was supposed to be at 2:00....but when we got there, my aunt still hadn’t showed. She didn’t come until about 4:00. By that time, we’d already eaten, and were preparing to leave again.
We spent the rest of the evening at Dirk’s house, watching T.V. and vegging out. We only left once to get cigarettes and a slurpee.
Dirk’s mother made me an Easter basket. She made the container out of an empty milk jug. It looks like a deranged goose wearing a bonnet...trimmed with extremely pink lace. I don’t think she made Sonya one – I wonder how she justifies the obvious favoritism to herself?
Jason’s leaving for Boston tomorrow. I don’t particularly care. He causes too much friction between Dirk and I. Anyway, Dirk’s supposed to go an a road trip with him to Front Royal tonight. Am I going to be pining away? I think not..... I told him I was going to go look for a new boyfriend online while he was away (I was obviously kidding).
Dirk’s cute when he’s being protective.