Old Lady Concert Rules: Be really beautiful and really mean...like Diana Ross*

Old Lady Concert Rule #568: Be prepared to stay up very late because concerts never run on time.

I watch a lot of movies about rock bands. One of the constants in movies like Almost Famous, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Rocketman, is that rock stars never show up on time. Shows never start on time and fans have to wait for hours to see their heroes. Being a rock fan sucks sometimes. In my 30-ish years of going to shows, I've never been to a show where the band/musician didn't show up, but I've been to plenty of shows where it felt like an eternity before the show got started. I'm sure some of this is my fault; my family is genetically designed to be at every event early (not on time, early), so I probably get places sooner than I need to. However, modern concerts involve driving to venues, parking millions of miles away, and battling rush hour traffic. Early it is.

Efficiency is not a word I'd usually use to describe a concert. Don't think that I'm disparaging the road crew. These are my people, and I know it's their jobs to organize and orchestrate moving a band and its stage identity from venue to venue over the course of a tour. I was the only person who liked the show Roadies so I get your life. Road crews are amazing. I hope you spend some time thanking the rock show gods for all they do to make your experience enjoyable; this is another way to be a good rock and roll citizen. 

But road crews aren't responsible for the the behavior of the "talent," so it's not their fault when shows don't start on time. I've been backstage at a few shows that were running late and it can be the smallest thing, like trying to find a red t-shirt, that keeps a show from starting on time. I guess this type of thing prolongs the fan anticipation of the first moment when a band steps onstage, but I can't help but think it's also rude when a show starts late. Now venues send out emails a few days before a show with the schedule (opening acts, headliner) including time, but it means nothing. It's an email from a promoter.

When I buy a concert ticket, I've entered into a contract of sorts with the performer. I paid an exorbitant (more than likely) sum of money to come see you, so we agree that:

• I will politely listen to your new songs even if they're not as good as your older work,
• I won't throw anything at the stage,
• I won't shout out "Free Bird!" at any time during the set,
• You show up and start on time,
• You play your hits and not act like a jackass doing so (I'm looking at you, Bob Dylan),
• You get the name of the city right.

I think my requests are pretty fair. None of these things mess with the mystique of the rock star, and I can reasonably assume I'll be home before I have to get up to go to work the next day. Easy.

To say I was pleasantly surprised by my most recent concert experience would be the understatement of the world. I've listened to Diana Ross's music my whole life. My mom is a big fan; she saw the Supremes when she was 16 years old at the Michigan State Fair. My parents grew up 10 minutes away from the original Motown Studios, Hitsville, USA. I know all the words to most of her hits, both with the Supremes and as a solo artist. I follow Diana Ross on Twitter, and it's a treat. I don't know if age has mellowed her, or if the rumors of her legendary meanness were exaggerated, but Diana Ross the performer is a really lovely human being. And also incredibly efficient. 

Not only did the concert start exactly on time (8 pm), but it continued to be a model of efficiency throughout the entire two hour experience. The opening act, Diana's daughter Rhonda and her band, played for exactly 20 minutes. Their drum kit and keyboards were on rollers, so the set strike took about 5 minutes. Diana's band started her opening music, which was surprisingly aggressive, at exactly 8:30. She blazed onto the stage in a canary yellow costume singing "I'm Coming Out" and moved through 18 more songs in the next hour and a half. She changed costumes five times, and had the costume change exit and entrance down to 2 minutes. It was impressive. I know how hard it is to be a dresser, so I'm impressed with the efficiency of any costume change. Diana was rocking dresses from her "archive," so all of her looks were vintage dresses and puffy coats. I enjoyed all of Diana's looks except the purple one; she looked like a grape.

The show was done before 10 pm. This included the opener, Diana's entire set, and an awkward Q&A segment before she sang her closing number "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)." I can't remember the last time I was walking out of a concert venue before 11 pm. The old lady in me was excited that despite having to sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes, I was still going to get home before midnight on a school night. It was amazing. Everyone can learn a concert efficiency lesson from Diana Ross and her crew. 

(Inspired by this exchange from the movie Juno: 
Juno: My dad had this weird obsession with Roman or Greek mythology or something and he decided to name me after Zeus' wife.
Mark: Zeus' wife?
Juno: Yeah and I mean Zeus had tons of lays but I'm pretty sure Juno was his only wife. An apparently she was supposed to be super beautiful by really mean...kind of like Diana Ross.)

A Year with Keely

I have a lot of pictures of my cat. The mark of a great cat mom, which I am, is that my phone is basically pictures of my cat son. I mean, he's super photogenic and was basically put on this planet for me to photograph. Let's take a quick look:

Seriously. This is the animal that lives in my house. If I didn't take pictures of him, I'm pretty sure someone from the animal shelter would show up at my house and take Keely away from me for failure to dote on my cat son in the appropriate way. He's just too handsome.

This weekend, we celebrated our first year together. And by we, I mean I tried to cuddle with my cat, he sat in the window and watched birds. That's our life together and it works. My return to being a cat mom hasn't always been easy; there were times when I wondered if I had made a mistake adopting him. My cat son can be a little jerk, but he can also be the most adorable, loving animal there ever was. You know, a cat. Every day is an exercise in patience, love, and first aid skills. I wouldn't trade any of them for anything.

Here's what a year with Keely looks like:

• The Run & Bite: think of this like Keely's version of the Bend and Snap, but with claws and teeth. He likes to run full force into my legs to remind me of his existence (as if I'll forget). I love the smell of Neosporin in the morning (and afternoon and evening). 
• The Couch: Keely won't sit on the couch by himself. He's done it one time in a year. He'll sit with me, but only if I'm sitting a certain way. Which leads us to:
• The Rules of Being a Lap Cat (according to Keely): 
• The human must be sitting on the couch. 
• The human must have her feet propped up on the coffee table. 
• Only then can I (Keely) jump onto the human's lap. She must not pick me up. 
• I will then get comfortable on the human's lap, cuddle with her, hug her, and generally be adorable. I will be the perfect lap cat. 
• The human may shift her legs, but only if the disturbance is minimal.
• After a period of time that can range from 10 minutes to 3 hours, I will determine if some friendly biting is warranted (it always is) or if it's time to get up. 
• The human may use her phone, read, and watch tv while I sit on her lap. However, if her movements bother me, I reserve the right to bite or meow aggressively.
• Repeat, but only on a weird schedule I've created for myself. I might sit on the human's lap everyday, every other day, once a week. The human will never figure it out.
  
• The Return of Living in an Ikea Bag (down by the river): What is with my cats and Ikea bags? Two weekends ago, Keely stayed in the Ikea bag for almost three hours. He was really comfortable, I guess. He did come out for dinner, but hopped right back in for another hour.
  

• The Laser & the Bubbles: Keely is a big boy and needs to lose some weight. His vet suggested a laser pointer as an option for exercise. Keely loves it! He runs around, chases the red dot everywhere, and cat Army crawls after the dot. We play after dinner and in the mornings on the weekends. I'm Keely's fitness accountability buddy. More recently, Keely has discovered BUBBLES. We have Anita to thank for the bubbles. She brought me a dinosaur bubble maker; Keely was hooked. He likes to watch the bubbles land, and then jump on them to pop them. I bought him cat nip bubbles because I'm amazing. He likes them a lot,
• His bed versus my bed: When I first brought Keely home, he slept on my bed. He didn't sleep "with" me, but on the bed, near me. He liked sleeping on or near my legs. He had a bed, but only slept on it during the day. In January, he got an eye infection and got so mad at me because I had to put drops in his eye that he started sleeping in his bed at night. Recently, he's started sleeping with me when the mood strikes him (like on my birthday when he slept as close to my face as he could get without smothering me). He takes up a lot of space and he snores. I think the sudden change in heart is because the weather has gotten warmer and my room is the coolest place in the house. I know my worth. 
• Patrol: I'm not sure if you know about birds and squirrels, but Keely certainly does. He spends the better part of his day sitting in the window, protecting our apartment from birds and squirrels. It's a very important job that mostly involves tail swishing, meowing at the window, and looking at me as if I have the power to make the birds go away. (I don't. They live outside.) He helped my brother catch a mouse back in the fall and he is a fly killer, so he earns his keep as my protector and pest controller. I'm still not sure if there's a ghost in apartment, but I feel confident in Keely's ability to protect our home.

I'm lucky to have Keely in my life. He's a weirdo, but he's my weirdo. He makes me laugh, and makes me calm down and enjoy life. He's a good little dude. 

Now to figure out how to launch his modeling career. Seriously - is the world of male cat modeling a thing? Not in a weird way, but in a "calendar people buy at the counter at the bookstore because that cat on the cover is so freaking handsome" kind of way. 

At the Stars

In June 2009, I went to my first concert at the 9:30 Club. Given that I went to high school in Northern Virginia, it's probably weird to some that I didn't go to the venue until I turned 30. I didn't go to live shows much back when I was in my teens, and my parents weren't super keen on me going to DC alone or with friends at night (they're still not super keen on that, but I'm an adult lady who can do things). Occasionally, me and my friends would go to the Fairfax Fair and see bands (more on this shortly), but rarely did we go to real rock and roll clubs. It wasn't yet our thing. The band I saw in June 2009? Better Than Ezra, one of my favorite 90s rock band. They're from Louisiana, which makes them extra special to me. When I turned 30, I did a different version of my 40th Year on Earth. Going to the 9:30 Club was one of the things I accomplished that year, along with wearing a skirt or dress every day for a month (during the coldest May on record), wearing lipstick every day for a month (which I still do), and trying flan for the first time (no thank you, but feel free to enjoy it if you're so inclined).

My 40th year on Earth has been going surprisingly well. So far, I've participated in a polar bear plunge (and raised money for Special Olympics VA), rode in my first Mardi Gras parade, sang karaoke for the first time, and baked a cake made famous by Julia Child. That's a lot of good stuff. I accomplished things, including getting over my fear of singing in public. It's been a good start to the year.

And then May happened.

May was supposed to be one of the months where I was going to learn something new that I've always wanted to learn. I was planning to take a metal jewelry course at the Art League. I wrote the registration deadline down wrong and missed registering for the class. I thought about taking a different course, but nothing else interested me. Not one to let something like this derail me, I decided instead to focus on several creative projects that I let sit while working on my Nyx purses. I had a list of five projects I was going to finish in May. I had it all planned out: one weekend per project, with some time during the week as needed. I had everything I needed to create all these wonderful things (mostly for other people). May was going to be a creative time and I was going to bask in my awesomeness. Apparently, I didn't plan as well as I thought I did or I planned too much. You decide.

I finished one project completely (go me!), am about 95% done with another, 80% done with a third, and haven't looked at the other two. Well, that's not entirely true. I looked at them enough to move them from one place to another when I dusted the living room one weekend. The one project I did finish was technically finished in June, but it's adorable so there's that. I left May feeling like I failed. Nothing bad happened because I didn't finish these projects; they just didn't get done. I felt like my Type A self and my creative self where fighting one another, Jets and Sharks style (because I love musicals and choreographed gang fights).  I think I was trying to force myself to be creative. I was trying too hard. Doing something creative everyday is important, but sometimes it just doesn't work.

Which brings us to the month of June and back to Better Than Ezra. When I made my original list of things for this year, I left June pretty open. I believe I described it as "experience my 40th Birthday Extravaganza" or something similar. Doing this left the month open for pretty much anything, so I decided to think of June as the month to start it all over again. My plan is simple this month: do fun things that make me happy. They don't need to be extravagant or cost anything, just be enjoyable and fun. My hope is that by slowing down and doing fun things, I'll get back into my creative space. I'll finish my remaining projects and get ready to make my purses for Nyx 2020.

What I didn't expect was to be inspired so quickly by a seemingly routine activity: going to a summer concert. This past Friday, I went to see Better Than Ezra at the Fairfax Fair. Yes, I know it's now called Celebrate Fairfax, but I went back in the day when it was still the Fairfax Fair, so it will forever be referred to as such by me. Better Than Ezra opened the festivities this year, ten years after I saw them at the 9:30 Club (I believe that show was on the 15th or 16th, but close enough). The show was a blast. They're a fun band, and the whole show made me nostalgic for a time in my life where I enjoyed driving around listening to music with the windows down and no destination in mind. At one point the band paid tribute to Dr. John, who died last week, and an idea hit me. In the space of a song and half, I figured out all of my Nyx purses for the upcoming year. An idea got into my brain, and it's genius and fun and very New Orleans. It'll be challenging in a good way. They didn't play my favorite song ("At The Stars"), but Better Than Ezra helped me figure out a very exciting creative project. I'll share more about it in a future post I promise. It's good.

So thanks, Better Than Ezra and the Fairfax Fair. I'll get my other projects done so I can jump into my purses and realize my vision. It's always good when I have a vision.

Next week: Can you believe it's been a year since I adopted Keely?! We'll celebrate a year of living with this very strange creature. 

My 40th Year on Earth: Get Off My Lawn

Recently, I was talking with a friend about a mutual acquaintance's propensity fro acting like an old man on Facebook. The most recent tirade was about the series finale of Game of Thrones. This person kept going on and on about how everyone was acting like spoiled children with their complaints and petitions for a new ending. I described the posts as the Facebook equivalent of shouting "get off my lawn" at the neighborhood children. We're waiting to see what the next moment will be; I'm betting on some type sports meltdown next. We shall see.

I've lived in apartments my entire adult life. I have no lawn to yell about, but after a recent event at my apartment complex, I have to wonder, can you yell at someone to get off your lawn if you don't have a lawn? I'm certain the answer is yes. As a habitual apartment dweller, I'm used to/have accepted certain realities about living in a community of strangers:

• Dog owners are terrible about picking up after their dogs...even when poo bags are provided for them.
• Apartments aren't soundproofed. People can be loud, but it eventually fades into the background.
• People who vacuum at 10 pm on a Tuesday are the devil.
• Mandatory fun events like community happy hours are ten times worse than mandatory fun events at work. 
• People leave weird shit in common areas for people to take.

None of these things really bother me. They may be annoying (I'm looking at you, upstairs neighbor who vacuums at 10 pm on Tuesdays), but none of them are in any way dangerous or cost me anything. I haven't had to call the police on any of my neighbors in about ten years. I lived next door to a hoarder once; she was perfectly nice, but not a menace (I never went in her apartment after the first visit). I lived next to a woman I like to call "loud sex girl." Again, sort of annoying, but sort what you expect in an apartment building. 

At my current apartment, I pay a large sum of money (because Northern Virginia) to live in a nice apartment with relatively quiet neighbors. I pay additional fees so that Keely can live with me and for a reserved parking space. The parking spot is currently worth $1200. I have to pay for the spot; it's not optional if I want to live in my building and have a car. I only park in my assigned spot and my guests only park in the guest spots on the top floor of the parking garage. We're respectful that way. If I remain in my apartment through the end of my lease, the spot will be worth about $2000. That's not a small amount of money.

Which is why I got so annoyed when I came home Saturday night and someone was parked in my spot. Of course, the office was closed so I didn't know what to do or who to contact about getting the car moved. I certainly wasn't going to knock on doors and look for the person. A calmer person would have just waited the person out and moved their car back to its spot. I was not that calmer person. I called the after hours number and they connected me to the emergency maintenance number. They put a ticket in for a tow truck and were pretty cool about the whole thing. It was my "get off my lawn" moment and I felt like a complete ass about it. I felt stupid. It wasn't an emergency and it wasn't anything important. It was just annoying.

I spend most of my life being enraged by the world we live in. To curb the rage, I volunteer, donate, protest, vote, and advocate so we can live in a better world. I'm a genuinely nice person. I put my cart back when I'm at the store. I should not be this annoyed by someone parking in my parking spot. If this isn't a first world problem, I don't know what is. There are so many more important things to be mad about. My annoyance is the behavior of a small, petty person. But I can't help being annoyed and angry. And I know why. The whole situation annoyed me for two very specific reasons:

1. The person who parked in my spot was visiting someone who lives in my building. Someone who knows that we have assigned parking spaces, and more than likely, pays for one. My neighbor didn't both to tell their friend where to park. They didn't respect the rules of our community. People talk about how disconnected this area is when it comes to apartment and condo complexes, and this is a perfect example. I'm more annoyed with my neighbor than the guy who parked in my spot. Be a better neighbor. 
2. I felt bad about calling the tow truck on the guy in my spot (and yes, it was a guy). After I made the call, I kept thinking about how much it would suck to come back to the spot and see my car gone and another car in its place. And then he'd have to call and figure out where his car got taken and probably pay a pretty big fee to get it released. I felt guilty and like a terrible person. I felt bad that this guy would have to through all that even though he was using a parking spot I pay for and inconveniencing me. 

The guy left before the tow truck arrived. I know it was a guy because I took my trash out around 10 pm and saw him driving away. Had I come out three minutes earlier, I could have confronted him. That would have solved nothing, and might have been dangerous for me. So I moved my car back to my spot, called the emergency maintenance line again, and cancelled the tow truck. I called again this morning because I got an email that the truck was on its way...over 12 hours later. The whole situation was stupid and accomplished nothing. 

I guess everyone has a "get off my lawn" moment. I was really hoping to delay mine until I A. actually have a lawn and B. am the old lady in the neighbor who says ridiculous things but everyone thinks is endearing and kooky. I'm too young to be the "get off my lawn" person in my apartment complex.