Rule #1: Stop being a lesbian.
Rule #2: Any questions see Rule #1.

I love that quote. I heard it tonight from a female friend as we ranted to each other about life in general and I laughed for the better part of a minute. As the same friend once said, “stop the lesbian bullshit!”

I fear I should clarify for those of you who don’t understand. I am not in any way implying that being a lesbian is a bad thing. The quote was brought about by the erratic behavior of lesbian friends (think about it, two women in a relationship?) and we have found that it applies to so many aspects of life. It isn’t that I have a particular direction for that rant to travel, more that I felt like saying that. I feel better now.

Ah, tonight is my first band trip where I’m not with the band. I was considering calling a friend when I realized he was away with the band tonight…and I wasn’t with him. It was definitely a weird sensation. I don’t miss band practice. I don’t miss the unnecessary drama and the aches and pains and the heat and annoyances. But as I think about the crowd they are playing for tonight and the definite adrenaline rush that will follow I can’t help but be jealous. That I miss. The knowledge that I helped make these people howl. That was a good feeling. Standing on a football field at the end of a performance knowing I had infused the crowd with a piece of me. I miss that.

What else? I feel the need to write tonight—not all of it can be written here but certainly some of it. It was a busy weekend, too much working and not enough drinking or maybe too much of both. That’s a hard one to call. Parts of it were great, others not so much. Some just went by. The whole two job thing is maybe not the wisest decision of my life. While the extra cash is good I miss my weekends. I know I’ll have them back come October but that isn’t much consolation right now.

I should say it is a different, but not unpleasant sensation to have nothing to do at the end of the day. Come five o’clock I go home. Not to rehearsal, not to another class, not to homework. Just home. Home to my A.D.D. cats and their craziness. Home to my thoughts and an empty apartment. I like being by myself. Or I should say, living by myself, but it is a change that will take some getting used too. I really like being able to drive again. I don’t like driving—I’m entirely too scarred to ever like driving again, but I like the freedom that comes with driving.

I’m not sure I truly have a point to this blog. More just a need to write. It happens on occasion. Sometimes with more ferocity than others. I apologize for offering no epiphanies or entertaining rants. I have only a few random thoughts and unvoiced emotions. I can feel a story building. As always it will be my true voice. Maybe I’ll ask a few of you too read it, maybe not. Perhaps just writing it will be enough. As always I can say everything on paper and pretend I said it in real life. Self-delusion is a beautiful thing.

So my last “summer” in the vacation sense of the word has come to an end. I drove back from a most enjoyable family reunion today and just felt wrong—it is the first time in eight years I am not rushing home to get to marching band. I honestly don’t know what to do with myself. I should be out playing drums, getting sweaty, ruining my hearing and my joints…instead I’m sitting at home typing. Hm, maybe better in the long run but definitely sitting sour right now. The logical side of me is content considering I can’t pick up a drum without my shoulders and elbows aching for days but the sentimental side—it always has this annoying knack for blocking out the bad memories and expanding the good ones. I suppose that makes my life seem more pleasant to me than it has probably been, but it makes it terribly difficult to move on. No happy solution to this problem I suppose except to stop wasting your time and mine worrying about it.

I would like to discuss some recent occurrences, though. As aforementioned I did just return from a family reunion. I think it was perhaps one of the best I have been too in a long time. That is of course a good thing, but also a bad thing because it makes it harder to leave. I might also admit that I am a tad emotional as I travel through my first year without my grandma on that side. She was my (and my immediate family’s) link to that entire side of the family. Now we will see them once a year but I will never hear the gossip of who is doing what, which child broke the law or received an award or did well in school. I never realized I enjoyed that until this weekend. I never realized how much I relied on my grandma being there until she wasn’t anymore. Once again I never learn until it is too late. I do have the small consolation of spending my college years in correspondence with Dee (the grandmother) so I did get to know her as more than just “grandma” before she went but I wonder if that only made it worse. I don’t regret it at all, but it is certainly true the better to you know and love someone the more you miss them. Goodness if I’m this big a mess with one grandma I’m screwed when the immediate family starts to go. I will definitely have to die before any of them. Not to mention the logistics of a funeral are the hugest pain in the ass. Who wants to fuck with settling the estate and finding money to pay for things and moving stuff out when you feel like shit? One of life’s little ironies I guess. A time you are supposed to be able to mourn and instead you’re buried ass deep in paperwork. Woo-hoo. Enough of that. I apologize for not being more chipper. This whole starting work for real on Monday and not going to school thing is getting to me. I definitely need to not get stuck in a dead end job. But what do I want to do? If anyone knows please tell me. I’ll be sitting at home playing with my cats.