Last night I watched the film “Igby Goes Down.” It’s about this rich kid with an institutionalized father and a bitter, valiumed-out and chardonnayed mother. After a youth of boarding schools and hating his mom and his life Igby escapes and runs around New York City with all kinds of characters. It’s a comedy and it seemed a lot more real to me than, say, anything Edward Burns might film. In the end Igby is falling asleep on an airplane smiling, on his way to California.

This morning I dreamed the sequel. In my dream, Igby traveled all over Europe. He died his hair yellow. I watched him ride a scooter through Paris, his yellow hair blowing in the wind. Then years passed and Igby was like 45, still with yellow hair, but with tan wrinkles on his face. Now he was hanging out in Florida. I’m not sure he lived anywhere, I think he just lived in Florida going from place to place sleeping with women and then leaving because he was afraid of commitment. His brother who was the budding Republican alcoholic in the film lived in the Florida Panhandle so Igby went there to see him and instead slept with another woman. They were done and the woman said to Igby “would you like another custard?” Igby said, “that would be wonderful.” Then he pretended to go to the bathroom and left. Outside he ran into the Jewish girl from the film, the one that he loved first but who was then seduced by the asshole brother. She was talking to someone about how pissed off her liberal parents were that she had ended up with a career in marketing. Then I woke up.

After I watched “Igby Goes Down” I watched “Showgirls.” Sadly, I cannot remember dreaming any sequel to this one. Maybe I did and I just don’t remember. Maybe Nomi Malone goes to the White House and gets a job fighting terrorism. In my dream, if I had one, I don’t think she had to put ice on her nipples anymore.

The clock is ticking. I leave Wednesday for Atlanta and from there, head for Venice on the 20th. I am so not prepared. I haven’t even thought about it really, until, like, today. Weird, eh? I’m going back to Venice, and I’m not even thinking about what to pack. Except books – more on that, later.

Going back to Venice. It’s like going back to see an ex-boyfriend who you still like to sleep with sometimes, because it feels so nice and comfortable. I don’t get all hot and bothered about Venice like I used to. Now, it used to be home, it still is home, kind of. In a corner of my heart. But I am not peeing my pants with anxiety like I use to, I won’t be pressing my feet against the floor of the airplane trying to make it get there faster. Venice simply is, as I am, and we exist in harmony with an understanding of each other that goes deeper than lust.

This is a work trip, too, and if there is one thing that I am anxious about, it is the work. Venice is full of bookstores, and Chow! Venice is only in one of them. This after calls, faxes, emails, and visits from Ruth, my co-author. We are suppose to have an Italian distributor, but after a year they still don’t have books. Not our fault though… first, we sent a case and it sat in the post office four months and they did not pick them up, so they were (thankfully) returned. Then, our UK distributor refused to ship because of unpaid invoices going back to the time when I actually LIVED in Venice. Whateves, we were desperate enough to risk non-payment to get the books over there, so we shipped another case, this time to the distributor’s freight forwarder in New Jersey. Guess what? They still don’t have them! Why? The freight forwarder needs to get paid, that’s why.

So homies don’t pay their bills. So it’s been over a year, and Venice still doesn’t have books. Venice, who wants the book, who NEEDS the book.

So I am going over with a suitcase full of books. I am thinking I’ll put them everywhere – every book store (even if they don’t want, need or ask), every bar, every restaurant… I’ll leave copies lying around. I’ll go sit in the bar at the Danieli and read my own book from cover to cover. I’ll forget one in the bathroom at Harry’s and in the public restroom at San Bartolomeo. Anybody going to Venice and need a book?

And this brings us to another question. How do I not “out” myself? Like if I am reading, from cover to cover, my own book, and some tourists see me and ask me what up, and then maybe the owner of the place will send over a free grappa (which they often do) and the tourists see, will they think I am getting special perks and am not fit to live and will they go home and write on Fodors or somewhere that they saw one of the authors of Chow! Venice getting free stuff and my oh my isn’t that horrible?

Maybe it is not such a good idea to read my own book in public after all.

I am going to “out” myself to one place and it is a wine bar so it shouldn’t matter too much. I have to give a copy to Francesco and Andrea at La Cantina because there is no way things are going to change there, there is no way I am going to get better treatment there, and they already know my name. And I deserve at least that much from all this work.

With all the rest, they will be blissfully unaware, and da Ignazio, you had better watch out because I have heard your service is really sucking.

Everyone sure does seem all agro-ed out and stressed these days. It is because Summer is over, or is it because of the election? Is it because no one feels they can do anything about anything or because things seem to be totally out of control?

Maybe Mercury is in Retrograde, hadn’t even thought about that one.

Friday night I found a palm frond that looks like a witches broom and I started beating the trunk of a palm tree with it pretending it was my neighbor I was beating. I accidentally hit Mark in the thigh with the handle end, barely missing a very important area. So I sort of got my agro out early and was then able to just view all the other stress from a fairly calm standpoint. The feeling at the beach was a lot different than the beginning of the Summer. I watched some kids litter pretty badly and their mom just ignored them because she was having a fight with her boyfriend. I found myself getting agro but then a guy sitting in front of me picked up the litter when he left. Another woman started screaming at her husband because he was letting their daughter eat drumsticks for breakfast. I am not sure if she was talking about the ice cream drumsticks, or turkey drumsticks. But the woman wanted the daughter to eat cereal.

Then there were middle fingers on the freeway and arguments in the bars. I watched it all trying not to let it affect me.

Last night a kid got hit on his bike right down the street from my house. I was just getting home and was looking for parking and could see the kid’s bike all mangled and people all around, helping the kid who I was really scared might be dead or crippled or something. He wasn’t, but I’ve never seen that in my neighborhood before (though the way people ride their bikes around here combined with the driving habits of others, that is pretty shocking.)

Anyway I hope things get a little calmer soon. And absentee ballots are a good way to go, folks.

Even though Summer is not officially over for a couple more weeks, it seems like it is done, here at the beach. It is hot outside, and the Summer fog seems to be gone, replaced by Indian Summer, almost overnight. Last night the light was different and at sunset the clouds turned pink and stretched across the sky instead of rolling in low and gray off the ocean. Everything was colored rose and yellow and all the kids in the ‘hood sat outside drinking beer because now, everything changes. School starts, the days get shorter, and the tourists go away. It becomes our beach town again. Some youngsters who lived next door to me all Summer are gone. Just like that, that apartment is empty and no trace of them remains.

What happened to this Summer? It went by so fast this year. It seems just yesterday we had our street fair and 4th of July, but that was two months ago. And now the best part of the Summer, the races at Del Mar, are over too. I always love the first day I go to Del Mar to bet on the ponies, and I usually go every weekend for all six weeks, but this year I couldn?t, because life got in the way.

We went to the track yesterday. It is always bittersweet, that last day at the races, knowing you won’t be able to go again for almost a year. Last year I won an exacta on the last race, by choosing two random numbers. I didn’t have that kind of luck yesterday, probably because we bought a racing form and that always screws me up. Blind luck is better than too much information at the races, at least for me. Or choosing any jockey that wears pink is another good way to win. Oh well, there is always Santa Anita in the wintertime if I need a fix before Del Mar starts up again.

I guess today is the real, official last day of Summer. I am going out into the heat to sit by the ocean and watch the tourists one last time until next June rolls around.

2005 is coming fast. Get ready to party like it’s 2009.

I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to write about all those kids dying in that school in Russia. And I am telling you, it is hard. I’m scared that my ignorance will come through, or that someone will tell me to fuck off or something. Which would be OK, I guess. I don’t have a very thick skin and that is probably why I move through life blissfully unaware of what is going on in the world. I don’t read the paper and I don’t watch the news. The only way I find out about stuff is when I load up my homepage and Yahoo news comes up.

Like everyone I was totally saddened and horrified about the events that unfolded at that school. Like everyone I thought “why, oh why would they target children?” But for once I knew I needed to understand what was really going on over there, and why the Chechens would do something that would make everyone hate them really, really bad.

Well, I still don’t understand too much, but I do know a little more about the Chechens. How Russia declared war on them in 1994, and how Russia has been killing thousands of THEIR children and raping their women. How young Chechen men are taken away for no reason, never to return. How the Russians hate them and won’t give the Chechens who live in Russia jobs or respect. How the Russians pretty much went in Chechnya and leveled much of it and killed a lot of people who were normal people, not “terrorists.”

So, the Chechen fighters (I’m not sure I want to say terrorists, because isn’t this a war they are fighting against a big, nasty invader?) must have thought they might get some attention by taking over a school. And I, for one, know a little more about the situation and the plight of those people now.

I hate it that all those surviving kids and parents will have these events and images to haunt them for the rest of their lives. And I hate that desperation drove the Chechen fighters in to try to make their stand, and I hate that Russian soldiers stormed it and there was all kinds of gunfire with kids in the middle. And I hate it that it took something of this magnitude to get my lazy brain off my own trivial thoughts.

Blast away at me if you must, but I think there are two sides to this story.

Well, here I am – still alive. This is the longest I’ve gone without posting something since I started writing this thing. The weird thing is, I have been getting more hits per day since I haven’t been writing. I am hoping this is because people are so desperate that I write something that they check back over and over to see if I have finally written. Yeah, right. Probably more like it would be, there are more guys with hairy backs and lawyers looking for naked ladies hitting Google these days. It is, after all, almost Fall. Time to get off the beach volleyball circuit and back where you belong, in front of the computer, homeboy.

Having not written in a while, getting back on schedge was a bit difficult. It’s kind of like when you stop exercising after you have been doing so well, like walking every day and then you stop and then it is really hard to start again. I am a creature of habit, and my habit the last couple of weeks has been motel rooms and pizza in a box and E! True Story. It’s weird because I am hella addicted to my computer but when I am away, it doesn’t seem to bother me too much that it is not there with me. If there is a “business center” where I am staying, then the pull of the computer will be great, like a crazy beacon in a dull and lifeless land. But if there is no business center then E! True Story or even better, VH1’s Hottest 100 Videos/Sluts/Whatever, will do just as well.

I am good at moving around. I can move from room to room and town to town and pack and unpack and unload and load my car with amazing efficiency and precison. I am not squeamish when it comes to funky carpets or transparent bath towels, as long as the sheets are clean. Sometimes I even like not knowing where I am. I was thinking about this long and hard this past couple of weeks and I have come up with a new plan.

My plan is to be plan-less, and to travel the world this way. This is just a teaser though, right now, for the reader, but also for me. I’m sketching out the non-plan now. Will keep you updated.

Many days have passed since I last wrote. And after this, more days will pass until I write again. One thing that has not been perfected blog-wise is how to do it without a computer. Maybe someday you will just scan things in your brain and it will automatically download to the other people’s brains. The other people could like, subscribe or something. Perhaps there will be a Google search engine, just for brains to transmit information. They could call it, Broogle.

Anyway, the reason I have not been writing is, I went to Maui, to attend my brother’s wedding and the reason I will not be writing is, I have to go to the Central Coast for work. You know, my life is pretty good sometimes. Maui was nice, but driving from winery to winery in the Santa Ynez Valley, and making money doing it, is better.

The wedding was beautiful. There were only ten of us there – the bride and groom, and eight family members. I was a bit worried that the other family would be, well, I can’t use the words weird or bizarre, because weird and bizarre are fine with me. I guess I was worried that they would be ultra suburban, uber-republican, or for the women, “frosty.” Frosty is a term I use for women that are frosted. Frosty lip-gloss, frosty toenails, everything is frosty. My other brother, Tom, sometimes consults me now on the frostiness of his prospective chicks. He understands that frostiness is good only if you plan on never speaking to the frosty one after the night in question.

Anyhow, back to the wedding. I loved Carrie’s family. Her father is a bit of a republican, but also drinks a lot of beer and is, in general, extremely mellow. Her brother is very good looking and has traveled all over the world in search of good surfing spots, and now lives in a kitchen-less ground-floor uber-space that may or may not have rats. Her mother was just incredibly nice, easy-going, and fun. Carrie’s three aunts were there as well, eccentric and talkative and entertaining. I mean that as the hugest compliment, in case they ever discover this thing. There was just the slightest tint of frost on one aunt and since we were in Maui, it was acceptable. In fact, I now realize that I, Shannon Essa, was awfully frosty there, as I took the opportunity of the island locale to apply some Lancome Juicy Tube Lip stuff in some majorly frosty color on my generally unfrosted lips.

There were seats set up in a quiet area on the grounds of the Kaanapali Beach Hotel, and a videographer, photographer, lady singer/guitar player, and the minister were all there to oversee everything. I have to say, that whole video thing sort of bugs. People need to have a few drinks in them before they are going to hula in front of a camera, dude. But whateves, it was part of the package. We sat and talked and my brother was very nervous. Finally Carrie walked up, the minister said stuff like “Huakee caakee maakee” for twenty minutes and then they were married and we could go on to the luau.

My two previous luau experiences consisted of one truly lame luau somewhere in Kauai a million years ago and the luau at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas, which was not really lame only because of the camp value of going to a Vegas luau and the Prince impersonator who “sang” there. Both had an hour of free watered-down mai tais and nasty, inedible food. So I was not expecting much of my brother’s reception dinner at “The Feast of Lele” in Lahaina. It turned out to be a perfect way to celebrate. At this luau, you have your own table; there are five courses (with several dishes in each course), all the drinks you want, and entertainment between every course. This was the first place I saw native islanders waiting tables, which immediately endeared it to me – I’d only seen white chick servers in West Maui up to that point. The servers wore orange and yellow thingies wrapped around themselves and feathers in their hair; several had tattoos, and all had beautiful skin. It was a feast-for-the-eyes, not just Lele.

The food was pretty good two. Each course hailed from a different region – Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti – we tried some new and different items like fern salad and sea beans, but also had some old standbys like pork-baked-in-a-pit and a sweet-sauced sliced steak. I asked our server, “Do they have cows in Samoa?” Our server, a neat little package of good humored wonder and fresh wine-getting efficiency, laughed, like he did pretty much every time you talked to him. “I think I asked the same thing myself,” he said. It didn’t really matter that beef may or may not be a staple of Samoa. Everyone was way too happy to fret about it. The sun went down, there was dancing and fire breathing, and spear throwing. I really, really loved the Feast of Lele.

The trip was short, but my brother and his new bride are still in Maui, alone, probably happy everyone has gone and they can be honeymooners. I am happy because his new family is one I can relate to, and will want to visit. I hope Carrie’s family feel the same way.

I love my little ‘hood but if there is one thing it lacks, it is restaurants. There are lots of taco shops, several cheap breakfast places, a couple of Mexican sit-down restaurants, three fancy white table cloth places, a crappy “American Bistro” with bad neon but a killer view, a German restaurant that scares me, and Pepe’s, which is the only place I go to with any regularity. Pepe’s has good pizza and pasta e fagioli and they let me bring my own wine with only $5 for corkage. I guess that sounds like alot of choices and now that I have listed all of them I guess the ‘hood does not really lack restaurants. It just seems to me that it does because there is not much I want to go out for.

So I was really excited when nine months ago I noticed a big sign in the window next door to my bank on Newport Street. “Coming soon – Portugalia” the sign read. A Portugese restaurant! Something new, and even better, something different! As the months went by, though, the placed stayed dark. A little downstairs area that has a bar and a few tables, two refrigerators stocked with a bit of beer, wine and soft drinks is visible from the street. But mail just collected on the floor for months and months. One day I asked some guy entering the building what was going on, and he said the guy opening the place was having trouble with permits. I guess when you open something at the beach there are extra permits, and homie had not done his research.

Finally, after all this time, I get a letter. Actually, my boyfriend gets the letter, I guess he signed some petition the guy from Portugalia needed about how his restaurant would affect parking in the area. It was a two page letter all about how the owner had really struggled for nine months to bring us, his future customers, a little taste of Portugal. He had a long drawn-out tale of woe. The letter was full of spelling typos; also, there was no coupon. Why go through all the expense of mailing that thing without a coupon?

Anyhow, Portugalia opened just under two weeks ago, and last night we went to check it out. Portugalia is not going to make it. Unless a bolt of lightening hits, there is no way.

The little bar is just a teaser as the actual restaurant is upstairs. You would never know it was there if it weren’t for the little bar. The restaurant sign is painted on the wall, but I am not sure you would know what it was all about driving by. Last night the bar was empty and dark; on the street there was a sign that said “come on up!”

We started going up the stairs. Mark was hesitating. He kept saying “are you sure?” I wanted to see what was going on up there. We walked into a little bar where a bartender, a host-person, and a server were all hanging out. The bar is tiny, the dining floor is huge. The tables and chairs all look like 1980’s desk furniture. It looks like a giant conference room with glass tables and cloth chairs. It was very dark. There are some fake grapevines here and there and murals of Portuguese villages on the wall, to try to lighten things up. The host-person said we could sit where we wanted, and we chose one of the ginormous four-tops that could easily seat eight. There were four other tables occupied and it was six P.M. Not bad for a place that no one knows about.

We got menus and the wine list. The wine list had several pages but there was nothing on them. Some were blank and some had a couple of wines listed. Why? There were three red Portuguese wines available. I decided on the mid-range one for $26. Mark said “not a good sign” and pointed to the dead flowers on the table. The server was running around like a chicken with her head cut off, and she only had five tables. The hostess-person came over. “She’s a little busy,” she said. “Can I start you with an appetizer?”

Dude. Beverage first; that is in the Service Rulebook. That would be Rule #1, in fact. “No,” I say sweetly. “But I would like to order some wine.” I give her the order and she goes off to the tiny bar where I can see quite a few bottles of red wine lined up, non of which seem to be on the “list.” She comes back. “uh, we are out of that wine, would you like to try something else?” and hands me the list with the remaining two listed red wines on it. “uh,” I say, looking at it with a furrowed brow, “what DO you have?” She points at the house wine. “We have that one! It is SO good!” Not having a lot of choice, and not being offered one of the many selections behind the bar, we go with the house wine.

The server is still running around and the owner, dressed in a suit, is delivering food. He walks like he hasn’t had a bowel movement in a while, and he is young. The server finally comes over and apologizes over and over. Turns out she is not really a server; she is a family friend. Well, that is pretty obvious because she really has absolutely no idea what she is doing. And the host and the bartender are not doing anything at all to help her cope. “Not a good sign,” my boyfriend, who manages the faculty club/restaurant at San Diego State, keeps saying.

I ask her what appetizers are good. At this point, Mark and I are not sure we are in it for the long haul. We’ll try an appetizer and then decide what to do. The server says the linguica sausage with potatoes and fava beans is good. So we order that. She runs along. All the food for the other tables is coming out and she is trying to figure out where it all goes. Not two minutes after we order our appetizer she comes over to us with two dinners. “Did you order the blah blah blah?” She says. The owner comes out, leads her to the right table. The server is apologizing loudly to everyone.

The menu consists of a few appetizers, some sandwiches, a few “Euro-Pizzas,” and several entrees. There is one entree called “a taste of Portugal” where you can choose three of the entrees; only in Mark’s menu there is a sticker over that item. The server comes over, and I ask her if “a taste of Portugal” is available. “Nope.” She says bluntly. “The kitchen couldn’t handle it.” She runs off. “After 10 days?” I say. “Not a good sign,” Mark says. “We could try a Euro-Pizza,” I say.

Our appetizer arrives. It is a plate of French fries and a few pieces of linguica on toothpicks. It tastes good, and we are starving so we eat it. I can’t understand how sausage cooked with fava beans, onions, and potatoes turned into sausage and French fries. “Not a good sign, not a good sign…” Mark comes over to sit by me so we can check out the carnage together. “This place is never going to make it.” I say.

We still have a half bottle of wine. It doesn’t taste good unless you are eating something with it. I am thinking of the Euro-Pizza for $7.95 as I am not willing to take a chance on the skewer of beef thing for $17.95. Most of the tables leave and three guys come in. Then a party of ten come in. The server is totally incapable of dealing with it. She simply, can’t deal. The owner walks through from time to time; I wish he would come over to our table – I might feel sorry for him and want to help him. But he doesn’t. A little kid, part of the 10-top, points to the wall above us. “Jesus,” he says. His daddy says, “yes, that is Jesus.” I look up.

There is a mural above us of a little fishing village. Above the ocean, a giant Jesus spreads his arms. Jesus is, strangely, blue. He has a blue face. He is the blue Jesus. Where he spreads his arms the waves are huge, like he got pissed off at the town and is sending tidal waves to wreck the village and kill all the people. “Not a good sign, for that village.” I say.

The server is trying to take an order from the three guys. They have some strange requests, like wanting diet Coke. This nearly sends the server over the edge, though I have no idea why. “Sorry!” she tells the guys. “We are out of that!” They are also out of most everything on the menu at 6:45 on a Sunday night. “Sorry!” She tells them. “We just served our last pizza!”

Ok, that was it. Mark and I decide there is only one thing to do and that is to go to Pepe’s. I go to the bathroom first, and then I look into the giant kitchen where the owner, the bartender, and the host-person are all hanging out. The owner is making a salad or something and barking orders at the other two, who are totally ignoring him. The host-person sees me, so I ask her for the check. She tells me she’ll get my server. She then goes out on the floor where the server is STILL trying to take an order from the three guys, and WAITS there to tell her to bring us our check.

“Not a good sign.” Mark says.
“This place is never going to make it.” I say.

The server comes by, sort of in a shitty mood now, and says “I’ll get your check.” But first she has to tackle the beverage order for the table of ten. We wait, and wait. I tell Mark we should just leave $30 and split. That would cover the bill and even leave more of a tip than was deserved. He wants to wait though. The server runs to the bar, gets two drinks, brings them, then runs back for two more. Rule #7 – get all your drinks, then deliver them at the same time.

Finally we get up and go to the bar where we are going to hand her the money and leave. She looks at us like we are the most horrible assholes. “I am sorry,” she sniffs. “I am the only one here.”

“No you aren’t,” I say. “There are three other people on the floor besides you.”
“I’m the only server,” she argues.
“You have to make them help you,” I say.
“You’ll never make it here like this,” Mark says, being Mr. Restaurant Manager.
“Can you tell the owner that?” she says. “He needs to hear it.”

Mark and I look at each other. “Okay,” we say. She goes into the kitchen and screams, “JASON, A COUPLE AT THE BAR WANT TO SPEAK WITH YOU.”

But Jason is delivering skewers of beef to the party of ten. I, for one, am not going to wait until he is done doing this so that I can tell him he is going to fail.

“Let’s go to Pepe’s,” Mark says.
“They are never going to make it,” I say. “Nope, they aren’t.” Mark says. We walk down the stairs, away from the blue Jesus and into the sunlight.

I dreamed about my ex-boyfriend Chris this morning. It’s been a trillion years since we were together, and I don’t think of him too often any more. I’m not sure why I dreamed of him, but maybe it was because I am going to Hawaii soon and I spent alot of time in Hawaii, with Chris. A trillion years ago.

OK, so maybe Hawaii is not the reason. Whatever. Just the dreaming of him takes me back to the time I knew him, and how that time empowered, and at the same time, wrecked me. There is nothing so heady as being nineteen and tan and also, somewhat intelligent. My pink running shorts and blue Vuarnets and Chris’s faded blue jeans and weird East Coast sports jacket, Chardonnay and cocaine and Steely Dan and Prince and, well, puking up crab dinners. These are what the early eighties were made of.

Seriously though, I learned to cook because of Chris. He nurtured that part of me which had been totally neglected, mostly by me. I hated to cook before I met him. He loved to eat though, and I was a young girl in love. I cooked Dungeness crab in a sea of butter, whole cauliflowers drenched in olive oil, and within months, Thanksgiving for 35 people. We drank martinis by the bucket. I was 19 and in that space where a pound of chocolate had no affect on my body. Chris was eight years older than me and between the butter, the wine, and the cocaine, he got sort of fat and unhealthy. I got skinnier and sniffeled alot. It was the eighties, after all. Though I think maybe I got older, but the times stayed the same.

I started up with Chris just hours after I turned 18 and ended just after I turned 21. He made a huge impact on my life. He taught me about things I never would have even thought twice about at that point – jazz music, for instance, and it was he that brought me to San Francisco and made me fall in love with it and eventually, I would leave the man for the city. By way of a Chilean waiter named Luis. Who was very short-lived, I might add.

Between the meeting and the leaving, though, there were a couple of trips to Hawaii. Chris and I liked it there, the tropical hedonism of it all. Strange things happened there, like one day, we met Joe Zawinul at snack bar in Kauai. Chris was a musician, and knew alot of people, but snarfing fishburgers with one of the guys from Weather Report made a fairly big impression on him.

It’s strange to think that this all happened 20 years ago. While it doesn’t seem like yesterday, it also doesn’t seem like a trillion years, either. I am going back to that place on Wednesday. Probably I have changed, but the place has not. No, the place has changed, but I have not. Whatever. The importance of those Chris years will never change. Creativity, and destruction – I wish I could go back, but my body would never let me.

Everything has caught up with me and this has affected the one part of my life I thought would never change. Live music – going to shows – used to be the most important thing. It still is, but life is getting in the way.

I had P.J. Harvey tickets for tomorrow night, at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, a tiny place for her to be playing. But, I am working all weekend and I just know how I am at shows so, I sold the tickets. I know I am going to regret this. At least I sold them to a really cool guy who met his girlfriend at a P.J. show three years ago and is surprising her with these tickets, which sold out in a flash.

Me: That place is so small you’ll be able to lick P.J.’s shoe!
Him: I am ready for some shoe licking!

He deserves the tickets.

I also have tickets for the Curiosa festival a week from Tuesday, but I get home from my brother’s shotgun wedding in Hawaii on the Monday morning before (after that gawdawful night flight, how I hate that flight) and have to leave for a work trip on the Central Coast the day after. How can I possibly go to a concert that starts at 5:00 P.M. forty-five minutes away from here? Not to mention, driving 300 miles the next day in who knows what condition.

A year ago, even six months ago, I would have figured out a way. I really want to see Mogwai and Interpol bad, and the Cure are so awesome live, and they are all playing at that festival. Plus my seats are fantastic. But I feel a scary edge coming on and that edge, to me, means nervous breakdown. As in, I cannot do it all anymore. I’ve got to sell these tickets. I’ve got a sinking feeling, just thinking about it.