California knows how to party

We were awake by 4:30 Monday morning to catch our 5:30 taxi to the airport and begin our annual pilgrimage to southern California. Landed in Long Beach at 9:30 and after a minor name-related fiasco with Avis, were on our way to Knott's Berry Farm. We drove past the entrance and began kicking ourselves for failing to buy our tickets online. Parked the car and walked to the booths, where we kicked ourselves even more, as gate tickets were twice the online price. With our parking paid and my parents waiting inside the park with two six-year-olds, there wasn't much we could do but pay it. We finally made it to the booth and the guy asked me if we were southern California residents. "I'm from southern California," I said. He asked me to show my I.D., so I fumbled in my wallet for a minute before claiming I couldn't find it. "I can give you my zip code," I said. "Will that work?" The kid asked for my zip code, and I immediately rattled off 92262. "Ah, Palm Springs. That'll be $44 instead of $59," the kid said. Sweet! Caitlin: one. Knott's Berry Farm: 0.

We went inside and found my parents, who were with the twins in Camp Snoopy. The girls wanted us to take them on some car ride, and we obliged. However, they refused to be split up, and the ride operators wouldn't let me or Bobby on the ride without a kid. That's fine. We didn't want to look like creepers anyway. Once that was over, we took the girls to get churros and ride the Mexican Hat Dance, which is now just called the Hat Dance. We wandered across the park to eat at Johnny Rockets, which is a terrible restaurant but I knew it would have food for everybody. On our way there, we spotted a ride called the Screamin Swing. It cost $5 to ride, so I assumed Bobby wouldn't go for it. I was wrong. Then my dad offered to pay for us to go on it, so I had no choice but to go on it. Ever the videographer, my dad filmed me screaming bloody murder on the ride. Video coming soon.

When lunch was over, we made our way to the Xcelerator, which fires you out of the station at 100 mph via rocket launch technology, up a 90-degree lift hill, and straight down the other side.



Despite the look on my face, I was pretty excited:



The ride had a mechanical issue while we were waiting, so my parents took the girls back to Camp Snoopy while Bobby and I hung around until it was fixed. A short time later, the ride was operational again. It was totally awesome, of course.

Met back up with the rest of our party, and Hanna asked me to take her on the ferris wheel. After standing in line for TWO HOURS with an untalkative six-year-old and being joined at the last minute by her equally untalkative twin sister, we were finally on the ride. Bobby and I didn't even wait that long to ride any of the roller coasters! Ridiculous. Still, I am a woman of my word.



After riding the ferris wheel for 100,000 years, it was time for my parents and the girls to head back to Palm Springs, and time for Bobby and I to go have fun. We booked it on out of Camp Snoopy as fast as we could, and went straight for Montezooma's Revenge, which is the world's grossest name for a roller coaster. It was super fun, though. Went on Jaguar next, which is pretty tame but still fun. Up next was the Silver Bullet, which is a very well-engineered inverted roller coaster featuring a smooth ride and a trip over the lake in the middle of the park. Left there and got in line for the Ghost Rider, which may be the longest wooden coaster ever. All day we'd been leaving our bags in the cubby holes on the loading docks, as Knott's is not populated by the shifty crowd that frequents Magic Mountain. However, as Ghostrider is a wooden coaster, I figured we could take our bags on. I was wrong. The ride is quite bumpy and jostled us around to the point that Bobby almost lost his phone and his glasses. It's also so long that he asked me what the other wooden coaster off in the distance was as we climbed the second lift hill. "I think that's where we're headed," I said. Ghostrider took the last scrap of energy we had, so we left the park two hours before it closed. After a brief detour to a nearby Chick-Fil-A, we were on our way out to the desert.

I drove for the duration, and started to really lose steam as we hit the 111 bypass. Fortunately autopilot had taken over and guided us to my parents' driveway, where I promptly collapsed on the floor. We paused for some red velvet cheesecake before being imprisoned in the guest room until "Christmas" the following morning.



We woke up the next morning and followed the trail of $5 bills to the living room.





Once fakey Christmas was over, the four of us went to Great Wall for dinner. Maureen was there, as her parents own the place, so she and I chatted about the upcoming reunion. She was our class president and has been fielding messages from obnoxious classmates who want to have the reunion moved to accommodate the homecoming game (what??? who cares???). We had a good laugh.

The parents dropped us off at the Palm Springs Ace Hotel, where we were scheduled to meet Bindhu, Shalini, and Scott. Walking into the Ace was like stepping through a wormhole that planted us back in Portland. Ironic beards as far as the eye can see! Where did all these hipsters come from? They certainly don't live here. After about an hour, we'd had enough of the Ace and went across town to the Riviera, where a fellow patron was kind enough to photograph us:



Scott turned up, and we had a fine time chatting about various things before the bar kicked us out due to low attendance. Shalini and Bindhu left, and Scott took us to a bar that used to be a McDonald's. We were the only people in there, and it was a sad state of affairs. Paused for a photo before heading over to an incredibly seedy bar on Sunny Dunes where Matt Clark was rumored to be hiding.



We found him!



Scott and I sang a few karaoke songs. He went with his standard Weezer, and I chose Danzig.



Lonnie turned up as the night was ending, and somebody had the bright idea to go to Denny's. I should say, somebody had the BEST idea to go to Denny's. We spent the last hour of our evening eating pancakes and telling off-color jokes. An excellent couple of days indeed.

The first of three Christmases

I used to have one Christmas every year. I don't exactly care about Christmas at all. I've never been to church, and am not one bit religious. However, I like presents, and I like food. I enjoy hanging out with friends and family members. Now that I'm an old married lady, I get three Christmases. One for me and Bobby, one with his family, and one with mine. We decided to open our presents tonight so we could sleep in tomorrow. Here's what the situation under our tree looked like:



Bobby got a hat



Which, combined with his sweater, made him look a bit like Freddy Krueger:



I had my suspicions about the contents of this box:



And I was right! I like this Mug Alot.



If the Alot joke is lost on you, read this comic about grammar.

Tomorrow morning, we'll be joining Bobby's family for second Christmas. Third Christmas with my parents is scheduled for Tuesday. Happy holidays, y'all!

Decades

I just got the invitation to my 10-year reunion. It's no secret that I hated high school, like the majority of my friends did. True, I didn't get beat up or thrown in a trash can on a daily basis like certain Hollywood films suggest, but it was still a completely awful period of time, and I don't trust anybody who experienced it otherwise.

I skipped the graduation ceremony, electing instead to move to my college town as soon as I possibly could. I left town two or three days before any celebratory activities even took place. My mother swore I'd regret this decision, but I haven't regretted it for a second. Nothing makes my skin crawl more than the idea of someone reading (and likely mispronouncing) my name as I walk across a stage and collect a piece of paper for "accomplishing" something that doesn't even require basic literacy skills, alongside my peers that I hated, with the high school band playing Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" all the while. No thank you.

With all that said, though, I am unbelievably excited about this reunion. I'm sure I should be mature enough just to be satisfied with my many accomplishments without having to rub anyone's nose in them, but that's not who I am. I'm damn proud of everything I've done since graduating. Not to belabor the point, but I've come mighty far for somebody whose guidance counselor swore would never even be accepted to a Cal State school without at least some extracurricular activities on my transcript. The counselor may have said something about me needing an "attitude adjustment" as well.

Attitude adjustment or not, I've done quite a bit in the past decade. Beware the self-aggrandizement that follows. Some of the highlights of my last 10 years include:

Graduating from a U.C. school two weeks shy of my 21st birthday
Living in Manhattan
Moving to Portland
Playing four seasons of roller derby
Attending two sessions of Ladies Rock Camp
Singing and playing guitar onstage at Satyricon
Co-authoring the highest-grossing independent publication ever sold at Powell's
Being a contributing author to a nationally-published comic book
Traveling to Sweden, Denmark, and Japan
Buying a house in the middle of a recession
Marrying Bobby, who tolerates my occasional (ok, frequent) self-aggrandizement

So when people look at me like I'm crazy for being unnaturally excited about this reunion, I'm a little surprised. Like a modern Janis Joplin, I always said I'd come back some day and bask in my success. The funny thing is, of course, we've all mellowed in these past several years. I'm quite chummy with many of my former classmates, and don't particularly feel like I've got something to prove by attending this reunion. Sure, there are quite a few people I still dislike immensely probably won't talk to, but for the most part I'm cool with everybody. Grudging maturity aside, though, it's gonna feel pretty fantastic to strut into that reunion with all of these accomplishments under my belt. I know it's not polite to gloat and I probably sound like a bit of a jerk right now, but Merry Christmas to me.

On daunting tasks

Some time after I started writing for Melophobe, my dad took an interest in the musicians I was reviewing. He seemed impressed that I could rattle off trivia, recognize covers, recall collaborators, and pull first-listening experiences from memory. I've spent my entire conscious life doing this, of course. It's just that I have a larger audience now. The point of this story is that my dad mentioned being unfamiliar with the music scene of the last two decades, which are my decades of expertise, so I offered to make him a retrospective. After working on this for quite a while, the project has taken on a mind of its own. At this point, I've split it into the 1990s and the 2000s. Each folder has more than 40 songs in it, and I'm nowhere near done. I'm tossing everything I can think of into the folders and will sort them out later to remove repeat artists, though the important ones will surely be represented multiple times. I just realized I don't even have any Pearl Jam on here yet, and have begun running through their catalog to mitigate the situation. This should be easy. It isn't. I have called in outside reinforcements.

What's my conclusion in the middle of this endeavor? No matter how old I get, I will always be the thirteen-year-old girl standing awkwardly outside Kurt Cobain's house in my Kurt Cobain memorial t-shirt, clamoring to reach the tiniest fragment of the things that fuel my life.



Perhaps my dad will like his present now that he has the backstory, and won't just comment that everyone is ripping off the Beatles (who were ripping off the musicians who came before them). Back to the music library, regardless.

Project!

The Harry Potter closet under our stairs has been a bit of a messy hodgepodge since we moved into our house. For a while it served as a pantry, but lately it's been the default destination for general household clutter. No more! Bobby hatched a plan involving some re-appropriated Ikea kitchen cabinets, and we set out measuring and assembling. Here's what the space looked like before:



Here's the after! Go OCD organization skills go! With labels and everything!



Another of my shows got canceled tonight, which was kind of okay. It seemed like the audience would be full of men in utilikilts and women in vinyl corsets. I've seen enough of that in my time. Upcoming shows include Yo La Tengo, Tapes N Tapes, Girl Talk, and Jill Sobule. Can't complain, really.

Bobby got me an early Christmas present in the form of sweet new headphones, as my old ones were rapidly deteriorating due to overuse. They work super well and are quite stylish.

I'm scheduled to go ice skating on Sunday with Lorien, which scares me a bit. I haven't gone ice skating in at least a decade, so I am predicting many falls. I may embarrass myself by wearing knee pads.

My trip to California hovers ever-closer. I'm excited for tacos, Cactus Cooler, roller coasters, and grocery stores that sell liquor. It'll be nice to be fussed over by my parents and hang out with old friends. I'd never live there again, but it's always a nice refuge from the oppressive gray that envelops Portland each winter. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of me singing "Volcano Girls" at the Ambassador last weekend:



And of Bobby and me at a recent party. Shout-out to Tara for the gravity-defying hairstyle. As they say in Texas, "the higher the hair, the closer to heaven:"

Great week / terrible week

Wednesday night, I went with Bobby's cousin Charity to see Leonard Cohen at the Rose Garden. I knew several other people who were floating around in the venue, but didn't see any of them. Leonard Cohen played for nearly four hours. He ran onto the stage, and skipped merrily back and forth from the backstage area. He sang on his knees. He thanked us profusely for attending, and performed all of my favorite songs. At this point, I am unaccustomed to attending shows without furiously scribbling in my notebook the entire time. I got to be a civilian observer for this one, though, and sat silently captivated on the edge of my seat. For some reason, there were a pair of ox-like meatheads seated behind me. They talked loudly during several songs, and made some comment about Liberace during "Chelsea Hotel #2." I turned around to give them the stink-eye, and they finally relented. I'll not have my Leonard Cohen experience, for which I paid $50 to sit in the nosebleed section, sullied by a pair of troglodytes. Obnoxious patrons aside, it was an incredible performance that defies description. This may have been my favorite part. The video isn't from the night I attended, but it's the same delivery.



Thursday turned out terribly stressful, and I got rained on when walking back to work from the food carts, so I spent the day looking like a drowned rat. Kelly and I were supposed to hang out after work, and the torrential downpour made us decide to get out of the Pearl and go somewhere on the Eastside. We were driving down a flooded Hoyt Street when the drainage system overloaded and sent a manhole cover floating down the block. Kelly's front tire went into the exposed drain, but she drove out of it. The rear tire slipped in, though, and got the car stuck. She told me to drive while she pushed the car out of the hole, and we were able to free it. However, the front tire had blown. We abandoned the car and walked down to Low Brow to wait out the rain until her tow truck arrived.

Kelly's insurance called her away to deal with her car, and I didn't want to be the pathetic person hanging out alone in a bar. The rain had let up, and I posted something on Facebook about being stranded downtown. As I was getting on the bus to go home, I got a text from Jonathan, who lives in the neighborhood and promised me a ride home if I wanted to go hang out. Despite having paid for the bus, I climbed back off and walked over to his building. We sat at Yur's for a while until Conor finished work, then went to pick him up on our way back to my house where wine and Rock Band awaited. Bobby made me dinner, and I ended up spilling red wine on my last clean pair of pants while gesturing wildly to retell the tale of the car and the sewer. Went upstairs to change before playing some Rock Band with the gentlemen. Bobby, the sneak, caught a video of me trying (and failing) to play the drum part for the first time, but is kind enough to keep the video to himself.

Friday I wore a skirt to work out of necessity. No time to tackle my massive laundry pile all week. Was supposed to cover The Head and the Heart at Doug Fir, and was to be accompanied by Bobby, Conor, and Jonathan. However, the show was canceled at the last minute and we ended up at Ron Toms. Ron Toms was packed full of people, many of whom were attending an ugly christmas sweater party, and we decided to head over to Dots for the remainder of the evening. Dots was strangely dead for 11:00 on a Friday night, and therefore much more conducive to chatting about all manner of things: John Waters; my bad luck with Darren Aaronofsky films; and jokes about serving beers to bears in bars in Billings, Montana. A much-needed mellow end to the week. Not to mention, Sephora emailed me to tell me my Urban Decay Woodstock eyeshadow was back in stock, so that's on its way to me now.

Today, I have nothing on the schedule except Ladies Rock Camp karaoke around 9:00. It'll be nice to see those folks again. Tomorrow: breakfast and putting a dent in my stack of remaining holiday card addressees. Here's hoping for a less stressful upcoming week. Oh and I finally got to do my laundry. Clean pants for days.

Busy busy busy like always

Last week, I had the Passion Pit show on Wednesday, followed by my office holiday party on Thursday. Both were lots of fun, though I sort of remember the latter like this:



Friday was a relatively relaxing evening spent writing about the Passion Pit show and relaxing, since I had a big drive the next morning. I woke up on Saturday and drove to Seattle, which ended up taking FOUR HOURS. Generally it takes me three hours, 2.5 if I drive like a Californian, but the universe did not see fit to grant me a timely arrival. Finally showed up at Alex's house, and we went off to Target. At target, I found these, which are perhaps the greatest invention ever. No more complaining about ailing feet after wearing fabulous shoes! Alex and I drove out to Redmond to visit a Mexican restaurant she likes, and then met Holly at Peak's for frozen custard. We went back to Alex's house and watched Addams Family Values. Apart from the terrible drive, it was a nice and relaxing Saturday.

We woke up Sunday and ate breakfast at Pete's Egg Next, which is an awesome Greek diner near Alex's house. She told the owner that she studies ancient Greek, and he was delighted. We took a nice walk around Green Lake, and went back to her house to make delicious cinnamon rolls. Once the cinnamon rolls finished baking, it was time for me to head back to Portland. I stopped by my bandmate Amy's beautifully remodeled house to visit, sign her copy of Jam, and enjoy a cup of tea. The drive back to Portland was fortunately traffic-free for most of it, and I was home by 8:30.

I'm taking it easy tonight and possibly tomorrow before going to see Leonard Cohen with Bobby's cousin Charity on Wednesday. I'm signed up for another show on Friday, The Head and the Heart, which should be reasonably mellow. Ladies Rock Camp karaoke is scheduled for Saturday, and I have one more show next week. In answer to your question, yes, I occasionally have time to sleep and feed myself properly. My house was so tragically out of food when I got home last night, though, that Alex's take-home cinnamon rolls became my savior this morning. I've been to the grocery store since, but Bobby and I fumbled around quite a bit before we figured out what we needed besides bread, beer, and concert tickets.

When I become rich and famous some day, I will hire a personal chef and never set foot in a grocery store again. I will also hire a stylist and a makeup artist, and I will buy boots that don't break. DREAM BIG!