i woke up to a text from my babe rox who wanted to chill out at coney (holy fuck she makes me feel pale, lol… look at my legs! i need a tan!) – the siren music fest was going on, so we were gonna hit that up. i heard a lot about it all week but i didn’t know what type of music it was or anything so i checked out their website. this year i only knew two bands from the line-up. i checked out the other years and there are some GOOD bands on the past events. cursive played in 2007! aaaaaaaaaaaand i wasn’t there, boo that.

so i’m on my way to her… on the Q train, sitting in the two seaters at the end of the car, sippin’ on my huge iced coffee, texting away, minding my business… when this dude feels the need to come next to me and undo his belt/pants and tuck in his wife beater and redo his belt. ew. as if that wasn’t horrid enough to have to witness, he starts doing a train car workout.

could i even make this shit up? (pics after the jump)

this guys starts stretching in front of the doors with his ass in my face, and i just look over and his son wants to die of embarrassment and his wife is searching through her bag for something. doesn’t even notice. so finally he starts stretching on the next pole (visual below), away from me, thank god.

and then puts his feet up on the wall and started doing push-ups (pictured above)…
…after he did his push-ups, he was whining about needing purell.

guh.

so we got some drink tickets, chilled out, chatted, people watched, made fun of people were talking about AND watched, lol, and had some good love/sex and life talks. we also managed to get drunk by 5pm. which is when ilya found me. haha, worst. we made our way to beer island, which i think is setup for people falling backwards in chairs for everyone elses amusement… sand is a sloppy thing. especially hard to walk on when drunk. our friend deirdre came by who i haven’t seen in ages, but i only got to see her for a few minutes… we were all starving so we went left there to get lunch/dinner at don burrito’s (sorry jen!)

ilya, nick and michelle came back to my apartment to hang out… we walked the dog and chilled out on our smaller balcony… which isn’t actually all that small. we should fix it up and get some chairs out there, it was relaxing. i really want to utilize it.

so yeah, that was my night.

today i’ve gotta go to queens for a wake. my friend franks brother died last week… he just had a daughter 9 months ago, poor baby girl. i feel so bad for her in all of this. and for his family, obviously. he was an acquaintance of mine, we weren’t good friends or anything… just saw him out a bunch of times with his brother. frank is the kid i made my confirmation with in 2005. we used to work at cascarino’s together, he was one of my delivery boys.

on that note, gotta get ready to go. to get to queens is one hell of a journey on sundays. trains run like shit.

coney was way too packed so once ilya found me we headed over to brighton beach with his friends, i FINALLY got some sun… we got the BEST frozen smoothie things and just chilled out for a bit. laughed a lot, watched almost naked russians prowl the beach, good times… ilya had to take care of his dog so we left and then we wound up at his friends for a BBQ… no fireworks except for the ones we made… (giggity!) lol…

god bless america!

nothing that interesting anyways…  just been packing…
hanging out…
thinking too much, subconsciously?!… (still, fuck you.)
freelancing…
watching movies…
getting ready for midwood (which no one knows where it is, so i simply say down by coney…  – which officially makes me a warrior. fuck yes.)

um.  yeah.

through may i’ll be broke since i’m paying two rents (need web/graphics work?), weather will be perfect, i have an interesting date lined up for myself…  and in june i’m gonna be paying $200 less than what i pay here now, glorious.

this summer should be interesting…

putting ideas together for my bedroom walls.
so far, i see a forest mural in my future.

i am an etsy shopper.  hardcore.  best, creative stuff ever.  so for whatever reason, i searched for “bouncing souls” and found this little bad boy.

not fancy at all, however… it is commemorating THE best (hands down) bouncing souls show i have ever been to in all of my days…  so, here’s to the memories. (ha)

and i got to thinking while i was brushing my teeth before and had “here we go” chants stuck in my head – that those chants, lights off, in a hot/sweaty crowd in a small venue is my favorite place to be.  the anticipation, the excitement…

i’m such a nerd, but apparently i’m not the only one – i found this great interview online – and here are some of my favorite little snippets from it:

“ “I’ve never met fans like Souls fans” adds Leah “’This is my first show’” was met with congratulations. Their fans are in love with them, and it’s a strong, passionate love. It’s girls and women and boys and men singing at the top of their lungs.“

Does the band know that they touch their fans this deeply? You betcha: “The mystery of why people are drawn to us is a hard question to answer for me. I can only relate to the music that I know, like ‘Oh my God that moves me,’ so I guess that’s happening to them when they see us. I have a different experience of it. We’re writing a song – we’re drawing on experiences and we’re trying to build some experience to that music. And it must be working, it must be somehow genuine because it’s working on a very personal level with everyone else, otherwise they wouldn’t be so passionate about it. So whether it’s an emotion, lyrics, the music, a combination of both those things, somehow we’re able to relate that to people.”

read the entire thing here

but honestly, i live for that.  i love the souls so much.  i am trying to enjoy them as much as possible before they’re too old to play anymore, and i’m too old to go to shows anymore…

now, i just have to get it signed.

…there aren’t many good videos i could find from this show at cha cha’s/coney island…  (including the angles on these two) and there’s no way to ever capture how this show was.  the vibe, the pit, the dancing, the sweat, the heat, the humanity (heh), the fun…  but here are 2 videos that i found from it that i adore.

and i realize that whoever is still around through all of this break-up bullshit (including steve), and makes an effort – really makes me happy.  it really isn’t that hard to pick up a phone and text or call.  and i have regular people reminding me of that.  so i’m going to start filtering people out again, like i did a few months ago.

feckkk you!

back to the goods – shows, mini-trips (iowa?, aruba!, pocono’s), moving out, tattoo’s, coney? (are the boardwalk places still open?), upstate sunday funday’s, mets games, warm nights where i’m not rushing home, other good peoples.

i’m such a hermit in the winter.  i can’t wait to break free.
40′s on my “stoop”, iced coffees in hand without getting frost bite, NO JACKETS, walks home from cascarino’s, TANNING!!, random park tours with sophie  …so excited.