Everything's Swell

You know what sucks? Being sick. I am so not a fan.

I started feeling it Wednesday after the TnT matinee, on my way the Swell Season concert with my friend Amanda. We had stopped at a Thai restaurant for dinner and I was filling her in on my entire situation with Brian (the three of us went to high school together and she knows what a good guy he is... it's nice to be able to discuss the situation with someone who doesn't assume that he's the bad guy).

The Swell Season (a.k.a. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, a.k.a. the people from Once who won the Oscar for their song "Falling Slowly" in February) was tremendously good live. Glen did some splendid, insane storytelling between songs. A couple of times it felt like it spent more time setting up the meaning of the songs than it took to actually play them.

One of the songs he said was about the manner in which we face obstacles. He said sometimes you come up to a wall, knowing that what you want is on the other side. And at some point, after realizing you can't climb over it, you have to turn your back on the wall and just start walking in the opposite direction. You walk, and you walk, and you walk... until eventually you walk all the way around the world, and you find yourself on the other side of the wall.

I'm not entirely sure what he was talking about, but it was a neat metaphor.

At another point they were singing a song about the moon, and he started talking about staring at the moon, and how he thought there was some truth to the origin of the word "lunacy" (luna = moon...), and that if you stare into a mirror you start to forget who you are... I don't know. He rambled into madness. It reminded me of watching Hamlet. :)

One of his stories involved falling in love with a Goth chick in high school, and buying her a grave in a cemetery for Christmas one year. And he stood down in a hole in the ground, wanting to ask her to marry him, but deciding he should ask something bigger and more important than that... So he asked her if she would be buried next to him.

My favorite bit of his rambling had to do with the tarot card "The Fool". I don't know anything about tarot (I'm Catholic, so I'm fairly certain it's against my religion), but he said The Fool was the most respected card, and that we should all aspire to The Fool. After all, The Fool serves his most immediate needs as they arise. Glen said the coolest people he's ever met were either children or old people. The rest of us spend our lives strategizing, planning, manipulating, analyzing... Whereas the very young and the very old will just think something like... "I'm hungry". They serve their immediate needs, and they don't worry about the mess outside of them.

During "Falling Slowly", their most famous song, Glen mildly screwed up the lyrics at one point. He blamed it on the fact that there was a special person in the audience: Barack Obama. Everyone started craning their necks in the massive Chicago Theater trying to get a glimpse of him. I assume the Senator was watching from backstage, and we were all wasting our time. Still, it was neat to be in the same place as a presidential nominee. The fact that Obama and I listen to the same music sorta makes me like him more. (Not that I would vote based on musical opinion...)

After the concert I had planned to go see my DJ coworker headline at a club, but I felt too miserable. I ended up using one of the precious few vacation days I have left and staying home sick on Thursday. I had a horrible sore throat and a bad fever. I was so tired that I couldn't even sit on my bum and watch Battlestar Galactica. I couldn't even swallow (that's what she said).

My fever broke around 4pm. And despite the fact that I still felt truly awful, I went to the Air One Blogger Meet-up that I'd been looking forward to for so long. I got to hang out with my favorite J-ladies: Jenn, Jessica, and Joy. We sat around eating free food that the airline had provided for us and talking about everything and nothing. It was exactly what I needed.

Jessica & Joy

Jenn & Me (don't I just look like the picture of health?)

Delicious food at Gioco.

My favorite J-ladies.

I'd tell you more about the meet-up, but I'm sick, tired, and generally lazy. So go read Jenn's version, Jessica's version (which includes her own Swell Season experience), or Joy's version.

I spent most of Friday and Saturday running on fumes and speaking in the "sexy Kathleen Turner voice" that often accompanies ailments to my throat. Made my character in Tony 'n Tina's a little different, that's for sure. But I still gave it my all.

Friday night I went out with the cast to a bar, and spent a little time talking to the Guy-Who-Asked-Me-Out (hmmm... want to refrain from using his real name... GWAMO will do as code for now, okay?). I decided to tell him the guarded secret that I'm leaving Chicago for greener pastures come August. I've now gone through full disclosure with this guy. He knows I'm leaving. He knows about Brian. He knows that I'm an emotional f***wit right now. Therefore, any and all attempts to win me over past this point I declare to be at his own risk. If he's been listening, he should know what he's getting himself into.

Saturday night I went to a dance-y bar called "The Hangge Uppe" with my dear friend Dave (who got me good and drunk right a few weeks ago, as noted in Getting Through It). It was the first time I've been out dancing since the last time that Dave took me there. That was a year ago June. The week after I broke up with Ex #1. I got very, very drunk, and cried when some drunk guy stepped on my foot (although the tears had more to do with my inner turmoil than the immediate physical pain).

GWAMO joined us, as did my friend John (a good friend I haven't seen since December, as mentioned in Dialogues & Somniloquies), and three of Dave's friends (one of whom was a girl who seemed rather interested in Dave). We danced. Well, no... I danced. And I forced the rest of them to dance with me. And I had fun. I think they did, too.

I stuck with cherry cola all night, remembering the last time I had been at The Hangge Uppe. By the end of the evening, the girl who was into Dave was very, very drunk. She stepped on my foot. Hard. In heels. While I was in sandals. It reminded me of the event that made me cry a year ago when I was going through a different sort of heartbreak with a different sort of guy. But I didn't cry this time. Maybe I've gotten it all out of my system. Maybe I'm a stronger person now than I was a year ago. Maybe I just have better control of my emotions when I'm sober. Or maybe I really have made progress on this journey of healing. All I know for sure is that I have a nasty bruise covering the tops of two of my toes, and I didn't cry.

I felt nastily ill on Sunday, so I stayed cloistered in my apartment and watched more episodes of Battlestar Galactica than a person should watch in one day.

I loved the second season, but didn't love the season finale. And hated the first few episodes of season three. I didn't really want to continue watching, but I did anyway. I felt like I was supposed to. And, lo and behold, the middle of season three improved massively. I love it again.

As I battled through the less interesting episodes, I remembered a realization I've had about myself in the past. A not too pleasant one, actually...

But I'm going to save that explanation for next time. I'm too sick to properly psycho-analyze myself.



May you take the time to recover from whatever ails your mind, heart, body, and soul.

Much love and many blessings to you.

~A~