left of the dial

Talking to Brian and listening to his last installment of his masterfully run radio show, Left of the Dial at WQAQ. It’s got me thinking… what am I going to do when I say farewell to WDOM? I’m going to miss it much more than I initially thought. I have this silly, unfounded, slightly vain fear of becoming musically “uncool” once I leave college. Okay, maybe not “uncool”, but out of touch.

Which reminds me… a note to myself — blues mixes for Danny, and I still have to get the Andrew Bird recording to Lumberjack. AND Donny Hathaway to Scotty. Shit.

Trying to motivate myself to get to Boston this afternoon… but so far, I’ve only succeeded in planting myself, sheep-pajama-clad, on the living room couch with my laptop. Called Grandma and Grandpa, turned on WQAQ online and haven’t turned back. But I think this afternoon, gloomy as it is, calls for some introspection and fancy footwork (read: padding around Boston for a while and seeing what I can see). So, I’ll charge my iPod and pack up my bag and just go — call Larry on the way, see what he’s up to. Maybe Zac will be around. I don’t know. It’s one of those days.

~J.

TONIGHT!

whoa-oh-oh-oh…..

Went on a detour tonight to Somerville, MA with Dr. Dave and company to see Jason Anderson and The Best… deemed “the best” for a reason. I couldn’t wipe the grin off of my face for the whole show. That’s what I really enjoy most about Jason — he’s an entertainer, not just a singer. He talks to you, gets you engaged… that’s what makes every show he does so special.

And I finally got that lovely hug… the one we had talked about as probably being awesome when it finally occurred. And it did. And it was. That man makes my whole body smile.

The next few days are going to be the most intense in my college career. Go figure, they are the last few days in my college career. Hmm…

~J.

a long time

It took a long time… four years, to be exact… four evenings spent sitting in the Feinstein Courtyard, listening to other people speak, to really understand how shitty that kid made me feel, when I was too young to know how I should have been treated.

In other, much happier news… I have come to spend more time with someone lately and every conversation we have only reinforces the sentiment, “I should have talked with him sooner.” It’s like I told him…. 1) life never gives you more than you can bear, and 2) life has a funny way of opening doors when we need them the most. I kind of feel like we’ve become that door for each other… perhaps not in such a dramatic way, but in a small one. It’s really faith-restoring.

~J.

sunny and beautiful

It is so gorgeous outside… too bad I spent the bulk of the day indoors =(

Went to Trinity Brewhouse this afternoon with my marketing strategy group on a gamble that we’d be able to catch someone and speak with them. I ended up running into Josh Miller, who owns both Trinity and Local 121, and he was gracious enough to sit down with us for about an hour and talk with us about the initiative. He was fairly quiet and reserved, but in the end very willing to talk with us. He even gave us a tour of the basement. I’m excited now about finishing this project.

All right, FINALLY headed outside for a brief period of R&R… then back into it.

~J.

fans

Had a great performance tonight at Roger Williams… I can’t wait to get the DVD sent to us. Also… the Dear Abbeys performed, and they did “Home” by Marc Broussard and “Hold You in My Arms” by Ray LaMontagne, among others. It was like they read my mind… I was on cloud nine.

Speaking of cloud nine… The Roots on Friday night was absolutely insane. I never entertained the possibility of falling for a sousaphone player, until I saw Tuba Gooding, Jr. :

Gloooorious. I never thought it was possible to be cool AND be a sousaphone player. Tuba Gooding Jr. has now proven me wrong.

The warm, fuzzy feelings are sneaking up on me more and more lately… now, I just see him and my heart beats faster. He smiles at me and I feel like I’m in high school all over again. Not quite sure what to do with these feelings, but in the interim, I’m enjoying riding the wave.

A friend of mine recently ended his relationship over distance… I ran into him for the first time in the long time, newly shaven, and thought it signified her return… but instead, heartbreakingly, it signified her release. He is honestly one of the nicest, funniest, most wonderful people I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know in the four years I’ve been here. Knowing he is now feeling the same kind of pain I’ve felt twice… I wanted to cry when he told me. I wish I could do something to help cheer him up.

I think it might be time to check on my laundry situation… and possibly go to bed. Unfortunately, it looks like I have another long week ahead of me.

~J.

strange happenings

I can’t even express how happy and at ease I am… I have a commencement date with the person I most wanted to go with. Again… funny how things work out. I asked him, and it turns out he had wanted to ask me but hadn’t figured out how to do it yet.

Cue warm fuzzy feelings!

~J.

Explosions in the Sky

What a great show…. I still can’t believe I got in. Little did I know, it had sold out days ago… but I was determined. So I went, stood outside, and just kind of waited for fate to draw me in. And it did… a group of girls were standing outside trying to decide whether to sell their absent friend’s ticket or not… and I got it. And I paid face value. =)

I think the best part of the evening (besides the show itself, which was amazing) was meeting the four guys at the bar… we became fast friends, they included me in their rounds of drinks (stellar!) and we ended up trekking through Providence, hopping from bar to party to RiRa’s to party… how is it that I get into these awesome random situations?

Oh, and I got a t-shirt. It is lovely. All in all a fantastic Saturday night.

I am still in awe of how hard EITS rocked live.

~J.

a moon full of stars and astral cars

What do you call it when you expend huge amounts of effort to “branch out”, only to find you are slowly falling for someone who has been right under your nose the whole time?

Oh, “life”.

Taking UNO to 412 was the best idea I’ve had in a while.

headed back

Back to Providence this afternoon… well, it was nice floating around on the surface for a weekend. Back to treading water.

I was reminded of how lucky I am… to have Easter dinner with my family, to reconnect with a longtime friend who is always seemingly waiting in the wings for when things get just a bit too unbearable.

Still catching my balance after “de-friending” and taking the number out of my phone… not that I don’t remember it. But somehow it’s harder to dial it than to just pick his name out and hit “Send”. That’s what I was going for — elimination of the temptation to make a fool out of myself. I might have hurt him in doing so, but I’m hoping that one day, he’ll understand why I had to do it. I’m hoping that someday, a little while from now, we’ll still be in the position for him to even think of me fondly at all, enough to even care to understand why I did it. Why just letting him live his life — and be happy without me in it — was the hardest thing I’ve had to do.

So with that, to new beginnings, and to closed doors. I think the best thing I can do now is to just leave him the key… so he knows he’s always welcome. And so onward I go, to other rooms in the house.

~J.

facing it

Feeling the winds beginning to blow in a different direction; breathing easier and fuller; the sun feels lovely on my shoulders and my face.

I want to create something today, commemorate this growth. One flower has died and fallen, but I’ve got a few more buds growing, full of promise. As Dad said, life is always changing — some things get better, others get worse, but it is never static. Even when things are bad, we can anticipate change always — a promising thought as my life unfolds and turns in on itself and grows new branches and the roots grow deeper into the ground.

If you’ll forgive me for all the plant metaphors, I have one more for you. I never fully understood growing up my mom’s practice of “dead-heading” — the process of removing declining flowers from a plant. I always saw it as cruel, but she explained to me that by dead-heading a plant (she usually did it with just her fingers, expertly), you are actually encouraging the plant to produce more flowers.

Just something to think about, I guess.

~J.

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Now playing: Jim Bianco – Life During Wartime
via FoxyTunes