"Where will you be when the whip cracks?"
          - amy

Did a bunch of errands with my mother yesterday; nearly all wedding-oriented. First we went to a bridal clearance sale. It was a hideously surreal carnival...I've never seen so many ill-tempered girls in one place - all wearing wedding dresses, fighting over veils, pawing through boxes of shoes and mangling headpieces. I couldn't believe that so many women thought it was a good idea to make such a sensitive purchase in this free-for-all. Imagine buying a car in a little room packed with fragile samples & frantic people. I'm glad I already have my dress & don't have to worry abut getting a bargain.

After this disappointing experience, we hopped on over to The Japanese Paper Place to see about fancy paper. It was a much better time. I think I can make my own invitations for about $40, plus adhesive. This leaves out the envelopes, which are beautiful but expensive...they really jam you up the ass on the envelope price, considering that the sheets are so reasonably priced. But I'm not going to bitch...I love my paper, and I loved the way my mock-up came out this morning. It's an interesting measure of the achievements in my house...on the fridge there's my invitation and my brother's (straight-A) grades from college. I never got straight-A's in university. Good thing I'm getting married, cuz I'm dumb as a sack o hammers...

This afternoon I had a $50 gift certificate from The Last Christmas of the Millenium burning a hole in my pocket, so went to the HMV and splurged. I was planning on getting the Lost Highway and Sleepy Hollow soundtracks, but since I couldn't find them I went with what was playing on the radio on the way in. This would be Big Sugar's disc, Hemi-vision, an album I know fairly well through others' copies. This is, in fact, an album that shares a peculiar distinction with the Tori Amos Under the Pink album, "Pasties & a G-String" by Tom Waits, a Tea Party song whose name I can't quite recall and "Lovesick Lullaby" by Big Rude Jake. These are songs and albums from The Bad Times.

Okay. I don't talk about this year very much, at least directly. I hint like hell, because it was probably the most concentrated drama that I'll ever see in my life. I mean, if God is kind. But while I kind of want people to know what a deep romantic soul I am (or fucking idiot as it's more commonly designated), it's a hideously embarrassing story. (I think that's why people think their lives are boring: they so rarely give in to the really humiliating actions that high drama requires. And they so rarely have a full cast of similarly deluded souls. But I digress...)

Suffice it to say that in the fall of 1996 and winter of 1997 I went a little insane. (Q says, 'what was so bad about it?' I replied, 'I was 20...' and he understood) This year, this time, this past incarnation of me is why Alexi & I stopped dating. This year is why I permanently lost the respect of about two dozen people. This year is why I have a tattoo.

I'm not going to tell the story here. It's one of the things I don't want to have in a large, complete, public story. It's not a secret, by any means...all of my friends from that time knew all about it, and I usually give a thumbnail sketch to anyone who bothers to email a question about the time just before I started writing online. But it remains offline, except for bits & pieces that continue to seep through. Like today, when I bought the third Big Sugar album.

Look: it was such an insane, painful time for me that I can't listen to some of the music listed above anymore. "Cloud On My Tongue," for example, delivers the time in a condensed, complete package. But I'd forgotten about this one song on Hemi-vision - "Empty Head." This song makes my head ache. As soon as the fist lines rang out, it all came back in a rush.

"I check the mail and I watch my phone
I used to wonder was my baby at home?"

And:

"Are ya layin in an empty bed tonight?
Wish I had an empty head tonight.
There's no such thing as the only one..."

I'm reading Timequake right now, and I have to say that I'm intrigued by the idea of jumping back to 1991 and reliving the decade. Being best-best-best friends with Little Spider, Mr. Shoreleave & Akasha...last year of highschool...first year of university...starting to date the Boy again....yeah, it's been a pretty good decade. But if I have to do 20-years-old again, I think I'll pass.