I was unpleasantly reawoken this morning, an hour after Alyssa left, by Matt who understandably wanted me to come help move stuff in order to set up for a rehearsal since he had somewhere else to be between 10 and 11, and we were supposed to play at 11. But what was suposed to be a two hour rehearsal ended up taking five of my time, between 9:30 and 2:30, first hanging out waiting for equipment (and writing new lyrics about Jess and Dave in the meantime), then setting it up, learning Matt's new tune "Dress Up" (it's really great, and the arrangement is beginning to do it justice, although I'm still playing around with drum patterns - taking inspiration from early XTC and especially the Dismemberment Plan, specifically "Follow Through"), struggling with "Inflight Announcement," giving it up, and then finally setting on a six song set to run through. I do wish it hadn't taken so much time.

I came home rather than to Tarble for lunch, just a quesadilla and some m+c, with TimesMag articles, e-mail stuff, and a spot of work if I'm lucky. Back to Olde Club after a few hours to see Recexect, the all-star band of Corey, Erik, Dan Consiglio, Chris Conway, and Jason Skonnect-the-dots (as Tiffany says). They were as great as I had anticipated, mixing in spacey noise, post-rock, screamy punk, Caribbean textures, mechanical funk, and solid playing. Joel was inspired and awestruck in his typical way. I went to the library to do some work, ended up just snagging the '76 LI for personal use, re-read parts of it, and nearly fell asleep on the couch in the lounge. But I jumped up and went out, late for the beginning to the reading, but it time to hear a lot of poems by Keetje, and more importantly three by Alyssa. Not sure why she only did three - they were all from her Times headline series (but she didn't do my favorite, "When the Impostor tries to do the job in earnest.") I liked, especially, the last one about a self-immolating monk. I ran out after that, fifteen or twenty minutes late for our supposed start time.

It was possibly the roughest of Inflight shows yet - when I got in, Matt and Joel were duetting on "Bear Me in Mind," and the whole thing just felt unprofessional and sloppy. Which was the point, of course. Mostly, it was marred by technical problems - a lot of them: broken string, screwy bass-amp connection, mic troubles, balance issues. Musically it was fine, at times quite good - "Dress Up" came off pretty well, although it was a lot noisier and more menacing than it had been in practice. I felt pretty good about my two tunes, although some of the elements need to be more solidified. The audience, which was small but grew, was mostly established supporters, or rather people who had come to see the band after us. Two new faces in the front - Amanda Parrish and Amy Meek - were nice to see. Incidentally, since I or someone else might want to know this later, here are the setlists from all of the Inflight Rock Band shows so far, as best as I can remember:

Halloween Show, Olde Club, Oct. 2001 (opening for LTD?)
Inflight Announcement
Lullaby
Take-off
Radical Honesty

Rose Tattoo Cafe, Paces, March 2002 (opening for impromptu percussion jam)
Composition B with Blue
Lullaby
Metamorphosis
Rhymes with Queer
Save the Homosexuals
Radical Honesty (encore)

Swarthmore Fun Fair, the Ville, April 2002 (opening for 16 Feet)
Radical Honesty
Metamorphosis
Sex Digress
Lullaby
Composition B with Blue

Olde Club Show, April 2002 (opening for Detachment Kit/Dismemberment Plan)
Lullaby
Radical Honesty
Sex Digress
Radical Honesty, Part 2
Save the Homosexuals
Composition B with Blue

Worthstock Music Festival, Outside Olde Club, May 2002 (opening for Jim's Big Ego)
Composition B with Blue
Sex Digress
Take-off
Radical Honesty, Part 2
Shuffle and Bridge
Save the Homosexuals
Metamorphosis
Radical Honesty

Student Bands Concert, Olde Club, May 2002 (opening for the Enlightenment Project)
Dress Up (With Your Girlfriend)
Take-Off
Radical Honesty, Part 2
Shuffle and Bridge
Lullaby
Sex Digress

We've debuted at least one new song at every show. And there isn't a song that we've played at every show. It's been a very good year. We're trying to figure out about recording. Oh yeah, the band after us - it was Jessie Colman screaming like a girl-punker ought, Jonah Gold banging the drums, quite convincingly, with fish-cheeks and a SF Mime Troupe tee, and Kent Bassett banging out that poppy punk and jumping and thrashing himself around. They did three tunes, all covers (one of Bikini Kill, I'm not sure about the others), and were unanimously declared "cute." I'll concede that. It was fun.

I took off pretty soon afterwards, to Lodge 1 for a deviously plotted late surprise birthday party for Elizabeth (a funny sort of mirror image to the consipiracy against me). Nearly twenty people, almost all girls, and even more, apparently, femmes, crammed in the lodge, around in a circle. Rebecca aborted the name game for us, I rested on Stef's bed, and Zabby came in, suitably stunned and ecstatic. Good tiramisu and pineapple too. All the people you'd expect were there. I wonder how Ester would have felt - all her friends, but that sort of big group party atmosphere that she doesn't take too well to; and I was feeling it from her end this time. But it was fun; the first time I've even seen Zabby since her birthday, and a chance to talk to Brigid, in a refreshingly summery dress, somewhat reminiscent of Jamie Lee Curtis, what with hair and drapery. We talked about hanging in Cleveland this summer - I'm quite looking forward to it. Hopefully it will avoid those pesky tensions, and focus on the good ones. I started to head home, but thought I ought to go to Lang to sign up for a jury slot tomorrow. Except that they had taken the sign-up sheet down. Durnit. I guess I'll just have to go and ask for a time. I practiced again, at least. And pieced together ling stuff.

When I got home, talked with Joel (and Rae) about the show, and the band, and Cleveland, and then worked on my redo option HW for Ling (the Chomsky one, shawnuff), which I figure will probably contribute more to boosting my grade than a comparable amount of time working on this ominous paper. Hmm. I'm glad that it hasn't been causing me grief yet (even though that's because I've been putting off starting in earnest) - at the most, now, I'll only have between now and Thursday afternoon to fret and feel bad because of that nasty nasty linguistics. Perhaps I'll meet with Kari tomorrow to talk about stuff. In any case, I'd better get to sleep. It's ten of three. Yipes!

what went wrong, your grades were good
it would take a left-wing robin hood to pay for school
your dad's a boozer and you keep him alive
(i always think it's "an F-ing robin hood"