Long Hair and Knee Tapping

After throwing away just about everything in my Lazy Laundry pile (due to the aforementioned rat carcass contamination) I had significantly reduced my total laundry time but not so much that my mother didn’t roll her eyes heavenward as bag after bag of dirty clothes came rolling out of the back of my car.

And yes, I totally took my laundry to my parent’s house on Friday. First of all, it’s free. Second, I can put a load on and go take a mini-nap or have a cup of coffee in a building that isn’t crawling with random dryer-bunnies and cigarette butts. Third, well, I don’t know what comes third so just accept that it’s way easier to take it home when I’m pressed for time.

The original purpose of the trip was to visit with some family friends that I grew up with, one of whom is now in his late teens and making the rounds as a bad-ass guitar player. I was going to use the f-word in conjunction with just exactly how good this kid is but his mama would probably tell me to watch my language when speaking about her son. Because his delicate ears, they’ve never heard such language. *cough

Anyway, I stayed up late with my mama and Jolene and had girly chats, the same kind we used to have when I was like eight and they were, um, younger than they are now. Only I didn’t beg to braid my mother’s hair and I didn’t run my mouth about whatever it is that an eight-year-old will run their mouth about. My shining moment was when I yet again managed to make a total ass of myself by using the word ‘pussy’ in relation to me not dating people who have those. I can’t get annoyed with her for jokingly asking about my preference because hello, when was the last time I brought a guy home? Much like the Prince song it was 1999, only we didn’t party and I’m fairly positive that no cracked a smile. All together now: AWKWARD.

Saturday morning someone managed to set up the Play Station on the living room TV and I realized just exactly how silent my house normally is. And how silent it will remain, forever and always. The Play Station was for Jason, the youngest of the three boys at the age of ten. Josh is the bad-ass guitar player at eighteen and Jacob is the guy who used to own a ferret and now has a little boy of his very own. If you’re confused about the names, you should be. Because everyone’s name starts with J and no one gets called by their given name. Jake and JP and Jase and Joshie and Jay and really, just keep thinking of nicknames because they’ve got them all.

In the early afternoon we all bundled up against the blustery weather to watch Josh play with The Reba Russell Band at a downtown festival. I could lie to you and say they were good but in all honesty they were fucking unbelievably awesome. Notice how I used the f-word but did not use it in direct correlation to Jolene’s son, which should keep me out of trouble. Josh has been playing on Beale Street in Memphis since he was a wee young lad and as he’s only eighteen now, I mean WEE YOUNG LAD. Of course he’s not a wee young lass now, he’s all grown up with facial hair and everything. As such, I will never tell The Internet that I used to clean his room out of sheer boredom because Jolene was never nice enough to pop out a little girl for me to play with. I was just much too cool to play Thundercats with my brother and Jacob and Josh in the basement. I will also never tell anyone about what a cute little ball of diapered rolli-polliness ol’ Josh used to be, because that would be embarrassing and I’m a kind-hearted individual like that.

By mid afternoon the blustery weather had turned to searing heat from the roiling sun and I was wishing for a bucket of ice water to pour over my head. But still I sat, bouncing my knee to the music and the great singing and in total awe of just how good the whole band sounded, and that was with an incompetent sound guy who couldn’t figure out how to turn up the piano volume because look at all the pretty birds in the sky and maybe that girl over there has some weed and holy shit man! I’m supposed to be working all these crazy buttons for the sound and I really want some ice cream. That was a roundabout way of saying Senor Slacker was a bit distracted, but he was, and I stand by my appraisal of him.

At the end of the set I managed to convince my mom to give me some cash in exchange for my out of state check and purchased a CD from the vendor by the stage. I should add that I rarely purchase music because I have a short attention span and should I feel like singing in my apartment, that’s what The Cure cd’s are for. What I’m trying to tell you, and probably not doing a very good job of, is that this band rocks out with their Lego blocks out and if ever I was going to endorse something, THEY WOULD TOTALLY BE IT.

So just in case you missed my sneaky link above, here it is again. Not that I'm being a pusher. Or anything.