Remaining Seized

Cannot believe the sentences I am writing; they are beyond dreadful. Am never taking a law class again, because I don't want to write like a lawyer. In short, the Jessica Council remains actively seized of this stupid law paper.

On the bright and shiny side, I pretty much destroyed my environmental studies midterm. 43.5/45, heck yes!

Things Not To Do

1. Listen to Imagine while attempting to write an essay on Israel and Palestine, unless instantaneous severe depression is your thing.

2. Allow yourself to get roped into painting sets on your birthday, as Boopsie has. Happy birthday, Boopsie!

Tid-Bit

Forgot to mention that I not only bought Elise's birthday present at a cool little store in Toronto, but also got a button saying "Keith Richards for President". Hey, if Ahnold could do it, no reason Keef can't as well.

In Which Jessica Dies of Glee

So Katherine and I went to a rock concert last night, as anyone who has spoken with me in the past, oh, three months will probably be aware. We were tempted by the merch table, so I am currently wearing my brand spanking new tour t-shirt. As I wear it, and sit at my computer desk, I will tell of our remarkable adventure. If any of you had any respect for me before, you certainly won't by the time this photo-essay is over.

Early, early Tuesday morning we reported to the train station and had a punch-drunk ride to Toronto. We made faces like this one, a lot of the time.

These Pringles would not open. Opening these was probably the only part of the trip out that we did not spend in random fits of glee.

We changed into people who would be acceptable at a rock concert (this is not easy; I am an honours student) and took a photo break, kindly facilitated by Katherine's sister Rebecca. After Katherine's brother Ben's girlfriend, Greer, arrived, we all swept off to the concert together. Well, not Ben. I think he knew the estrogen would be a little much for him.

We got to the venue at about 4:30 and went to stand in line. There weren't too many people there, so we figured we were safe to go around the back without losing our spot. Earlier, the security guard at the front of the building had said things like "I have no idea where the band is. Perhaps at a sound check, perhaps at MuchMusic, perhaps on the Moon. Perhaps I make $8 an hour and do not care for your concerns."

So we checked anyway, and lo and behold! We were rewarded in under ten minutes. Paul, the drummer, was past us before we snapped out of our "Whaaa? The band?" shock, but we did nab the guitarist and force him to sign things, me working on a lame pun project which will be revealed at the end of my spewing here. I told him the pun and he did the customary Rueful Chuckle of Bad Puns.

We came back to the line, we got our spots back, no problem, and we continued to wait. Greer and Katherine went to forage, but I'd eaten earlier, so they left me alone with the fangirls. I noticed those two hipster guys in black over Greer's left shoulder and then couldn't stop laughing because they reminded me of the vultures from the Jungle Book. They just stood there, half-smiling, with their co-iPod, in those exact positions, for about an hour and a half. We all went in, eventually and when the doors opened, they somehow got straight to the front row of the mosh pit (I was in the second row, centre) and proceeded to stand perfectly still for the entire concert. I should know, I leaned on one of them so that I could go enjoy the front row. When he didn't move, I felt kind of bad, so...

Me: Hey, sorry if I was kind of pushing you earlier. It's just that you're really tall, and I wanted to get good pictures and can't see around you.

Entoqued Hipster Vulture-man: Yeah.

We heard the opening bands, who were OK but not totally amazing, partly due to less enthusiastic lighting design, and then we stood around for about forty-five minutes. Here, Greer stands around.

The kit was being set up, in part by one over-enthusiastic roadie who insisted on tuning the guitars about a brazilian times each. I think he just liked being on-stage. Anyway, the crowd was just starting to get restless...

... when the singer, Alex Kapranos, finally came onstage by himself and the rest of the band followed in the sequence of their entries in the song being played. Everyone went slightly nuts from that point on.

Everyone except the hipsters, that is. Even when Crazy Man From Newfoundland came and put his arms on either side of Blond Hipster Vulture-man to force his way into the front row, BHV just stood still, occasionally turning around to say languidly, "f*ck off, man." When Crazy Man professed his love for the band ("I have bled for this band, man! I know all the lyrics! Do you wanna fight?"), BHV just turned around silently and continued non-dancing. Crazy Man, on the other hand, found this an excellent time to begin moshing furiously, putting his sweaty elbow in my ear in the process, and singing one line ahead as if Franz Ferdinand needed prompts. It takes a lot to set me off, and when even I am saying "Shut up! I didn't come here to listen to you!", then you know it is time to lay off. And then there were fangirls to my left. Greer and Katherine got washed away to the rear, about six rows back, but still along that weird frat boy-fangirl fault line that had developed in the crowd. The fangirls were, naturally, situated between the lead guitarist and the lead singer, because those two are, like, such babes. So yeah, that was the scene in the pit.

That security guy at the bottom left was standing looking unamused the entire night. Security is everywhere if the crowd tries anything, but when the rest of the band attacks the drummer with their own musical instruments, he does nothing! Useless, I tell you.

Bassists in the Mist.

I like the beams of light here, but am not such a fan of the lack of focus. Most of the concert, my camera's autofocus seemed to be saying, "Oh! I think I know what you're doing here, you're taking a photo of those speakers in front of you! I'll focus in crystal-clear on those, you'll be really pleased with the results!" in a sort of Eddie the Computer manner.

The SCOTTISH GUITAR MADNESS of Nick McCarthy and Alex Kapranos. Well, Greek guitar madness in the latter's case.

Bob Hardy: Baby-faced Blurry Bassist in Black. In the Back.

GUITAR FURY.

Here we see our friend the security guard in the foreground.

I enjoy that this one looks like I altered it when actually it just turned out weird colours.

At this point, Greer and Katherine wanted to go home, because (poor excuse!) they thought they were going to be sick. But I wanted to stay, and so they were brave and waited, and did not, in fact, puke. There were not too many people around the back of the venue, and we were (I am proud to say) among the oldest and the coolest. So we sat about for about half an hour, slowly getting chilly and punchy. We saw two white vans go by and prayed that they did not contain Franz Ferdinand. Some woman working at the place came out and said in an exaggerated kind of voice, "I don't know what you-all are waiting around for! Show's over, folks!" I knew that she was lying because the universe is just not cruel enough to let someone with that kind of dim, bossy demeanour actually be right.

Then, glory be! About 11:35, Paul the drummer came out. We got his autograph but, being starstruck, didn't ask for a photo. After that, there was no way Greer wanted to leave, and sure enough, the rest of the band came out one by one and we had a bit of a chat where nobody fainted from the rock'n'roll. Thus begins my career as a groupie.

Paul has magical pointy shoes and a scalloped bag.

Bob the bassist signing some stuff. At this point we were still going "EEEEE" to ourselves too much to actually ask for a photo without having our heads explode from happiness overload.

Homina. (Me, Nick, Greer, and Katherine)

I asked him if, now that their tour was over, they got to go back home to Scotland. He laughed in an "I wish!" kind of way, which reminded me that even with adulation and glamour, etc, it must be a pain not to be able to go home for months on end, and to be constantly travelling and meeting tiresome people such as ourselves and doing those vapid celebrity interviews everyone is so fond of.

Just before this photo, a roadie came out and asked whether he could ask us a question. Well, why not? He said, "You guys were here earlier, so I was just sort of wondering if you'd like to come backstage and have a look around, maybe meet some people. We're having a little after-party at one of the clubs, wanna come?" No, that's not really what he said. Actually, Mr. Roadie said that they had all been having some fun with the guitarist because when we had met him before the concert, his fly had been undone. Mr. Roadie wanted to know whether we had noticed. We said that no, we hadn't, but we could pretend to have. So when the guitarist emerged from the back doors, Katherine (I think) stepped up and said, "oh, I see you fixed your pants." So... we mildly embarrassed one of the band members at the behest of a crew member. I count this as a success. We have begun to refer to the incident as our "in-joke with Franz Ferdinand". Thank you, Roadie in Orange T-Shirt, for validating us.

Also: Homina. Rock star.

Homina. (Me, Katherine, Alex, and Greer)

Alex was actually the last to emerge, so these photos aren't really in order. I thought Katherine was going to die; she keeps looking at this picture and going "unnnnnh" and then saying "his HEAD is RIGHT NEXT to MINE". I have told her that all she has to do now to live a happy life is to tape this photo to the inside of her glasses.

Also, he made can-can legs, but you cannot see them in the photo. It was amusing.

Here are the Pantz Ferdinand, the final confirmation of my severe case of Fangirl Syndrome. But they are kind of awesome, right?

On the train back to Ottawa, we got to feel superior to Rolling Stone magazine -- here I am pointing out that they have mixed up two members of the band in their photo caption. It is a good thing there are people, like me, who care about such things.

Appropriate Response: "Squeee!"

So, Tuesday I'm going to Toronto for the Franz Ferdinand concert. (No, not that Franz Ferdinand.) I have been planning wardrobe, makeup, camera-smuggling, meet-the-band strategies, and various other logistics with fervor appropriate to someone actually managing the tour, but gosh DARN I intend to have fun.

I didn't get any pictures of Keith, Katie, or Heather, but I definitely recall seeing them. So here they are at the party I had in June. We will just pretend that they are all at my house together and that this photo was taken Thanksgiving weekend, just like all the rest of the photos I'm posting today.

Here we are with the hosses. They are behaving well here because they are not standing on any grass. If they were standing on grass, they would be eating it. One of them is Governor, the other is General. Do not ask me which is which, please.

The Colleener and one of Katie's miniature horses. Katie is training them for someone else, but kindly allows her friends to play with the wee horses. It was, probably, the best thing I have ever done.

Ah, yes, hot chocolate after dancing makes for the attractive photos. Me, Lori, and Colleen.

Lori, Jared (Andrea's boy), me, Colleen, Stephanie (another unseen-since-grad pal), and Matt (Andrea's boy's friend) getting psyched up to go dancing.

Andrea, who I literally had not seen since graduation. She has returned from a marathon crazy trip around South-East Asia and Europe and had lots of cool photos to show me, Colleen, and Lori.

Liam, Kylen, and Elise watching Final Fantasy on my computer (there is a perfectly good TV right in front of them, but for some reason the computer was better). Liam was less positive on the AV choices for the evening than Kylen and Elise. That is what happens when you hang out with girls, though! This cozy domestic scene was captured as I departed to go dance up at storm at the Union Hall.

Considering Becca's and my talent for totally failing at the dual self-portrait, this one turned out pretty well.

Had I $300, I would put it into this cloak about thisfast.

Amateur Hobotics

Wait; whoa. There's a new SCOTUS justice? I looked away for five minutes, and there is another new one? And... whoa, she's never sat as a judge before. But (from Yahoo News) "While her loyalty to Bush is unquestioned, Democrats publicly and Republicans privately wondered about her qualifications for the high court." Good, then. Nice to see we're putting qualified people on the bench. (Allow me to hop off my soapbox.)

This past week has been pretty good. School is heating up, and the stress is on. I'm coming home for Thanksgiving (join me, please: YAAAAAAY!), which should be just great. And I have an environmental studies/geography midterm on the 17th, a Franz Ferdinand concert to go to on the 18th, followed by a law paper on the 31st, and, in November, a political science paper. All in all, a busy month! It should be a party.

I have been carrying on more or less as usual. We talked about genocide today in international law, which gave me a complex and nearly made me lose my lunch because it sort of highlighted how cold the law can be sometimes, and how cold human beings can be to each other. "No, sorry, we don't think we're obligated to intervene yet. Only 200 000 dead, folks! Call us when you're at a million, and we are so on the case!" So... that was fun.

And then I had cross-country practice. We're doing actual hills workouts this year, which is good for us but terrifically painful, much like angry broccoli with boxing gloves. There was only one person at practice today, apart from me and Jacob, so I am thinking it is Motivational E-mail time. If we're going to bother organizing this (as much as that term can ever apply to me and to Jacob) then the runner-beans had better make it worthwhile.

After cross-country, I had political science. Ian sat with me and Katherine, Emily having gone to Rosh Hashanah services. Hey, we needed a brunette to be a complete blonde-brunette-redhead trio. Ian, as well as having brown hair, is intriguing because he is so socially inept. He seems to have friends in aerospace engineering, but we all know that most engineering students are robots. Or, since Ian is "Hobo Ian" because (last year) he was rather scruffy, his engineering student friends are Hobots. That not-at-all-laboured joke is hilarious to me, Katherine, Emily, and Chris (she's at Trent this year), which gives you a sense of just how huge our brains are, that we can think deep thoughts and still have that kind of space left for convoluted in-jokes.

My heavens. Katherine is having an awakening in feminist economics on the phone with Emily in the other room, defending the Marilyn Waring article on economics we had to read this week for public affairs. I never thought I would see the day! I think she has overcome her fear of feminism, realizing that it is more a fear of crunchy people with hairy legs and protest placards. What a good day this is turning into! I think the highlight of it was the revelation that some economists view the family as a kind of mini-corporation, where "toleration of inefficient personnel" is a real drag, y'all. Like, I hate babies. They're just so useless! And lazy! Why would anybody have them when it's more advantageous just to work hard enough to pay for a good old folks' home, where the caretakers may not love you, but know CPR? Honestly. People are so obstinate in not conforming to the rational economic model of the family, aren't they?

Ahem. Go about your business, I'm just feeling a bit loopy. Must go, Jon Stewart's on.