...don't be so mean (my jellybean)...

Cameron House is so replete with randomness that for the first 15 minutes I was just soaking up atmosphere, intangible essences. The blond in the cowboy boots had her baby with her in the bar. A giant pumpkin sat on the service station counter. A red-bearded hick wore a Googoosh Tour 2000-2001 t-shirt. The bassist was on crack, flying so high.

It gains the more you give

Justin is almost two different people. One identity is the performer - the wild, curly-haired musician who stood on a chair and held us all in the palm of his hand. The other, the shy guy with the thickest glasses I've ever seen, slouched in a baseball cap, nervous and adorable around my girl. Oooh child, I am happy for your life, for your living.

His songs are mellow, emotional - songs to ex-lovers and old times. This is how he leaves them behind, I guess.

And it rises with the fall

Lizzy told me about JK, and my first reaction was a wince. Whatever else happens, whatever logic I use, whatever clock to gauge the time that's moved forward - it was still a hit. A complexity of genuine emotion and residue of pride, because in the end, it was mine, it was mine.

When you give your heart away, it's hard to get it back. If you gave it to the wrong person, you're sunk. Because you get it back, right, and you want to hang onto it for dear life. It's hard, it's so hard because you want to go another run, but if you get hurt again? There's only so many times you can pull yourself together, and anyway you always lose bits of you for good. And you thought you could outsmart it, play with the dead-ends, knowing it would be good for you, no heart no foul - middle of the night, you start awake and kick yourself because, what do you know, it found you again, and you realize the wince was just instinct and that in the sense of mattering, it doesn't anymore because there's someone else in your head now - and it's still a dead-end. "A fine mess you've got yourself in". Tell me.

So hand me that remote

This was before the show. It seems silly to say that as the music washed over me, it wiped the slate clean. But it did, or tried to anyway. And although the chalk marks are still there, hidden, they are now background. Sitting on a stool, chatting with Joel, and Les, and Matt Masters - all these amazing people who are smart, fun, bright, head over feet amazing; and there I am laying claim to something I should have the balls to throw in the trash myself. Matt took my number, and invited us to see him at Tranzac. Joel did the same, for his show at El Mo. This is the life I want to live - this LIFE. I felt I actually was living too, and not this sleep-walking I'm used to.

Can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow

My first sensation this morning was heaviness, weight of school, of world, of absolutely everything. But Boston won last night, dontcha know - triumph of good vs. evil, all's right with the world. Oh, it's light now, it's light.

Such boundless pleasure
We've no time for later now