Mortality Blog

I say I’m trying to stop wasting time on the internet, by which I mean wandering Wikipedia, or ED, or TVTropes, or 4chan, or CollegeHumor, or any of those sites that I could easily spend an indefinite amount of time perusing. I say I’m trying to find something more worthwhile to occupy my time - that if I’m going to be an insomniac, or whatever, I’m at least going to use those waking hours to better myself.

Well, Wikipedia and TVTropes probably alright fit that requirement, but not the others. And I still spend time on them, though I have been reading more lately, and it feels good. It feels like the old days, when I would read an installment of Redwall or Pern cover-to-cover, curled up on the carpet, surrounded by my quilt, propping myself up on pillow, enduring decidedly uncomfortable postures in the interest of continuing the story. It occurs to me that perhaps associating hard surfaces on which to recline with intellectual (and perhaps a bit devious, given the early hour of my supposed bedtime) pleasure lead me to my professed prefresence for harder bedding now, in my 20’s. Other people preach the virtue of the box spring, the space-age memory foam pillow top mattress, they search for their ’sleep number.’ I flop down on my futon, not to firm and not too squishy, settling into the canyon that my body has gradually pressed into the material, slightly form-fitting as I roll back and forth, starting out on my chest, then my side, then my other side, then my back - but usually waking on my back or chest, rarely on my side. I seem to settle on one or the other sometime during the night.

And making music just doesn’t see the same as it used to be. It’s refreshing to sit down at my new piano and play with chords, but I can sense that a lot of the practiced agility of my teenage years has fled - I just don’t think that way anymore. I could learn to again, no doubt, but it’s not an undertaken I’ve seen fit to pursue yet. I’ve considered it. I wonder whether acquiring long forgotten copies of elementary learning materials, for casual perusal, might help me ramp back up to where I was in highschool - looking eagerly over a piece of sheet music, subconsciously testing the fingerings against my palm, pretending to already catch a glimpse of the melody, when in fact that level of sheet-music reading was beyond me. I remember my fingers flipping over eachother like gymnasts, showing off in front of a crowd of peers and elders, seated beside a similarly talented performer, each of us playing our part, barely paying attention to the way the music must sound, totally focused on getting it right. Was that naive? Was it rote repetition, disciplined conversion of the body’s natural instinctive movement into measured machinery, clicking finger after finger as the notes flew up and down the staff, and behind my eyes, where I’d half memorized it already? Was it the thrill of the performance? Will I ever occupy that same space? Would I like to?

Music I miss in a kind of abstract way - I remember my joy in it, but there is no music-shaped-hole in my soul, so to speak. More and more, though, I feel flickers of literary ideas, small sparks dancing in my peripheral vision, characters, plotlines, nebbishes, attributes and elements. Magic blurs with programming, memory with fantasy, and I wonder (as if it matters) what would a story say about me? Is it all about me? I wonder whether authors who are successful breath life into their characters because they care about them - because to them, they are all real, the plot is a real problem, the consequences are something to be concerned about. I don’t think I make that connection with the protagonists I’ve thus-far devised, all my past efforts have been something more akin to flights of fancy, the pleasure of imagining ‘if it were like this, I would choose that,’ perhaps hoping to instruct everyone who reads it; ‘this is who I am.’

There are so many moths in my bedroom (abrupt changes of subject are attractive sometimes) and I wonder where they all come from - is there a thriving moth colony beneath the back deck, which sends these mostly sedentary members out as scouts, or settlers, or perhaps pariahs, banished from the land of the moths into the perpetual twilight of my bedroom, startled by the occasional bright lights, hiding for hours behind shelves before dive-bombing my glowing monitors when they are the room’s only light source? (was that really all one sentence?) They migrate in waves, and their presence creates a hidden-picture-like situation - earlier, I caught all three gathered around the exhaust fan on my computer tower, perhaps staring into the flickering blue LEDs. I tried to nab them with a clear glass and a stiff paper envelope, but they escaped, scattering - and now as I glance around, I see one by one lamp, another by another, and a third dissimilarly positioned low down on the outside wall, apparently uninterested in maintaining proximity to the electric lights. Now that I’ve marked their locations, I think I’ll take a quick break to relocate them, releasing them (as has been my habit with spiders as well) into the near-outdoors-ness of the attached garage. BRB.

Aside from a few tiny little fruit fly type things, or maybe an immature mosquito, I think that leaves me with my room insect-free - I need to be more careful about putting up the screen on the window when it’s nice and summery. Still, it makes me think, in the vein of life imitating art, that there’s a certain as-yet-unnamed character in a certain as-yet-unwritten story of mine that shares his life with insects in a bit of metaphor that I’ve yet to puzzle out. The bug bite boy, with spiders in his room, always finding a new little itchy bump or two somewhere on his skin, inflamed and un-poppable, unlike the occasion zit his adolescence has brought him. And yet despite the continued campaign of annoyance he’s suffered at the hands of the insects, he hasn’t developed a phobia, or a vendetta, or anything - he wonders at it. Why is he bitten? Am I that boy? I’ve been stung and bitten many times, sometimes covered in mosquito bites, sometimes the victm of a single terrible insect encounter - pre-pubescent summer camp memories include sitting on a bee-infested log and getting stung in the butt, while later as a teenager my scrotum somehow became the target of the big jaws of a large black ant - I screamed, my breath coming in gasps, panicked despite the lack of danger or even real pain, but scared at such a small unstoppable intruder’s unexpected appearance in such a delicate and private place - I hurriedly flicked it off, but this only detached its body, leaving its head stuck to my skin. Nightmarish. There are always spiders, Daddy Long Legs or beefier varieties with more impressive mandibles, working cobwebs into the corners of my bedroom. Did this insect omnipresence beget the bug bite boy?

Unlike a particular childhood friend, I’ve never been particularly bothered by spiders, or bugs in general - I only ask that they stay away from me. I don’t want them walking on me if I (or they) can help it, and I don’t want them in my way, partially, I have to admit, because I don’t want to inadvertently kill them. Is it hypocritical to use an empty glass to catch-and-release moths and mosquitohawks and at the same time continue to chow down on red meat? Empathy for bugs, but not for cows? It’s interesting to contemplate for a moment, but doesn’t really bother me. Maybe I’m too at peace with the way I am, but a little paradox is alright if it keeps me comfortable.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog - not since sasquatch. I blame my facebook account, which has surplanted myspace as my most commonly visited website. In fact, my myspace is gone now - all that remains is about 20 pages of blog entries that I saved out.

So as I sit here, listening to “Hefty Fine” by the Bloodhound Gang (for the first time) and wonder why it’s somehow worse than “Hooray For Boobies,” I thought I’d take a moment to catch up on where I’m at. I mean, 23 - my well-known traveling plans for my quarter-life-crises looms nearer, but to be realistic, I kind of want to be in a certain place by the time I reach my 25th birthday: specifically, graduated, making good progress on paying off student loans, but otherwise out of debt. I want a full-time job, and I want to quit it in order to travel, more or less. I want to throw my electronics in storage, fix up my car, buy a decent laptop, and freelance from the road. But for now, I’m 23, I’m in debt, I’ve still got plenty of school left, and my job situation is tenuous. Good at the moment - but only for the moment. Next month could be bad as easily as good - I’m at the mercy of my ‘industry contacts’ who are of course at the mercy of their clients, and the economy.

So it’s August 11th, so late Monday night that it’s technically Tuesday morning. I’ve been working on a website for a local construction corporation, which has been going well, despite a few delays. I’m still living in The HoytHouse, which is a good place to live, although we don’t really see a lot of Ryan these days - I’m glad I get along well with everyone, though, as it seems that several friends have bad roomate horror stories to tell.

This is shaping up to be a long rambling “taking notes for my memoir” blog entry.

Anyway, I’ve got to admit, I’ve been having some interesting issues with sitting down and getting stuff done. It’s the same old odd sort of procrastination/aversion that I’ve experienced ever since I was a kid. It doesn’t feel like an inability to concentrate. It’s almost like a lack of… will, maybe? Typically, I stay awake until 5 or 6, when it’s getting light outside, regardless of what I’m doing the next day. As a result, it’s really tough for me to wake up before, say, 2 PM. Even on nights when I try to get to bed earlier, I just toss and turn, or otherwise sleep unsoundly, wake up feeling tired, and go back to sleep until the afternoon anyway.

It’s a weird sort of nearly compulsive justification of procrastination, I guess. If I know I’ve got to be somewhere at 5PM, leaving early never occurs to me. Starting at 2, I’ll wake up, go to the bathroom, then lounge around in my room for several hours, sifting through new emails, new facebook stuff, new artiles and comics that I’m following online, and finally glance over at the clock. 4PM? I ought to get ready to leave - but I don’t. I do anything else other than that. Finally, at 4:45PM, I jump up, take a super quick shower, and leave, only to arrive half and hour late. This sort of thing happens A LOT.

Unfortunately, this has a sort of ‘crying wolf’ effect as well. For the first few minutes after I wake up, especially if I haven’t had enough (nearly 9 hours at this point) sleep, I am a complete zombie animal - I mean, sometimes I literally have no memory of what’s happened. There have been a few times where I can only assume that I’ve woken up to my alarm, flipped it off, and gone right back to sleep - and missed whatever I was trying to wake up early for. Similarily, when I wake up, it’s easy for me to think, “Ah, I’ll just lay here for another fifteen minutes.” What really happens is I go back to sleep until 2PM, right? After a while, I guess I get to be the guy who almost never shows up on time.

Like other things that’d be to my benefit to change about my life, I don’t seem to be able to find the motivation to do this differently.

Let’s say my life is a river. That’s a good metaphor. Earlier, I was waterskiing - and now, even after I’ve let go of the rope, and the boat has sped off, I’m still skimming over the water. But this momentum, wherever it came from (highschool? CMD?) is starting to get killed off by friction, and eventually, I’m going to start sinking, and when I do, I’m going to need to start swimming. What I’m debating is - where am I now? Should I be getting ready to start swimming, or am I already up to my shoulders underwater, and need to start doggy paddling right away?

There’s some sort of weird little priority list in my head that’s got some weird little priorities flipped around regarding the economy of my activities. School takes up a significant amount of my money - you ‘d think I’d pay more attention to it. And work makes me a significant amount of money - you’d think I’d pay more attention to it as well. But somehow lazing around, thinking about Magic Cards and the Internet, staying up late and sleeping in late have all gotten bumped to the top of the list. What does that say about me?

I’m suspicious that this is what I get for being so lucky - throughout my life, just about the time I’ve needed something, I’ve caught a break, and recieved it. Not all the time, not reliably, but enough that I’ve noticed it. I’ve wondered about what causes that - is it pure luck, or am I somehow subconciously putting myself into profitable situations - but I guess it might be worth thinking about the result as well. Am I spoiled? Do I think that I can just not make an effort, and things’ll work out anyway for me? Logically, of course, I don’t think that - that’d be stupid. But then again - why didn’t I go talk to my department director today about my classes in school, after planning to last week? There’s a post-it note right there on my monitor and everything - I literally bought a new pack of notes so I could write it. I spent all day doing nothing productive (until this evening) and glancing at the clock, thinking, “Oh, I don’t have to leave for another hour - another half-hour - another ten minutes - I can be a little late - I’m not going to make it - might as well not go.”

I kind of wish I was at least preocuppied by something constructive. I kind of wonder if I need something constructive to do as a hobby. I really wish I did as much music as I used to - how did I get out of the habit of doing that? It seems like now, whenever I sit down and grab my keyboard, everything sounds boring - nothing’s new, or interesting, and nothing’s worth pursuing. I have some good ideas, but never anything worth finishing.

So like I said - coasting, maybe sinking, need to start swimming soon. Well, if nothing else, writing all this out is a good way to organize my thoughts on the matter.

I also need to work on designing up my little group of blogs (mortalityblog.com, musicblog.mattlohkamp.com, and storyblog.mattlohkamp.com) - as well as adding another site for my music, now that myspace isn’t there to provide an easy host anymore. Should I go back to the old ANDR artist name, or find something new? Hmmm.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll try to remember to write more often.

Spoiler alert - there will be no psychedelic notebook pages this time around - I took it easy. This year was fun, in a more sedate, sunburned way. Let’s take a look at how my weekend went:

Day One

• The Gaslight Anthem
• Doves
• Passion Pit - I remember not liking them as much as I expected to.
• M. Ward - not really the type of music I listen to, but good music.
• Shearwater - I only heard a little bit of their performance, but I really liked what I heard.
• Tim & Eric - terrible. not funny at all. non-stop scatological and misogynistic jokes just don’t sit well with me, I guess, along with making fun of people that are mentally challenged.
• The Decemberists - good, as always, their set consisted of playing straight through their new album (The Hazards Of Love) in its entirety.
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - loved these guys, even though it’s probably not something I would generally choose to listen to, the lead singer was spunky and everyone was talented. Also, there was a huge inflated eyeball floating above the players for their entire performance.
• Crystal Castles - disappointing! They sound so good on the album, but live, the female singer’s voice was terrible, just a bunch of screams… the music was otherwise good (if a bit screechy, poorly mixed perhaps) but I expected a lot more from these people.

Day Two

• The Red Wine Boys - I only caught the end, but it was a comedic duo whose performance involved a lot of wine. Also, they get points for lots of audience interaction.
• Aziz Ansari - clever and funny, probably the best comedian I saw, apart from the Whitest Kids on the next day.
• Zach Galifianakis - he’s funny, and he plays piano. what’s not to like?
• TV On The Radio - I only saw the end of this show, and I liked what I heard.
• Nine Inch Nails - Great stuff, although I started getting bored when the songs got less pounding. Trent Reznor continues to know exactly what he’s doing, and it’s always impressive, inspiring even, to watch a master at work. I’m not generally a huge NIN fan (apart from the Year Zero album, which I really liked) but I definitely enjoyed the show.
• Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head - After I left NIN, I headed over to see Deadmau5, and caught the end of NPSH, which has an awesome name, and almost seemed like a jazzy jam band that had thrown in a couple of synthesizers. Good stuff.
• Deadmau5 - certainly the best electronic show I saw this year. Not as good as Ghostland Observatory last year, but easily better then the Crystal Castles. I slipped through the crowd until I was right up front, jumping around and getting pushed in all directions, soaked in sweat, dancing until I was exhausted. It’s kind of a fun experience to be in, but I got tired, the music wasn’t doing it for me, so I left a bit early to go back to camp and eat.

Day Three

• Santigold - I didn’t get to see these people, but I heard them on my way into the venue, and they sounded intriguing, so I’ll have to look them up later.
• Whitest Kids U’Know - just as funny in person as they are in their online sketches.
• Monotonix - This was the most incredible performance I saw this year, period. Basically, it involved three Israeli guys, skinny, mustachioed and hairy, beating the shit out of their instruments, and spending all their time in the audience, not on stage, while still managing to continue playing. Just to give you an idea about the extremes they went to, I arrived at the stage just as the lead singer climbed on top of the bass drum - and the bass drum was being held up by the audience, about a dozen feet away from the stage. And that was nothing. Throughout their set, they had the audience carry them and their instruments all over the grounds, continuing to play - at one point, the lead singer crowd-surfed his way all the way to the opposite end of the field, climbed up on the rigging for the sound booth (about 20 feet up in the air, maybe), and announced to the crowd that he was going to count to 4, and then jump down, and they were going to catch him - and he wasn’t lying. I was incredibly impressed with Monotonix - to be honest, the music wasn’t my favorite, but it didn’t matter.
• Silversun Pickups - talented group, to be sure, but I realize that I don’t like them nearly as much as a lot of other people seem to… there wasn’t really anything unique or appealing to latch onto, they were just a good band.
• Girl Talk - when I first heard Girl Talk, I didn’t know the circumstances behind the creation of his music - that it’s all one big long mashup mix. Now, knowing that, I enjoyed the hell out of the show - there was some great stuff, and the crowd loved it. Speaking of which, he dealt with the issue of watching a single DJ triggering samples on a mixer board being a little boring by populating the stage entirely with party people - people in costume, people shirtless, everyone dancing. At one point, they passed an enormous inflated while out to the crowd - it was about 2/3 the size of the stage itself, which was awesome.
• Tobacco - Cool electronic stuff, although I don’t think I had taken enough drugs to appreciate it properly - other people, however, seemed to have taken exactly (or perhaps more) then enough. The music was pretty interesting, coupled with the visuals - an ongoing video remix of old horror video, apparently from inside an elaborate haunted house event.
• Chromeo - I’m not usually a fan of DJ sets, since it’s kind of like listening to the radio: every once in a while you hear songs you like, but a lot of the time you end up just waiting for the current song to be over so you can get to another one that you like. Chromeo was a good DJ, but I wasn’t very into it.

So in conclusion, I would recommend checking out Girl Talk, Monotonix, Santigold, Shearwater, and The Decemberists.

It took me all day Tuesday to sort of get back up to speed with not camping and not listening to music constantly, but now I’m feeling pretty good. I picked up some aloe vera cream stuff which will probably not have any actual effect on my sunburns, but the psychological reassurance is worth it.

So, I’ve heard lots of stuff about Britney Spears’ new album. I really have nothing  her (although I did just realize that her initials are B.S.) In fact, if I liked it enough I’d even buy myself a copy from Amazon for like $10 - even if I only liked it a little I’d keep an eye out in CD/Game Exchange.

But how can I tell if I like it? I’ve got to listen to it first, obviously. I don’t have a copy, and I don’t know anyone that does. So what do I do? Now I’m really curious!

So I run ‘britney spears blackout’ through google, I get a few sites that offer ‘previews’ of the album - amazon requires RealPlayer which is bullshit, and it’s the only one in the first few results to offer previews of the tracks. And they’re just previews, you don’t get to listen to hi quality full length versions. How can I tell if I like them music from some crappy RealPlayer-driven previews?

At this point, I’m already fed up with finding a legitimate way to listen to the album, and I’m still curious, so it’s time to turn to the illegitimate ways. YouTube has some stuff, but it’s still crappy, and I have to listen to it streaming through my browser, as opposed to playing through a flash player embedded in a web page streaming a heavily compressed .flv.

Hello, Pirate Bay! In literally five seconds I ran the same search as I did on google and found a torrent - there are nearly 500 seeders, which means it’s going to download as fast as my internet connection can transfer it. Look how easy that was! And now I can listen to it, and make an informed decision on whether I should spend money on it.

Do you see what’s wrong with this picture? I’ll give you a hint - nothing! It’s an ideal situation for the consumer and the merchant, because it decreases my chances of making a poorly-informed purchase (which might cause me to be more wary of buying CDs in the future) while increasing the merchant’s chances of me giving them money. Everyone is happy.

Except, of course, for the RIAA. They’re close-minded conservative assholes who are now becoming extinct. Like the dinosaurs, they’re unable to adapt. They’re caught in quicksand, and they don’t know enough not to struggle - they keep trying to get out, when in reality there is a happy new world just beneath the surface of the quicksand pit (not unlike a certain level in Super Mario Bros. 3)

So when I copy music it’s because I don’t have time or money to waste - I want instant gratification, and I’m willing to take risks in order to get it, because the time I might potentially spend arguing the ethics of downloading music in court is far outstripped by the convenience of being able to listen, watch, or play anything I want before I buy it.

I’m not even sure where to start. How about by explaining that the ‘sasquatch music festival‘ is an annual event that takes place in at the gorge ampitheatre up in Washington.

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It’s a three-day thing, during which dozens of bands play concurrently on three stages. There’s super expensive food and drinks you can buy while you’re there. I camped out during the event in a huge grassy field along with thousands of other people:

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which was pretty cool. I love camping. I should do it more often.

Anyway, let’s see a quick overview of the bands that I saw (in rough chronological order):

• Newton Faulkner
• Throw Me The Statue
• The Shaky Hands
• Ozomatli
• Kathleen Edwards
• Destroyer
• The New Pornographers
• MIA
• Modest Mouse
• REM
• Truckasaurus
• Blue Scholars
• White Rabbits
• The Presidents
• Michael Franti & Spearhead
• Death Cab For Cutie
• The Hives
• Rodrigo Y Gabriela
• Flight Of The Conchords
• The Mars Volta
• Ghostland Observatory
• The Flaming Lips

In a typical day, I would wake up around 10AM, cook up some breakfast, hang out with my campground neighbors (two guys from washington and one from portland), then make the mile-or-so trek out to the festival grounds. From there I would drift from one stage to another until I found an act I wanted to see - then I’d hang out until they were done, check my schedule to see who was playing next, rinse, and repeat. After the last show of the night, I’d hike back to the campsite, light the lamp, pump up the stereo in my car, and cook up some dinner. Finally, I’d spend the rest of the night hanging out with other people around the camp ground - I met a great group of people from Montana that I ended up spending quite a bit of time with, as well as my neighbors, and a couple of crazy canadian girls. It was fun figuring out what all the differences between canadian and US english were.

I met up with Tyler and Malolry while I was there:

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… although due to spotty phone service and huge crowds, I only ran in to them once.

The finale of the festival for me was two shows - Ghostland Observatory and The Flaming Lips. I honestly like the former more then the latter, due to my taste for electronic music, and I think I made the right decision in skipping most of the Lips’ show to see Ghostland. I first saw them last year as Sasquatch, and they’d made some significant upgrades to their show since then - in particular, huge LED panels and a complex array of lasers. Now - if this next part seems a little crazy, keep in mind that there were certain chemicals circulating in my system during most of it, possibly a few more then I actually needed.

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The experience of being in the crowd and watching them perform was something I don’t know if I can fully describe here. The show was pure SEX - the entire thing seemed focused on establishing the frontman as a sex god incarnate. The visuals and music looked and sounded like sex. I don’t know how else to say it. Here’s the interesting part: this wasn’t sex in the human sense - there was no human connection, no physical component to it. It was deified sex, in an objectified sense. The guy was like an idol on a pedestal, completely untouchable, but seething with power. I swear it was like having orgasm after orgasm in terms of the emotional rush I got from being there - but again, without the actual normal physical sexual component of orgasm, just the feelings. The whole thing was contained in virtual walls created out of lasers drawing lines through the fog - it was like being in some sort of prehistoric temple hallway, participating in an ancient ceremony. Incredibly intense.

After the Ghostland show ended, I made my way over to the final moments of the Flaming Lips show, where they were playing ‘Taps’ on a bugle - a tribute and requiem to all of our people over in the middle east. I watched from far away from a while, but then they started playing ‘Do You Realize’, and I pushed my way down to the front. The Lips’ show went in a different direction from Ghostland’s - instead of sex, it was all about hope, and affection. Wayne’s regard for all of us was tangible. The confetti, fog, and the flashing lights all served to create this all-encompassing atmosphere, much like Ghostland’s lasers, except it wasn’t so much containing the show, as expanding outwards from it. And there was the UFO at the end - a huge stage prop full of lights and mirrors that descended, picked up Wayne, and carried him away, leaving us alone (but together of course) in darkness.

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Things got weird after that. Everyone had to leave, to go back to camp, everyone was completely worn out from what we’d seen and done. I kept getting deja vu like crazy - I was about halfway out of the festival grounds when a bunch of people lead the crowd in singing happy birthday to Wayne. It was dark, and the picket fences and sagebrush beyond on all looked the same - so there were at least four or five times where I had to break out of the crowd and stop, trying to figure out if we were all walking in a huge circle. I thought I remember reading that after the UFO took off, the event staff reconfiguring all of the fences and buildings so that they formed an inescapable circuit, leading the zombie-like crowd out and then back again, to the stage where they thought they just left.

So with that possibility in mind, I kept a close eye on my surroundings, and made sure to walk on the outside of the crowd so I could be sure of where I was going. Once I was almost back to the camp I got a little freaked out about the whole thing - it was pitch black, although I had my flashlight, and there were people running, and acting like zombies, and mooing like cattle. I really didn’t want to be there anymore. I found a place where some people had kicked down the wire and wood fence that was holding us in, and I walked out with them, glad to be out of that ‘irrigation ditch’, as one of the people called it. Once out, I was scared I’d get caught by the monsters (event staff or police tasked with keeping everyone flowing in the circuit), so I quickly made my way deeper in to the campsite. I was surrounded by unfamiliar cars, but I decided I was safer here, since they couldn’t move the cars, they were like anchor points. I saw a few familiar landmarks, and eventually arrived back and my car - I decided that other people were probably pretty freaked out too, and the safest place for me to be was in my car.

I managed to get in, and locked the doors - but then i realize that I was super thirsty, so I quickly ran back out, opened my trunk, grabbed some provisions, and jumped back in. I turned on the car, then took the keys out of the ignition and set them aside, since I was in no condition to be driving. I turned on my stereo, flipped through the music until I came to my own songs, and lay back. As I listened to my music I tried to write down all the stuff I was thinking about - here’s what that ended up looking like:

While all this was going on, I was nervously watching the silhouettes of people walking past outside, and it was raining, and the rain droplets were forming scary faces on the windshield, or sometimes fractal patterns. I had the windshield wipers, of course, so I used those to clear things up if it got too intense. Eventually, as you can see from the last entry at the bottom of the picture, I decided that even though I was safe in my car, I needed to go see what everyone else was doing outside.

I’m glad I did - I got out of the car, and made it over to my neighbor’s tent, where the girls and guys were all packed in out of the rain, drinking wine out of a bag and playing with glowsticks. I was okay there for a while, but it got too claustrophobic - we were all huddled like bums in this wimpy little tent, and it was cold, and there were people walking by on the road behind us that I could see but I could hear - I eventually had to leave there too. I wandered up the road and watching the people as they stumbled past. I saw a party going on that looked like Hell itself had opened up in to the world - there were flames, and people lurching around, yelling, singing, calling out to people going past, saying, “Join us!” But their voices were all deep and menacing. My lack of belief in religion notwithstanding, a lot of what I saw that felt threatening was demonic. Eventually I made it over to a tent that I had visited the night before, where the people were playing bongos and guitars - I hung out with them for a while, but eventually had to leave there too, and go back to my neighbor’s tent.

I was disappointed to find them in the same situation I had left them - all huddled inside, with their own little glowsticks. They were stuck in there. I couldn’t get them to come out. So I went back to the good tent again, and hung out with them for several hours - they were hilarious, and we had some other really messed up visitors, and overall, I think that was the best possible place for me to be that night.

I couldn’t stay there all night though, since I had to drive home the next day (or rather later that day, since it was like 3:30 in the morning) - so I went back to my own tent, and after being a little bit freaked out by this weird white residue all over my car (which I later realized was rain mixed with dust kicked up by all the people trekking back to the campsite after the show) I went in to my tent and tried to get to sleep.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to sleep - I might’ve drifted off for a bit here and there, but I couldn’t ever really sleep soundly. Eventually I decided to just get up - it was about 9 or so in the morning, and I wanted to leave. I packed everything up, hoping that my neighbors would make an appearance before I left, but unfortunately they were still in their tents, so after eating a light breakfast and making sure my car was okay, I left.

The drive was 250 miles, and took about 4 or 5 hours, with one stop along the way to rest and make sure I’d be able to make it back to Portland without falling asleep or something. I made it okay - and I found that my car does great on the highway. It doesn’t accelerate very quickly, and has trouble going much faster then 60 mph uphill - also it tends to vibrate a lot at higher speeds. However, I did 90 mph at several points without exploding, so that’s good. I had a few rather anxious moments passing huge trucks full of iron pipes or bales of hay, but other then that, no close calls.

I’m also really glad I got the new car stereo before I left - the trip there and back might’ve been a lot tougher without music to listen to.

So I arrived back home, took a shower, then slept for 15 hours. Yeah. What a weekend.

edit: oh shit, myspace fucked up all my pictures and stuff. Well, just click on the stupid little ‘…’ things to see the pictures. laaaaaame.