Remembering Shannon

A friend of mine died on Saturday. No one knew she was sick. She’d withdrawn socially after she’d had issues with some people and I hadn’t heard from her in months.

I could insert some pithy Neil Gaiman quote, or talk about an incident in which I was reminded of my own mortality that day, but I won’t.

I remember she was the first friend of Melanie’s I met when we were dating, and she was always kind to me.

I remember the first time I ate dinner with her, at Don Pablos in Fair Lakes, and how she liked the queso.

I remember she was the first of the “zipper girls”, and was so pleased with that at first, and struggled with it later.

I remember how upset she was when Mel’s cat horked all over her clothes one night.

I remember how proud she was to get her motorcycle license.

I remember what a mess she made in the kitchen.

I remember finding we had a common acquaitance at GMU, and talking about the newspaper I worked on there and the terrible parking.

I remember she loved to travel, especially to California.

I remember visiting her parents’ house.

I remember she kept changing her hair.

I remember talking with her and her sister about them visiting my old store in Springfield, and how I still owed her store credit.

I remember the last time we saw her at our holiday party in December, and how she stayed late talking with us and Hannah and Dave.

I’m sorry we’ll never talk again.

I wish I had known she was sick, I would have liked to visit her.

Right now, Jill’s mom is addressing our wedding invitations, and I’m so terribly sad that now one of them will never get sent.

I’ll miss you, Shannon.

This week’s shows

Last night we were supposed to see Fleetwood Mac, but they cancelled because Stevie Nicks is having some kind of vocal cord problem. The thing that pisses me off is those were some of the tickets we bought as part of a package, and they’re only going to refund a sixth of the package price, even though those tickets cost twice as much if you bought them through Ticketmaster. Grrr.

Tonight is Velvet Revolver at the 9:30 Club with Living Things opening. Velvet Revolver is the supergroup made up of former Guns N’ Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum, former Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, and guitarist Dave Kushner, who’s played in bands with Duff and Dave Navarro. Slash, Duff and Matt auditioned hundreds of singers early last year, before choosing Weiland, and it’s a smart choice – he’s one of the few singers that can stand up to their ferocious assault. I’m really looking forward to this show (even though I still have to unload a ticket).

Tomorrow, Jill and I head down to Richmond to see our buds in emmet swimming play Friday Cheers with Pennyshaker opening. First full band show since January, and apparently Richmond draws a good crowd. We’ll stay in Richmond, probably with my friend Oran.

Saturday we’ll go to Virginia Beach. We’ll sun ourselves for a while, get some dinner, then I’ll drop Jill off at the hotel and go see Rush. They’re dropping a new EP comprised entirely of covers at the end of June, and last night (the tour kickoff) dropped four of them into their set, playing full covers for the first time in nearly 30 years. I’m pretty psyched for this show as well.

Massachusetts

Light night on Friday. Jill went to see the dress rehersal of the Reston Chorale, since we’d miss both performances, and I went to see Love Seed Mama Jump at Friday Night Live!. I went to the gym first, then went to Sterling to get some Costco gas and pick up some beer from Total Wine and More. I only made it during the second set, and left after that, as I hadn’t packed yet. We watched the new Tori DVD as we packed, and I ended up staying up way too late as I finished shifting the books to he new bookshelf.

Saturday we had an 11:30 flight, so we were on the road around 8:30. Southwest lets you print boarding passes online, so when we got to BWI, we just had to make it through the security lines. The flight was uneventful, and Jill’s stepdad Dave was waiting to pick us up. We hung out and had sandwiches with Jill’s mom and Robin, her sister, until it was time to go. It was Jill’s grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary (on her dad’s side). Jill and Robin and I got there a little early, and waited in the car a couple minutes. We went in and started meeting everyone. There were about 75 people there, about half of them Jill’s relatives. No open bar, but the drinks were cheap (2 mixed drinks for $6). I had some nice prime rib at the buffet they had, and enjoyed talking to Jeremy, boyfriend of Jill’s cousin Laura.

On Sunday, Dave and I helped out for Jill’s shower, until it started and we were ushered out the door. Although they kept my camera to take photos. Dave and I headed to Amherst to hit Mystery Train Records, but we got there before they opened. So we went next door to the Amherst Brewing Company and had a pint and some lunch (I had a burger, Dave had a monster pretzel). Then we spent a couple hours looking for music (I had some good bargain finds). It was a good thing we ate when we did – there are five colleges in the area, and I think all of them had graduations, so every restaurant was packed. We went back to the house, and saw Jill’s stash (which won’t show up until Jill’s mom and Dave drive down for the wedding). They dropped us at the airport in Connecticut, where we found our flight was delayed. We ended up getting home at 11, two hours later then planned – so we missed “Alias”. Luckily, my friend John agreed to tape it for us.

Sometimes hosting isn’t fun

I like having my own site, and my own blog, but occaisonally it’s a pain. The main server of my web hosting company went down last night. My site was eventually restored, but my database access was screwed up. I finally deleted my user nd recreated it (which I can only do from home, ’cause it’s a weird port).

It also sucks to type because I jammed my left middle finger playing basketball after work. I’ll hopefully blog about the weekend tomorrow.

New releases

A pair of chanteuses:


The new CD from Alanis I picked up Wednesday. It’s pretty good – standout tracks are Eight Easy Steps, Excuses, Knees Of My Bees, and Everything.


The new Tori live DVD would be good enough on its own, but it also comes with a 6 song bonus CD of unreleased tracks (unless you checked out the Scarlet’s Walk website which let you stream some of them).