Tripping Over Peaceful Dead Birds on a Morning Run

I know, weird title, but that’s what happened at 5am this morning during my jog around the lake by my apartments.
I was running, listening to some Beatles song (I grew up listening to those guys. Thanks, Mom) when I nearly stumbled over a dead bird.
I know nothing about birds, so I couldn’t tell you what kind of bird it was. There was barely any light this morning, so I couldn’t really see the coloring.

You know how most birds, they look twisted and uncomfortable when you see them mangled on the side of the road?
This bird didn’t.
He looked peaceful. As if he was flying along, landed and decided to take an everlasting nap on the pavement.
I debated on pushing him from the middle of the sidewalk to the grass, instead. So no one would step on him.
But I didn’t.
The photographer in me didn’t want to disturb his pose, plus there was a grease stain on the sidewalk in the shape of a heart next to his left wing.
I wish I had my camera, but jogging with a camera would be terribly uncomfortable.
I was all nostalgic (not sure if that’s the right word) after that.

I barely got anything done this weekend. It was so jam-packed.
I got up extra early this morning to do laundry during and after my run since I did zero cleaning this weekend.
Luckily Trace will be out of the house tonight, so I’ll be able to do some serious cleaning without having to listen to the TV. I like cleaning to my own music.

I suppose I should recap this weekend. Not that anyone reads my blog but, like I said, I want to start recording events in my life. Sometimes even the most insignificant of events can cause fateful changes later. It’s good to know how I changed my fate in the long run if that is the case.

Friday evening I stopped by my apartment to grab some clothes and hair and makeup supplies, then made my way over to Tiff’s house to get ready for Jaime’s show.

Let it be known that I did invite Trace, but as I predicted, he refused because the music is not heavy metal.

I have to backtrack a little bit here. Jaime emailed me right before I left work on Friday and gave me his cell number to call so Tiff and I could meet up with him before the show. I hadn’t noticed before, but he doesn’t have his number on his business cards. I had to laugh when he gave me the reasoning for this:
At one point he did have his phone number on his cards, but somehow some fans got ahold of it and started calling him. They apparently filled up his voicemail box, so real clients could never get through. Now he only give out his cell phone on occasion to “trusted parties.” He told me I should feel privilaged. I told him he was full of himself.

But as we all know, most drummers are.

Ok, I honestly can’t say that I think Jaime is conceided in any way. He’s actually one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met.

Anyway, I had to give him my phone number because otherwise he wouldn’t know who was calling him. That’s the excuse he gave me anyway. I told him that was a slick line and that he should use it sometime on someone he actually likes. He told me he already did.

I told this story to Tiff as we got ready at her apartment. She took over my hair and makeup and I’m sure if I let her she would have dressed me as well. I don’t mind, I’ve never been an expert at either.
We left around 7pm for the small bar/venue. Jaime told me to meet him there at 7:30 because they went on at 9pm. They were the headlining band, but they only had one opening band.

Tiff went straight to the bar when we got there. I just got my usual Shirley Temple with extra cherries (I don’t drink alcohol). Tiff kept bugging me to call Jaime, but I didn’t see him walking around and I didn’t want to bug him in case he was busy doing band stuff. She somehow wrestled my phone away from me and called him herself. When she hung up she told me he was backstage and that he’d meet us at the bar.
I felt nervous for some reason, I don’t know.
Anyway, I don’t know what I was expecting Jaime to wear, but it wasn’t what he was wearing. For some reason I invisioned him in leather pants with a ductape shirt or something completely outrageous, but he was just wearing his normal tshirt and jeans. The only difference was that he was sporting one of those mailman hats.
Tiff immediately fell all over him. He seemed slightly uncomfortable with how forward she is. I made it a point to apologize for her.

After Jaime introduced us to the rest of the band, Tiff had moved on to falling all over the lead singer. His name is Brandon and he’s the stereotypical lead singer. He definitely had presence and he seemed to be soaking up Tiff’s advances.
Jaime and me along with Glen and Talia (the bassist and his wife) all decided we were craving bad bar food, so we ordered some nachos and sat at one of the tables in front of the stage. I immediately fell in love with Glen and Talia. Glen is very soft spoken, but Talia is very loud and opinionated. You would think it’s the other way around. She’s the kind of person that most would love to hate. I just loved her. And I adored how Glen adores her. You can see it in his eyes when he looks at her.

Tiff and Brandon disappeared backstage. I decided to apply the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy to this one.
The rest of us had a pretty interesting conversation, while eating nachos, about the pros and cons of Michael Bay films. Jaime and I agreed that Transformers was good enough to override the mistake that was Pearl Harbor. Glen probably would have agreed with us if Talia didn’t vehemently disagree.

Glen and Jaime had to go hunt down J, the guitarist, halfway through the opening act’s set. (I’m not even going to elaborate on how horrible the openers were.) At this point Talia took the opportunity to tell me about how great and wonderful Jaime was. I informed her, halfway through her telling me about what a great and wonderful personality Jaime has, that I had a live-in boyfriend named Trace and that I was sure Jaime wasn’t interested in me like that. She rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t see a ring on your finger yet, sweetie.”
Normally I hate it when people give me pet names, but I didn’t mind it so much when Talia used it. It somehow gave the statement evenmore of her personality.

Tiff never reappeared from backstage, even after Jaime’s band played, so I spent the entire set dancing with Talia.
There weren’t as many fans as I expected, but there were enough gathered in front of the stage. Talia and I opted to stay near our table.

Ok, in hopes that Trace never sets eyes on this blog, I will say this:
I had butterflies when I watched Jaime. It’s stupid and messed up, I know. And it was probably a fluke brought on by a drumset, but there was something about how he smiled while he was playing that made my fingers tingle. I couldn’t help but smile, too. Granted, I’ve never really watched any drummers during a set, this would be a first, but Jaime seemed to be uniquely animated while he played. He made funny faces at me (or maybe it wasn’t at me, but the girls in the front row taking pictures of him) and smiled a lot.

I’m a big fan of smiles. A big fan.

Anyway, the butterflies, I have since decided, were friendship butterflies because I could never see myself with a drummer (or any other member of a band) nevermind leave Trace. There is just way too much history there and I have a tendency to want to delete all traces of exboyfriends.
Plus, Trace and I tried braking up once and it didn’t work out too well for either of us.

Wow, I just reread that last paragraph and it sounded really bad.
I love Trace. I really do.

Great. Now I’m thinking about the breakup. That’s never good.

After the show, which was actually very good. (I bought the CD from the merch girl) Tiff finally appeared from backstage with Brandon who, along with everyone else in the band, was bombarded by fangirls. Talia and I laughed as they signed autographs. I asked her if it bothered her at all that Glen had a lot of fans or if she ever questioned his loyalty. She rolled her eyes and said that Glen wouldn’t have the balls to cheat on her. She then, in a not-so-inconspicuous way told me that of all the guy in the band – even Glen – that Jaime was the one who was the least involved with the groupies. I didn’t tell her that I didn’t buy that for one minute.

Anyway, I finally decided to pull Tiff out of the crowd so we could go, but both her and Jaime begged me to hang around for awhile.
Awhile turned into until the bar closed and then another hour hanging out in the back parking lot by their van.

I do have to admit, although both Brandon and J are alcoholics – they were quite funny. Talia was obviously getting pissed off at them, but Glen and Jaime seemed to be used to it.

I think the worst part of the night was when Talia decided she was going to ditch me and “hang out” at the hotel with Brandon and J. I asked her how the hell I was supposed to get home. She told me to have Jaime take me home.

Let it be known that I would never ditch my friend for some guy. Never.

But Tiff and I aren’t that good of friends to begin with. Mostly aquantences from work. That’s what I get for carpooling with the desperately single.

I did end up catching a ride with Jaime. He drove me home, then took Glen and Talia back to the hotel before going home himself.

Little did I know that coming home at 2am would be such a big deal until the next morning. Trace decided he was going to throw a fit and be pouty the entire day Saturday because I came home two hours later than he did. I overreacted and told him that living with him was worse than living with my parents with the curfew and left the apartment in a huff.

Of course I had no idea where I was going to go. So, I went to the only place I could think of that would relax me – the bookstore.
I called Jaime to see if he happened to have any of the designs done and if he wanted to meet up to show me some. If I was being honest with myself I would admit that the reason I called him was really because I needed to be around someone with an optimistic attitude to help mine out a bit.

Jaime said he didn’t have them all done yet and that he wanted to wait until he was finished with all of them before showing them to me. I guess he noticed I sounded a little disappointed so he asked if I wanted to hang out anyway.

We ended up meeting at this temporary used bookstore that was at an abandonded warehouse. I was so excited about it and greatful that he informed me of it.
Jaime and I wandered around the bookstore in silence together. Something that would have been altogether impossible if I had been there with Trace. He would have either complained about how bored he was the entire time or talked my ear off. But Trace and I just walked up and down every aisle, sure to read the title of every book.

I spent $20 on 6 hardcovered books. Normally a hardcover book is $20 alone. Thank you, Jaime!

After we bought our books, we ran across a six-lane highway to get to the McDonald’s across the street, only realizing afterwards that it would have made more sense just to drive there.

Jaime played the good-listener and lent an ear while I rattled on about how upset I was about Trace. He didn’t say much or give any advice, just listened. It was surprisingly helpful.

There’s something I noticed about Jaime while we spoke that I decided I really liked about him. It made me want to take a picture of him with black and white film and leave it out in the sun awhile so it would get all yellow and pretend that him and I had been friends forever.

When he talks, he smiles a lot. There are very few people that I know who do that. Very few people my age still have the ability to smile with both their mouth and eyes while maintaining a conversation. Usually it comes in spurts, but never throughout an entire conversation.
Jaime’s smile never leaves his eyes, even when his lips aren’t participating.
That and he talks with his fingers. Not in the way most do – waving their hands around and all that, but he draws while he talks with the tips of his fingers.
If there is a table in front of him, as there was in McDonald’s, he’ll trace outlines on the surface while telling a story. If there isn’t, he’ll draw lines in the air. It’s actually kind of interesting to watch.
And, like I said, it made me want to take a picture of him. Or a series of pictures.

I don’t know why I found that endearing, but I did. I really wanted Trace to meet him. I really felt like they would become good friends and maybe Jaime would rub off on him a little. Give him some advice on being a little bit happier sometimes. (Instead of the perpetually angry metalhead)

Jaime shrugged and said that maybe they would meet sometime, but I didn’t put much stock in that response. He asked why I suddenly wanted him to meet my boyfriend and I had to confess.
He started laughing and told me that he noticed my little quirks, too. This surprised me, I didn’t think I had any quirks, not as interesting as his, anyway and he told me that I definitely did.

I never really noticed until he told me, but I have a fixation with my hands. I am either always sitting on my hands or have my fingers entwined as if I’m praying. I admitted that when I drive, I must always have one hand between my legs (not there, perverts! He thought the same thing and laughed at me for a full five minutes!).
I’m the same way with my feet, whenever Trace and I are sitting on the couch together or even laying in bed, I have to stuff my feet under his legs or anywhere I can fit them. He hates it.

Jaime also says that I am the best physical listener he’s ever met. I asked him what he meant by that and he told me that I listen with my whole body and it’s extremely obvious when I’m uninterested because of my body language. When I’m into something someone is saying, I lean my whole body toward them and stare at them – I observe them.
I was embarrassed and covered my face, but he told me it made him feel like the only person in the world and that was a good thing.

I wish Trace would say things like that to me. But one thing I’ve learned from being in a relationship is that the need to compliment eachother fades. That’s what friends are for or new people you meet.

When I got home, I apologized to Trace and he apologized to me. Like I mentioned before, our relationship has gotten a lot smoother. Our little fights never last too long.

On Sunday I wanted to go to the beach because it was really warm and breezy. The perfect beach day. But Trace hates the beach and most of my friends were working. I debated on calling Jaime, but decided I didn’t want to seem too… I don’t know. I had seen him Friday and Saturday night already, so Trace and I used our Bush Garden’s pass and went there for the day.

Everything was fine until we got stuck on one of the rollercoasters and I started having an Anxiety attack. It was the worst I’ve had in a long time.
I know it makes Trace really uncomfortable while I’m having one, so I was trying to keep it from him while still trying not to completely lose my mind.

I’ve since decided to never go on a rollercoaster again.

This leads me to today. Nothing much as happened yet, except I’m late for lunch! I better end this here.