...And it Was the Best Night Ever

Without going into a lot of detail because that is not the kind of blog this is, it has been a rough few months. I have never dealt well with change and back in July there was a week where several of the pillars I thought of as sturdy, stable, and constant in my life were yanked out from under me all at once. That forced me to confront a lot about myself that I had been pushing aside or explaining away, and I've been sort of swinging wildly in the wake of all this ever since, trying to get my bearings.

I've learned more about myself in the last three months than I thought possible. I've changed and grown and gotten stronger. I'm proud of what I've done and I'm feeling optimistic about the future. I'm starting to really get to know myself better than I ever have before and for the first time I'm starting to like what I've found. It's been hard and it will continue to be hard but it's also been incredibly rewarding.

One huge reason why this process of breaking down and building back up has gone as well as it has is Doomtree and in particular, Dessa. Right before all this change went down Kathleen, one of my oldest friends, told me to listen to A Badly Broken Code and right after it all fell apart I downloaded it and started listening. I haven't stopped. I already had a couple of Doomtree CDs (from my excellent friend Kelly who deserves equal credit in introducing me to this fabulous world of Minnesota rap) that had been in my regular rotation but I bought more and more and for the past three months I have listened to almost nothing else. Some days those songs were the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning. I found strength and meaning and inspiration in the lyrics. As my situation changed new songs would emerge as my favorites, verses I had heard without really listening to the day before would suddenly cut straight to my heart and show me a new side of my situation and myself.

I don't want to sound like an insane fan or religious zealot, I just want to explain my frame of mind when I went to the Doomtree show at the Minnesota State Fair two weeks ago. Screaming the lyrics and jumping up and down with hundreds of fans was everything I'd imagined it to be and I felt better and freer than I had in months.

Knowing what that felt like made me even more excited to see Dessa last night. The show was in La Crosse, an hour and a half away but a small price to pay to get that feeling back. I hadn't known when I bought the tickets that I would be scheduled for work at 4am that day and the day before, so by the time I got to the concert I had gotten about 8 hours of sleep in the past two nights but again, that was not even really a consideration in my mind. I chugged some Red Bull and settled in.

Annabelle Lee, the opening act, was fun. Aby Wolf was gorgeous and soulful, but I was impatient for Dessa. The venue was probably the smallest I've ever been to. The performers could see every single person in the crowd, and Dessa was not shy about calling people out on what she saw. She called out a guy for looking bored the whole show until she sang "The Man I Knew" ("Post-cocaine confusion song?! Yeah, that is my jam!"), and a couple of others for miming girly excitement for another song ("Guys don't look any cooler when they're really into a song." She said, doing an impersonation of a cool hip-hop guy rocking out). My favorite was a girl who actually raised her hand to ask a question. Dessa was really excited that someone raised their hand at a rap show like they were in school, and even more excited that she could immediately tell the difference in hand-raising, but then the girl started to ask a question about the setlist and Dessa shut her down immediately ("The setlist is mine and mine alone! Now let's do some sad shit!").

All this makes me wonder what she saw when she looked at me because I was not the only one right up at the stage singing every word with her, I was not the only one holding up my phone to get pictures and video, I wasn't even the one trying hardest to get her to notice me. I got a high-five from her with everyone else gathered around her feet at the beginning and that would have been enough, truly. Then I recorded her singing "The Crow", one of my very favorites and one that has meant a lot to me, and she leaned down and took my phone from me, recorded a few seconds of the crowd screaming, and handed it back.

That would have been enough. But then during "Seamstress" (another of my favorites. Basically they are all my favorites) she motioned to a few of us to make some space and she jumped into the crowd directly in front of me. She sang the song from a few inches away and I was in awe. She let the audience, especially those of us close to her, shout back and forth with her "It was a mercy kill" "NO" "It was a suicide" "NO" "It was an accident" "NO" "Well at least I tried". That would have been enough. But then she got to "It's a strange breed, a different kind of creature that looks for love through the eye of a needle but the creed of the seamstress is..." and put the microphone square in front of my face. I remember it happening in slow motion and I remember a second of panic and a flood of determination not to screw it up and I know for a fact that I yelled (but not too loud) "That you're pretty in pieces!" and then she moved on, finished the song, and climbed back up on stage. I know that I did sing it and someone next to me gave me the thumbs up and said "good job!" but at the time and in my memory I cannot hear my voice at all.

After the show she hung out at the merch table, meeting, greeting, picture-taking, and signing things. I bought both her books and stood in line. She hugged me when I came up to ask for her autograph. I stumbled a little over my Minnesotan anxiety about bothering her or sounding stupid but I told her that I had been having a rough time lately and thanked her for her music and told her how much it had helped. She said "Yeah, me too. It's been a hell of a year" and gave me another hug. We took a picture together and before I left she looked me straight in the eye. A small gesture but in the moment it felt huge.

I would like to point out that at this point I had been awake for 21 hours, having only gotten five hours of sleep or so the night before and even fewer the night before that, but as I stepped out into the mostly empty streets of La Crosse I found myself shaking and started to cry.

I had been looking forward to this night for weeks, idly daydreaming about getting a high five, trying to work out how I would express my gratitude for all she'd unknowingly done for me the last few months without sounding like a hundred crazy fangirls she'd met before, or, in my silliest moments, picturing getting to sing a line into the microphone with her. Never in any of my fantasies did I picture all of these things happening. I honestly have no idea how to deal with feeling this lucky, especially after this summer.

All day today I've been replaying the events over and over trying to make them feel real. My exhausted brain, now running on a total of 13 hours of sleep over the past three days, seems half convinced that I hallucinated at least part of the night. How else could I have gotten everything I'd wanted and more? The cautious humble Midwesterner in me wants to say that this is a sign of horrible things to come, that no one person could possibly deserve this much special treatment, least of all me, and the other shoe will drop any day now as payment for my ecstatic joy and recognition. But I'm trying to rise above those voices and recognize the far more likely truth: it is a charmed fucking life I lead.

Pundamonium!

So today, in addition to getting an amazing new tattoo, I got up on stage at a bar (not a small bar, either, a concert venue, High Noon Saloon, in Madison) and competed in a pun competition. Those of you who know me should understand what a huge deal this is for me (not the pun part, I am not ashamed of my love of puns, instilled in me since birth by my excellent father, but the getting up on stage part). Not only did I tell awful puns into a microphone in front of a large crowd of people, I came in second. I was the only person who hadn't competed there before. I was the only woman. The other competitors were fun and funny and most of them came up to me to welcome me to the group, congratulate me, and ask me to come back next month. It was awesome.

The pun competition is as follows: Everyone gets a prompt when they sign up and they get from the moment they get it until their name is called (about an hour, usually) to come up with puns on that theme and then they perform their puns for two minutes, after which they are judged by five members of the audience. Everyone goes up again, gets a prompt and gets thirty seconds on stage to come up with puns on that prompt, then perform for two minutes. The top four people from those two rounds compete head-to-head in two groups of two, punning on the spot on back and forth on the same prompt for two minutes. One person from each group of two moves on and competes against each other in the same manner, and then one person wins.

I got an awesome prompt in the first round and got the highest score, completely choked in the second round, then totally rocked the third round and held my own pretty decently in the fourth (but the other guy was just really good). Since I had time and wrote down my puns for the first round I can share them here pretty fully, I'll add in the best puns I can remember from my later rounds but as they were on the spot and I was high on adrenaline, I don't remember them nearly as well. Here goes:

Round 1
Prompt: Orchestra

I dated a guy who played in an orchestra once. It's overture now, though. He was just way too cellist. Right after him I dated another guy from the same orchestra and the first guy got so mad! He said it was too bassoon (also works as tuba soon).
I've always loved orchestral music, though. When I was a kid I got in treble for sneaking in to concerts. I wasn't allowed in because they were rated R for too much violins.
I had a friend who was the leader of an orchestra who got hit by lightning. It was just a matter of time, though, because he was a great conductor.
There's a lot of back-and-forth in politics right now about whether we need more orchestral music in the schools. Some people say it's frivolous but I disagree. I think it's instrumental.
I wanted to make a sex joke about guys who play big string instruments but I don't want to stoop to bass humor. That stuff is better left to the crass section.
Speaking of the brass section: why are people who play brass instruments annoying to play Euchre with? They always trumpet.
I used to get brunch at this great restaurant. It was awesome unless you had a hangover, because they always played really loud drums. But what do you expect when you get breakfast at tympany's?
I don't know if my two minutes are up but I think that was the last orchestraw, which is good, cause I'm oboe it.

Round 2
Prompt: Baking

Note: I choked pretty hard in this round. Thirty seconds is not as long as it sounds. I really only got in two good jokes that got everyone. For this part keep in mind that "____er? I 'ardly know 'er!" jokes had been flying from the host and several other competitors and also that I was the only female competitor.

Sugar? I 'ardly know 'er!
Muffin? I 'ardly know 'im!
See, it goes both ways. Like me.

And then, after a long pause of nothing:
Man, I really thought this was going to be a piece of cake.

Round 3
Prompt: The Bathroom

*The other competitor goes first*
I'm glad you went first, cause I really needed to go number two.

I know I had some other pretty good ones in this round but I honestly don't remember what any of them were, and some of them worked a lot better with what the other competitor had just said, anyway.

Round 4
Prompt: Condiments

Note: All our crane babies this year were named after condiments so I felt especially prepared but I got a little stuck in trying to come up with puns for fairly obscure ones, just because they were names of cranes. I know I had some more good ones but this is the only one I can remember:

I used to go out with this guy who dated guys and girls. He wasabi.

So yeah, I am incredibly proud of myself for this and I wanted to record it somewhere. This will definitely not be my last Pundimonium, and I might post more transcripts here in the future, especially as I become more skilled at punning.

A Day in the Life of a Whooping Crane Tracker

I have been working at the International Crane Foundation for five months now and a lot of people are still not really sure what that means. Some days, I don't either. I do a lot of different jobs in different departments. Once a week or so I get to track some of our previously released whooping cranes now living in the wild! It is usually my favorite day.

It is only the finest field vehicles for us, which is why I get to drive this beauty all over Wisconsin:

Ah, the Astro. Handles like a dream. If your dreams involve incredibly sticky gear shifts, loose steering wheels, and having to put on the brakes at least a block before you actually hope to stop. I'm not going to lie, I get some stares and double-takes in this baby. I know you're jealous. It's got high-tech gadgets, too!

Ignore the Official Wildlife Biologist Snacks. This is the receiver that connects to the antenna on the roof and picks up signals from the transmitter leg bands we put on all the cranes when they're released. We use the patented Wrench Handle system to move the antenna back and forth to pinpoint the bird's location.

So, basically I spend the day in an extended game of Hotter/Colder. When I get within a certain range of a bird with a transmitter the receiver starts beeping and the beeps get louder the closer you get. I drive around and around the back roads of Wisconsin, stopping every once in a while to spin the antenna all the way around to make sure I'm still going in the right direction and to pour over the map trying to figure out which road will be most likely to get me a visual. I did this same thing when I studied desert tortoises but it was a little easier (in most areas) to just go tramping through the desert towards where you heard the beeping than to try to navigate roads (except when there were mountains or huge rock formations in the way).

Once the beeping gets really loud I get to play another game which I like to call "Crane?!" It goes like this:

Ooh! There's a white thing in that field!

 Crane?! Quick, get the binoculars!

 Nope. Traffic sign.

Ooh but look! A group of cranes relaxing in the grass!

 Cranes?!

 Oh. Weird pipe things.

Aha! Something white peeking out of the emergent vegetation!

 Crane?!

AW COME ON.

Okay. That is definitely a crane. Absolutely, totally.

Crane?!

AAAAUUUUGH. EGRET WHAT ARE YOU DOING. At least it was a bird this time. I'm getting closer.

Okay, what is this one going to be, a garbage bag? A stump? A scarecrow?

IT'S A CRANE!

So I get out the scope, the compass, the GPS, and my data sheet and record where the crane is, what it/they are doing and anything else of interest. 

This crane is pretty friendly with a couple of sandhills and was chilling in a field pretty close to a farm house.

Once all the information is recorded I plug in the next transmitter number and start the next game of Hotter/Colder! It helps that cranes are usually fairly territorial and can often (but not always) be found in the same fields or parts of the marsh every week. 

A New Leaf

Welcome to my new blog! I wanted to make a fresh start for a new phase in my life and because looking at my old blog it was pretty personal, whiney, and Livejournal-y. I may still use it for that purpose but I want a place to work on my writing and to talk about what I'm doing rather than what I'm thinking or how I'm feeling. I hope I'll keep up with it and that it will be an entertaining and interesting way to keep in contact with more people.