Consistency with John Petrucci and my shotgun friendship.

C17

The reason why John Petrucci is the greatest guitar player is not because he's got the most complex note patterns necessarily, even if some of his riffs are incredible and WAY out of my reach right now. It's actually because of his lack of patterns in the way that he mutes. The guitar comes in and out, leading and muting with other elements like the bass, other guitar parts, sometimes a random piano, etc, etc... He's the master of alternate picking  and everything that he plays comes together so fluently because of it.

I've been wanting to play Dream Theater music for months but it's taken a ton of work. One of the first songs I ever tried to play by them was Under a Glass Moon but it was so difficult after the first... I don't know, 40 seconds of it, I just "retired" it until I could learn more from my teacher.

Dream Theater is a relatively new band (there first album was released in 1992). I'm sure they'll continue to release albums far after my progressive metal phase. How long will this go until I burn out? I don't know. 

I've practiced a pretty good deal this week, I'm pretty sure I got 20 hours so I'm giving my hands a rest today. I'm sad because I'm missing lessons tomorrow because I've got orientation for Central tonight. Blah I get nervous that I'm not gonna find my way around. When I was there last time my Junior year of highschool I literally followed Heather around the whole time. 

Maybe my sense of direction has gotten better since then. I'm sure it has... I know my confidence has improved since then so that's a major plus. Finding music has really given me my center.

___________________________________________

I had... a very interesting situation with Trisha and Dylan at their house recently. I don't know if I want to go into all the great details now but because I'm waiting for my Mom to come home from a meeting I can tell you all I can. 

Tensions were high walking into Trisha and Dylan's house from the get go. They'd invited me there for a third time after this facebook situation where Trisha was mad and thought I was "calling her out." 

I never mentioned Trisha on any of my statuses, however I did post one after she acted accusatory about stealing her Alice doll. I was like, "Like this if you think I would never steal from you. Comment if I've been to your house." and it got like 40 + hits. I guess I posted it so she'd see how many people do trust me and that I wouldn't steal her doll. Needless to say, plan backfired, and she ended up posting a comment saying that she never accused me of stealing anything. The whole thing was really weird. 

I sat down in the living room as we were waiting for this guy to come over and fix the dishwasher. A skinny, red skinned, high cheekboned man walked in past me and I jokingly asked if I could help him with anything and he said "No." I'm cracked up and said I couldn't help anyway. I was trying to make light of things as Trisha was frantically running around tidying up for her probably drug addicted neighbor. 

Okay, maybe not. He could just be a random blue collar guy, but all I'm saying is he does not look like someone that would care if their neighbors made a tiny bit of noise after 9:00. Their neighbor's yard is pretty shabby, indicating a more relaxed atmosphere than the one I dealt with at Trisha and Dylan's.

While he was working I was sitting there messing with my guitar in the hot living room, trying to get my hours in because there really wasn't much else to do at this point. We had the plan of watching movies that night so me and Trisha were making plans to go to Hastings together. 

One of the first conversations I struck up turned into Dylan bashing me. I was cracking up a bit after I took out my phone to go on facebook and saw some responses to my "Kirsten Stewart is a whore" post. Dylan started saying, "WHO really cares about celebrity gossip? I mean seriously get a life.." and then Trisha started saying how lame it is that ANYONE would care about that sort of thing too, of course always backed by ". . . But that's just my opinion! Don't take it offensively or anything, gosh!!" 

I just responded, "Alright." 


Around 6:00 PM, we took my car over to Hastings where we were strolling around the aisles trying to look for movies. I told her I'm not a big movie watcher and I didn't really know what to suggest. Trisha wanted to find something that Dylan would like, yet was pressuring me to pick something. All I could do was pull out the movies that I'd seen and gone, "OH! -insert title-! That's a good one!" which she would ignore completely. She asked me, "Well what genre do you like?"

I seriously only watch documentaries at home, guys. I felt lame saying that so I said, "Comedies I guess.."

"WELL do you want Intelligent comedy or Stupid comedy?! You know there's a difference!" I'm standing here sort of stun silent like, "Uh. Intelligent, I guess..."

So she starts picking up things and came across 50/50 and how it was the greatest movie. I LOVE Joseph Gordon Levitt, which I mentioned when we saw batman. 50/50 is a movie where Joseph Gordon Levitt has cancer... I didn't really want to see that. It made me sad to watch him sort of disintegrate in the movie. But it was still a good movie, regardless. A better choice then what I chose-- "Some Days are better than others," This stupid movie with the lady from Portlandia being very hipsterish.

Trisha and I also went to Albertsons after Hastings, and because I've been on a tight budget I bought myself a couple $1.00 lunchables and some popcorn by Orvile Reddenbocker for the movie. I didn't think of the fact I'd been eating junk all day because I didn't eat breakfast and worked all day. 

When Trisha and I are alone together our conversations got a little better, I mean they were pretty general because at this point I was already feeling awkward and uncomfortable. I was thinking, "Why would they so graciously invite me over here if they were mad at me?" I brushed her gestures under the rug, even if at times they were insulting to me.

It's hard to believe I'm talking about the same people that I'd met a few days earlier that I thought were so cool. I thought their house was cool, Trisha's job, her and Dylan's mature living style.. But as I got to know them I just realized they're very dowdy and structured in the way they do things. It's certainly not as "chill" of an environment as I thought it was.

When we got back from bringing movies the guy was still in the dining room working on the dishwasher. Dylan was cranking Queens of a Stoneage and I was sitting next to his friend. I proposed we put one of the movies in and Dylan said, "No, we're playing music for him.." as in their next door neighbor. Again, over thinking everything. Trisha is in there making awkward small talk, and I overheard her say, "If you EVER want us to turn the music down just let us know, I know you can probably hear Dylan in the basement on the guitar.." and he responded, "I've never heard guitar from your house." 

That sort of cracked me up. Trisha must have mentioned it three times throughout the night, "I can't believe he never heard Dylan playing once..." When I've been over at their house there's been a bit of guitar playing, but at the time I had a real struggle improvising anything (I still do) so we didn't really play together. I did, however, have the guitar with me quite a bit because I thought Dylan would understand my addiction to it. 

1980's prom music.. I imagine some of the stuff I hear at Rite Aid would be on that playlist.

Dylan had his guitar with him a bit, he showed me a lot of his nice equipment and some of the nice reverbing techniques you could do with it. He often criticized my music taste, as did his friend Eric that we had hung out with a day couple days earlier. I cracked up about this that evening though when Dylan had told me he likes to play his own music inspired by 80's proms. 

Trisha would snap at me for every little thing I did or touched. I mean I can understand their problem with my noise levels, that's rational. But there were irrational things too. 

I walked into the bathroom to wash my makeup off. I figured I'd be spending the night there that night as I had other nights. I walked in and reached around the side of the shower to open the curtain. Trisha walks in "OH! Don't open the curtain from that side! The wall isn't sealed properly there!"
Okay Trisha, sorry. 
I got a squirt of facewash that I had used previously. Trisha snapped, "Go easy on the facewash." I imagine my eyes grew very wide here. 

We went to go get some cash at the bank and when I pulled on Dylan's car handle it was locked. "The door is ALWAYS locked here. Don't pull on it! You could break it!"
Oh, okay, thanks for letting me know.
We sat in the car and turned on the music. I mentioned that I'd liked something and Dylan changes it immediately to some very bizarre jazz music. Trisha was in the passenger seat like, jamming out to it. I was like, allllrighty then. At this point just biting my tongue with a new purpose in mind. 

As pissed off as she seemed with me she never really had a reason to be, so she kept looking for one. That's what I think it was. She acted so envious and transparent throughout the day, and the more I put up with it and tried brushing it aside the harder it became to keep my cover. 

At around 9:00 after we'd watched the movie Trisha started pacing back and forth in front of me and suddenly blurted out, "Are you like MAD at me or something?" My eyes got a little wide. I'm like, "No, why?" She responded nervously, "Because you seem mad!"

"Why would you say that?" Okay, I'm sure I did seem pretty mad. I was mad, they were pissing me off when they were arguing with every tiny point that I made. After awhile I was just wondering why they had invited me over and what their intentions were, why did they want to hang out with me again if they were pissed off at me in the first place? 

OH! And on top of that, they'd invited me to go with them to Some Bagels and the antique stores the next day. This was a little earlier in the evening but it was still late enough that I thought for sure Trisha would have cracked, but instead she invites me to continue to spend time with them. It was all very bizarre, I didn't get it. I couldn't think of any reason that I would want to spend time with these people again at this point, and even if I did antiques has always been my Dad's thing. I'm not enticed by them because they've been around my whole life. 

I think my real breaking point was that night when it was about 100 degrees in the living room. I mean it was hot. I'd asked to sleep there after I'd taken some Dramamine just to knock out until morning. There was nothing I could do right in that house, and I didn't want to drive with the drunk drivers coming back from the boat races and partying. I just wanted to sleep but that living room was so stanking hot I couldn't take it. I quietly stepped to Trisha's room to see if it was any cooler in their, it had been the last night I'd slept there.

She came charging up the stairs and rushes in, "What were you doing in my room?" And I responded, "It's really hot out here and I wanted to see if it was any cooler in there.." She starts throwing loads of laundry out into the hallway as well as a bunch of other things. I'm like, "That's it, I gotta get out of here."

"What? Oh Emily, No!" Like in such shock that I of all people would want to suddenly leave this lovely engagement. I remember laughing. Laughing, shaking, and throwing all my stuff together, including my guitar into it's case. "You guys are f*cking crazy. I can't take this anymore. I tried to be you guy's friends but that was simply unbearable." 

Dylan had came up the stairs in about a minute, and he was like rolling his eyes and crossing his arms, offering to help me with my stuff. Trisha was doing this too."NO. I do not want your help, Trisha." I had left that nasty popcorn bag out on the table and she's like, "Do you want this popcorn?" I said, "No, I don't." 

Of course Trisha was going, "Shh!" throughout this and I mocked back, "SHH! Shh, Trisha! You criticize every little f*cking thing I do in this house! I mean I can understand the noise thing but the door handle? What the Hell?!"

"If I'm not careful I could never go to college!" Ha ha, okay on a side note, if you're going to live together as a couple playing house you're not necessarily doing the most proactive living situation to afford college. I just rolled my eyes, "Oh God, Trisha, do you think your neighbors care that much? That guy earlier looked like a meth head, you guys are way over the top."

"Don't you make assumptions like this!"

By now I had stormed out. I rushed my stuff into my car, I didn't care if I'd forgotten anything. I'm sure I did, maybe one of my sister's cups. Who knows. She stood there in the doorway staring out as I drove off. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, the dramamine was kicking in and when that stuff hits you fall asleep like a rock. The clock was ticking, I had 15 minutes to get home. 

I cranked Symphony X and flew down the highway that night. I couldn't let that dramamine kick in on the highway, and it did start to as I went through Benton City. Luckily I got home just in time, I explained the situation briefly to my parents, and went to bed. My Dad got paranoid that night because I hadn't checked in. He thought I'd been at Katelynn's house and when he'd heard that the people I was spending time with were acting a little crazy, he acted sort of freaked out. 


I just couldn't do it anymore. I ended up making friends with their friend Connor though, which was a plus. :o) Sometimes you just don't know who you're going to meet in these situations. I thought Connor was cool from the get go, so maybe that's why I decided to give them a second chance. The second chance with Dylan and Trisha though was a fail, their character is like oil and water to mine. 

peace. 

"So you're a female shredder?"

Last summer I was really concerned that Guy Stevens was the reason that I got sick and couldn't eat anything or sleep. I thought it was because I was nervous around him and the anxiety caused appetite suppression

This year the same thing has been happening, and there's been a 180 degree turnaround of the amount of stress in my life since last summer. I can't eat very well nor can I sleep quite right, even in my own bed. I've been making myself sleep with motion sickness relief pills occasionally (just one, don't panic) just to keep my sleeping routine in tact. I'll try to go to bed at a decent time but the heat will keep me up and then it'll end up being 1 or 2 AM before I actually sleep. The heat actually struck late this year, here it is late July and we're just barely getting that uncomfortable heat outside.


Me and Trisha were sitting outside last night while she was smoking a cigarette and I actually got cold with a slight breeze after being in their very warm house. I haven't liked the temperature changes this summer because I've either been really cold or hot. The only place I can seem to get temperature control is at home. Katelynn's house is pretty close to perfect, too, temperature wise but when I wear skimpy clothes to beat the summer heat I have to sit with a blanket. It's all silly. Maybe next summer I'll venture north to get away from this heat.

I've been hanging out over at Trisha's and Dylan's house a lot, for a number of reasons. First of all, me and Trisha were immediately really good friends. Our personalities contrast in a perfect way so that we get along. She's much more of a Type B personality than I am. She's so graceful and good at things that I suck at like cooking and cleaning so I feel like I can learn a lot from her. She's nice, very cool, she never annoys me and she has a good sense of humor.

______________________________________________________

Dylan and I sometimes butt heads. Not about anything in particular but he does rip on my music taste at least once or twice each time we're together. I don't rip on his but I think it pisses him off that I'm a shred guitarist and don't do much else yet. I've only been playing for... what this is week 15 or something? I want to expand to other music as I get better but this takes time. They've both been playing for years.

I did however notice Dylan trying to play some thrashy sounding stuff when we were sitting in the basement. I'll sit at there house while I'm hanging out with them and play like I do at home just to get my hours in. I won't play with the volume or anything because I know they don't like the music that I like.

Last night, however, this poking fun of my playing got to the point that I actually cried. We were sitting upstairs; me, Trisha, Dylan and Dylan's friend.. crap I can't remember his name, ERIC! Their shaggy haired blonde friend Connor usually showed up out of the blue from time to time, too, but Dylan and Eric are very close.

I liked Eric alright at first, he's got a pretty good sense of humor and he's intelligent. However, anytime I'd say anything around him he'd always either talk over me or rip on me, so I'd sort of stop talking after awhile. He's clever, he could take something I was describing that I was passionate about and totally turn it on me and make it seem like the lamest thing in the world. 

He really pushed my buttons at around 1 am. We'd been partying a bit and I was really exhausted, we were sitting upstairs watching this political humor show... not Colbert Report but the other one. I don't know, I could care less about most politics in this country and don't recognize any of the "guests" on these shows, nor do I watch the news. I was doing my last hour of guitar, all palm muted of course so nobody would get annoyed by it. 

I like the music that I do because I don't relate to music about love. Somehow my brain relates more to music about pain, war, Hell and destruction. Even if my life hasn't been that bad I've been through so much war with my own depression, pain and injustice with the people that this music just suits me better. So of course if I'm going to learn how to play guitar I'm going to learn songs that I like. I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone. In fact I hate playing in front of people and still consider myself a NOVICE player even if some that have heard me have been impressed with my speed. 

Eric picked up my practice sheet and started reading the titles out loud. "Wow, look at this. Alternate picking pattern 1... alternate picking pattern 2... chromatic scales.. Am I reading this handwriting right? Fear of the Dark, OHH that sounds scary.." I simply told him it was by Iron Maiden. 

He goes on to tell me, "Look, it's cool that you're a female shredder, there's none on the "scene" right now... but I absolutely can't stand this music and I'll just be over here doing MY *insert some band here, I don't even know*." He went off on a five minute tangent from here ripping on what I do and started making fun of how serious I was about it and in this process I'm like "Stop...... stop... Please stop." 

I told him that I didn't want to be on any sort of "scene." I didn't want to be in a band or anything, I just want to play. He told me, "OHH you're just playing so that you can upload a video on youtube or something and have a bunch of metalheads get blown away that you can play their favorite song. Favorite. Favorite. Favorite." I had no prior indication that I had a youtube channel but he did hit the nail on the head with that one, yet made it sound so lame that I felt like I was being vain and ridiculous for even wanting to do so. 

By now he had taken my practice sheet and started writing things on it. I don't know what he wrote because I finally just started crying and said, "It's like my therapy, don't do that!" He crossed the line.

It would have been 10x worse if he would of had the nerve to write on my actual practice sheet. I would have probably ripped it away from him and left. It's a major depression curbing tool that I use that is sacred to me. I was really offended and humiliated that he would take something that I thought was so cool and personal to me, and turned it into something that made me feel like I was being lame in my methods to other guitarists.

I'm going to get going, I slept in until 1 today because nobody's been home and I've just been chilling out. I don't want to see anybody, really. 

peace. 

Batman Premier!

Yesterday was great because after work I saw the midnight premier of the new Batman movie with Trisha and Dylan. We went to the Pasco theater and it was really crowded, all of the screens were playing the same thing, it was a big deal. I saw a few people that I knew, like Jared and his friend Juan. Trisha had actually bought my ticket for me a week ago when they'd invited me.

I got a fever last night because of stress and exhaustion. I've been out a lot, spending time with people and had a great time for a few days. I should probably stay home for awhile, I spent a good chunk of my last paycheck being out so much. I'm always using too much gasoline because it's so expensive to drive back and forth from Benton city.

That is something I will NOT miss. When I did talk to Jack he actually made a pretty good point that eased my stress about leaving for school.

"You will eat, sleep, and shit where you go to school. You have way more time on your hands than you know what to do with and have to join things to fill your time..."


That's basically what he said. That's so true, though, now that I think about it. I need to start looking for a job up there because it's going to be way more competitive once I get up there. I don't even know if I want a job from the get go and maybe should just focus on my studies for my first quarter there. But having NO income scares the living crap out of me so I need to get on the ball immediately. Just 15-20 hours a week is still all I'd need.

It's 8:32 pm and I've had zero motivation to practice guitar. I stayed up so late last night that I thought for sure I'd wake up with a horrible fever but I didn't after sleeping in until 11 or so. Dylan and Trisha are so laid back and cool to hang out with, it's all good. I've got a lot of awesome friends.

I can't find any of my claytons. I'm always leaving them places because I'm always carting my guitar around.. either to jam with someone or for lessons or I have to take it out of my car because it's too hot.

peace.

Raw fish is icky.

Things make a little bit more sense now.

I don't want to say that I trust Jack necessarily but I can *kind of* see why he's been blowing me off. Yesterday we were texting eachother, probably after he saw my new California pictures or something, I don't know.. ANYWAAY, a couple days ago in the evening he sent:

"It's so boring in Ellensburg!"

And I'm like, "Don't tell me that when I'm moving there."

"WHAT I thought you were going to Western!"
(okay that's not direct quotations because I wouldn't post people's texts on my blog but you get the point)

So yeah, he had no idea I was going to Central at all. I only told him once, when he was drunk. He completely forgot what I'd told him so up until two days ago he had no idea I was going to be studying in the exact same building he will be next year. I'm now a little more forgiving of the way he's acted toward me. If I was in his shoes I probably wouldn't have been so quick to make plans with someone that's moving eight hours away in two months. 

I'm such a troll. I went through some of his pics and "liked" three pictures, none of which actually had him in them. Like I "liked" this lame lacrosse picture that was super far away and mainly showed a cloud.

I also commented on the old sushi picture from 2009. That's so disgusting that we ate raw fish from the stores in the tri-cities. I could NEVER do that now. 

The ball is really in his court now. He knows that I'm going there, take it or leave it. If he leaves it, I'm fine here because I'm kind of interested in someone else. It's been awhile since I've liked anyone else but I've been so painfully patient with Jack . . . 

I'm not going to say any names on the other person that I'm sort of interested in. It's not much business of this blog because this guy seems very private. Plus, he just broke up with his girlfriend that he was with for quite awhile and that's a potential eggshell situation so I'm choosing to keep my distance. 

Tricia and Dylan are so fun to hang with, I was at there house last night. I won't go into too much detail but we did watch Adventure time this morning. That show is freaking hilarious, it always blows me away what they can get away with. It reminds me a lot of Spongebob. Tricia is really chill and sweet. They're both really quiet though so I have to be careful not to be loud and forward like I always am. Me and Dylan got in an argument about Dream Theater. He said John Petrucci is a pretentious asshole. I'm sure he is, I wouldn't doubt for a second.

But he's a guitar God and I love they're music so it doesn't matter much to me.

alrighty I'm gonna peace out.