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.
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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.
