stuck a pin in your backbone.

baby:

so last saturday night, heather called me and said she thought the baby was coming. the next morning around 4am i get a call to come join her and her mom at the hospital. hoorah!!! driving there, i realized that this would be one of the most monumental events in my life that would be happening to someone else. crazy. eventually ryan, his parents, dan, amy, jojo, tiffany, and lydia showed up as well. the best part (besides heather's beautiful baby boy being born into the world)? heather so graciously allowed me to be in the room during the whole thing AND i got to cut the umbilical cord. what!?! AMAZING!!! such a miracle. i am so grateful to her for everything.

baby whitney is doing wonderful. heather looks like a million bucks. she makes it all seem very easy. motherhood really, really suits her. she sounds so confident and sure of her life. i think i can one day look forward to children, now that i know it is not so scary.

pinestock:

on saturday afternoon, my co-worker (crystal) and i drove up to collegeville, minnesota to st. john's university for their annual "pinestock" festival. justin's band motion city soundtrack was headlining, and as i had not seen one of their shows in almost a year, i was quite excited to go.

once we arrived we ran into jim, farewell continental's bassist, and his friend. so much fun. we laughed and watched the band unicycle loves you play until the guys arrived backstage. then justin came to say "hi," gave us wristbands to be backstage as well, and went to go prep for the show. as i was back there waiting, i ended up running into this world fair's former drummer, JT, who i had not seen in FOREVER. it was really good seeing someone who is a part of some of my best memories.

mcs eventually went on, and crystal and i watched from up front for the first few songs. jackie, justin's little sis, arrived with tam--and we all headed onstage for the rest of the show. i love being able to see the show from the other side of things. the energy that comes from the crowd is unreal. i loved seeing all of the people so excited to see the guys play and seeing them sing all of the words. made me very proud that mcs has influenced people so much with what they do. they encored, and then we all waited around talking to each other and matt for a bit, while justin signed autographs and took pictures with fans (weird). i also approached jesse and awkwardly told him how awesome i think jessica (his fiancee) is, and how excited i am to meet her one day.

justin finished up, and we scored some free tees. we walked through the woods to my car--back to minneapolis. of course we stopped for delicious foods on the way home.

free time:

since justin is now gone until july/august, i spent my entire weekend hanging out with him--sucking up the little time we had left. what a good weekend. watched about 6 movies. ate stuff. went shopping for his trip. etc, etc, etc... i do admit i was pretty sad to say goodbye to him on monday, but i am maybe visiting him in may, and i know the guys will do exciting and spectacular things out in LA with their new record.

justin, matt, and jesse. keeping busy whilst on the road.

i think since heather is obviously going to be pretty busy with her darling boy, and since jp is gone all summer, i may write a lot in the next few months. i foresee my summer being very calm. i guess i am alright with that. i have had some crazy ones, now it may be time for some less-than-crazy ones. i have a mentally adopted son now to visit and help with, i have an ideal guy, and i have a very good job. i have no reason to go out and get totally nuts at this point.

i do hope, however, to hang more with kari. have hangs with tommy at some point (maybe with josh and jaci). and expand my circle of friends just a bit. ya know?

anyway:

that's all for now.

it is a rainy day today, and i am excited to do close to nothing tonight. i love sleeping in sloppy weather. this whole week actually looks promising.

oh, and i am really into the archers of loaf right now.

prelude to post.

whitney clarke. miss heather dagger's beautiful baby boy.pinestock in collegeville, mn. MCS from onstage.

mcs update.

long post en route.

highlights:

• heather's PERFECT baby being born (and i am so grateful that she let me witness such a miracle).
• getting my vampire fix with Let the Right One In.
• finally getting to hug on justin (as he is home for a few days).
• being excited for the MCS show in MN this weekend.
  

as good as it gets today.

we are the twitteratti.

ahh. this week has been good and interesting.

thursday: the start of my four-day weekend. hoorah! i slept all day, but at night went to hang out with miss. kari gray at joe senser's in roseville. i don't think either of us planned to hang out and talk as long as we did. we ended up hanging out for a whopping 5 hours. mind you, this was the first time we have ever hung out one-on-one. so many good chats, so many laughs, and so many right answers on the trivia game (although we did not win. darn it)! i think we are planning to make it a weekly occurrence, if possible. that girl is amazing. i need more quality people in my life, in whatever form, and she is a keeper!

friday: slept.

saturday: headed up north for easter weekend with the family to my aunt's cabin/mansion on the lake. i forget how much fun i have with everyone until i am put in the situation. needless to say, there was much hilarity, many drinks, and a lot of vampire teeth involved.

me and mah cuz casey. vampires!!!
all of the cousins up that weekend!

late night, many drinked, night at zorbaz.

good times, i tell ya!

this coming week is uneventful, BUT heather dagger's baby boy, whitney clarke, will most likely be born any day now. eep! so exciting! i have been having nightmares about waking up to a million missed calls, having slept through the entire delivery. do know that i will be twittering updates and photos when this event happens!

next week justin and the rest of the guys (i believe) are in town. YAY! and then they play a string of shows that weekend (hesitant to name where all of them are, as the information may not be released yet). luckily the shows on saturday and sunday are extremely close to where i live, and so i hopefully will be able to see mcs play one of the two days (or both if able). it has been a while since i have seen them hit the stage. jessica, i will dance extra hard for you in your absence! :]

epilogue.

I met him weeks before I knew him. He thought I was tough, and I thought he was boring. We were both mistaken.

There is no where tidy to start when two people come together from different angles. One with a clean slate, and one with a terribly dirtied beginning. It was like pretend from the get-go. We were trying to fit two pieces from different puzzles together. I tended to saw off the stubborn corners, and he let me do it.

We would write each other letters, pretending to be future modern essayists. We created a world around us—afraid that if we played out our true characters, we would run out of things to talk about. I was the scorned heroine, and he did his best to put on the part of the hopeless romantic. I would ask, “Can I tell you a story, Rick?” And he would query, “Has it got a wild finish?” My practiced reply was always, “I don't know the finish yet.”

He was never my white knight. He would say the right things at the wrong times. Eventually, whenever he opened his mouth to speak, I would feel the undeniable urge to heave, or to run, or to sleep. In time I made a rule that before either of us took a turn in conversation, that we had to provide a handwritten outline as to not offend. In the end, we spent more time scribbling and blotting out words than we ever did creating them.

The night that did us in was in late August. He refused to sleep with the window open, and I—as I did since I was young—needed to feel the promise of the midnight air to reassure me to sleep. He said he was afraid of what memories would be blown in with the wind. I felt as if I were to die, trapped in his quiet room.

The next day he promised to never speak again, and I wove him a dream catcher to hang above his bed.

We never attempted to find each other after that.

I cannot say that he saved me from myself, or even that he saved me from a worse fate in those days. By vanishing he saved me from the idea of him—petrified my faith in what he could have been to me.

That's all I could have asked of him, I suppose.

left and leaving.

this week i went to dinner with justin and his folks before he took off for LA to record mcs's 4th record. hoorah! the demos are spectacular, and i know mark hoppus will do a fantastic job producing the album. anyway, dinner and things were very good. i love his parents. they are so funny, and i feel super comfortable around them, which is a good thing i am sure. i think it is so interesting to be around the parents of people i know--i like to see where everyone gets their looks and their traits, etc... right?

anyway.

the next morning justin decided to cut off his long locks and his gigantic beard for the first time in MONTHS. honestly, i have not seen his face in probably a year, because every time he is home he is growing a beard again.

needless to say, the sink was full to the top with hair, but in literally two minutes of just hacking away at his head he managed to cut his hair perfectly. good lord. that man has a career in hair-cutting if ever need be. his hair goal was to look like mark ruffalo's character in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind:
he totally succeeded! it is scary. he also changed his glasses to black to better match the character's look.

his beard inspiration was to make it patchy. goal also accomplished.

i snapped a picture from my phone of him post-cut, post-beard trim. it does not do him the justice of how closely he resembles the character (and how ridiculously good looking he is), but it is good enough. :]

i adore a strange, wonderful man. and i am okay with that.

i plan to go and visit him in june, as he may be here for a few days in late april again. hoorah! i am sending positive unicorn vibes to LA in hopes that all goes well.

what looks good on paper, looks good on paper.

this weekend i allowed myself to be unusually busy. it was wonderful. i actual enjoyed looking forward to the plans i had made.

on friday, us girls met up at the millenium hotel in minneapolis, unloaded our shiitake, and headed out into the world. our first goal: see attention play. we did so. i was torn. i saw where i would like some of their stuff, and i saw where i would be unimpressed with other parts of it. the bassist, bob, however, was so nice. cherise is good friends with him, and she introduced all of us. bob chatted with me about justin and mcs. it was good finding someone who knew the guys, and who i could have a mutual interest conversation about everything they are doing.

after a bit of hanging there, we ventured over to the ugly mug to accomplish goal number 2: getting not sober. took a few shots (as seen below). danced a bit. drank a bit more. unfortunetly only one of us accomplished that goal. which one? i will not say! you must guess. i will reward correct answers with a gold star vibe.

after that we taxied back to our hotel, had some good hangs, felt heather's behbeh move a LOT, and fell asleep. hoorah! girls' night accomplished!

(lyds, cherise, me, heather not pictured)

on saturday i woke up so excited, it hurt. one of my favorite bands was in town that night at the 7th street entry. what band, you ask? oh. let me share the glory with you. the band i speak of is say hi. heather and i arrived for the opening bands (which were actually pretty impressive). the first band was called the red pens, which seemed like a very close version of say hi, but only with a female voice added. the next band was called telekinesis they were actually very entertaining and likable. the lead singer of this band was also the drummer, which is something i have not seen before. apparently he is also death cab's drummer's protege (according to eric). i could tell. after the first band's set, i saw eric walking past me and i stopped him to thank his for coming back to minnesota. right away he said, "yeah! lindsay, right?" (insert swooning). we all chatted for a long time about seattle, spiders, the food chain, setlists, approvals, and blog haters. that man is one of the nicest, most genuine musicians i have met in a long time. considering the entry was packed for his show, yet he still remembered me and heather AND managed to hang out and talk with us for a long time = spectacular human. he probably is my new musical crush (don't tell justin, haha). so kind. so talented. makes music that tears my heart out and sews it back in with happiness. arg.

laura showed up after the first band's set as well. i guess she had never heard their stuff before? i didn't know that until afterward, but i was so glad she came to check them out!

anyway. we pushed our way to front and center. say hi was perfect. they played the entire new album from back to front, and they played a few old songs at the end. heather and i danced and sang the entire time.

after they were finished we said farewell and gave hugs. i already miss that man and his music.

since then i have felt spiritually renewed. no kidding. not in a christ way. more in a righted-mind way. it has been a very long time since i have seen a truly great concert of a band i adored. it was well worth every second and dime.

oh. and i bought a rad t-shirt at the show too. it has a spaceship on it. and stars. what else do you want from me?

below are pictures taken by the lovely laura burton.

ugh!

i am so tired. this is going to be short and boring.

last night: so fun! lydia, laura and i hung out at the beat for the chord and the fawn (frickin unreal. PLEASE check them out) and of course farewell continental. they rocked it! lots of friends there. the spirit guys, shane, jaci, richelle and ben, etc... tons of people came. great turn out. people seemed to also love the music video. sweet! will maybe post more on all of this later. afterward went and hung out with justin and ate a lot of pizza and finished a movie.

today: SLEEP!

tomorrow: downtown adventures with the girls. hotel (unsure which one yet). attention show at trocaderos. drink time (probably at the ugly mug and who knows where else).

saturday: say hi!!!


goodnight. zzz.