Ahhh my youth...

I spent some time luxuriating today in my new Journey MP3 player, during my lunch hour at work. I’ve had it for a few months, but I’ve only just recently opened it, and this is the second time I’ve used it. (I have a bit of a phobia of new gadgets, I’m afraid to open them for fear I might break them somehow). I still haven’t used the DVD player Peter gave me last Christmas! But it’s hooked up now at least. See, this past summer I dropped the digital camera he gave me for my birthday, and it hasn’t worked right since then, so I have this fear of gadgets like that. I’m just a clumsy oaf. I’m technically challenged too.

So this new MP3 player makes me a bit nervous, and (having not read the booklet for instructions yet), I don’t even know how to turn the damned thing down yet, so I have it cranked up quite loud at the moment, but hey that’s what music is for, right? So I figured since I work in a very boring legal department in a downtown Pittsburgh office, surrounded by dry melba-toast-types who probably have never head-banged a single day in their conservative/Republican/boring
/peer pressured lives, I would just rock out and show ‘em how it’s done!

Then I got bitten by the Journey bug again. Dang it, and to think I just healed from the LAST time too. Anyway, every once in awhile I become obsessive about it, so I scour the Journey web site and look at all the photos and read up on all the news, and re-join the Forum Boards too---a place where I was once attacked viciously for being an outspoken, feisty “Perryhead,” to the point where my computer was maliciously crashed by one of the employees of the band (who didn’t like Steve Perry at all, and has since been fired because I caused a stink). Every time I try to re-join the Forum though, I get rejected. They just won’t let me write on it anymore, the bums. SIGH.

But, despite this slight “diss” from the men I love most in the music world, I still and always will love the music of Journey. The “bug” bit me again, and so today I’ve spent time reliving my “groupie” days, when I’d hang out backstage with the members of the band and talk to them, have my picture taken with them and get invited back to future shows, etc., and it’s put me in a very awesome mood! (In fact, my mood is SO good, I’ve decided I’m sending a Christmas card to JT and Lora this year)! Usually I just send one to Lora each year, but what the heck. Even though JT was an ass when I met him, I figure he probably just had a bad day and might get a chuckle out of seeing a card from a chick he harassed once.

Then I had a thought that I’ve been pondering, it’s kinda haunting me right now. In my obsessive mood, I wondered if perhaps God decided to hand me the holy grail---the two chances He gave me to meet Steve Perry in person, so that I could tell him that I am his true soul-mate and he should just marry me and get it overwith---but when I did meet him, my brain farted, so all I could say was, “I’ve loved you since I was 10 years old,” like a complete DORK. But oh well, so that chance was lost, and here I am, nearly 15 years later, wishing I could rewind and do it over. SIGH. He probably would have laughed at me anyway. “Marry YOU?!” Yeah, that probably would have garnered a big guffaw from the man.
I gotta say, that Arnel Pineda is amazing though, the new lead singer of Journey. He is the youngest of the bunch, and he’s a petite guy, but that voice of his is HUGE, and the love he incorporates for Steve Perry while he sings those songs is absolutely spine-tingling to hear. I could kick myself for not going to see them in concert this past summer, but the tickets were just too outrageously priced. If they go out again in 2009 though, I’ll bite the bullet and go see ‘em. They’re not getting any younger, and I miss my groupie days…

Ah well. Here are some photos of the “Divorce cake” I made for Pete…hehehe. I put his face on a cardboard “groom” picture that I printed from an online photo, and added a bubble, then I did the same thing for his ex-wife. Funny, huh? I’m just too dang creative for my own good sometimes, what can I say? We didn’t go to the bar though, nobody felt like going out that late, so we skipped it. I was told that this “divorce party” idea is “generational,” and because Pete and his crowd are a whole DECADE older than me, they just “didn’t get it.” I said, “Um, hello? People party for every reason under the sun, you silly old poops, so shaddap and eat some cake.” They didn’t like the idea of putting the ex-wife’s face on a dartboard, or burying his wedding ring in a coffin either. I mean, if you gotta go through a divorce, you might as well have a party and celebrate that you survived it, right? Seems logical to me, but hell what do I know, I’ve never been married.

Speaking of married…Pete often says he wants to marry me, but he always adds the word “someday” on the end, so the whole thing goes in one ear and out the other, I don’t really hear it because I don’t want to get my hopes up about it. I actually bought some invitations once, but ended up returning them to the store. That’s as close as I’ve come to any nuptials. It’s way too soon to even think about marrying each other though, we’ve only been dating since Memorial Day. My sister called me from England this past weekend, telling me in a slight English accent, “well you DO realize, at least from a barrister’s point of view,” (bragging about her new lawyer status), “you’d be safer to get married to cover yourself legally, especially if you buy a house together.” I wanted to say, “Um, DUH, go bite a really big rock and get the hell outta my face ya little schmuck, okey dokey?” She bugs me. Little Miss Know-It-All has always been her nickname, she states the obvious and then acts like she thought if it all by herself, and now she must educate the world and everybody in it with this newfound knowledge.

My feeling is this: I was ready to step-off in April, before I met Pete in May. I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I will end up taking my own life when it’s time, there’s no way I’m going to waste away in a hospital, or a nursing home, all drugged up and frail…hell no. I’ll do it my way, when I’m ready to step off. And since I came into this relationship with next to nothing, I don’t really care if I end up with next to nothing at the end of it, if it does indeed end someday. I’m not materialistic like that, ya know? He can have his stuff back, and I’ll take my stuff, and that’s it. I’m definitely not a greedy sniveling hag like his ex-wives were. I would want it to end quickly and as painlessly as possible, just sign some papers and walk away, remove myself from the equation and start over somewhere alone. That is how I would want to handle a divorce, along with a party of course. I’ve often thought about throwing a party for myself to celebrate being SINGLE all these years, making fun of marriage and those who are married…but then I figured none of my married friends would have any fun…hehehe…so I never did.

I could still chuck this whole thing with Pete and move back to DC. The house I lived in still needs another person to share, until sometime in January, so I still have somewhere to move back TO if I need it. Pete says I’m not going anywhere, and he won’t let me go, etc., but if push comes to shove, that option is still open.

So I’m not going to sit around waiting forever for a ring on my finger, but I’m also not in a major hurry to get one either. The more I think about wedding stuff, the more I just want to elope anyway. What a pain in the ass, planning wedding stuff. When I was 19 and had the first proposal (I’ve had 4 in my lifetime, none of which were Mr. Right), I thought I wanted the gazebo by a lake, a Victorian wedding with white wood chairs and a trellis with roses, and a horse and carriage to ride off in….but now, being much older and wiser about such things, I think to myself, “NO WAY.” Now I think it would be much easier to just take a cruise to Hawaii, get hitched by the captain of the boat, party and live it up when we get there, and then go home and have a simple reception party for the family members who are willing to travel here to attend it. That’s IT, no major headaches, easy, painless…that’s my motto.

My friend Charles (Chucky Cheez) Johnson, who is a jazz musician in Memphis, (owner of Kwest Productions), sends me text messages telling me I'm a hottie, he misses me, and he often thinks and sometimes dreams of me too...we had a "thing" in my early 20's, but he didn't want to get "tied down" by a woman at that point, and needed to go live his dream. So I let him go live his dream. And after he left for Memphis, I packed it up and left for DC to "change the world." I failed miserably at that. But at least HE succeeded. We still keep in touch here and there, and he promises to send me his latest CD and tells me all about his touring with Bobby McPheron and his performance with Lionel Hampton and a bunch of others---and I'm glad he's living his dream. Even if it's without me. We'll always be friends, but he was the one in my life who "got away." I would have married him if he had only asked me. I'll never know what might have been, but I'm glad he's doing what his life's purpose is, and that he's happy. He's a good guy, someone I'll always love, just like I'll always love Steve Perry...no matter how "old" he gets, if his hair falls out, if he has no teeth, I'll still think he is the sexiest man on earth.

Well, I’m off to the wild blue yonder. Bye for now.

Love, Sassy Girl