i did a funny thing.
i could write two post about it. both are true. but which one wins the hearts of the readers?
{1} the one where i tell you how brave and liberating and empowering it was and skew your thoughts into thinking i'm awesome and daring and my life is a good time.
or
{2} the one that showcases all my insecurities and talks frankly about the reality of my circumstances.
take it how you will: empowering or pathetic.
i went to the david gray concert all by myself last night.
a me-date, you could call it. me and kingsbury hall.
and in light of my bucket list 5w weds, i started with dinner.
little victory no. 1: the lone diner experience.
i thought about this ahead of time. if i was going to shock the system with two solo experiences, i needed a little bit of easing into it. so i went to sugar house. that place is full of free-thinking independents who are a lot stranger than i am, deflecting attention in a lot of directions other than mine. plus, there was a patio with a stream and ducks and the weather was pleasant.
i read on the patio for an hour or so. watched an amateur photographer try his hand at a senior portrait session in the patch of nature right in the middle of the shopping mall. i also overheard a know-it-all teenage, who i'm guessing is a visiting step-sister from oregon, tell her 10 and 12 year old step-dining partners tall tales about things they weren't old enough to know weren't possibly true. i'm not exaggerating, it went like this:
"i hate math. but i'm really good at science. so when i took the advanced placement math test no one told me i had to bring a calculator and i forgot how to do double digit multiplication, like 19 x 13, so i hand wrote 19 thirteen times and added it up 19 + 19, 19 + 19... THIRTEEN TIMES. sevens are my favorite jeans of all times. they're like $150. sometimes $200. that girl over there, she's wearing $250 jeans, easy. i can tell by looking at the pockets. my best friend and i had a falling out because i dated the guy she liked. she was so mad she moved to boston. no other reason. she just moved across the country. he wasn't even worth it. he turned out to be gay. but her dad had a stroke while driving on the freeway. it was a severe stroke. do you know what a stroke is? it's when your brain bleeds and goes crazy. his stroke was so bad it left him paralyzed all over his body except for in one eye. when he was in the hospital he invented this language with the nurse where he'd blink once for "a" and twice for "b" and he wrote a book about it. i mean, it wasn't a novel...."
and right about the time i imagined a guy blinking 23 times for W, i got up and left.
seriously, that girl.
i found myself in a parking lot like 3254 miles away from the venue. i also found myself putting lipstick on in the car before i got out. and then i laughed at myself for putting lipstick on to sit by myself in a dark room where i would be willing to sacrifice my life before talking to a stranger. but my innate female character auto-applied liner, stick, and gloss for the event. so, so, silly me.
and in the way i only imagined it to be in my nightmares - worst case scenario - the sweet old lady ushered me to my seat {3rd row, left of center - a perk of buying a single ticket, i s'pose} and shone her utterly distracting and attention grabbing flashlight allllll the way down the corridor to the front of the room and directed me four seats into a bare bone empty row.
nightmare. someone tell me HOW the room can be packed with thousands fans and my row is empty?
three empty seats to my right and four empty seats to my left. howwww?
nothing short of an interruption of the opening act and a swoop of the spotlight to shine directly at me could scream LONE CONCERT ATTENDEE quite like an empty row with one girl sitting smack in the middle.
i'm not much of a clapper. not much of an interactive, hooper or hollarer. and i've seen this concert in this venue a handful of times before. this was a concert i thought i could attend by myself without too many dire moments of awkwardness. my only reservation, though, was the space of time between the opener and the main act. it proved to be just long enough to:
catch up on tweets
facebook status updates
check three email accounts
+
get current on the google reader feed
i didn't even have to resort to bubble breaker or ant smasher.
my row mates filed in just as dave {first name basis by now} started to play. i wasn't alone the entire night. all but the seat to the right of me filled before long. it looked completely natural, i guess. natural in the sense that there once was a pair of us, but something tragic happened just prior to the show and my date abandoned me. but me + all my independent strength pressed on with the night, regardless of the mess at home. hell or high water, i was going to enjoy that show!
... that's the story i would have made up in my mind if i saw me + an empty chair, anyway.
most of the time, i was lost in the music. lost on the sight of david gray + his nine stage friends dressed in suits and unbuttoned top buttons with loosened skinny ties, all in muted shades i found myself dissecting and naming different shades of grey like slate and graphite and shore and the most attractive shade of warm blue. i was either drooling at the stage or open-jawed, trying to take a bite out of it to have a piece of it all to myself. i was sure i had been transfigured and sent straight to heaven when we got the 15 minute rendition of nemesis.
my entire surroundings, though, reminded me of my current situation {my situation of being alone, that is}
to the left: a middle-aged couple. rigid and stiff. season ticket holder alumni who came to enjoy a night of culture at the theatre. let's just say i was brave enough to sneak a photo like everyone else was... the woman next to me would have reached out and grabbed my phone and sent me straight to my room without dessert for interrupting her concert-going experience. or she could have smothered me with her calypso island/fresh from the cruise ship perfume and taken care of me in 5.3 seconds.
in front of me: the most affectionate couple on the planet. besides the fact that her body was glued to his from shoulder to ankle, the constant whispers and leaning, cuddling heads proved to be the perfect visual blocker of my eyes to the suits on the stage.
to the right: two college girls who thought i was imperative to wear a lot of make up. surely they called each other the night before and coordinated their outfits for this. and call it paranoia, but i swear that girl looked at me 364 times during the show and thought "did she really come by herself or did her date ditch her? how sad." i know she did. and she knew that i knew that she was looking at me.
when i was wise enough to forget all that and get lost again, i found myself looking for a wedding ring.
you guys, someone is married to david gray {the internets say her name is olivia} and most assuredly, she sleeps soundly at night to the tune of sweet david gray lullabies. sounds like heaven to me.
i waited and waited and waited for the entire show through. waited patiently, for him to play this year's love. i counted the songs as i waited. after t-w-e-n-t-y t-h-r-e-e songs, he said thank you and bowed the entire tour to a close. no this year's love this time. it's not like it's the all time favorite. or the newest hit. and of all the times i've seen his show before, this year's love has been sandwiched somewhere inside his old favs collection, half way into the show.
i was sad. twenty three great songs, but none of them the greatest.
until davey pulled through for the lone fan in row c, seat 108 who came to hear this year's love... sung as an encore.
yes.
yes.
and when it was over, i clapped three times and weeded through the crowd for the long haul back to my car.
mission: accomplished, i suppose. worth a high five. but if you want to hide your head in shame on my behalf, go ahead. let's be honest, i went to a concert by myself. that's kind of lame.
but victorious at the same time? i can't tell.
