friday and portland

so we are in baltimore right now. last night was new york. the night before was boston. i will someday live at least six months in boston. what a beautiful city! so far, pretty much everyday, that schedule has been, play a show; drive about four or five hours, crash at a hotel at about five or six in the morning; wake up at ten and go do a radio station or visit the local record store and meet people there; go to lunch; go to sound check; hang out; play; repeat. not complaining at all but i have been constantly, ridiculously tired. so i am trying my best to keep in touch and keep up with the writing. i love it. and i love that you read it josh! i will call you soon. so here is what i wrote like three days ago to continue with the below. i love you guys and miss you. keep praying or start please, we could always use it.


Ok sorry about that. I can only really do this when we are on long drives and brent isn’t using his computer (which isn’t too often) so… Friday. Oh yes I was giving my first impression. So I was kind of joking around with her about not knowing which band I was in and I started to notice that she was not really hearing a thing I said. She had this glazed quazi-happy look on her face. Instantly she came to consciousness again and just started talking non-stop. She started going on and on about herself and how she is an aspiring musician and actress but blah blah blah. If she didn’t seem a little crazy I would think she was just big headed and trying to impress me. Even though I was kind of annoyed because she didn’t let up I was still tying to be nice and hoping that she would just run out of things to say or that someone would come up to me and ask me to go do something. I hate to admit it but all I wanted to do was not have her talking to me. I was still drenched in sweat and I just wanted to sit and not talk or do a thing for a few minutes. She just kept going on and on with this look on her face like, “how impressive is THAT!” finally sean came up to me and tried to pull me away. At first I was relieved and thought that I finally had gotten out of this awkward situation. She had been promising me that she had the most amazing sounding guitar that I will ever hear in my lifetime and was insisting that I go out to her car and play it. When sean pulled me away I think he saw the situation and was trying to help me out. The instant he grabbed my arm to pull me away Friday reached out and grabbed me by my other arm and began begging me to promise to play her guitar later. I consented (just to get out of the incredibly uncomfortable situation). Everything made sense a few moments later when I realized what that white crusty stuff was that I couldn’t help but notice on her nose.
So the night went on and we all made our way to our friend corey smithÂ’s house to continue the party. I had forgotten about the promise I had made and was having a good time and a clear conscience forgetting about how rude I had been earlier. It all came rushing back though in one big guilty swoop when I saw Friday walk in the door. She walked right up to me and said,
“do you want to see my guitar now? I have it right outside in my car. Remember? You promised..”
my mind instantly began racing but I couldn’t think of anything to get this girl off my back. I awkwardly looked down at my beer and back up at her with this desperate kind of ‘are you kidding me?’ kind of look. I guess I was wearing my thoughts on my face because she continued with,
“ok, after you finish your beer. Then come out ok?”
I agreed and began to sip veeeerrrrrryyyyyy slowly. Looking around the room I could tell people were entertained by my misery. For some reason people love to have characters like Friday at parties. That way when you get in the car you can joke about it for hours. “did you see that one coke head girl?! She was so messed up! She had freaking coke all over her nose!” they will all have their own stories about their personal interactions. “she just came up to me and started quoting lines from ‘hard day’s night’!” “I know I know she kept asking me to come out and play her guitar! That girl was insane!” that would have been me probably if it wasn’t for what happened next.
I shouldn’t have been surprised but the second I finished my beer she sensed it and cheerfully came up to me and said “you done? You ready to see my favorite thing in the world? You won’t believe how amazing this thing sounds!” I sheepishly got behind her and followed her out of the house to her car. Everyone started giggling and whispering and I knew it probably looked anything but innocent.
I was freezing and had a horrible headache and was walking out praying that God would allow this to be quick and as painless as possible. I was sure that she didn’t even have a guitar and that she wanted to do drugs or something. As we walked away on the sidewalk together I could hear some of the guys whistling and saying things like “man how drunk is he?”
We got to her car, a navy blue jeep Cherokee, and I was surprised at how new and nice it was. This just didn’t make much sense. There was no way that a rail-thin girl who is as coked out as this and claims to have been homeless for the last six months could have a car like this. I was even more shocked when she pulled out this ‘legendary’ guitar. It was a pretty nice Gibson acoustic guitar. She proudly pulled the strap over her head and cleared her throat. She looked up and bit her nails and said that she would play a song she had written for her dead grandmother whom, it seemed, had left her one item, a beautiful antique necklace which had the word ‘whiskey’ inscribed on the plaque in the middle. (Friday’s ‘other’ most valued possession.) All I could think was ‘oh God here we go.’ The second she began picking the strings and singing my hear dropped and my stomach went into my chest. It was beautiful. I was stunned. She had this hauntingly gentle voice and was an amazing guitar player. I stood there in the cold completely embarrassed. I felt like such a fool. I have always tried to live by these four different sayings that I kind of made up from things that I have learned from life and others. One of them is to never see anyone as a person who I couldn’t learn something from whether simple or profound. One of my biggest fears is to let my pride or apathy get in the way of living life. Suddenly I felt like I was looking at a completely different person. I noticed that Friday was strikingly beautiful. Everything that I hadn’t noticed before became beautiful and everything that I thought was annoying or wrong about her turned to sorrow. I didn’t think that the insane amount of drugs that she had been doing all night was amusing or interesting any more. It felt more like concern mixed with pain. I was flooded with all the horrible thoughts I had earlier and how lame it was of me to be concerned what other people thought we were going to go do. After a fair amount of kicking myself and asking God’s forgiveness I just sat back and let the rest of the world drift away and thanked God for such a wonderful lesson.