"It's a New Year, Trying to Be Nice."

Actual quote from my mother this afternoon.

This was after she told me that . . . well (lips smoosch to center) . . . the hair, it wasn't any better . . . well . . . the cut is better . . . but you looked younger with the black hair . . . maybe you should go back to that . . .

Okay, then.

Concert was awesomely awesome. Bought t-shirts. Actually M1 and I bought matching t-shirts, but we don't live in the same state, so it's okay. Wearing my pink "Deal's Gone Bad" tee today, with just enough of the jolly roger sticking out of my sweater. Good pit. Good music. No one to pick up. Oh, well.

M1 kept looking out into the crowd (it was sold out) and saying . . . "This is the dating pool." with a circular hand gesture. I thought she was being sarcastic . . . like I should try the bar at the Townsend instead . . . but she was serious and commenting on the bleak state of affairs.

There seemed to be two demographic groups at the Magic Stick last night. "Old" people who actually remembered Gangster Fun and the Parka Kings when they were bands. And their children. There were groups who looked like they hadn't seen anywhere except the inside of a mini-van for a long, long time. And they kept walking past . . .

"M? Do we look like that? When the twenty-somethings see us . . . do they see that? Do they think what I'm thinking right now?"
"No. We aren't carrying Liz Claiborne purses."
"Cause those people are old . . . and they're our age."
"Yeah. We don't look like that."
"Are you sure? Cause they don't know they look like that."

Now the ska crowd is geeky in general . . . boys in skinny ties and white shirts, newsboy hats (fedoras, if they are really into it) and spectator shoes, who look like they know how to really work a computer. Boys in glasses, who look like they might actually enjoy doing your taxes after they were done bouncing up and down . . . (my idea of hot, by the way) Boys with a bit of an edge, but way too nerdy (or too smart?) to end up pulling off goth.

But mix that in with groups of nerdy soccer moms (that married the nerdy old guys?) and it gets kinda surreal.

M1 did talk to the lead singer of Deal's Gone Bad, who was just wandering around, looking like he needed a friend. He remembered us from last year. M1 wanted to see what R looked like . . . and his doppelganger was at the show . . . but skinnier with neck tattoos. He was part of "the Rovers" (a scooter club, very manly) so maybe I'll see him again at the Front (just what I need, someone with neck tatts). No students this year. Almost disappointing.

Can't wait until next year though.