July 13, 2002 : Ani Difranco and repetitive evenings
Little did I know that the diarrhea was going to present itself on through the night. It wasn’t even diarrhea, but gas disguising itself as the nervous pangs of diarrhea. We climbed into bed last night with great urgency, as we were literally exhausted. We drew the curtains and prepared to hibernate for the morning. Before I climbed into bed I drank as much water as my body could hold without filling myself so full it comes brims somewhere in my throat. I had been drinking at a steady pace since dinner. Like I said, it was no where in the region of drunkenness. My mother would be pleased to know that dinnertime finds me preferring a nice cold bottomless cup of nature’s best to the finest wine, and so I was parched. As my father would say, "So thirsty I’m spitting dust."
I climbed into bed and soon retreated to the toilet. Just gas. I climbed back into bed and soon retreated to the same effect. I was concerned for the nerves of Eva and decided to sleep on the couch. I don’t know if it was a placebo, my deciding on the couch, but it seemed that the ready availability of the bathroom being easily accessible that calmed my stomach, because I soon found it to be 6 hours later. I woke to Eva’s desperate cries of alarm at my missing from the bed. She usually wakes up and reaches back just to poke me in the back to make sure I’m there. It’s not that she thinks I’m going to disappear somewhere in the night (as I seemingly did on this occasion) it’s just reassuring to know that I’m there. J And this time I wasn’t. J
With a night as long as last night, this day was proving to be a short day. We had planned on making it a huge day in town. We were going to go summer sale shopping. (every store is doing it’s annual 20, 30, 40, 50% off sales. We had planned to buy me a Dutch workbook for my trip to Italy. We had planned to return library books and pick up the scooter.
We didn’t leave the house until it was time to meet people for the Ani Difranco concert. I busied myself with a delicious dinner and Eva did manage to leave the house for a few minutes to grab some spicy olives for me to snack on. This was the extent of our Saturday. Everyone deserves to have a nothing Saturday on occasion, and so this was our allotment which we intent to never repeat. What we had intended on doing today, we have now put off until Monday. We thought we were leaving for Italy on Monday but it’s actually Tuesday. Thank god for our mis-remembering.
What can I say about Ani Difranco except that she is amazing. I didn’t know she was amazing until a couple of years ago. Ani is one of the people I should have been following all along. I guess I would have never finished University (european-lingo and usage) if Kathleen and I had followed her too. Between soccer, art, school, Books A Million (my last college job) and the Indigo Girls I made a eeked through my last semester of Spanish with a D. (My first and last D ever!) I can’t imagine what Ani would have done to my higher education career.
But Ani. Why was I such a late bloomer? When I was 18, way back in 1994, Ani Difranco would have been last person I would have listened to. (big exaggeration.) It would have been a natural progression, in all honesty. I loved chics and guitars. I loved singer-songwriter stuff. But I couldn’t stomach her style. I was mad about the Indigo Girls and their sound. Blisteringly perfect songs (the last great one was Swamp Ophelia circa de 1994) and I couldn’t make the switch to Ani’s then-breathy sound. Shame shame. It would have been a good thing for me, great break-up get-over songs. Great empowering and earth-shattering prods into action songs. But she was too different for me then. I didn’t give her lyrics a chance, I admit that. And so I missed out on Ani until a few years back and now I’m making up for lost time.
I’ve seen her twice now. Once with Eva last fall in Oklahoma City after September 11th. (a nervous and obvious connection with the OKC bombing and the world trade center) and now in a very small amphitheater in Antwerp Belgium. I can say nothing more than two things about her, to which Eva will be saddened by the fact that I can’t go on and on about her. I’ll let Eva do that.
Two things about Ani Difranco:
1. An Ani Difranco concert is an amazing experience. I always leave shaken and weak-knee-ed. I end up feeling like a passionless and spineless creature that wants to change the world. I feel prodded to do something. I feel like I have been provoked. I sit there listening to words penned for no one except all of us. Every emotion imaginable flashing in front of my face and penetrating my ears with verbage second to none. It’s truly amazing, the art so obvious in the experience. Masterpieces of every European museum on the level of scrawls on napkins. I feel empty, like the next second holds the moment that I can change into a better person. You have to love music that can sum up the world and tattoo it on your innards.
2. An Ani Difranco concert makes me think that if the world loses Ani Difranco to some sort of tragedy, that it would be one of the biggest losses of the modern world. I can’t really explain it. I can think of no other artist than can manipulate and stretch in the way that she pulls and sticks it in your ribs. And yet I didn’t get "into" her until a few years ago because I thought she was too "breathy." It makes no sense. She’s not mainstream, and yet, you come away thinking that "what the world needs now…" is a compilation CD of Ani’s greatest hits. Because you can’t help but be affected.
So this sums up my night. Eva, and our friend Heleen, left our group after the first song to make their way a few rows closer. I was stuck between a recently heartbroken, long-term relationship-gone-awry gay boy and Eva’s ex girlfriend. That’s what I like about Ani Difranco. What a strange situation.
Post concert we made our way into town and it ended up being just Heleen, Eva and I. Eva and I were unprepared for another long night and Heleen was prepared to spend the night in all of her old stomping grounds, catching up on old gossip and seeing old acquaintances. I know how she feels. I’ve been in the same situation where you want nothing more than to re-feel like home, and so Eva and I did our best to keep up. 4 hours later, after hitting the Zaal Jacob club for the younger-set of Antwerpen’s gay scene (Eva and I waited for Heleen to run in and check it out) and a one-drink stint at Poppi (a trendy café for the slightly older likeminded crowd) we headed home. Heleen wasn’t so sad to go, as she had seen the people she wanted to see. We made our way back across town in the same manner and in the same state of mind and at nearly the same hour as hour night before--the sky was turning a lighter shade of blue with every step.
But this time the sleep came relatively easy and our couch was no longer my bed, it was filled by a tall Belgian Dutch girl reading Michele Tea’s Valencia Street on into the night while us older girls drifted off into sleep.
