Musing

Okay, went and saw Muse last night and I had my mind effectively blown.

The band has been around for a while-- long enough to have a big repertoire and a REALLY diverse following.  They were fun on stage, but the fourth and fifth band member was really their lights/effects choreographer-- DAMN.  Just... DAMN.  I've got no words.

It was amazing enough to keep me from knitting.

Which is saying something, because I was knitting through the entire opening act.

Now, I do love to knit, but I don't usually try to do it during a rock concert--for one thing, I like to stand up and dance.  But Arco Arena does NOT lend itself to dancing--at least not my section of it--and much love to Band of Skulls (the opening act) but their lights and sound was designed not to overshadow the main attraction.  They were enjoyable, but, well...

Okay, see, I'm meeting people next week, and it's always nice to bring gifts--it's sort of tradition.  So I finished a gaiter and asked Mary, "Would this be okay for Elizabeth?"  She said, "Give Elizabeth the pretty yarn you bought her in her color that you said you'd never have time to knit, and give the gaiter to MEEEEEE!!!"

I said, "Uhm, okay..."

And then she texted me later and said, "Wait!  It's Ellis's birthday that week!  You MUST give the gaiter to ELLIS!"

And I went, "Hey!  I have no time, lots of yarn, and scads of boundless ambition!  I can make her a gaiter between now and then, I KNOW I can!"

But, well, you know.  I had things to DO during the week.

So I texted Mary in the middle of Band of Skulls and said, "If I fuck up the first couple of inches of Ellis's present because I'm knitting during the opening act for Muse, should I rip it out or call it a design element and explain how it gives the garment character?"

She said, "She'll love it!"

I said, "With or without the fucked up part!"

She said, "She'll love it!"

I said, "But will she think the fucked up part is funny, or will she think it's lame?"

And Mary said, "She'll think it's funny!"

I said good-- and then I texted her this picture.

And she texted back, "Good God, woman, are you really knitting there?  GO HOME to knit!"

So I'm going to hope that "She'll think it's funny!" thing is still in place, because it's a biased rib pattern, and sometime in the middle of Wanderlust I added two stitches and reversed the direction of the bias.

But as soon as Muse came on, I had to put the knitting away.  The music was GREAT and the lights/effects were so prevalent that even though I was knitting in the dark before, if I'd tried to count a 5x5 rib during the course of the main concert I would have given myself a seizure.

I LOVE rock stars.  I love that they can look directly into a camera, sing something torchy and gut-felt, and every woman in the arena thinks about sex.  And the guys don't worry that every woman in the arena is turned on, because odds are good the girl isn't going home with the lead singer of Muse, or the Killers, or even The E-Street Band-- she's going home with her husband or boyfriend or girlfriend or wife, and SOMEONE'S gonna get lucky!  And the rock star?  He's just in the moment.  He IS the music.  His entire being is that collection of notes and power and sound vibrations and electricity that make up a song and lightshow--he's TRANSCENDENT--and he pulls us up with him!  It's holy, the way good music can raise a crowd into pure physical joy.  It's like one of the sacramental bennies of being a human being.

So, well, yeah.  I enjoyed the holy hell out of the concert, and, as always, plotbunnies were fucking like silly in my head, getting ready to give birth.  We'll see what they pop out!

And, in writing news, I updated my website in a couple of places, but I was given a couple of honors that I'm sort of proud of, and you can read more about that HERE if you'd like to.  And also, there's a... well, it's not a contest, it's sort of an "award"-- people are voting for the best m/m romance writer this year, and they had it narrowed down to five.  I was lucky enough to be in the top five, and pretty damned impressed with the company I was keeping, but this voting in public thing is BRUTAL.  It's like, "Well, screw winning-- would be nice just to not be embarrassed!"  (I'm sure I'm not the only one of the five of us thinking that, by the way.  Did I mention a certain brutality present in the process?)

Anyway, if you'd like to vote-- for any of us, because Harper Fox, Kaje Harper, Jordan Castillo Price and Abigail Roux are AWESOME writers and totally deserve your vote-- go to THIS LINK HERE and leave your choice in the comments.  And again, congratulations to all those nominated-- like I said, I'm in some pretty damned amazing company:-)

Oh yeah!  And I'd forgotten until I loaded my pictures, but I got some new swag for the upcoming conferences-- I'm bringing about fifty of the key chains to Florida (and some new bookmarks for Under the Rushes, too!) and that's always fun.