there goes that whole “write everyday for the whole month of november” resolution. i forgot i was going on a little mini-vacation.
marques and i headed up to columbus, ohio on thursday. the real intention was that we were going to see the decemberists on friday, so we decided to make a trip out of it. we left on thursday…. afternoon. we had originally intended on leaving a little earlier than 2:30 PM (like, oh, say, 11:30 PM) but we’re lazy people who love sleep more than anything.
so 2:30, we’re on the road. the drive was thoroughly uninteresting. there were a lot of cornfields. one of the things that always amazes me about ohio is how there are little spots of civilization every 30 miles or so and in between, it’s just corn. we did see a billboard that said, “don’t call yourself a christian if you vote for a candidate who supports abortion and homosexuality. love, jesus christ” and that was pretty horrifying. it also always amazes me what people will do in the name of religion.
so we get up to columbus around 5:30 and we check into our hotel (which was super super nice… like $100 a night nice… but i pricelined it for $50) and we were delighted to discover that our hotel had an indoor pool with a hot tub the size of rhode island. so we pranced down to the pool (marques didn’t bring any swimming trunks, so he wore a pair of boxers and he looked really funny but still adorable) and swam and sat in the hot tub for awhile by ourselves until like, 10 people showed up so we left. we were pretty hungry by this point, so we decided that we would head over to easton (which is a shopping mall the size of texas) to find some food and then go see “running with scissors” because it’s not playing here. after much deliberation about vietnamese food and fondue, we decided to just go to the cheesecake factory because, uh, cheesecake. cheesecake is in its NAME.
at the cheesecake factory, we were seated next to a table of a foursome of osu girls who i think were trying to be ohio’s version of sex and the city. there was one girl who would not shut up about some guy she was having sex with it. she kept talking and talking and it was really annoying. our food was good, and we shared a piece of cookie dough cheesecake that was pretty flippin awesome.
while walking on the way to the theater, though, i noticed my heartbeat was super fast. lately, i’ve been noticing my heartbeat because it seems to be much faster than anybody elses. and thinking back about it, i think it’s always been like that. it doesn’t generally affect my life or anything. i don’t know why my heart was beating so fast on the way back from dinner (it was much faster than normal), but it scared the shit out of me. which in turn, made me panic. which made my heart beat even faster. marques was really concerned and kept trying to get me to sit down, but i wanted to see the movie, and i didn’t want to be late. once we got to the theater, my heartbeat slowed down considerably about halfway through the movie. and it’s been about my normal fast rate since. the rest of the trip (from marques’s viewpoint) was focused around “let’s not elevate ashley’s heart rate for fear of her heart exploding a la sawyer in lost”
“running with scissors” was okay. i am a huge augusten burroughs fan. i love all of his books, and so when i heard they were making a movie out of one of them, i was excited. i was excited when i heard annette bening was playing in it because i love annette bening. i was a little less excited when i heard about gwyneth paltrow. anyway, the movie was okay. i think it kind of lacked a sense of direction… i mean, i appreciated seeing the scenes that i had read in my mind, but everything just sort of seemed to not flow together. it was like, here’s scene one. and end. now, abruptly, scene two. plus, they changed a few things from the books (uh, hello, i know that you want sex appeal, but natalie is supposed to be a chub) and that really messed me up. my favorite part was at the end, when the real augusten burroughs appeared in all his cute, baseball-capped glory.
the next day, we were really disorganized. i had originally wanted to go to the zoo, but then decided against it because the touchpool wasn’t going to be open (which is a big part of my wanting to go, i love anemones). i had to go to dunkin donuts to buy coffee for people at work who love dunkin donuts coffee (coffee freaks) so we decided to go to trader joe’s, too. i love trader joe’s. i want a trader joe’s and a whole foods so bad i can taste the organically grown goodness. we ate at panera bread (which was the most crowded panera bread i’ve ever been in) and i bought a few things from TJ’s and then we went driving around the city for awhile, just exploring. we finally decided to go to COSI and spent some time there doing sciencey stuff. we played with water streams and marques went into a submarine and we made balls shoot out of the air. on the way out, i convinced one of the workers to let me in the gift shop even though it was closed and i bought marques a harmonica (which is something he said he’s wanted to learn) and we sat on the steps of cosi and watched the sunset and giggled and played with the harmonica.
and then the concert:
now i will say this first. i like the decemberists. i’m a fan. i’m not a hardcore fan — i have all of their cds except for the EPs. and i know the lyrics to most of their songs. marques is a hardcore fan, so really, i bought the tickets for him. he now has to take me to see ryan adams in the future.
that being said, i really enjoyed the show. i wasn’t a big fan of waiting 90 minutes to get in the door. i didn’t want to be on the floor because i was tired, so marques and i made a beeline for the chairs on the upper level. we found the last pair of chairs and watched the show from the top.
the opener (alasdair roberts) was good in his own musical niche. he was not meant for the audience he was playing to, which consisted largely of tiny high school kids in studded belts. in line, marques and i were sandwiched between two girls whose parents dropped them off and who kept taking pictures of each other with their cell phones, and two 15 year old girls who were listening to an ipod that had such musical gems on it like justin timberlake, linkin park, and rihanna. i am a snob.
the decemberists played mainly from their new album, as i had expected. they did play “the engine driver” which is a song i LOVE and always forget that i love. and also “we both go down together”, another song i love because of its liberal use of the word “veranda”. they played “16 military wives” and “july, july!” which was also expected.
they also made some death cab cracks including singing a part of “title and registration” during one of their first few songs. colin meloy is a funny guy. he reminds me of a librarian. he was also all about competition in the audience, which was great because i love competitions. during “16 military wives”, he split the audience down the middle and had each side sing the la-di-das. i loved the rendition of “sons and daughters”, and it was nice to hear the audience sing the line “hear all the bombs fade away”. aside from all the tiny highschool kids and the drunk college kids, it was a great show.
we’ve also sort of decided that we should start going to more concerts before we get any older and are forced to go to the old folks area.
and now we’re home. we got home around 3:30 last night, and climbed into bed with waylon. i wanted to watch an episode of the west wing, so we did, and then we fell asleep right after. we were tired.
all in all, a fantastic trip. one that makes you glad that you’re still in love, and one that makes you glad for chairs.
