The News of Liza Kate

In spite of the student loan "coupon book" my lender has sent, my mom's pending aortic bypass, my not-so-sudden lack of song writing ambition, and the not-so-good job I'm doing at being a nonsmoker, I'm posing a challenge to the Lords of Summer: Make it sweet, will ya?

Things I have planned, in no particular order:

1. A long weekend at the beach with my boo to celebrate three glorious years of faux-matrimony. (check)

2. A show with this fella whom you might remember from this band. (check)

3. A 5 day trip back home to celebrate 59 years of my dad. (check)

4. A 3 day cruise, which is likely to be very ridiculous and extremely entertaining with a handful of Red Hats. My mom is a member, but my sister and I were invited. We just have to wear pink and lavender at all times.

This is a situation that's screaming to be heavily documented. Stay tuned.

5. Many, many day trips to D.C. now that we've discovered the Park and Ride. One of these trips may also include The First Official In-The-Flesh meeting of these two souls. I'm making a shirt for it and everything.

6. A little tour as a member of Spokane.
I can't even spell "glockenspiel" without looking it up, but by golly, I'm gonna play it. (SOON!)

7. Another trip to the beach to photograph a wedding with Curtis. The Bride-to-be wants sweet, and casual photos. I've been doing some research and couldn't be more excited. Plus, I could use the money (see above).

So, there you have it, Lords of Summer. Please, respond by email and let me know what you would like for me to sacrifice.

Love, Liza

A photo by: the life of liza.

Kodi just ate some chewable, fruity Gas-X.

Tonight should be very interesting.

And totally funny.

My brain is kind of on fire right now.

I don't know how to explain it any better than that.

I'm somewhere in between feeling very, very sorry for myself and feeling very, very guilty.

When Jonny died, everything changed. This happened to everyone, so I know I'm not alone on that.

Being around my friends made it tolerable, but there was still this idea that dealing with it would be an impossible task.

I made promises to myself (and out loud) that I wouldn't be so far from everyone anymore.

I vowed to be better at showing - proving - that I care because I knew that my last year of partial hibernation couldn't be erased or forgiven in just a couple of weeks.

Even if those weeks felt like months and even if they were as intense and as serious as they were.

I feel like I was out of town - even though I was less than a mile from everything that was important to me at one time. I barely went to people's houses, shows, birthday parties, openings, bbqs, wiffle ball games. Missing hours and hours of sitting on porches with friends while I was probably sitting on my own, etc.

Somehow I earned my way off the list of those to inform - often hearing about everything later - or not at all.

I might have felt like I needed it at the time - and I probably did.

So now, things have settled in. I couldn't have dealt with Jonny leaving us if I had been alone. I'm forever indebted to my friends and will never forget it.

But while things are taking a turn to "back to normal," I've decided I kind of want a new normal.

It would be so easy to go back to accidentally running into the people I love or hoping that they'll come to a show I'm playing so I can have a safe 2-3 hour time slot of catching up before we go back to our own things again.

But I'm really, SO tired of easy. It makes everything else a lot harder.

This is actually pretty embarrassing - me writing this kind of apology to my computer knowing very well that it likely does not apply to the people who will read it.

Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but I still feel like an ass.

Anyway, maybe word will get around and all interested parties will know that when I left them messages, I wasn't just trying to find the name of a movie I couldn't remember, or directions to somewhere, or someone else's phone number.

I'm just trying to help things go back to normal.

The new one.

Self-Consciously Distressed, Liza