So, it's my birthday today. Didn't do anything special, just worked. Lease is up in a month, so I'm still working on the move. I don't know...being 20 doesn't really feel any different than being 19. *sigh*

Just letting everyone know I'll be away for the weekend. I'll have internet access, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to use it. I should be back on Monday sometime. So if I don't have time over the weekend to tag, I'll get caught up when I return.

*frowns* If I'm so irresistible, why am I still single?

As if I didn't have enough dirty thoughts... *grin*

01. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
02. I respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal.
03. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
04. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
05. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Answers to spazomatik's questions:

1. How long have you been playing the guitar?

Since I was 7.

2. Who's the one person you'd kill to record with?

Only one? Um, Sheryl Crow, I guess.

3. What's your opinion of shows like American Idol?

It's impossible to measure someone's talent the way they set the show up. Mostly, they're measuring marketability, which is not nearly the same thing as talent. AI is mostly ego stroking for Simon. Oh, and no one who sings as bad a Paula Abdul does should be allowed to judge anyone else's ability.

4. The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?

Beatles. No question.

5. What's the last book you read?

Some chick lit thing. The Parker Grey Show.

Evie smiled, watching out the window as the cab maneuvered through the streets of Boston. She was still on a high from getting things settled in New York. She'd put down first, last and security on a Midtown studio on the West Side, so all she had to do now was pack her things when her lease was up and move all her stuff up. She'd have to look for a job, too, but she couldn't do that until she was actually settled in the city. She'd be fine for rent. Her father had agreed to supplement her with a small sum each month. She let him do it because she knew he felt better if he was still taking care of her somehow, and the extra money would definitely help. She didn't really need it in Chicago, though it was nice to have, but New York was a different story.

She was startled out of her thoughts as the cab pulled up in front of her hotel. She paid the driver and retrieved her bag, then headed inside to check in. Things went smoothly and she made her way up to her room to get settled before giving Dev a call.

Once in her room, she changed out of her traveling clothes into a pair of low-rider jeans and a lace-up tank top, ran a brush through her unruly curls, and touched up her makeup. Satisfied, she pulled out her cellphone and sat on the bed, scrolling through her address book until she got to his number. Calling it up, she hit send and listened to the phone ring, nibbling at her bottom lip as she waited for him to pick up.

So I had dinner at Dad's tonight. Told him and Louise that I changed my mind about LA and it's New York now instead. They took it well, I think. Well, about as well as I expected, anyway. Dad even offered to help me out with rent until I get settled. So I've been looking around online and I've found a few places. I'm heading to New York in a few days to check them out, and Dad basically said he'd give me whatever I needed to cover the trip, so...New York, here I come. *grin*

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. -Harriet Beecher Stowe

Evie threaded her way through the rows of tombstones, carrying the bouquet of red roses she'd picked up on her way over. She wasn't the only one here today; there was a man a few rows over, and two women stood several rows ahead of her, holding their own bouquets. Her father would come later, she knew, but this was her time.

She'd sit in the grass for a few hours and tell her mother everything that was going on in her life: her dreams, her fears, her hopes, and her regrets. Then she'd go home and cry on Louise's shoulder until her throat ached and she had no tears left. Then next year she'd come back and do it all over again.

She didn't know how not to do it.

Evie knelt down in the grass and brushed the leaves and stray branches away from the marble, laying the roses across the weather-worn gray stone as she spoke, unable to keep her voice from hitching on the last word as tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her face.

"Happy Mother's Day, Mom..."

[ooc: Louise is an NPC that lives in my head. She doesn't belong to any other muns, and she's used here with my own permission.]

It was a rare occasion that Evie was home for dinner these days. And by home, she meant her father's house. But she knew she had to tell him this in person. And since he'd taken the news of her move to LA pretty well, all things considered, she'd decided she didn't have to do this at a restaurant.

She parked her Nissan Murano on the street, made her way up to the front door, and let herself inside with the key she still had.

"Louise? Dad? Anyone home?"

"In the kitchen," Louise's voice called and Evie followed the sound and the enticing aroma of what could only be the older woman's prize winning pot roast.

Louise had been their housekeeper for years. Evie's father had hired her as a live-in when her mother got too sick to take care of the household chores, and after Catherine died, Donald had kept her on to help with caring for Scott and Evie, while he worked long hours at the hospital to pay the bills and provide for his children. She'd been like a second mother to both of them and had grieved Scott's loss as much as Evie or her father had.

Evie smiled as she came into the kitchen and took an appreciative sniff. "I haven't had your pot roast in forever."

Louise looked up from where she stood over the stove. "That's because you haven't been home." She tried to sound offended, but the twinkle of amusement in her eyes gave her away.

"I would have; work's just been crazy. Is Dad home yet?"

"Not yet. But he called a little while ago to let me know he was leaving, so he should be here soon."

1. Bad tippers.
2. Ass-grabbing customers.
3. My cheating asshole of an ex-boyfriend. Dammit, I liked that couch.
4. My whore of an ex-roommate. All the single men in Chicago, but nooo, bitch just had to have mine.
5. Cancer. It destroyed my family. And that sucks.
6. Seeing my friends in pain.
7. The guy in the Mercedes who almost hit me while I was walking to the El station this afternoon because he was on the phone. Hang up and drive, asshole.
8. Hunting for an apartment and a roommate in LA. Seriously considering New York instead.
9. Being told I can't do something because I'm a girl.
10. People assuming I don't understand stuff because I'm 'too young'. Yeah, I'm only 19, but I understand more than people give me credit for.

(ooc: smut ahoy! underage peoples - or those easily offended - shouldn't read.)

Her heart was racing a mile a minute as she climbed the front steps of her building and fumbled with the key to the front door, finally managing to unlock it. Three more steps up and she was through the second glass door and turning down the hall that led to her place.

She was glad she lived on the first floor because she didn't think she'd have been able to manage waiting an entire elevator ride.

Reaching her apartment door, she turned around to make sure he was still with her.

Dear ass-grabbing loser patron sitting at table 5,

I am your waitress, not your play toy. Grab my ass again and you'll be drinking your lager from a straw.

After I shove it down your throat and pull it through your belly button. (Assuming I can even find it in your beer gut.)

No love,
Me

So you want to know what I'm looking for in a significant other. It's kind of hard to explain, since I haven't actually had one. I thought I did, but...okay, you need a little backstory on the last guy I dated.

I met Brad down at the bar where I work. I sling drinks 6 nights a week, and two or three of those nights, they let me up on stage to play and sing a few sets. It works out okay, most of the time. Sometimes not so much. St. Patrick's Day was pretty bad with quarter beers and drunker assholes with grabbier hands than usual, but most nights, it's not so bad. And speaking of bad, back to Brad.

When you spend most of your time around drunk assholes with wandering hands, your standards for what you'll date decrease exponentially. Anyone who isn't drunk and greets you with more than a "'nother round for me an' th'boys, would ya, dollface?" starts to look like a prince. Or at least something resembling a decent guy.

And that'd be where Brad comes in.

Built, blond hair, brown eyes, tall. I'd show you a picture, but I burned them all. Anyway, long story short, we dated for 3 months. Until the night he told me he couldn't come to my gig because he had to work, and I got home early to find him and my (now ex) roommate having sex on our living room couch. Okay? So I don't know anything about significant others, obviously, cause I thought Brad was and...well...you know the story. But I know what I want.

I want someone who's passionate about...something. I want someone who understands what my music and performing mean to me. I want someone who understands my job. I work in a bar. Getting groped is a given - and I'd be pretending it was him, anyway. I want someone I can talk to about anything, and who will be honest with me and won't cheat on me. And I wouldn't complain if he was good-looking too.

So I told Dad about the move. He was shocked, but took it well, I guess, all things considered. After he jumped to conclusions when I called and told him I had something important to tell him, of course. First he assumed I was pregnant (which I'm totally so not), then he thought I was eloping with one of the musicians (ha! he wouldn't say that if he'd actually ever met any of them) at work. (Yeah, like that would ever happen.) Fun times, only not so much.

I don't know, we had a good talk and things are...okay. I think. Or at least they will be. I just worry that he'll lock himself away at the hospital when I move and become a hermit or something.

*sigh*

Time will tell, I guess. But I feel better now that he knows. And I can start apartment hunting. I can't believe I'm really gonna do this.

She dials the familiar number and listens to the ring of the phone, hoping she figures out what she's going to say by the time he answers it.