Caterwauling

I saw Ethel Cain at Anthem in D.C. last fall. General admission. Loved it.

Then she added some Florida dates. Bought a platinum level seat for Miami Beach. Worth it.

“The doctors gave you until the end of the night
But not ’til daylight (Not ’til daylight), not ’til daylight (Not ’til daylight)
Time passes slower in the flicker of the hospital light
I pray the race is worth the fight.”

On the first leg of the tour, she pretty much played the new album. Which is a lot of instrumental, guitars, vocalizing.

Which I dig in the car, but I wasn’t astute enough to tell Radio Towers from Waco Texas. And I loved both songs.

She’s since retooled the tour to be more poppy. A mix of the best from all her albums.

And, surprisingly, the setlist is different every night.

Pleasantly surprisingly. As I was hoping for Thoroughfare this time.

Just like last time, when I hoped for House in Nebraska.

I got Thoroughfare AND House in Nebraska in Miami. And Radio Towers. So … color me happy.

The crowd wanted Fuck Me Eyes. Which she delivered in the next city. Which I also would have loved, but I got my money’s worth.

The people next to me were bummed that Ethel won’t play Waco Texas anymore. They didn’t know why. I said oh yeah DC was the second show were a fan “passed out” during that song. And it happened again and again till she said enough and retooled the set list.

I don’t doubt that people DO pass out. They line up forever so they can get the spots by the stage barrier. You don’t drink because where do you pee.

And I can tell you where we were — South Beach — was 100% humidity that day.

Though my fat ass walked around just fine without passing out.

Though I was stuffed full of a South Beach roll …

A 4 Amigos roll …

And a lovely Matcha martini.

I couldn’t figure out why she’d pick South Beach.

Then I found the Gayborhood.

Which … I absolutely loved.

But, getting back to the setlist.

I didn’t want to hope for Nettles.

But just like House in Nebraska — which reminds me so much of Momma — it made me so happy to hear it live.

At the same time, it killed me that I couldn’t play that song for her or tell her that I got to hear it live.

“Think of all the time I’ll, I’ll have with you
When I won’t wake up on my own (Wake up on my own), wake up on my own
Held close all the time, knowing I’m half of you.”

I used to say that the worst has happened. She died.

There’s something worse.

She stayed dead.

Like, no matter how good I’ve made my life over the past two years, that somehow will never not be true.

Got my nails did yesterday.

Vi wanted to hear all about Japan.

I did a dumb thing and started with the hard shit.

But then I talked about how I ended up on the Lucky Train without even trying … without even NOTICING till I grabbed the handle above me …

And she said luck always seems to find you.

I’ve noticed this my whole life.

I told her it’s sad because I’ve traveled with my cousin before. And it seems like the meals are always blah or the rooms are subpar or the communication is just off.

Like my good luck can’t override hers.

I think about that with Momma a lot.

When we were all little, the way you learned to swim was someone’s dad tossed you into a pool.

It was her friend Donna’s dad who “taught” us all in their above-ground pool.

I never learned. Neither did Mom.

I’ve made the comment in these archives that she’s the type you’d throw into the water and she’d sit on the pool floor, waiting for rescue.

Like, for as lucky as I have been my whole life, that luck never seemed to fully extend to her.

Like we’d get pedicures together, and mine would be pleasant and she’d come out with her skin all jacked up. Or we’d get meals and mine would be great and hers wrong. Or I’d find a great dentist for me and hers literally pulled the wrong tooth.

I spent decades wishing that my influence would be the stronger one. But it always seemed like things evened out, rather than tilted in the favor of my disposition toward good fortune.

For saying I am consumed with grief most of the time, don’t think I don’t see that things are very good. Maybe even a little easier than before.

It’s hard to travel with people now.

Like, Mom and I were practically the same person. Could share meals. Could agree on anything.

Now to do that with people I barely know in that capacity is weird.

Fortunately we’re all adults and respect that compromise is great but we’re also set in our ways.

Like when I moved out in Japan. Kelly just did the same thing with her friend she was staying with. She texted me that she had to move to a hotel for the sake of their friendship. I said you realize you could have just copied-pasted the text I sent you from Japan, right?

Anyway, she’s proof that luck found me when she applied for a job at my company.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ll probably be ready to leave each other after we go to Disney next month. But that’s how it is. A break is never a bad thing, just a reset.

Anyway I guess what I wanted to say there is that when two lucky people hang out together, you don’t need Disney for it to be magical. But it sure helps.

I got this idea from Kelly, who said that I’m on her board of directors.

One of the few trusted advisers who know what she’s up to. Who are often consulted for major life decisions.

I brought my board together when I was Tokyo-bound.

Half the board, I was going to be on a plane with. (Cousin, cousin’s husband, and their kiddo.)

So, I did a separate group chat with the other half of the board. K, C and S.

I figured they’d all become friendly. But the dynamics were so weird.

K would go to our 1-on-1 chat to talk about the stuff I shared with the board.

C made his jokes that most people don’t get or want to get. So the others didn’t touch those.

S made a couple comments that I totally understood but were wide open to interpretation otherwise.

I figured if I croaked or something, they could all rally to collect my assets and hide the bodies.

Or at least help to get me out of the damn country when everything was going wrong those first few days.

Once I got home, I sent a final text from a sushi buffet in Boca Raton. And no one’s used the chat since.

Honestly, I haven’t talked to any of them since.

I mean, I got to spend time with K. here in Boca.

But I have no interest in texting anyone.

Or replying to emails, unfortunately, which means I am way behind at work — a crisis of my own making, of course.

I still don’t have a full accounting of my assets. Or beneficiaries not named Wobin, who I hope can use some cash (and yen) in the afterlife. Shit I still haven’t done last year’s taxes.

I really don’t want to leave The Board with those responsibilities. But maybe I need a board member to help me solve that shit now.

Which … that’s Kelly.

Maybe I’ll set a little goal to solve some of this shit before I see her again next month.

I heard Noah Kahan’s “The Great Divide” on SNL.

Honestly it’s a variant of Dawes’ “All Your Favorite Bands” to me.

But there’s always room for two great songs in my world.

“You know I think about you all the time
And my deep misunderstanding of your life
And how bad it must have been for you back then
And how hard it was to keep it all inside.

I hope you s?ttle down, I hope you marry rich
I hope you’re scared of only ordinary shit.
Like murderers and ghosts and cancer on your skin
And not your soul and what He might do with it.”

I think of my grandmother who, despite being let down repeatedly by the Catholic Church, wanted to be buried with her rosary beads.

I think of my mom, who I thought I understood until I had to live without her.

Back then, I sometimes (often) thought she didn’t have the life experience to weigh in on some of the shit that was vexing me.

Truth always was, she had an incredible way of interpreting things from outside of them.

Yet she never realized her own value. So maybe that’s why I didn’t always see it, either.

“They only shoot the birds who cannot sing
And I’m finally aware of how shitty and unfair
It was to stare ahead like everything was fine.”

She could “sing” just fine.

But no one — doctors, dentists, men, maybe even her own parents — listened.

“Did you wish that I could know
You’d fade
To some place
I wasn’t brave enough to go?”

I listened more than most.

I really did believe in her more than she ever did herself.

I still wait for her to come back to me like she promised.

To this day, I remain stunned that she hasn’t yet found her way back.

Or at least that I can’t pick up on it if she has.