"F!": My Grungey Seattle Adventure (With My Besty and With Mudhoney)

4: 'If I Think'

3:15

REX

As I pull into parking, I begin to worry more about my appearance. I tuck my hair behind my ears and strap my mask onto my face, trying to look casual as I step out of the car and into the donut shop. I'm sure Holly is nervous to see me too, but that doesn't make me feel any less anxious. I just wish I could be more carefree in situations like these, and in general.

I decide to wait a bit before making any purchases. I could order a box now, but I would probably eat them all if Holly ends up being really late. Plus, why would I sit in the car when I could get exposure to some nice air conditioning inside? 

It's hard to control my nerves when I'm not doing anything to distract myself, and eating usually helps. That's probably why I do it so much, but now is not the time for that. My second method of distraction is my phone. 

I have three notifications. I check Instagram first, just to confirm a follow request from someone I met at a gig the other week, then my regular messages. One is a photo sent by my mom, who is a high school choir teacher. She sent a picture of her newly decorated classroom. Down in New Mexico, they're starting the school year in just a couple weeks. I'm happy my mom loves her job.

The other message is from my friend Leonel, who I've played in a few bands with. "Fuck bands," we call them; short term projects that don't usually go anywhere. He's asking me to come to a show that his band, wtrmrk, is playing at the Crocodile tomorrow. 

I don't know how to respond, to be honest. If I were to go, I would have to bring Holly. She loves to see music, sure, and to listen to it, but I know what will happen if we go. Despite not being an exclusive member of the band, I do play with wtrmrk live sometimes, and it's happened before where I'm in the audience and the guys invite me on stage to play a couple songs with them. I enjoy it; don't get me wrong, but I don't know if Holly would. She doesn't know I'm still active as a musician.

It's not that I don't want her to know. I do... just not yet. When it comes to playing music --between Holly and I-- we have a past. A complicated one.

So Holly hasn't touched a drum kit in ages, and I know why. 

When we first met, I was in seventh grade, and she was in eighth. Holly had just moved to Reno from her hometown in Minnesota. At the time, I was really focused on starting my first band with a guy named Vidal Veracruz. 

Vidal and I were in choir together back when my mom taught the class. We were never really friends (he was a year older than me and we seldom had class together) until word got around that I was trying to start this band. Vidal was the first (and sadly the only) person to show any interest. He took on the role of the lead singer, and together we set out to find a drummer.

Being in the same grade as her and the friendly young man he was, Vidal befriended Holly pretty early on. And since the first guy I asked to play drums for us wasn't interested, Holly became our new target after we found out she played percussion in band.

Holly didn't express any interest at first. I think deep down she really did want to be in a band, because she later told me that she declined my offer out of shyness and fear that she wasn't experienced enough. On top of that, she didn't even have a drum kit at the time, so she couldn't have been in a band if she'd wanted to. But really, there wasn't anything for Holly to be shy about, because not only was she older than me, but neither Vidal nor I know how to play any instruments! My plan was to acquire members first, then I would take on whichever role wasn't taken.

Of course, no one wanted to play bass, so that responsibility fell on me. I didn't mind, though -- at that point, I had tried a few other instruments and something about electric bass just clicked for me. 

Vidal went on to go to a different school than me, and for a year we stayed in touch, getting together to jam every now and then. It was difficult given the distance and his crappy guitar playing, but I always wanted to hear him sing more. His voice was so unique and intriguing to me, plus the lyrics he wrote were one-of-a-kind.

Then I enrolled in the Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology for high school with a focus on film. Vidal wasn't at this school, but guess who just happened to be? 

Holly was at AACT studying to be an EMT, and at the end of her freshman year, she'd received a drum kit for her birthday. Our band, which Holly named Circus Floor after a Room Nine song, was formed around October 2013.

We wrote a bunch of songs together and rehearsed a few covers, and soon we were ready to perform live. We played gigs around town, sometimes even skipping school to do it. I remember Holly getting in trouble for that a couple times; her parents probably hated us for that. No, just me, actually. Everyone loved Vidal. He was a literal angel... probably why he died so young.

In his senior year of high school, Pouri was taken by a heart attack. It seemed really sudden, although he'd been experiencing symptoms of coronary heart disease for most of his life. His disease was apparently linked to a sulfite allergy, which he and his family knew about, but other than that, the disease itself went undetected for years. 

Pouri died in late May, just a few days after Holly's birthday on the 27th. Even though she wasn't with him when the heart attack happened, Holly told me that she felt responsible for Pouri's death. She said if she had only been with him at the time of the heart attack, she would've known exactly what to do to save his life. But since he was walking home from work alone, no one noticed a thing until he was passed out on the sidewalk and it was too late.

The loss of Pouri is the biggest loss I've had to endure all my life. Some days aren't easy, but I still continue writing and playing music. To me, doing so is like a testament to Pouri's life, even though I'll never be able to craft a song as well as he could. What bugs me, though, is that Holly sees the idea of being in another band as a dishonor to our late friend. Though it seems like the loss of Pouri affects her a lot more than me, I think that's because she's grieving something else: playing music.

Losing Pouri didn't mean she had to lose that, and I, for one, think it's making her life miserable.

Of course I've never said all this to her face, but I will soon. This is all part of a plan I conceived after I finished film school two years ago. It started with the realization that though our lives lost a lot of meaning when Pouri left us, they became meaningless from the loss of Grey Diamond Desert. So I got the idea to reform the group here in Seattle, but not without our drummer, of course. 

I decided that when Holly came to visit me in Seattle, I'd convince her to move here and rejoin GDD. Of course, a lot has happened since I began that scheme, including a pandemic that put a question mark on every plan we'd made to visit each other. 

So now that COVID restrictions are being lifted, the PNW heat waves are passing, and Holly will be in Seattle for another nine days, I've made it my mission to change her entire mindset by day nine. By then, she will see what's she's been missing out on all these years and have a life again-- if all goes according to plan.

Let's hope it does.