Cor-ner-stone-2-0-0-9.

I've been back from Cornerstone for around two weeks now, and I'm finally including the internet world into my trip (minus pictures that I posted, but had little stories along with them, I'm much better with words, than "photographing" stories,)


I've tried to write this many times. Many, many...three maybe four times....unsuccessfully.

But, I will try again.



Cornerstone was "Fabulous!" as Kaylee said, and "Splendid!" I said; also "Muddy!" and "Tiring!" as I've also said at other times. The weather was good, slightly cool and overcast more times than not--my favorite kind of weather. I got to wear long pants and my Cincinnati sweatshirt nearly everyday and all the time. This was good.

We saw a lot of good bands and good people, and interesting bands and interesting people.

It was great to go with Kaylee and Caitlin (Cheyanne didn't enjoy as much as the rest of the group, but that is not my fault, I made the trip enjoyable, possible, hilarious and POSSIBLE; therefore, not my fault.) Everyone had a (mostly) wonderful great time!!



I can't remember everything so well, so I'll make a list. It will most likely turn out too long, and too detailed to be a list by the time I am done, but oh well. I am me.



-We got free ice cream in Indianapolis at a McDonalds; mine was a McFlurry with out anything but icecream in it, which is pretty much the only way to enjoy a McFlurry--all blended up, and only ice cream. I barely ate any of it. It was free.



-Caitlin got hit on in said McDonald's. These boys that looked about thirteen told her that their dad thought she was really cute and then giggled immensely. We all laughed at their expense, and decided it probably wasn't their dad who thought she was cute! Wink! I guess you had to be there.



-We tried to combine our tent and the canopy that we didn't know how to put up and created the "Tent-o-py". over the course of the week and walking around amongst the other camp sites we noticed that other people had similar ideas, so then we made up more names like "tarp-o-tent", "Truck-o-tent" and the "truck-o-tarp-o-tent-o-py" We are quite clever.



-We walked around a lot, we people watched even more than we walked around.



-I didn't notice that tooth and nail day wasn't tooth and nail day (but some other unrelated to tooth and nail day) until I came home. No wonder there were no tooth and nail bands playing! I am a little bit retarded.



-There was a really good foodstand that had really good chicken, we had the chicken two times; the coffee place was also good, even though I don't generally like buying coffee at cornerstone. They had a totally delicious Sidamo roast and I loved it. Also they did not suck at pulling espresso so therefore I loved them more than I could ever love places that pull bad espresso shots (like, I don't know, starbucks...my place of employment right now...starbucks?) I notice things like this because I am weird.



-Before we left we myspace listened to a few of the bands that were playing when we weren't busy watching a band we already knew we wanted to see. Though doing this we found out that there are a lot of screaming bands at cornerstone, and we don't really want to see screaming bands at cornerstone. We were lucky enough to stumble upon the opposite (OPPOSITE) of a screaming band, they are called: Darcy. They are from TX, and they wear vests and ties are harmonize well. We ended up (on accident) seeing all their shows, but it was alright. They put on a musical they had written awhile ago on one of the last days, and it was really fun. The musical is cute and funny (if you want I could most likely find a youtube link to parts of it, and you can see for yourself.) We talked to a few of the members of the band and they are really nice and sweet guys and if I lived in texas I would totally go to one of their shows. If they play a reasonable amount near KC I will make Jane come with me to see a band that wrote a song about the Little House books.



-I talked to Theresa from Relevant (Cameron's assistant, I think) and she was really fun and nice; she was really excited that I am a podcast fan, and that made me happy. I bought a relevant tshirt, and when we were watching MewithoutYou this cute boy walked past wearing the same shirt (I had mine on as well) and he got all excited and pointed. I hope he likes the Podcast too. He thought I was awesome. (He also had to check that he was wearing the shirt after he pointed at me, it was funny.)



-We saw the Rocketboys and they were so great! I'm glad that they were so great, because last year I thought they were "so great!" but I also just managed to remember that I thought their name (at the time: Homer Hiccomb and the Rocketboys) was just genius and "so great!" So I wasn't sure how biased I was because of liking the name. I mean, I bought the EP last year, but it got pushed into the mess of the 500 some odd CDs I have and I didn't remember what they sounded like...exactly. This year their name is not so long, it's just the rocketboys, and I loved them like ten times more! And I've listened to that EP a billion times since I've been home! (



Also, Why does good music not come out of wherever I live only places like Northern Ohio, Chicago, and various places in TX?)



-All the Day Holiday is one of my new favorite bands!! this is now one of the only Cincinnati bands that I legitimately enjoy (outside of like, The Turnbuill ACs, Pomegranates, and you know Over the Rhine) I bought their full length release "The Things we've grown to love" and I adore it! See, I had had their EP already (I bought last year, but I happen to buy it the same day as the LAKES ep, and very few things can compete with Seth Roberts, and I have played the scum out of that one, the Lakes one.) But it too had gotten shuffled somewhere in my CD abyss and never on my ipod, and so, yeah. Also, honestly, when I bought the CD from them last year, I didn't think they were all that nice, so that totally morphed my opinion of their music, maybe even unbeknownst to me at the time. But I put them on the list of things we should see this year (we missed their first show, because I was like "Ah, they're okay, let's go eat some food instead and see them on thursday!" and I"m pretty made that I did that!) they were so great! I'm kind of mad that they're great, and we had to go to Cornerstone to see them and realize this. I mean, they've played tons and tons of Madison Theater, Mad-freaking-hatter, and Southgate shows in the past year that I totally would've loved to go to! Oh well, now that I'm moving to Kansas City I know. Anyhow, we are seeing them next week. I'm excited about it.



-We managed to watch Copeland, but there was like 104095830495982734982374 people there and we couldn't see anything! They were good though. They are so popular at Cornerstone!

But it all worked out, because they ended up playing at the 'hatter the other day and we went and saw them (and paid 15 bucks, at the 'hatter, they better have been awesome...) and they were really great! Really great!



-There were (estimation) about ... 15,000 generator stages. This is great a terrible. Great for the bands. Terrible for my untrained ears of good hardcore, screamo, metal, ect. Though, mostly, what I remember is that whenever we walked past the "Arkansas" stage, there was a dude there with an EPIC beard. And I was fascinated by that.



-We kept seeing this guy with Ira Glass type eye glasses, and we called him "Ira Glasses"; what we didn't realize til afterwards when we saw a picture of him on the Cornerstone website was that he was really weird looking.



-RK, Deas Vail, House of Heroes, ...we saw a lot of good/fun/nostalgia inducing bands, it's hard to remember my exact feelings about them. But I can say that they are all good and happy and warm and grateful feelings to be sure; towards all the bands we saw, everyone was so good! Ones I've mentioned and ones I've forgotton to mention. I can't say anything even a little not positive about any of the bands I've seen---even if I didn't love all of them a whole whole lote personally. The love that I feel when I go to Cornerstone kind of crushes my music snobbery; although, sorry, I still don't like Family Force 5...



-Rosie Thomas!! Oh mee oh my!! I saw Rosie TT! She is a doll, truly one of my favoritest shows ever!! I had a smile on my face the ENTIRE time! She is delightful, just like I had hoped. She played "Much Farther to Go" and lots of other songs that I love a whole lot (but I love "Much Farther to Go" the most, therefore the most important that she played.) She kind of knocks off one of the names of my absolute favorites I need see live, making the ones I've seen thus far: Ryan Adams (I need to see him alone though, not with the Cardinals,) Andrew Bird, Over the Rhine (oh man, fourth row at the at home for Christmas show, oh ohoh.) MewithoutYou (which more on that soon,) Sixpence.... Now I just need to see a proper Sufjan show, Erlend Oye (or KoC) and Belle and Sebastian. Then my life as of right now will be complete. Anyway, I love Rosie so much! She tells the funnest of stories and is hilarious, and her voice is beautiful, and I love her. Haha.



-Oh, MewithoutYou. Oh Aaron Weiss. Oh, you guuuuyyyyyysss. I loved it. I wish it could've been longer. I got a tshirt though :) and I waited a long long time to get it. Haha, it was well worth it though.

I don't have a lot of words for it. I loved it. Looooved it.



-Last bullet: Now Kaylee and I can sing the entire "I'm on a boat" (censored version, naturally) from start to finish with no musical prompt of accompaniment whatsoever. Why? Because we are...great. We are great.



that mostly was Cornerstone.

"My Summer"

It hasn't exactly ended or anything, but it feels like it should be very close to ending, so there you go.
Mostly what I've done this summer has been to go to Cornerstone, which was a lot, considering.
That and I've worked my butt off for no reward at Starbucks.

Here's the thing about starbucks: I don't hate it, I don't even really dislike it; I usually laugh when I'm at work, at least once, and it doesn't go quite as long or feel quite as terrible as it did when I worked at places like Scheban or Macy's. But I don't like it. I don't feel like I'm leaving any friendships that would've been fruitful and come to anything. Don't get me wrong, I like the people I work with okay, we are generally friendly and friends on facebook and the whole nine yards as far as aquaintances go, but I wouldn't hang out with them outside of work.
Lydia, I like, she is sweet and we enjoy each other. But, the problem is that we get yelled at because we talk to much, and don't do productive things in our downtime. That's what I don't really like about Starbucks, and this is most likely because of the opposite feeling of the beanery. They like you to have fun and be comfortable at work, as long as you follow a lot of guidelines, and don't talk much. I understand being productive, but they're such funsuckers. They suck out the fun.
Also, I don't really fit in with them. I know this is the story of my life, blah blah, I wish people would talk to me, blah blah, I tell stories and people walk away before I am done, blah blah; even I am sick of my complaining like this. But it's different, and I"m okay with this difference, and it's this: the people I know at starbucks (from before starbucks) are living lives they weren't raised to live; they were raised on Jesus and loving others and being moral. They are not bad people, but they aren't living like that. I'm not trying to say I'm perfect, in fact that's the difference, I am not okay with that sort of lifestyle and I'm not okay with my own sins. Things that were forbidden are now what they live. It's just really strange to me.
Also-I don't drink, I don't mess around, I don't party, and I really don't even cuss that much.
That's whywe're different and I don't fit it.
And that's okay.
All to say, I just haven't made any friends I'll take out of work.
But, I've made over a thousand dollars, so there you go.

Good job.

Look up into the sky, love. See that moon shine, so high up above us.

I'm moving in ... twenty six days. And that's not a terribly long time.
I want to stretch on and on, and somehow never end; but I also want it to be finished as soon as possible because I do not enjoy waiting.
My last day at starbucks is August the 5th.
My last day in Florence is August the 8th (my dead dog's 12th birthday, if she weren't dead.)
I'd like to see you all,
I'd like to laugh, and spend time, and carry on, and talk about music and movies.
It would be fun.
But, hell.
It's not like I'm dying or anything. I'll be home at Christmas, just like everyone else.
That's the most refreshing thing..."just-like-every-one-else".... :)