The Warren

I took my sister to her first local show tonight. It was actually my first show this summer, which felt kind of funny because there was a show probably every weekend last summer. Things this year are different, but not in a bad way. Maybe it would feel too much, to have a summer again just like last year. Anyway, I took Claire to her first one tonight. She's 14, and I think I was around her age when I went to my first show. I didn't really get into the local scene until the last year and a half or so, but I had at least been to a few shows before then. I love the fact that local shows exist, that you can go hang out in some guy's hot basement with a bunch of your friends and listen to someone who's almost-good on guitar and who can almost-sing lead his band that can play almost-well and just have a great fucking time. Sometimes my life feels like an indie movie, I'm that hipster-ish girl who lives in the small, quaint town, hanging out downtown and going to diners in the middle of the night and watching local bands play crappy shows. I love it. I love being able to go between the city and my hometown, I love when my life is interesting. But it wasn't always interesting. I didn't start "figuring out my life" until I was about 16. I didn't know who my friends really were, I didn't have any sense of personal style, I didn't know how to wear my makeup. I just really didn't know what was going on at all. That's ok though, you're really not supposed to know what's going on when you're only 16. That's just when you start figuring it out. It doesn't have to be that way when you're the younger sibling though. That's what I'm here for, I guess, paving the way for my younger sister. Helping her figure out what clothes flatter her body type, what makeup she should use to go with her Irish ginger looks, letting her try out words like "fuck" and "shit" when she gets angry. I took her to a show tonight partly because we were hanging out anyway and that's where my friends were, but I really just wanted to get her out there, hold her hand in the deep water where I had to jump in alone. I wanted to help her start figuring things out, where she wants to hang out, who she wants to be friends with, what kind of "scene" does she want to immerse herself in.

I don't even completely know where I'm going with this, and I feel like this post is a little bit all over the place, but it's late and I just painted my nails and I'm going to an amusement park tomorrow so I don't care.