First of all, if any of you have not been to Sam Weller's, I highly recommend it. It's the awesome-est (Yes, I like to make up my own words) book store in Utah! It's downtown right on Main St. west of the Gallivan Plaza. And you don't have to be a nerd like me to enjoy it - it's very cool and it kinda reminds me of the little shop around the corner on "You've Got Mail"...but bigger.
Anywho, so my friend Jessica and I decided to go to this poetry open-mic night that they had going on last Friday. It was called "Cringe" because the theme was we were supposed to bring stuff we had written in the past that makes us cringe when we read it now - so stuff like old journal entries from our awkward adolescent stage of life, or lame poems/songs we had written when we were younger...hilarious stuff like that. I was just excited to hear what other people were going to read, so I didn't bring anything of mine. And plus, I still don't feel very mature myself, so I'm sure I STILL write embarassing stuff in my journal! And as you can see from my latest poem ("Family"), I still gots to work on those poem-writin' skillz too.
As we all know, if you really want to meet some eccentric and odd-ball people, spend some time downtown. Appropriately, there were many of these peculiar people at the open-mic at Sam Weller's that night. The first man to stand up was probably the oldest one there, he had googley eye glasses and I think he was holding some sort of hiking stick (kind of like Gandalf on Lord of the Rings...I was waiting for him to say, "YOU SHALL NOT PAAASSS!"). He read about 3 poems that he'd written when he was younger, and after reading each poem, he would pretend he was "cringing"...but the way he did it, he looked rather like he was having a seizure. He was a very awkward character. It was freakin hilarious. I can't tell you how many times Jess and I looked at each other and just laughed. This one girl got up, and read a past journal entry where she talked about how she went to a cocaine party...and then she went to some other party...but it was boring, so she went back to the cocaine party...and there was an old man who was trying to put the moves on her at the party and she said, in her exact words, "G stands for g g g gross!" And then her and her friends started dancing...and she was "dancing like a robot with a fresh battery". That was my favorite line of the entire open-mic session! She had a lot of funny lines in this journal entry of hers..I wish I could remember more. I'm sad that she was doing drugs, cuz drugs are bad, but she had a very funny sense of humor. Another girl got up and read some stuff she had written when she used to have an eating disorder...that was interesting. Another old man got up and read some poems/songs he had written - some he said he had written while he was in jail haha. One of the more memorable ones was this guy who got up and read journal entries supposedly from high school (which Jessica and I decided was totally a lie because the way he read it made it sound like it happened a while ago). Apparently he had a major crush on his gym teacher (who was a male) and he would have weird fantasies about him (which he explained in detail), and he wrote a letter to his teacher telling him he wanted to ride naked with him on a horse...I don't care if you're gay/straight, teacher/student...that's just creepy in and of itself! And I guess he had a best friend (who was also male) and they ended up hooking up...awkward. And then as he was reading all of this, he started crying! It was so weird and uncomfortable...everyone's face in the audience was just like "uhhmm....." I don't think he really understood what the theme of the night was - we were supposed to read kinda more silly stuff that just makes us chuckle because of how stupid it is. We were NOT supposed to read self-confessions of our most deepest, darkest desires or whatever. He obviously had some issues - I think he actually mentioned that he used to go to therapy - hopefully he still goes.
Well those were probably the most interesting ones we heard...when I got home, I tried to look for old journals of mine, and I finally found one from 3rd grade. I was so funny! What happened? haha but in conclusion, if you haven't read old journals in a long time, I would recommend trying to find one and reading some entries...it's really fun! And I would also recommend going to Sam Weller's sometime, and also to an open-mic poetry night, whether if it's at sam weller's or somewhere else...it's quite the adventure. :)
