KWH: 680

“I was never much good at goodbyes…” [Night Ranger]

Bah. Started crying as we watched the last video of the night (Gowan’s “The Good Catches Up”. For the third time.). I’m not good at enjoying things until the last minute, it seems; I start anticipating the ending too soon. I have that problem at Styx concerts: I go to enough of them that I know the order of songs. “Come Sail Away” starts and my heart sinks—last song before the encore, and then it’ll be over.

I was up until about 3 a.m. yesterday, so I set the alarm and slept until 11, when I woke up Sarah (who went to bed after taking Fiona to school). We went to Chili’s for lunch, then to the beach to wander along the sand and look at the waves churned up by Tropical Storm Gustav. We stopped at a memorabilia store afterwards, where I looked for Dawn stuff (there’s a trade paperback of the whole series of The Return of the Goddess, plus I want an action figure) and mis-remembered the date of the Playboy with Tommy Shaw’s ex-wife in it (I thought it was Oct. ’96, but it was ’95. Drat!). We picked up Fiona after that, then after she went to bed, watched videos—Damn Yankees, Arch Allies, and Gowan (yet again. Obsession will do that to a person.).

Now I don’t want to try and sleep, because I think I’ll just be sad. It’s strange: I was so happy to be coming here but so stressed about stuff I wanted to accomplish beforehand that I didn’t, and now I couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about all that stuff. I don’t want to return to reality. I don’t want to say goodbye—yet again—to Sarah, whom I’ve known for 23 years and who in some ways knows me better than anyone else.