I am not sure how long this will turn out to be but I genuinely feel that every word that I will say does need to be said so please bear with me for as long as you can.

I received a call from my mom while I was at work. She left a voicemail. I didn't recognize the number that had shown but she told me that she hopes I get her message after my shift and will call her after 10:30pm. Well Erica and I worked second shift. The third shift worker didn't want to come in until first shift so they switched. This would leave her alone until 6am and there are a couple hours without customers. Our boss said that the doors can be locked from 1am til 4am. So I stayed off the clock until she could lock the door because her ex who was just recently released from jail is stalking/harassing her. So I didn't get home until 1am but I listened to the voicemail to get the number that she left for me to reach her at.

Now at first her voicemail sounded fine and I wouldn't have thought anything was wrong except for the way that she expressed that she really wanted me to call her. Normally, because she knows how busy and weird my schedules are with everything I've got going on, she'll just tell me to get back to her when I can. But it was obvious that she needed to hear from me A.S.A.P.. But she seemed to lose composure a little more as it went on. She informed me that she was spending a few nights at a motor lodge back in my hometown. I thought that just maybe she and her boyfriend Rob had had a little spat which happens from time-to-time but then usually one of them will go to the bar for a bit just let it chill. It was always stupid stuff and went away as quickly as it had started. I figured that maybe she needed me to drive down there to take her to the store or something and then she'd be going back. Even though that seemed to be very unusual that's what came to mind.

I couldn't believe what she fucking told me. Rob had passed away on July 4th. While my main concern had been the time-and-a-half I was getting for holiday pay...the other light in my mom's life had flickered out. They believe that it was a heartattack. I feel horrible for forgetting his exact age but I believe he was only in his early-to-mid forties. So sudden.

I didn't ask for details about whether it was in his sleep or if he was awake for it. Since they aren't positive of the cause I'd assume that it was in his sleep. I didn't, no could I ask my mom how it happened. I worry that she made the discovery. Please don't get me wrong...even when your loved one is terminally ill and you are certain that they won't be able to hang on much longer...it's incredibly difficult to accept. But I think that the shock..the sudden out-of-the-blueness of trying to wake your loved one up in the morning after both having gone to sleep like every other night. Not knowing that a single thing is wrong or anything horrible is going to happen. And to discover that. I am sure that I'll get the details eventually. There's no way I could ask more right now.

Chad and I were going to the pub that we frequent on the nights that we both have off and since I stayed at work late he left me a message that he'd gone down and bought us a pitcher of beer while he waited. I called my mom from the house and kept talking as I walked down. And I paced outside the pub as we talked some more. I will get into what we discussed later but she let me go. She sounded relatively well in all of this.

As much as I miss him and feel horrible...I am so scared for my mom. I know what he meant to her. Aside from me...everything! And she is on disability for debilitating depression and this is what worries me. My Uncle Larry and Aunt Debbie paid for her to stay at a hotel for three nights because she couldn't bear to be alone there right now. And what's worse..for some reason they've declared his house to be uninhabitable and she'll probably have about a month to find another place to live. Her therapist has a few options but none of them are all that great. I will see what i can do to help. But in my very, very few days off during this month (because I'll be working a ton of double shifts to cover 2 one-week long vacations and one two-week long vacation) I will go down there and help her go through things. See what's getting donated. What I should take. And we may get a larger storage space than we were going to and she said she'd give us some money as my idea would save her from having to pay for a whole one. There are some music related things she is sure that he'd want me to have because of our shared love and passion for music and he supported our cause and she believes that he'd appreciate the idea that atleast it was going to help us somehow.

That is what worries me most right now.

We are dedicating our show on July 27th to him. My mom is going to buy him a small flower arrangement because every ceremony should have some flowers even though he wasn't much of a flower guy. But everyone else can send money in lieu of flowers and as of now they will donate the money to the American Heart Association if they do rule it as a heartattack officially. I am thinking that we can put out a guitar case and people can just drop in whatever they can in his memory. And if they didn't know him then atleast they can think of the countless number of other people that they can help save with the money. And anything given will be added to the donation made to the AHA in his name.

I'm sorry. I'm drained from this right now and I have a decent length list to get done today so I should get going. Pray for a passed on soul. And please pray for my mom. If anything happens to her....

I guess I don't need to complete that as I can't imagine what it would be like right now so your guess would be as good as mine and just as likely to be correct.

I hope everyone has a great day and it's the start of an even better weekend.
Thank you for spending these few minutes (or however long it took you to read this) with me. I appreciate it greatly.

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Happy Independence Day to those in the USA!
I should be asleep now but I can't do it. I got an e-mail from the promoter of our show on July 27th stating that he can't find a band to open for us and asked again if we had the equipment to play the show. My e-mail to him told him that there was equipment that we needed. I have done a desperate search and even asked some bands that perhaps we wouldn't want opening for us otherwise. Just don't want him to cancel the show.

It sucks that we do not currently have the money to afford a PA system, microphones and an amp/head/cabinet for Chad to use. Alls we want to do is play for people. They genuinely seem to love our live show and our music. My mom told me last week that even thought it's been 5 weeks, we played only 6 songs and it was an open mic that people have been asking when we'd be back. Half of the staff (that were onhand to see us play and even those that weren't but have heard the raves from those that were there) want us to play there again. Which we will. I am not going to brag about our music and live show much more tonight but the point is that people seem to really want to see us play but we just don't have the equipment.

Please feel free to click the "launch mp3 player" button to the left and a new window will pop up and play the three songs from our brand new demo with the new lineup. Please feel more than free to share your opinions on what's going on. These aren't our best songs that we have right now but they were the ones that we were most prepared to record at the time. Thanks.

Other than that I am exhausted from work. Ive almost hit my 40 hours for the week in three days of work. And because I get holiday pay during my shift later today I am going to get about 12+ hours of overtime this week. But the money has to go to my speeding and parking tickets. I never get either. But I have one of each. And with all of the vacations coming up (for everyone but Chad and myself) we're going to be nailed with hours. The money will be very good although there are more than enough places that the money will have to go so that we'll never see any of it really.

Damn. I've other stuff to post but it won't be as positive as perhaps it should be because when I get this exhausted, everything is painted over with a glaze of doom. Hopefully these things will work out and I can report on them in a better light/mood.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I'm off to attempt sleeping again.
Good night.

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