awesome and I’m still kindaimpressed with myself that I even did that, and that’s all I want to think about right now: how I’m a songwriter and also rocking these crossover steps samurai-style.
Radio Silence
Class knocks me out but it feels good. Everyone seems happy it’s over but also satisfied. I feel like I’ll be sore, and Sergeant Mike is always telling us that we can do this stuff at home during the week to keep our muscles engaged, but I don’t really get to it very often. Still, I improve a little each week, land one or two more BOSU jumps or do a few more mountain climbers or crunches, and that’s how you win the war, step by step, hill by hill.
After lunch, which includes me telling my parents that the wish list assignment is almost done even though I haven’t touched it, I go upstairs and load up
Liberation Force
. I log on and search for Keenan but he’s not online. I check my phone to see if he’s texted back from last night but he hasn’t. It’s weird for Keenan to go radio-silent for this long. Maybe he got in trouble or something. It’s starting to bother me not to know what he thought of the song, and also about what happened at Vera and if he saw Valerie.
The more time goes by, the more I get a little nervous. Maybe he thought the song was stupid. And he’d better not show it to Skye or he’s
dead
.
I send him another message:
whats up with u?
Then I get back to
LF
where I am on Level 19 and it’s the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944, and we are trying to cut off the German supply lines in the snow and cold and the afternoon goes by. I play until dark, but I don’t hear from Keenan.
After dinner, there’s still no word. I think about getting out Merle and working on the song some more, maybe finding some high notes to record as a second guitar track that could kind of float in space above the main riff, but I don’t. I’m tapped out or something. It’s like there’s no music left in me.
Instead I sit on the couch while Erica is watching that same princess movie again.
I have my notebook and
Feed
with me, and after a while I actually read the chapter to see how it works, and then do the stupid wish list.
Definitive List of Things I Want to Do (For Real)
1. Go to New York City with Keenan and our band. We will be in a basement club with the concrete walls painted red and there won’t be a stage except for the cracked cement floor that’s rubbery with old gum and stains. The lights will be on us and we will be rocking, and I won’t beoff to the side just playing guitar while someone else sings—it will be me in the middle. And I will be under one of those blue kinds of spotlights they always use just for the singer, and it will feel like the most natural thing ever. We will slam the chords to the Flying Aces section, and I will scream out my words as sweat drips down my face, the guitar wailing, my voice warped and spun and folded by the cool effects that the soundman with the tattooed arms and like thirty piercings will be adding, and the crowd will be in a frenzy, pumping their fists to the rebel refrain, and it will be everything and all and now.
2. Own a Lamborghini. (I wasn’t kidding, Ms. Rosaz.)
3. Can we go to Antarctica? Like on a converted Soviet icebreaker, and see the ice and the southern stars and then set up and shoot a music video there, like a whole thing about a yeti? And when the skeptical director points out that the yeti is actually from Nepal, we will explain that, duh , we know. The backstory of our vision is that a yeti was brought to the South Pole by the Nazis as part of a secret supersoldier testing program, and in the video, Keenan will play the part of a ruthless doctor, and Valerie will be the prison guard who takes pity on me, and of course in the end we’ll savethe yeti too. And also have a killer snowboard chase sequence.
4. Complete a half triathlon, where you run and swim and bike but not as much as a real triathlon where you end up
Radio Silence
Class knocks me out but it feels good. Everyone seems happy it’s over but also satisfied. I feel like I’ll be sore, and Sergeant Mike is always telling us that we can do this stuff at home during the week to keep our muscles engaged, but I don’t really get to it very often. Still, I improve a little each week, land one or two more BOSU jumps or do a few more mountain climbers or crunches, and that’s how you win the war, step by step, hill by hill.
After lunch, which includes me telling my parents that the wish list assignment is almost done even though I haven’t touched it, I go upstairs and load up
Liberation Force
. I log on and search for Keenan but he’s not online. I check my phone to see if he’s texted back from last night but he hasn’t. It’s weird for Keenan to go radio-silent for this long. Maybe he got in trouble or something. It’s starting to bother me not to know what he thought of the song, and also about what happened at Vera and if he saw Valerie.
The more time goes by, the more I get a little nervous. Maybe he thought the song was stupid. And he’d better not show it to Skye or he’s
dead
.
I send him another message:
whats up with u?
Then I get back to
LF
where I am on Level 19 and it’s the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944, and we are trying to cut off the German supply lines in the snow and cold and the afternoon goes by. I play until dark, but I don’t hear from Keenan.
After dinner, there’s still no word. I think about getting out Merle and working on the song some more, maybe finding some high notes to record as a second guitar track that could kind of float in space above the main riff, but I don’t. I’m tapped out or something. It’s like there’s no music left in me.
Instead I sit on the couch while Erica is watching that same princess movie again.
I have my notebook and
Feed
with me, and after a while I actually read the chapter to see how it works, and then do the stupid wish list.
Definitive List of Things I Want to Do (For Real)
1. Go to New York City with Keenan and our band. We will be in a basement club with the concrete walls painted red and there won’t be a stage except for the cracked cement floor that’s rubbery with old gum and stains. The lights will be on us and we will be rocking, and I won’t beoff to the side just playing guitar while someone else sings—it will be me in the middle. And I will be under one of those blue kinds of spotlights they always use just for the singer, and it will feel like the most natural thing ever. We will slam the chords to the Flying Aces section, and I will scream out my words as sweat drips down my face, the guitar wailing, my voice warped and spun and folded by the cool effects that the soundman with the tattooed arms and like thirty piercings will be adding, and the crowd will be in a frenzy, pumping their fists to the rebel refrain, and it will be everything and all and now.
2. Own a Lamborghini. (I wasn’t kidding, Ms. Rosaz.)
3. Can we go to Antarctica? Like on a converted Soviet icebreaker, and see the ice and the southern stars and then set up and shoot a music video there, like a whole thing about a yeti? And when the skeptical director points out that the yeti is actually from Nepal, we will explain that, duh , we know. The backstory of our vision is that a yeti was brought to the South Pole by the Nazis as part of a secret supersoldier testing program, and in the video, Keenan will play the part of a ruthless doctor, and Valerie will be the prison guard who takes pity on me, and of course in the end we’ll savethe yeti too. And also have a killer snowboard chase sequence.
4. Complete a half triathlon, where you run and swim and bike but not as much as a real triathlon where you end up
Similar Books
