I have never seen so many hyperventilating, screaming 15-year-old girls dressed in black in one place before; it was quite a sight! I had the honor of attending the Gerard Way (the dude from My Chemical Romance) in-store yesterday at the Newbury Street store. Mr. Way has written a comic book and was there to promote it… but I don’t think that it was comic book fans who came to see him. I think Gerard Way is the new Trent Reznor– black-clad troubled teenagers find a soulmate in Mr. Way when they hear lyrics like this:

A world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams
Your misery and hate will kill us all
So paint it black and take it back
Let’s shout it loud and clear
Defiant to the end we hear the call

From my perspective, though, the whole show was highly entertaining. A seemingly endless Black Parade (ha ha I’m so witty) of highly pierced, black hair-dyed, hyper eyelinered girls (and a few guys) excitedly filed past my register, some with their parents taking charge “ABBY, remember to stand on the LEFT side of the table so I can get a better picture. NO, YOU stand in line while I go buy another comic book.” All of them looked like nice suburban kids with indulgent parents who let them skip school to come into The City to breathe the same air that Gerard Way breathed for a moment. Girls were crying, hyperventilating (I kid you not), screaming, on the verge of fainting–it was like the Beatles had descended upon a funeral full of zombie-wannabes.

I got to meet Gerard Way himself, and he seemed like a super-duper nice guy. He was actually really sweet; Erin from Harvard and I got a picture:

He seemed pretty down-to-earth, even requesting some music be put on in the store and asking for… get ready… Oasis. For some reason, that made me like him even more–Oasis is probably the last thing that you would expect from the new King of Moping, I guess I had him figured for requesting The Misfits or maybe even ‘Carmina Burana.’ I also got a comic book signed for Lil Bitch, who idolizes Gerry to the point of wanting to *be* him… but he had already started writing my name (I was wearing the store name tag) before I could ask him to make it out to Robin. Oops!

And, to have started the day on an awesome note, I GOT MY CAR REGISTERED AGAIN!!! It was freaking awesome. I spent a grand total of 20 minutes in the RMV (what they call the DMV in these here parts). I had rationed 3 hours of the day for this event, and so had all this time to kill downtown. It was a gorgeous day, too.

After I got home from work, Saki came over and I DROVE us to get some dinner. I haven’t driven a car in… I don’t know, 3 months? It seems longer than that. I guess I’m a hick at heart. I really like the mobility of having a car. I like being able to leave town on a moment’s notice. I like being able to go to the grocery store and pick up a giant box of kitty litter AND 2 bottles of juice AND a sack of potatoes. Now to get that fucker inspected… I decided that I’m not going to try to put the light back on myself; it will just cause me more angst and agitation. I will pay someone with the proper tools to do it. It seems like giving in, selling out, “cutting and running” as our illustrious president would say, but I just want this stupid car inspected!

I’m off to Ithaca and Rochester for 5 days now–I’m going to help Moth clean out Grandfather’s house. I hope I don’t find anymore desiccated mouse skeletons. I think I might want to invest in a dust mask as 20 years of dust might be more than my little lungs want to take!