Who's Margo, she said, and Smiled in her Special Way...(my own take on El Debarge)

My router or my laptop still is buggered up. I am going to break something very soon, because it means I have to sit in the basement instead of the kitchen. But let's not talk about it...

Ok, so I bought Jann Arden tickets today, and I can't figure something out. I went to ticketmaster, and found my seats, and went to buy them, and then registered. However, it kept telling me I already had an account, which I don't remember doing. We just bought tickets for the Wiggles (yup, going to the Wiggles with the kids - Hot Potato, Hot Potato...) but Rachel got those, so maybe it only allows you one email address or house address or something. Then, I went to pay, and it only gave me the option of one card, which was completely strange. LOL, of course, I had to think "what the hell is my limit on that one" because that is what I put my laptop on, and yada yada yada). I thought maybe I had registered before, back when I bought RENT tickets, or Crosby, Stills, Nash tickets, but I am pretty sure that those were before Ticketmaster moved into Saskatchewan - TicketMaster is new here. I got my Annie Lennox ticket from someone else, so I dunno. BUT, ok, I'll get to the final point - I am reading the paper tonight, and see an add for Jann, and it says "Tickets go on sale Monday, 10:00 a.m." WTF?? I just checked my email, and sure enough, there is my confirmation, so I don't know what in the hell is going on. Why would tickets go on sale Monday?? Calgary is already sold out. And if they don't go on sale until Monday, why the fuck am I stuck in row M? Oh it doesn't matter, because Rach will probably be too close to her due date to travel or something, or it will blizzard, or something... And why are tickets on sale 6 months ahead of time? Anyway, stangeness....

So I have really enjoyed reading my friend Margo's blog the past couple days - she's really getting into it. In fact, being the addictive OCD type that we are, it's really no surprise. Since I am always talking about her, let me just tell you a little about our history. I met "Margo" in Sept. 1985, in the beginning of 10th grade, in our good old remedial Algebra class (she is going to be mad at me for mentioning we were in remedial Algebra - "Algebra 10 R" - while every other 10th grade person was walking around with "MATH IS...4" as their text, us remedial math folk would shamefully hide our bright yellow "Basic Algebra" textbooks in bookbags, under coats, in the trunks of cars, and under beds, like it was pornography or something (trust me, it wasn't - I might of been mighty hormonal as a teenager, but sadly, X and trains leaving two stations at the same time just couldn't quite do it for me). Anyway, we signed up for this class, which ran ALL year, and I ended up becoming friends with a couple of Margo's friends the first week of classes. However, Margo I never really talked to her until I got moved in front of her. Well, we started talking a bit, and Margo, myself, and our friends in common decided to go to this dance together. Margo was trying to be all cool because she had this homegrown pot plant (which I mentioned in an earlier post) and rolled this big joint in a cigarette roller, and I supplied a mixture of stolen booze from my folks in a couple of Ragu jars. Well, I am pretty sure this plant of Margo's was probably an air fern or something, and well, a couple half empty Ragu jars shared among 4 people really didn't do a whole lot for us, but we sure pretended we were as blitzed as Liza and Barishnikov at Studio 54 or something. Anyway, Margo and I hit it off somehow around then - never anything physical at all, just really good, comfortable friendship.
So that year, we began eating lunch together with a revolving door of freaks and geeks (literally - we were hard to classify), each day in Margo's old Nova. You see, Margo had moved to Saskatchewan to live with her Dad, who was really cool, and she drove this car all the time, even though she only had a learner's permit. So, we all just told our parents that Margo was a year older than us to explain why she drove, much to her chagrin - she still gets mad that my parents think she failed grade two or something. Anyway, we hung out in the Nova, chain-smoking, listening to Duran Duran (Margo lived and breathed Duran, and wanted to form a band based on them, and she was so in love with Nick Rhodes), or Motley Crue's Theatre of Pain (hated Crue, but it was her car, or, LOL, Corey Hart's Boy in the Box).
So Margo and I spent our all-important high school years constantly together - we were each other's one constant, I guess you would say. We didn't really like the same music, we each had some different friends, but we always connected. We both had a probably unhealthy appetite for booze, and would think nothing of jumping in her old Nova and drive 40 miles into the bush, piss-drunk, looking for a party, and thank the good Lord that we lived to tell.
Margo was always loyal - always. She took a lot of shit at times too. I remember once, being particularly drunk, and one of our friends was just destroying my house - oh man, she was just knocking things over, throwing things around, and Margo was cleaning up after her, but what did I do? I was barging around, yelling "MARGO, you are wrecking my fucking house!" and then stomping off to put our drunk friend to bed. I'll never forget that one. Or another time, I broke a beer bottle in our friend's mother's car, and so we cleaned it up and sprayed 1/2 a can of Glade Rose scented spray. When our friend's mother asked about the smell, we just told her it was Margo's new perfume, and of course Margo was mortified that our friend's mother thought she wore Glade as perfume.... Or the time we were on the highway and I was drinking, and we got stopped, so I threw my beer in Margo's lovely acid-wash denim purse and the cop was all "I smell beer" and I piped up "it's her purse, I spilled on it when we left the party." We got away with it, but her poor purse had to be washed with her next load of jeans. These are just a couple examples. We weathered some hard times too. It was just Margo and her Dad, and I know she was lonesome for the rest of her family at times. In grade 11, her house burned down. I was with her when she got the call, and we ran down to watch her house go up in flames. I remember Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" was on the radio as we went, and I couldn't listen to that song for years afterward. On, the plus side, Margo got to go on a huge spending spree after that when the insurance came in, but in typical Margo fashion, things went sort of wonky when she was forced to buy 30 new tapes at once, drew a blank, and came home with - this is hillarious - Bruce Willis' The Return of Bruno. LOLLLL, even Bruce can't pretend that album was any good.
She also performed the truest act of friendship - one night, whilst drinking, I somehow, and I say SOMEHOW because it happened too fast to notice, I inadvertently drank a 26 oz. bottle of Southern Comort in shots, in probably, I dunno, 20 mins? Don't ask why, because I don't know. Well, after a horribly embarassing time, that lasted an hour, I ended up in her bathroom, sitting on her toilet and puking in a bowl. Margo was holding my hand, and my head, and dumped the bowl into her sink... but there was kleenex in the sink... and it plugged... and she had to reach in and unplug it... If that isn't a true friend, I don't know what is!
So, the long and the short of it is, I have tons of Margo stories. Margo moved to be by her mother and to go to university when we were 20. It was her going away party where she was christened the nickname Margo Montana. I think the Margo came from me - I had this hard-on for Margo Timmons of the Cowboy Junkies, and Margo had this spiral perm that looked like Margo Timmons, so we just started calling her Margo - LOL, at least I think that's the story. On her going away party, we were drinking in a schoolyard after the bar closed, Margo, myself, and a couple others, and since she was reading Hollywood Wives at the time, with the character Montana in it, she named herself Margo Montana. Then we decided we were going to England next summer to "do the Duran Duran thing". I have no idea what that was, but hey, sounded like fun....
Anway, she moved away, and we still kept in touch, and during one visit, in I don't know, 95 or 96, on her last night in town, Margo and I went for coffee. She suggested we go to this lounge, so we could gamble and play VLT's. Well, we get there and she buys me a beer - and another - and another. So, I have this buzz on, and I think we are ready to leave, but she says to me "I have to tell you something...." and I immediately think she is dying or pregnant or something. Then she goes "I'm lebanese", a' la Ellen, and let me say, I was floored. I knew through the grapevine about a relationship she might have had when we were 17 with another woman, but it was all speculation and if it was true, I just thought maybe it was some drunken thing (I am telling you, we really DID drink a lot). But, here she was telling me she was gay. I was so honored that she chose me to be the first person to tell. It also made me relieved about her trip that she went on the past winter, where she went to visit "Mike", her internet "boyfriend" in L.A. I thought she was going to get murdered meeting some strange guy who had tons of money, but it turned out Mike was really Lana, who needed new kidneys and who was harmless. Also, it probably helped make sense of why we never had any romantic spark - we were friends, we were like siblings, but that's it. But it also symbolized how we can share anything with each other. We both, through much embarrassment, found out that we have each suffered panic attacks (don't think either of us has had one for a few years, knock wood, except when I go to the dentist). We have discussed our weight at length (we both yo-yo, and are both currently off the wagon in terms of diet), certain sexual acts (I made her a top 10 do's and don'ts which we still convulse in laughter whenever she finds it), and we both share an incredibly twisted, odd sense of humor, as well as a love for classic tv such as Facts of Life, One Day at a Time, and the Brady Bunch, and a love for John Hughes movies.
So, we still kept in touch with each other, and you know, I can't think of anyone else who I talk to as often as her, be it throw phone, email, or now through blogging. Rachel loves her to death too, and while I bitch and moan about so much trivial shit, I really am lucky to have the people in my life that I do. I am reminded of us, in grade 10, parked outside the donut shop, each drinking a bottle of apricot brandy, listening to "That's What Friends Are For", which was just released, and singing into our bottles. It became an anthem for us. I also think of her and I, having our hug good-bye the night she came out to me, both of us sorta drunk, in front of my house, Melissa's "Ain't it Heavy" playing in her car. Also, while Margo doesn't like Joni, I always think of her when I listen to "Good Friends" from Dog Eat Dog - "no hearts of gold, no nerves of steel, no blame for what we could or could not feel..... syncronized like magic, good friends you and me."
So that's Margo for ya - and Margo honey, don't get all sentimental on me - just thought since you comprise a part of the blog, enquiring minds need to know who the one neurotic sister is!
(www.oneneuroticsister.blogspot.com).
Well, hope that wasn't too boring, but sometimes you need a cast of characters. I guess I'll catch up on my blogs, and get my sorry ass to bed.
I hope everyone has a great Sunday,
xo
JT