the last night of seu jacinto

Tonight was possibly the last night of Seu Jacinto. Lula will be returning to Brazil shortly, and he may never come back to The States. Without him, Seu Jacinto is . . . well, not dead exactly, but less lively. I've heard that he is their heart. Without him, things may simply stop pumping.

My face is little numb from all the beer I drank tonight. (Which wasn't much, really. I'm a light drinker.) The only reason I mention that is because I just stroked my face, and--well, there's not a lot of feeling. It's kind of neat, having a numb face. Maybe I should get drunk more often.

Anyway, off top.

The story here revolves around Seu Jacinto. (I hope I'm spelling that correctly.) Lauren kept emphasizing that "This could be our last show!" And so I had to go, because I like their music and needed to say goodbye. And, I had to be there as a friend. Well, maybe "had to" is too strong in both cases. What I'm really trying to say is that it would have been nice if I showed up, so I did.

Josh was on the fence, and at the last minute he decided not, too. In response, I did something interesting. (Or, maybe not "interesting"--but uncharacteristic.) The two of them have been on the rocks recently. Not horribly so, but noticably. And as soon as they move their seperate ways, I suspect they'll go their seperate ways, too. Lauren is aware of this, at least unconsciously, and I think a lot of her anger towards Josh is derived from a fear of losing his friendship. Even though she gets mad about him for "taking advantage of the warehouse," she wouldn't get mad at me for the same things. And it's because she's not really, entirely mad about what he's doing to this space. She's frustrated to see a close friend drift away, and these instances are where they come out.

I suspect this has been happening, in some ways, throughout her life. That's she's dealt with unfair rejection again and again, starting in middle school on account of something as arbitrary as her being Jewish. Her response has been agression. She fights back, because that's what she learned at that point in her life. Unfortunately, it's one of those defense mechanisms that estranges people even further, pushing loved ones away even as she wants to cling to them.

Josh, for his part, seems to drift from friend to friend. Why is that? I suspect she's still somebody important to him, but that it's become too much of a hassle and he's not sure what to do, so he's just going to abandon the friendship. Or something like that. I think he still cares. They both still care. But he responds to stress by backing away and she responds by pushing, and it's just leading to the two of them getting more and more distant.

So, anyway, today I did something uncharacteristic. I made an intervention. A little intervention. But one that I believed was the right choice. When Josh said he wouldn't go, I told him that, "Lauren would really like it if you were there." And then I even offered to pay the cover. And in the next moment he was getting his shoes. And we were riding our bikes, and we were there.

After the show, she gave him such a hug. I was even a little bit jealous. But it clearly did matter to her, and she definitely did really like it that he was there. So maybe I helped things out between them. Maybe I helped Josh show that he still really cared about her. I don't know. I was told never to touch a butterfly coming out of its cocoon. I was told not to interfer with things, because I'll only make matters worse. But maybe this was the right choice.