What I learned at RiotFest

Yet another non-parenting related blog post for my "parenting blog"...

Joey and I spent the weekend in Chicago for Riotfest. It was amazing. I haven't been to many concerts in my life let alone a three day music festival packed with some of my all time favorite bands. Some of the highlights for my weekend included Motion City Soundtrack, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory, and seeing a few new bands that I am now in love with including The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and City and Colour.

Motion City Soundtrack. This was probably the highlight of my whole weekend.

GWAR. Scary metal band that sprays blood at you. I never thought I would get fake blood sprayed at me during a concert, and I definitely never thought it would come out of a fake set of boobs.

I learned a few new things this weekend, some about myself and some about my wonderful boyfriend. I've always heard that you learn about your significant other while traveling and I definitely did this weekend. I mostly learned a few new reasons why I love him. The main one being that when he gets frustrated he never lashes out on me but just apologizes for being stressed. At one point we were lost in an extremely terrifying part of Chicago late at night and while I was totally oblivious just trudging around hoping to find the bus soon, Joey was well aware of our situation and was silently freaking out. To clue you in on how bad the neighborhood was, a couple of our friends were also lost there and a cop stopped them and asked them if they knew where they were, telling them to head east and hop on a bus right away.

That might sound like a stupid reason to fall in love with your S.O. all over again but it just reminds me why I love having him around. Sometimes I forget that I'm only 23 (although I'm sure that he doesn't) and I'm much more impatient and high strung when I get stressed. For example, Thursday night I got so freaked out by the fact that a spider was in my car that I snapped at him for no reason when he asked me a simple question. I realized immediately that I was being an idiot and apologized because he had done nothing wrong, but right then I was thankful for the effect he's been having on me. He's much more calm and mature when it comes to things like that and it makes me stop and think about how I'm acting. The whole redhead temper stereotype exists for a reason and I for one and not happy about it. It's something I'll probably be working on my whole life.

It rained all day Friday -_-

I also appreciated how much he tried to take care of me this weekend. Bone spurs in my hip and severe muscle spasms led to a lot of intense pain after walking/standing all weekend. He was constantly rubbing my back while we were standing around waiting for bands to start, asking me if I took my meds, and even skipped out on some plans to take me back to the hotel so that I could rest/soak in a hot bath. He was so sweet and so concerned the entire time. It really meant a lot considering that most people would probably have been irritated or felt held back. I get so frustrated with my back/hip problems because I hate that at 23 years old I can't do things that I want to. I feel like I shouldn't be having these issues at my age but I do, and he is always there for me through it.

The last couple of things that I learned this weekend were that I would never want to live in a big city (I thought Charlotte was big but I was sadly mistaken) and that the manager of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones is my new hero. He manages this band and every show he dresses up with them, goes out on stage, and dances and jumps around the entire time with the biggest smile on his face. You can tell he really loves the music (and who doesn't love some good ska?) and he has no cares about jumping around on stage acting a fool and having a good time. It made my day watching him.