where's win

I'm in between days, about to jump out of my skin. Despite how much I try to ignore it and no matter how spread thin I feel, this blog keeps calling and I eventually answer, for better or worse. I am underwater busy at work, which is a good thing at the end of the day, but also a bad thing when I mostly find myself dying for the Jackal's bedtime to show up. I can't be the only parent who occasionally just wants his kid to go to bed, right? At least I'm not spiking his juice with Benadryl, yet.

Okay, enough pissing and moaning. Life is a box of chocolates, at least this week. The Arcade Fire show at DAR Constitution Hall is looming large on the event horizon. The anticipation has been sizzling through my entire being for months. I've played the shit out of the new Neon Bible and the breakthrough Funeral the past month. The Jackal has not complained for a second; he just absorbs the whole wall of sound and giggles. To sweeten the pot, my best friend JT, CEO of a mental health facility in Middle-of-Nowhere, Ohio, is rolling in for the weekend. The sum of all these parts is one beautiful disaster. JT expects to get so old school, it might be decrepit school. I am so down with that.

As the variables line up and the weekend approaches, I find myself engaging in the familiar debate over which is better -- the anticipation and build-up to a major event or the experience of the actual event itself? At the peak of Friday night, I'll hit the pause button, soak everything in, and let it all wash over me like some spiritual tidal wave. When I press "play" again I still won't have resolved that debate, but that's not the point. The debate itself seems to mean I am alive and electric.

Last night I read a great review of Neon Bible in Paste. One quote from Win Butler, possibly my latest non-sexual man crush, on the topic of fear really grabbed me:

"There are two kinds of fear: The Bible talks a lot about fear of God -- fear in the face of something awesome. That kind of fear is the type of fear that makes someone want to change. But a fear of other people makes you want to stay the same, to protect what you have. It's a stagnant fear; and it's paralyzing."

I am still wrapping my mind around this idea, but I think I can identify with the concept of vacillating between two poles of angst or fear or whatever you want to call it. Or, maybe I am just romanticizing anything this cat might say because I'm excited about the show.

Possibly a review on the show to come next week, assuming there are sufficient words to convey and assuming the moral, physical, and emotional hangover doesn't spill over into Wednesday, which it just may.