At 9am my daughter, her friend and I walked up to the already serpentine line at Cactus music in Houston. My number 1 goal being to come home with The Dresden Dolls 3 record set, The Virginia Monologues.
By 10:15 we were getting squirrelly and the humidity was taking over the formerly pleasant air. The guy in front of my daughter asked to borrow a pen and within minutes it sparked conversation with little clumps of the people around us. 8 of us, men, women, kids from 15-44 who moments before were strangers were chatting about South Park, Theater and of course music.
That’s when I met Jessie. I asked her what her number 1 hope to find was- she responded The Dresden Dolls. We loved the coincidence as there were so many items available it seemed like random happenstance that we were in the line of 100’s right next to each other. I told Jessie that just a few days prior to Record Store Day I was in Austin and got to see Amanda Palmer (of The Dresden Dolls) in concert. GUESS WHAT- Jessie was there too! She and her boyfriend took a bus to Austin just to see the show. We talked about how moving the show was, how much we loved the song Delilah and the cover of Kimya Dawson and how we both ended up crying.
We wove in and out of laughs and topics and then, somehow, she happened to mention that her birthday is on July 10. WHAT?! That’s my birthday too! Crazy, crazy. She works in art- I love art. I work in books- she loves books.
A couple of hours later we made it to the front of the line and VICTORIOUS! We both got a copy of the album and had a great connection with a stranger. Even if we never meet again it’s just nice for me to know that women like Jessie are rocking their lives, being real and wonderful and that even though we are generations of age away from each other- and she’s from Colorado and I’m from Chicago, we found a few moments of sisterhood right here in Houston.
HipMamaJenn 