May 7th

Much as I love touring, sometimes it's annoying to be round all these fucking people. Sometimes when somebody gets a bad mood it's just a bad mood, but sometimes it's a plague and it spreads. We're having one of those times when the whole crew just seems to be suffering from PMS and it's a real fucking downer. Unfortunately it's a problem I can't drink or party away; when I'm pissed off, I'm a pissed off drunk which is counter productive. The idea is to improve the situation, not make it worse.

It's not just other people. Somebody told Allie about that whole kissing thing and now she's not taking my calls. Much to my surprise, she didn't bat an eyelid at the incident itself. Whoever told her seems to have managed to think of a way to explain it in context without making it sound like a lame excuse, which is more than I could manage so my hat's off to 'em whoever it was. She's doing that whole female thing whereby "it's not what you did it's that you didn't tell me." She swears if I had told her she would have just laughed - I think that's a steaming pile of bullshit right there, but I wasn't going to make that point when she was already pissed at me. Might as well try and put out a fire with gasoline.

Sigh. Normally when everybody around me is pissy I call my girlfriend and she makes me feel better. Guess that's out of the question. I hear it's hard to talk to somebody who won't answer your calls.

Uncharacteristically, Justin stood by himself at the edge of the set. Normally he was surrounded by people wherever he wandered, never short on conversation. Today however the whole set was eerily silent, every tap of a hammer or practised guitar riff echoing around the arena. People shuffled listlessly about their work, grim and pinched expressions on their faces. Maybe it was the grind of the tour weighing on them. They could be homesick - or actually sick, the local food was not great. Maybe this was the low before they hit their second wind. Whatever was causing it, most of his crew looked like the last place they wanted to be.

Justin, if he was honest, wanted to be home himself. Allie could never resist him in person but over the phone he was much easier to ignore. His dogged persistence was for once not availing him; he dreaded to think what she might have done with the expensive bouquets he had been sending. How could she have not talked to him for four whole days? If she kept this up it was going to be a week.

Too lethargic to pick his feet up properly, his sneakers squeaked as he shuffled over to the sound desk and perched himself in the empty chair next to Luca.

"Hey," was Luca's monotone greeting. It was delivered without even a single glance up.

"Hey. What was with the reverb last night?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

It was funny, but Justin tended to seek out Luca's company in times when he was feeling anti social. He along with the rest of the crew had participated in making fun of that self same quality, but at times like this he appreciated Luca's stoicism. Sometimes he didn't want to do unnecessary small talk.

"I'm starting to think it's just the sound system here," Luca said as he pushed his long hair back behind his ears. Justin somewhat envied Luca his hair - the girls went nuts for it, but with his curly hair if he attempted to grow it that long it would look like the best poodle perm the 1970s had to offer. "The levels are good, Kevin's been running everything for me and none of us can figure it out."

Justin frowned. It was yet another thing he didn't need to be wrong. "Can we at least get it down to a bearable minimum?"

"I'm trying, but without working out what exactly it's doing it's hard." His slim shoulders gave a shrug - he wasn't a heavily built man. "I'm getting closer though."

"Good."

For a few minutes, the conversation ceased. Luca was intent on his work and Justin merely folded his arms and slouched back grumpily in his chair. Most people would feel the need to break the silence or acknowledge the clear grumpiness, but his sound tech continued to ignore the whole thing. Much as he was criticised for being closed off and even occasionally accused of being rude or dismissive, sometimes he felt it was quite possibly Luca's best quality. Trace would be too busy telling him to get over it.

It wasn't until Luca's phone rang and was summarily turned off in disgust that Justin's interest in the world around him was piqued enough to begin talking again.

"Who was that?"

"My sperm donor."

"Huh?"

He looked so confused that Luca could only chuckle. "My dad."

"Oh." Justin looked a little embarrassed. What had he thought, that Luca was looking to get pregnant? "You don't talk?"

"Not usually, but the old bastard has decided he's got a yen to talk to me lately. I don't know why he's bothering, I already checked that he's not sick, dying or in need of money."

Thinking on his own excellent relationship with his parents, he privately thought how sad it was when those were the only reasons to talk to your own father. He didn't voice this opinion, however. He correctly guessed that any prying would get a curt and unforgiving shutdown.

"See I'm the other way around. I want to talk, Allie doesn't want to listen."

"If you're about to ask me for girl advice I warn you not to. Wrong choice."

"Dude asking you for girl advice would be like asking the Colonel for diet advice, you're fucking hopeless," Justin chuckled. "How you ever expect to get a woman I don't know."

"Heh," was Luca's only response. He shifted in his chair and then dragged his attention right back to the board. His head could only have been lifted and turned towards Justin for a thirty second maximum.

***

May 8th

Maybe this lacks credibility coming from somebody so openly standoffish and eschewing human company, but sometimes I get lonely. It doesn't help that while everybody on this tour is a nice person, they're not all my type. In a friends capacity, I mean - I think with the exception of Justin, Trace and some of the band there aren't too many people here that I'll bother keeping in touch with or that I would voluntarily have hung out with if I just met them in a bar instead of at work. When I'm at home I have my own friendly bunch of misfits that just get me and that I can loosen up around.

It's not just a romantic thing, although obviously my unrequited hots for JT don't help. I guess while I think about it, my desire for a boyfriend doesn't really go with the 'I don't like people' stance either. Well, I never said I was a logical guy. Maybe it's not that I don't want people around, I', just too particular about the kind of people I do want around. I still feel kind of bad for the way I went off on Lydia. Not that I got all mad, I just started openly ignoring her. Which, I admit, is really fucking rude. Her only crime was to be the only person on this tour who's actually worked out that I'm homosexual.

Or at least the only one who's voiced it, anyway.

There are bars in almost every city where I can go hook up, if I want. All it takes is a phone book or a few well asked question to the right people. In London all I had to do was walk into Soho and I had offers. There's definitely a section of the gay community that's extremely open to one night stands - then again, there's a pretty big section of the straight community extremely open to that too. Being a slut is pretty easy in any orientation. A couple of times, I have just figured "what the hell" and gone down that route myself (I may have passed in London, but I certainly got mine in Paris). That's fine and all, not like I regret it, but… it's kind of like stuffing yourself on those low fat snacks my mom likes which are basically air. Before long, you're hungry for something a little more sustaining. I guess pining for some completely unattainable guy isn't going to help with that.

Now I've mentioned her, I miss my mom. I guess the loneliness is kind of all encompassing - friends, family, non existent boyfriend. Mom is just about the only person I know whose company I can always stand. Even though she still doesn't really understand me being gay, she just kind of gets on with the business of being my mom and being there for me. I love that about her. She doesn't talk your ear off or make stuff bigger than it has to be, she shuts her mouth and gets on with stuff. I guess that's where I get it from, though I'm a little more extreme than her.

I guess I just miss being around people who know when to be quiet for five God damn minutes. Nobody ever shuts up around here.