Please note that I do use a real band in here, Point 1, and the real people from the band, mostly Len, but the lives I created for this story are exactly that - created to suit the story. The lives of these people are much different from the lives I outline here.

The next morning, Sunday morning I remembered, I woke up at four o'clock. I'm perfectly fine with that, since I'm both a morning person and a nightowl, I'm pretty diverse in my sleeping habits. Grabbing clean undies, a pair of black loose cotton workout pants, and a black sports bra, I changed then went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

Grabbing a comb off my dresser in my room then walking over to my sidetable by my bed and grabbing the spiral notebook I kept in the drawer(making sure the pencil was sharp and still in the page I was last working on) , I went out into the living room at the back of the house. In he living room, there is a HUGE bay window with a comfortable three foot by six foot upholstered sill to sit on. It's my second favorite place in the house, the first being in the private recording studio.

Setting my stuff down, I went over to the entertainment center and put in my favorite CD. That's one of the few ways to embarrass Lenny, just mention my favorite CD. It's Point 1's "Stress Related Injuries". Why he would be embarrassed about it, I have no idea. I would think it would be a compliment, my favorite CD being one that he wrote most of, and recorded, and produced, right here in this house.

Len's in a band, by the way. He's the lead singer. That would be why he has a recording studio and full band setup in his basement; so that the guys wouldn't have to load their instruments up in their cars, drive here, rehearse, load their instruments back up and drive them home… it's just easier this way. Anywho, putting the CD on – quietly, since Len is a very light sleeper- I sat down on the window sill and took my hair out of it's almost permanent bun.

I know this will sound kind of corny, but my hair is a good example of me; my life. I almost always have it up in a bun. It's how people expect to see my hair every day. If I do anything else, it attracts attention to me. If it's up in a bun, people just overlook me. Because people overlook me, they never really look at my hair. Never notice that it's so long it completely covers my ass, or that it isn't just dark brown, it has tiny highlights throughout in all the colors of my car- black, blue, green, and purple.

When people see me with my hair up, they expect me to be a quiet, shy, smart person. And I am, don't get me wrong. Actually I'm not all that smart, but oh well. Because I'm around all these people who expect to see me with my hair up, I literally almost never get to let my hair down. That's why I have music. Music is one of the few things that I can just lose my self in.

: I will suffocate, every breath you take,

Put you in a cage, something you can appreciate,

Take away every single pain,

Your greatest weakness you begin to imagine,

Separate all mistakes you make,

Put you in a state so that you will appreciate yourself in vain to lose again:

Chemical Religion. First song on the CD. As I start to slowly work the tangles out of my hair, I think about the song itself. Not just the lyrics, all they do is put words to what the music is already saying. Listening to the guitar/drum combination, I think :: Was Len having an incident of foretelling my future when he wrote and recorded this?:: Of course, he hadn't even met me when he wrote or recorded this, but it seems to be telling my thoughts to the world.

:What's the matter with you?

All I wanna do is just lose myself,

In my chemical religion,

So send me deeper, deeper, so I can feel myself::

I lip-sync the words as I forget. Not the music, I'd die without the music. I'd like to lose myself in chemical religion. And not drugs. Chemistry was my favorite class in high school, it still would be if I hadn't graduated two years early. By my sophmore year I was in the most advanced science class available, and I had learned the whole years syllabus in less than one semester. By the next, I started going to free community college to take math and science courses. Because of the credits I got at the college, my teachers at the high school just started assigning me essays for credit, since I was learning the material so fast. Occasionally they'd have me come in for tests, usually every month or so, to make sure I was retaining all the information. By June that year, I had all my necessary high school credits to graduate, so I did.

:I will stimulate the senses in your brain,

Help you compensate for the headache that you can't evade,

Help alleviate the stress of your day,

Just lose yourself in me, 'cause I can be anything,

Simply stated, I'm overrated,

What's the matter with you?:

Wincing as I hit a tangle – I have a very tender head – I start thinking about what little time I get to spend in the studio. I'm not all that good of a musician, so when the only place to record is a musician's house you don't really want to do it in front of them or with them. As such, the only time I really have to record is the one weekend every two months that Lenny takes to go visit his mother in Spokane and about an hour and a half on Sundays while he's at church. I've made good use of my time that I do have though. I've laid down several tracks, even re-done a couple songs by bands or singers that I like.

:All I wanna do is just lose myself in my chemical religion,

All I wanna do is just lose myself in my chemical religion,

All I wanna do is just lose myself in my chemical religion,

So send me deeper, deeper so I can feel myself,

So send me deeper, deeper, I wanna feel myself,

But I'm still alive, I can't change here,

I'm still alive, and it's makin' me so weird:

Music is something I'm interested in, so I remember it very well. If I'm interested in something, I remember it, simple as that. Example: it took me about five days to memorize the Periodic Table of the Elements, but over five years to memorize the fifty states. Cars, music, math, science, computers, those are my biggest interests, so I know a lot about them because every little tidbit I hear about those things, I file away for later use.

I have a catalogue of songs in my head. First I separate them by genre(rock, country, ect.), then by artist (Aerosmith, Kenny Chesney,ect), then by CD, then song. Music is one of the things I'm brutally honest about, even with my hair up. I critique hard and I'm nitpicky. I know what people like to hear, and I totally disregard it in favor of the full, honest to God truth.

:All I wanna do is just lose myself in my chemical religion,

All I wanna do is just lose myself in my chemical religion,

All I wanna do is just lose myself in my chemical religion,

So send me deeper, deeper so I can feel myself,

Send me deeper, deeper, I wanna feel myself,

But I'm still alive, I can't change here,

I'm still alive, and it's makin' me soooo, makin' me sooo, yeah, makin' me sooooo,

Weird.:

End of song.

Well, I think you've heard enough about me with my hair up, how 'bout I tell you a bit about me with my hair down?

Len's the only person who ever sees me with my hair down, and even then not often, because I know that he knows I'm the same person no matter whether my hair is up, down or sideways. I'm comfortable enough around him to be the real me. As the song ends, I get the last few tangles out of my hair and turn off the CD player before 'Wrecking Ball' even starts.

Leaving my spiral notebook on the sill, I start walking through the house toward the kitchen then the basement, braiding my hair along the way, thinking that I'd get the book put away before Len's alarm goes off at 7:15, which was still almost two hours away.

Going into the weight room, I start stretching out, not bothering with music. When I work out, it's all or nothing, even the music. Either it's blaring enough that I can't hear myself think, or there isn't any at all. At this time of the morning, I don't really have a choice of which.

After stretching thoroughly, I start on my daily 50 pushups and 200 sit-ups. A bit overboard, I know, but I figure if God had to make me ugly, stupid, and talentless, I can at least be thin while I take what was given to me with a smile and middle finger pointed heavenward.

As I get to my hundredth sit-up, I start feeling like I forgot something. Approaching 150, the feeling grows stronger. 175 brings a new feeling. And a weird feeling it brings, too. Relief. I put on some speed to finish 200 before getting up off the ground and going upstairs to get a bottle of water, figuring that's what I forgot. As I close the fridge and turn around to go back downstairs, I notice the light in the living room on.

::OK, I KNOW that I turned that off.:: That's when I remembered. Today's Sunday. Len wakes up at 5:30 on Sundays to be able to leave the house by 6:30 and be at church by 6:50 for mass at 7:00.

And now Lenny's in the living room, the TV not on, I can't hear it. Alone. With my songbook.

A streak of panic runs through me. I take a deep breath to calm myself down and start walking quietly towards the living room as casually as I can. Stepping into the room, I close my eyes and set the bottle down with a thunk, stretching. When I open my eyes, Len's looking at me, with my songbook open in his hands.

My eyes go between his face and his hands. After a minute, I focus on his face, raising an eyebrow.

"It was just sitting here, so I opened it to make sure it wasn't mine; then I started reading…" he explained without any guilt in his voice at all.

I didn't respond. I couldn't. My mouth was shut and seemed determined to stay that way. Well, if my mouth won't work, my legs and arms sure do. I quickly walked over and yanked the notebook out of his hands, slamming it shut, and all but ran to my room, closing the door and promptly wishing I had a lock on it as he came through it about 2 seconds after me.

My notebook is one that's divided into five sections, or subjects. I wasn't worried about him seeing the middle three sections, they're just numbers that he probably wouldn't be able to make sense of without seeing the first section. That's the one I really didn't want him seeing, along with the last.

The first section is my lyrics. Each song has a number in the top corner with a little code of my own making that consists of four letters; B,G,D,R. Some songs have all four, some have none, but most have a combination of B,G, or D. Let me explain.

Section 1: Lyrics

Section 2: Bass guitar sequences

Section 3: Guitar sequences

Section 4: Drum sequences

So, the fifth section has to do with the "R" right, since sections 2-4 tell the B, D, and G. If you guessed that, you're right. See, the fifth section I have made into a CD holder. In the occupied pouches that I handmade with a little glue and some scissors, there is CD's that have tracks that I've recorded on them. On the front of every pouch, there is the song number, song title, length, and the date I recorded it on.

I could deal with him knowing that I write songs then put music to them, but if Len saw that I have them recorded he'd want to listen to them. And when I'd say "no" he'd give me the puppy-dog face and I'd let him listen, then he'd hate them and be embarrassed to be around me because I suck so bad.

But right now, he's standing in front of me. We're in a staring competition, each of us daring the other to speak first.

Well, if he wants to play that way, let the games begin.