beautiful, funny, sad & true

Thursday, June 26th was our longest day. We had a twelve-hour drive ahead of us, from Reno to a tiny town in Utah called Torrey.

I was the first one up, at 5:45 in the morning. I took a shower, got dressed, and then took some pictures of the hazy morning street scene of Reno. The haze is actually the smoke from the California wildfires. It didn’t clear up until we were well into Utah, by the way. Incidentally, all of these thumbnail pictures expand to full size if you click on them.

While I was packing up my suitcase, Kate woke up. We talked for a while, she in her makeshift bed in the windowsill and I on her papasan chair. I took pictures of the cats, and of her place, and out the window, and even some of her. The best ones were of her, waking up and snuggling with her cat Samantha.

From there, it was time for breakfast and various morning activities, which on that particular day meant more picture opportunities. Here we all are.

The water-drinking one actually has a little video too, as if by technology.

I would be remiss if I didn’t post a picture of Kate’s other cat, Secret. She and I became instant friends, and she actually slept on my sleeping bag for a while during the night.

Suddenly it was time to say our goodbyes, give hugs all around, and hit the road. The scenery in the rest of Nevada was uneventful. If you haven’t driven through it, it basically consists of many hours of rolling hills covered with sagebrush. There are only a couple of sections where it’s beautifully desolate in a good way, and the rest of the time it’s pretty much God-forsaken wasteland, broken up only by the occasional bit of run-down machinery or mining equipment, or even a power station out in the middle of nowhere. At one point there are even a couple of tunnels. Wowee! Breanna and I both took pictures of the tunnels, in fact. That’s how exciting it was. Nevada is a very strange place. Luckily, we had an especially deep (and private) conversation that day, with which to while away the hours.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. We stopped at the same rest area that Stephanie and I were so horrified by when she and I played in Elko last summer. This time was not nearly so eventful, but I should mention that each of the rest areas we stopped at in Nevada had neither soap nor running water, so we weren’t able wash to our hands. Pretty sexy, huh?

Incidentally, and apropos of nothing, the lasting inside joke from this day was when I told Justin, “I’m gonna punch your mouth right in the face.” That would have been the name of this entry, if I didn’t have the more plebeian title so firmly established already.

This trip, for all its amazing qualities, was not without tragedy. Justin realized at some point along the way that he had left his pillow behind in Reno. This was not just any pillow, either, but a super-special pillow that was bluish gray in color, weighed a ton, and was apparently the most comfortable pillow in the history of pillows. He was seriously distraught about it. I imagine that he’s gotten it back by now, because he offered to pay Kate a bunch of money to ship it overnight that same day.

Utah is as beautiful as Nevada is barren. Almost from the minute we crossed the state line, the landscape became more interesting. We drove through the Bonneville Salt Flats, which are gigantic, and a bit eerie too. We kept expecting the weather to be cold, because we were seeing what looked like snow on the ground everywhere. Very strange.

After that, the landscape became more green, the hills became more steep, and everything seemed more inviting somehow. In the immortal words of the Lewis and Clark journals, ‘we continued on.’

As we got closer and closer to our destination of Torrey, the landscape just kept getting more and more beautiful. The hills turned red, and the sun started getting lower and lower in the sky. The Picture of the Day Award definitely goes to Breanna for this lovely, cinematic shot. My pictures I had to touch up a bit with Photoshop, but this one is perfectly fine without any so-called enhancements.

We arrived at the venue and met Wendy, who was very sweet. She opened for us, and also took pictures for us during our set. At first we thought we’d play unplugged and unmic’ed, which ended up being too quiet, even for the smallish space we were playing in. So we mic’ed everything and played a normal show.

Can I just take a minute to say that while Reno was definitely the place I had the most fun, the gig in Torrey was by far my favorite venue we played. I mean, here’s this tiny little venue in the middle of nowhere, with these amazing red cliffs all around. And I’ve never seen as many stars as I did that night. We kept looking off into our surroundings the entire time. It’s a miracle that we didn’t play any wrong notes. Here’s what I’m talking about. Justin was singing, and Breanna and I were totally staring off into the distance. And yes, Justin and I did the same thing on Breanna’s songs too.

Between the cliffs and the stars, and the interesting people, we had a total blast. Afterwards, Wendy put us up at her place. We all stayed up for a little while, and then Justin and Breanna went to bed. Wendy and I stayed up talking, and she asked if I played with any other groups. I told her about the people I play with, and the various instruments that I play, and when I mentioned the accordion, she said, “Oh, really? I have two accordions. Maybe you could show me some things.” I agreed to do that, and we pulled them out. So after getting up at 5:45, driving twelve hours, and playing a gig, I stayed up until about 1:30 giving an impromptu accordion lesson. After a while, exhaustion got the better of me, and I had to give in and go to bed. The room I stayed in was very warm, so I opened the window and the blinds, which meant that I fell asleep staring at the huge canopy of bright stars, in which the band of the Milky Way Galaxy was clearly visible. That’s a nice way to fall asleep, by the way. I totally recommend it.

More to come in the next installment of. . .ON TOUR.

OneYearAgo

I’m listening to This American Life right now, the episode called Duty Calls, and I just feel the need to say wow.  What an amazing episode.  It’s all about the contrast between two sides of a divorced family; one side high-achieving and the other side completely unable to function because of long-term drug abuse and various other problems.

It made me think that I should appreciate my own family, friends, and situation more than I have.  I very rarely step back and think about where I’m headed, or where I’ve been, or even smell the flowers.  I just kind of keep on keepin’ on, whether it’s with a mind-numbing day job or an insanely busy musical life, or other diversions, but I really need to focus more on what I want my own life to be like, and to appreciate the people who are important to me.  Since we’re on the subject, let me take this moment to say that I APPRECIATE YOU, and I’m glad you’re here.  You could be anywhere else on the web, but you chose to visit me, and I appreciate that.

One thing I’ve felt the need to do since my friend was hospitalized is to contact people more, now that I feel up to it, and just check in with them.  It’s all still new and recent, and there are plenty of people who I haven’t contacted yet, but it’s really felt important to do that, even if we don’t talk for very long.  It’s as if I just need to know that they’re alive and well, and to reach out to them in some way.

Wow, this is a surprisingly maudlin entry.  And it all started with a radio show.

Monday was a day of huge leaps of recovery for my friend. The drugs she took seem to have pretty much cleared out of her system on that day, and since then she’s been talking, and crying, and walking a little, and slowly but surely getting her strength back. She was able to use the phone yesterday, and we had the chance to talk for about half an hour. She sounds and seems like her usual self, but she’s still got a very long road ahead of her. Some of the things we talked about were heart-wrenching.

I found myself feeling guilty that I hadn’t found her earlier. She had been lying there not for an hour or two like I had guessed, but for more than a day. That broke my heart. Someone told me this morning that “you never know what good is going to come out of all this,” and while it may feel like a hollow platitude, at least it’s better than some of the strange or even hurtful things people have already said to me.

I finally got the chance to talk with CincinnatiFriend, whose opinions I value more than anyone’s, especially in matters like these. She put it into perfect perspective by saying that the only people we can help are the people who want to be helped. If they’re intent on harming themselves, they’ll find ways to do it, and they can be very crafty about hiding the warning signs. She also said, essentially, that the only way we can deal with difficult things is to do what we can with the information that we have available to us. Hindsight is always 20/20, and we shouldn’t use our newer knowledge to beat ourselves up later.

The biggest truth of all, though, is that I’m just incredibly thankful that my friend is alive, and that she’s in the right place, both geographically and emotionally, to get the help that she needs.

[EDIT, 6/7/08: For some reason, I’ve suddenly gotten a bunch of referrals from AOL to this particular entry, which is quite possibly the lamest throw-away entry in this entire blog. I’d like to invite you to the top of the blog, where you can read some real entries. Thank you.]

I just have time for a quick entry right now. I know you’ll be excited to know that my tag cloud over there is all up-to-date now; all entries are accounted for.

While I was at work yesterday afternoon, as if on cue, I got a text message from A that said, “How about a movie? My treat!” And yes, she’s also a beautiful girl. So although she didn’t read it, it’s as if my blog entry from yesterday came true. We went to see Persepolis, which was beautiful, and funny, and sad and true. We were completely enthralled by it.

Today I slept until 12:30 in the afternoon. Sheesh. I must have been even more run down this week than I realized.

Tonight is a house concert that my friend John is hosting, featuring John Vecchiarelli and Kristi Martel. It promises to be a blast. I was going to go and just listen, but I just now found out that I’ve been invited to bring my accordion and play with John V. on a song or two, which I’m totally looking forward to.

I’d better clean up and go, but I’m glad we had time for this little chat.

It’s been kind of a rough week.

Work has been super stressful this week, because one of the people in my department has been on vacation, and we’re pretty much down to a skeleton crew anyway, times being what they are.  I’m also pretty much broke from an expensive car repair and a high phone bill.   When I get stressed out and exhausted like I have been, the answer to every question is ‘No!’, even if the question is, ‘Hi, I’m a beautiful girl.  You look like you could use a hug.  Would you like to go out on a date?  My treat.’

On my way home for lunch today, I had six different cars pull in front of me, or run a stop sign, or box me in on the road, or something.  All in half an hour.  AND I still have to drive back.  Yeesh.  My nerves are kinda shot.

Luckily last night’s rehearsal with Lara was a blast.  We learned a Beatles song; one of their trickiest, in fact.  We got it sounding pretty good last night, but we each need to woodshed and tighten it up a bit on our own, and then we’ll rehearse again right before the show next Friday night.  The show with Susie on Wednesday was also a blast; I’d go so far as to say that it was one of our best shows.

There’s a story I’m working on that is an extremely rare subject for me to write about.  I had an experience about ten years ago that I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell here.  I was inspired by one of Tossed In’s latest entries, but I’m not quite sure how to frame it, or how to put it all into just the right words.  It’ll come, but it’s gonna be tricky.

And now it’s time to brave the traffic and head back out into the world again, after a much-too-short respite.  This month can not be over with soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.  Thank gawd for the three-day weekend.

OneYearAgo