October 20th, 2006.

It’s 3.56am, and tomorrow we’ll be suffering a time change as we drive East to Ohio, so it may as well be nearly five in the morning. I’ve determined that capuccino martinis are not good things. I’m tossing and turning, much to Heather’s subconscious lament, I’m sure, and just generally running things over and over again in my head. Relationship stuff, drive stuff, music stuff. If there was a place for me to go to play guitar right now, I fear I’d be plenty productive. I wish I wish I wish I happened to have one of those “silent guitars” like Pete Simple has.

Across the street there was a complex of loft apartments called the Smile apartments. They seemed quite… chipper… beautiful things though.

Tuesday night we played the open mic at the Shanti, another spectacularly visual St Louis, MO bar.

Ugh. Well, it’s our last night (ha – morning) in Belleville, IL – and it’s the end of our arc. In a couple of hours will begin our journey back east, wending our way to Maryland by Tuesday of next week.

Heather practicing in the basement of the Venice Cafe on Wednesday night.

Among the many exciting finds on the walls of the Venice Cafe in St Louis, MO – a Sectaur! Yup, I think this is good guy leader of this rare 80’s toy breed. If only his steed had been wandering around, though its fur probably wouldn’t have liked the weather of the courtyard too much.

Tonight we played the Ground Floor, a place I had really enjoyed the last couple of times we’ve played – but this last time was just a little chaotic, a little difficult. The vibe has changed somewhat and I fear I had to be a bit much of an asshole there this time. I hate taking charge of something that I feel I shouldn’t be in charge of, but no-one else was stepping forward, and eventually someone HAD to step forward and make things happen… but at gigs this is a pretty thankless job unless you’ve actually booked the night. You just sort of end up with the blame when soundchecks or time slots run too long, and when there’s confusion, and when there’s misunderstandings. Still, met a couple of new people – Holly, A, B and C – thank you all for being so attentive to a couple of people you’d never encountered before.

Thoughts of Journal redesign have been running through my head as I’ve shoved my head under the pillow to escape both my waking thoughts AND the Headless Horseman. Frames and I-Frame tags, javascripts, tricky CSS useages all flitting through and being discarded. Caffeinated coding while only half-awake. I truly, truly wish there was just an “off” switch for my skull.