February 4th, 2016.

*Sorry, sometimes you’ve just got to document your morning hair.*

I’ve been having nightmares. This is vaguely related to age, but peripherally. I’m turning 41. That means I’m too old to renew my license by mail and had to go to the MVA. You could make clever comments about THAT being the cause of nightmares – but again, only peripherally.

We’ve had a LOT of snow recently – record-breaking amounts. 29”. It took about a week for things to get up and running and I was in the same boat as plenty of my local Marylanders – a deadline that was plenty distant suddenly LOOMED because snow knocked out my ability to get to the MVA with plenty of time to spare… and so what, according to their website, would’ve been on average a 17 minute trip to the MVA grew into almost three hours. But it wasn’t nightmarish. We were all in that same aforementioned boat, people were patient, pleasant. Ticked B75 was called in due time and I enjoyed chatting about cooking experiments gone awry with the woman who administered my eyeball test and quipped “It’s the right thing to do” when I checked the box to be an organ donor.

*The Focus meeting in Rockville, MD was a fun meet and greet of local performers* including Know1Else (Jay Keating and Kelly Diamond)

On the walls of the Moore house (where the Focus meeting was held) are pictures of many a peep who’s come and done a house concert here. Above, We’re About 9, appearing to be about 12. Madness.

I’ve never checked that box before. I’ve always been a little bit weird about it though my girlfriend in college sort of prodded me about it and I have no spiritual beliefs that lead me to worry about any of my parts being needed by ME post-mortem…. Dead parts is parts. I checked the box, waited for the license to print, thanked the woman sitting at desk 17 and walked out into the parking lot. I took out the license and admired the fact that my beard was actually STRAIGHT, whiter than it was, but nothing was terrible except the actual quality of the photograph (fuzzy much?). I’ve added pounds, but other than that the only real difference is that little printed heart on the back of my license. The thing that really made an impact at that moment was looking at the expiry and seeing the awesomely futuristic date of 2023.

February 1st at Teavolve’s open mic was a slow night and I got a slot at the end. I sat and played my little heart out and it felt good. Sometimes I think “man, I really CAN be a force solo” – and then I’m like “sigh, I miss my band”.

one of the best parts of the night though : John Meyer reappeared into my Life! Haven’t seen John in about a decade and for him to pop into my open mic was most welcome. He’s apparently recovering from a long, dark teatime of the soul and is eager to start playing out again. (more photos at the end of this post)

Drive home, reward myself for being a grown-up with mall Chinese food and think nothing more of it.

Until I’m trying to sleep. I’m stressed. I have weird body-horror nightmares… I haven’t had more than one or two nights of decent sleep since I renewed my license a week ago – and it’s because I’m having nightmares.

My Dad was an organ donor, and very specifically he was tapped to be an eye donor. During hospice we were given very specific directions to make sure that once he died, the eyes should be OPEN and to place a moist washcloth across his eyes. At the time this was just one more indignity for a father struck down far too early and I don’t think it was till NOW that it’s really struck me. I’ve been eyeballing eyeballs wondering what exactly it meant for him to be a donor. The corneas, I’m sure, but my dreams are convinced that it’s whole eyes, some sort of scoop… someone out there has my father’s eyes and I might come eye to eye with them again.

February 3rd was a smudgey day down in Georgetown as Kristen’s electric string quartet Anthem joined forces with Tom Constanten (formerly of the Grateful Dead) at Gypsy Sally’s. Driving down into DC as the snow melted off into the Potomac provided for some exquisite scenery. This imagery helped inspire one of my new songs this month : Georgetown.

Not really. Nightmares. Ten years later I’m sure they’ve gone the way of most organic material. It’s bugging the Hell out of me. Last night I got to sleep “early” compared to most of the last week. Last time I looked at the clock it was 3.30am.

One of the other artists on February 3rd at Gypsy Sally’s in Georgetown, Washington DC : Wynne Paris playing sarod and Chris Colvin playing Tibetan bowl and didgerido. Chris was also one of the primary movers and shakers of the show. Good times were had!

February 1st, 2016 at Teavolve w Lauren Sumner

1) ilyAIMY
2) Pat O’Neall
3) Dan
4) Denis Antoine
5) Nyerre
6) Philip and Joel
7) Michael
Know1Else
9) Esther
10) Lauren Sumner
11) Dave Benham
12) Julia and Garrett
13) Kira
14) Joey
15) Krunchy
16) ilyAIMY