I’m non-plussed that I feel sleeeeepy. I shouldn’t be. I don’t know that I got enough sleep last night, but enough sleep was certainly an OPTION. I went to bed tired, and I went to bed by midnight. I was probably asleep before 2. I woke up before my alarm, but I woke up tired. I was out of bed by 9.30am. 7+ hours should be plenty. Right?
Welcome to Sandwich Stock 2019! Saturday, October 12th. 
The band ahead of me, Girls Night Out Jazz Band, is entirely composed of female music teachers from the local county’s schools.
Right?
But I’m sitting in a Starbucks drinking ill-advised coffee across from a woman who’s industriously getting one last slurp out of the bottom of her drink (I sort of want to look up and get a better look at the work that’s going into this but feel that it would be weird) – I’ve got a gig at Brewer’s Alley for the first time in a long time, and probably for the last time as the long-Lived songwriter series is ending in November – and I’m tired. My eyes are just achey and fatigued.
It’s nice to be away from Teavolve. I should feel energized! It’s nice that the weather is beautiful, sunshiney, crisp and autumnal. I should feel enthused! But here I am, really dreading the drive home, because I’m alREADY tired.
Freedom is not equal to, but awfully similar to, driving through the hills of Ellicott City with the windows down under a full moon, racing to no place in particular in third gear with plenty of time to get there. It probably smells similar. It probably SOUNDS a lot like that. It MIGHT have two more cylinders, but if that’s the case, freedom probably doesn’t get quite as good gas mileage. 
After Sandwich Stocks I drove the LONG way home to Ellicott City just to watch another friend’s band. It was a good night. Beautiful sunset, beautiful moonrise, and lots and lots of ear candy. Many thanks to Tom MacLellan and his fantastic “Work in Progress” band – thanks for a great night. 
I’m trying to figure out how to be done with social media. I know I need to maintain a presence for the music, for the open mics, for the whatsowhoever. But I don’t really need to maintain as PERSONAL a presence as I do, and I have NO DOUBT that some of my fatigue is just the emotional fatigue that comes with the ANGST of scrolling through the rising political fervour of Facebook. The time suck, the soul suck, the weight of it all – it never seems to go away even though I seem to be able to keep it down to just one big pass in the morning and minimal scans off and on through out the day.
I’ve got a cousin who’s been silent for a while but who’s now increasing pretty mindless posts about California wildfires and Biden’s past, a number of random posts from people I don’t know – who I wouldn’t ever have encountered or heard their lemming-like politics if we weren’t connected with the big blue F…
It’s fine and good to say “oh, I’m not going to waste my time like this” but the years certainly have shown that my will power isn’t exactly a strong animal. Avoiding temptation has to be my SECOND step after avoiding the PRESENCE of temptation.
One scroll is one too many!
