ilyĀIMY

I’m stressed out. I might even have good reason to be. My
pulse pounds, my skin feels hot, I get these HEADACHES. I don’t talk about
health crap very much because generally speaking I’m very fortunate – or at
least as far as I know I am – but I’m edging up on 45 and the kind of laissez
faire approach I’ve had for years really hasn’t been appropriate since my 3
thirteens. And I know that. I was good, I went to the doctor back then, told
myself I’d keep going… and then I slipped into the cracks.

I had things worked out, then I got married. Yeah, people
ask all the time, even though the news is two years old : how’s married Life? And
the honest answer is “really, not too much different from unmarried Life” – but
the rest of the honest answer is “except for the paperwork”.

Taxes didn’t get any simpler. They didn’t simply double in
complexity. More like an order of magnitude. I think if couples were forced to
go through a sample tax document of the “after” during the “before”, well, you’d
have NO self-employed people marrying OTHER self-employed people, that’s for
damned sure.

And my health insurance got screwed up.

I got married and my status changed… in one place. But not
other places. One Managed Care Organization said “yeah, we can’t cancel you
here till the new place accepts you” and the new place said “yeah, we can’t
accept you here till you cancel the old one”. For about a year this was my most
stressful thought… that if I called for help, it would become a semantic
argument leaving me in the middle bleeding out.

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• 

It reminds me of that one time I found a guy unconscious in
the street a couple of blocks from my house… my 911 call got me into a four way
call with myself, the dispatcher, and EMS in Baltimore City and EMS Baltimore
County, the latter two of which insisting I was in the other’s jurisdiction…

• 

• 

In July (?) I finally got this sorted out and I hate to say
it, but I think that I kind of broke down in tears of relief when the woman on
the phone, hearing the same story that all the OTHER women on the OTHER phones
had heard, said “oh, fine, let me just update it…” I’d been told to call x, y
and z so frequently and then told x was closed, y was the wrong number and z
would just hang up on you… I don’t think I KNEW how much it was all weighing on
me.

“Your coverage with your new MCO will start in 10 days”

• 

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• 

10 days later, I sign up with a Primary Care Physician and
try to schedule my intake physical. The first one they have… as of early August
the earliest appointment I can get is the second Friday in November.

Two days in advance of the appointment I get a text
apologizing that my appointment has been canceled, please call to reschedule. I’m
still in the hole.

I call, pick the doctor that can see me soonest just to get
it OVER with and have an appointment for today, I’ll leave in twenty minutes. I’m
jumping at every phone call, every text, worried that it’s another cancelation.

No – it’s an email saying I screwed up some text in the last
newsletter. I work at correcting it.

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• 

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No – it’s an email saying from tonight’s featured artist saying “Just had a late reading of all the conditions for me to do the gig tonight at the open mic and Im sorry to say that its not cutting it for me….Way too complicated…So I decided not to do it.”

No – it’s a phone call from January’s venue saying “there’s
another really big show in the area happening the same night as yours, it might
be smart to reschedule”.

I can feel it in my temples. I
can feel it on my skin. I’m stressed out.

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Just got back from the doctor.

It turns out I’m stressed out. I’ve jokingly said to Heather
and Kristen “gonna have one last x, y, or z because I’m going to go to a doctor
finally and he’ll say I need to exercise more and eat less”.

Well, I’m stressed out, don’t sleep enough, need to exercise
more and eat less. Bam.

I’m actually very grateful, the staff at the doctor’s office
were all very kind and welcoming, the doctor himself has one of my favourite
accents and was gently humourous and good at projecting concern. He wants blood
though, and felt that my omelet breakfast would probably be something I shouldn’t
have before that happens. So I’ve got to go back.

And this time, there’ll be BLOOD.

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SO – the morning was shit. I was very, very stressed out about going to the doctor, and that caused me to wake up (with above heart-pounding and hot skin and etc) half an hour ahead of my alarm. I glanced at my phone and find emails about a mistake I made in a mailing that make me really question my ability to get ANYTHING in the world right. Shortly after that I receive an email from the featured artist I was supposed to have and Claude Bourbon writes : “Just had a late reading of all the conditions for me to do the gig tonight at the open mic and Im sorry to say that its not cutting it for me….Way too complicated…So I decided not to do it.”

His manager had put this on the calendar late last year – so he’s had about a year to read the “conditions”. His manager wrote me a kind of obnoxious email in January freaking out because he needed SOMEONE to sign the visa paperwork for Claude to come the US from Switzerland and apparently needed it that day or so… so, I signed it to say he was working in-country… AND this Monday night is the Monday after NERFA, which means that any artist who comes from south of Baltimore from NERFA comes through our town, and I had gotten 4 or 5 booking requests for that night from top notch performers looking for something to do on a Monday night on their way home… all of which I had to say “no” to because I was stupid enough to think I was lucky enough to be FORTUNATE in picking this guy up… only to have him drop at 8am the morning of the show.

I didn’t argue with him. I could’ve said that I book a mighty gamut from Grammy Award-winners to 15 year-olds booking their first gig and this was actually the least professional cancellation I’ve ever… I could’ve asked him what was so complicated? I know I’m verbose but I’ve also standardized the information I send artists and have booked over 500 acts using that information… I’ve never had one say “this is haaaaaard, I’m not coming”.

Before heading out to Teavolve I took the kinda-high-road… Copied his manager that I was disappointed that he found playing an open mic harder than I’d found his visa paperwork and moved on. We had a fantastic night. There were some sad Claude Bourbonites, but… none of them left before the end of the night. The booker for Claude’s Saturday night show is a friend, so I mentioned it all to him and he sent a glowing “can’t wait to see you at Teavolve, it’s one of the finest… best communities… it’ll probably drum up good publicity for Saturday” etc emails that was kind of one of the best ways he could’ve responded. We had a great time and I was reminded that we really, really, really don’t NEED featured artists.

I got to be a positive influence on new artists, and I got to admire some really amazing professionals, and it was everything it should’ve been, and once I was in a good mood again I EVEN took the high road of mentioning where Bourbon was playing this weekend, but I must admit I wasn’t highroading so much that I wasn’t going to say “but where I’M playing at the same time is….