March 20th, 2023. Distracted and Meandering.

Sunday March 12th found me running sound for James Keelaghan and David Woodhead at Tikvat Israel in Rockville, MD. Great songs, incredible bass player. You don’t hear a lot of AMAZING BASS PLAYERS in my world right now, so it was really cool to see someone using it as the lead instrument, as I’d oft dreamed it was as I first started out….
And – as I get more SANE – I ONLY ran sound. My friend Abigail streamed the night. This picture doesn’t REALLY depict that as much as it depicts how it sorta looks like that little guy’s sitting on the light rack which amuses me.

Things are coming to a head. There was a pseudo-climax this past weekend, racing up to New York for a show, racing back down – alllll the work for Chords of Courage culminating in the awards ceremony last night. And tonight the Three Year Anniversary of VOM, which feels like I should be able to make more of a party of than I mentally have space for.

We got mortgage pre-approval letters last week and that felt like a HUGE relief, but now it looks like things STILL can’t be locked in before rates go up AGAIN in the next couple of days and I feel like we’re fighting this losing battle against time and percentages.

Oh – and I prepurchased Diablo IV since it would let me play the Beta but I didn’t realize the Beta was like… just this weekend and then that’s it. Apparently the “pre-Beta” or whatever that I was able to play this morning was just for … this morning? Enough to whet my appetite for some mindless hack and slash (perfect for relaxing after a day of mortgage mind) in a stunningly beautiful environment but now it’s off till this weekend, and then it’ll be off again till June.

Monday March 13th we played a great show with Girl Blue at Sandy Spring Museum, celebrated our friend Robin’s birthday, and generally got up to absolutely no good. Also, the art that’s surrounding the museum right now’s really cool. Strange pyramids creeping from behind trees.
Girl Blue at Sandy Spring Museum. They’re simply one of the best acts I’ve ever seen. Her voice, passion and delivery, though not as transparently earnest as it was late at night at NERFA, was flawless. And hearing Jimmy on electric guitar, rather than acoustic, was like the second-coming of Mark Knopfler. On top of being highly wonderful, it was a damned education in subtlety and tone.

Heh, not that June isn’t actually a LOT closer than I think it is.

But I’m griping, and burying the lede, and doing all those things that bitching and moaning does which is to cover up true accomplishments and causes for optimism.

Kristen and I have been pre-approved for our mortgage! All the work we did with our taxes and changing up how we track everything and, quite frankly, putting in the work to earn more money last year has quite literally paid off! (actually, this may not be an occasion for saying “quite literally” since “literally” it just means we’re QUITE LITERALLY aiming to enter a contract QUITE LITERALLY stating we’ve got something that we have NOT paid off and, frankly, may not be paid off in my Lifetime, but there I go getting cynical about it all).

Tuesday night at the Spark, there was nary a spark. High winds knocked out power and I spent three hours calling people and acting as the School of Musical Traditions building manager, contacting students and teachers and REAL building managers… oh, and TRYING to cancel my open mic before people showed up. I ALMOST managed it – but alas three people DID show before I’d contacted them.

More importantly, it means that the major hurdle, the major obstacle of us staying in our house, hath been hurdled. There’s a lot of other stuff, but the big fear of a bank simply saying “we acknowledge that you exist but you continue to not be worth our time”, is no longer a factor.

For about 48 hours, that was a huge weight off our minds and we drove north to New York on Saturday morning feeling pretty good about ourselves.

But there’s something about the oppressiveness of that city that makes such lightness hard to maintain.

Rather than feature at my open mic in the dark, we took Girl Blue (Arielle and Jimmy) out to sushi in Ellicott City. Cause sometimes it’s about the music. But often it’s about the food. For as disappointed as I was not to have them at the Spark, this was probably a more positive fellow-musician-bonding experience. Interesting to chat with someone who’s not the absolutely green generation, but definitely not as road-wearied as US. I was really, really bummed to hear from a LOT of people “oh, I was GOING to come to your Monday night show, but then figured I’d just catch them at your open mic”. Yeah. Tactical error followed by failure.
Prince is under the impression that he ALREADY owns the house.

Brooklyn itself feels like what people are talking about when they talk about the vibrant LIFE of New York City. Not the high rises and glaring neon lights, video screens and trash, but towering churches and traffic signs, confusing parking and corner delis. And of course, a killer music scene.

I haven’t thought any of this through. I’m distracted and meandering.

Gosh, the photos haven’t even GOTTEN to New York yet. Here’s me taking Ana out to MORE sushi on her last weekend before returning home to Sweden. I’ve eaten a LOT of sushi this month.

And THEN we went to New York…

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