November 21st, 2019. Happy North Carolina!

Before leaving for this trip, Kristen and House of Musical Traditions hosted a physical therapist to come and chat about repetitive stress injuries as they pertain to musicians. That meant that we spent the day in Takoma Park ahead of time and I took a moment to wander before the workshop. Part of that wandering was past the Ace Hardware on Carroll Avenue and realized that wherever they’d gotten their Christmas trees, they’d also gotten snow! I poked my finger in it and appreciated the snowy squish. I hope we receive the joyous bounty of the cold, cold skies this year – but that poke will tide me over for a WEE bit.

INXS, wailing saxophone, I-95, wailing sirens, moving on down the road and leaving the world behind. Ish. Not really. The world’s online and follows us 24 / 7.

I’ve been in a bad place recently, and a lot of it is online negativity, online stress. The feeling that everyone’s just waiting for an opportunity to cut you down, break you, feed you a little bit of hate. Raising your head draws fire no matter who you are, and ducking to that is a dangerous precedent to set when your Life is based on making noise.

Sean McComiskey discussing repetitive stress injuries for us poor hard-workin’ musicians. We got some good stretches out of it but a LOT boiled down to “pay attention to your body” and using a heating pad. Randomly, the bass player for a band we used to play with some ten + years ago was also there – now he does trad Irish music… like ya do.

It’s verging on paranoia, so I’m trying to figure out what practical steps I can take to back slowly out of his angry little room I’ve found myself in. I don’t want to mirror all these people that clearly assume the worst – because that’s definitely what I’ve been doing recently. Just assuming the worst.

We’re just shy of our right turn inland on I-85 – and I’m eager for it. Cause everything gets better once you’re off I-95. 85’s no 70, but it’ll do for this trip.

INXS is a fond memory of the celebration of small noises. I think it was the first time I heard someone just go nuts over a breath. I remember Annie and Erin on our school bus playing “New Sensation” and getting to that one little gasp and just swooooning over it.

It’s a good memory.