Happy 2013 everyone! I’m sort of with you. I absolutely couldn’t sleep last night, finished a book and lay in bed thinking about THAT. Dreamt in the two hours betwixt consciousness fleeing and my alarm going off that a worm had burrowed into my face and that I had to extract it. I woke up bleeding from my cheek.
That’s an unwelcome development.
The last couple of weeks of 2012 were uneventful, mostly vacant of shows and generally quiet. Kristen and I did a couple of Christmas things, went to see trains (trains = Christmas, btw), went to see Homestead Gardens (which also = Christmas) and got together with my brother, his wife and my nephew. We had a nice, small New Year’s Eve party at Heather’s place and generally watched 2012 die a quiet death, passing it’s mantle over to ’13 with a minimum of fuss.
And then everything went to Hell. A friend’s dad died, another friend’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and another friend’s cancer was responding poorly to treatment. Another friend’s next-door neighbour set their house on fire during an altercation causing much consternation to that friend – who was out-of-state at the time. Our first shows of the year were canceled due to poor ticket sales and I lost my camera. All in about 72 hours. It was a lot to process.
But the first was expected, the second was suspected. The third seems to have reversed yet again and the fourth at least was just the NEIGHBOUR’S house and left me with a new respect for the firewalls betwixt townhomes, as well as the brutal solidity of metal security doors (one of which I’ve now had the definite DISpleasure of having to knock down – it’s the FRAME that’ll get you in…). Canceling the shows in Boston was sad but gave us a lot of much-needed time off and what was lost now is found.
Silver linings indeed.
I’m choosing to believe that the first couple of days of 2013 were a statistical fluke, perhaps eliminating those probabilities from the rest of the year. I’d like to believe that the first open mic of the year at Teavolve is more indicative of how the year will go. Flush with talent and inspiration, the recovery of long-lost friends and the reclamation of positive community. I was surrounded by such great music last night – it’s the way to roll, for sure.
Today it’s back to House of Musical Traditions – to what I’m really trying NOT to think of as the daily grind – but the only thing that will keep it from being a daily grind is by working hard to get out on the road, playing hard and grinning mirthfully. And of course my open mics… oh I Love them so. I keep them densely temporarily packed so that the REST of the week / month it’s easy to get away. Sundays will be given over to a new open mic in Bowie starting in February… and hopefully that will go as well as I believe it will… and not leave me feeling tied down…
Happy 2013. Maybe I’ll try not to think so much.
