Wow, exemplify my mood swings please. I spent yesterday with my friend Amy – just hanging out and working on projects and spending time in one another’s space. This morning I’m reminded that I’m allergic to the world, but yesterday was quite, quite good.
So, when I first met Rowan, for some reason the black squirrels of DC came up in conversation – I don’t remember the context at all – but he thought I was making some sort of racial comment. Let it be known with the picture above that YES there are BLACK squirrels and I’ve never seen them anywhere else than in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area!
And then evening struck. Amy, Meg and I went out to see Heather’s boyfriend’s band, Even So, in Baltimore. We get there and I feel for them – the nightmare of a gig gone wrong. All the other bands have cancelled the night, and no-one told them, so they’re suddenly responsible for the whole night. Sam (their drummer) asks if, since we’re here, Heather and I wouldn’t mind filling some time… I slowly agree to it even though we haven’t brought any instruments… he says “that’s okay, you can use ours”.
Among the many activities we towed Bambi around on was a quick tour of the University of Maryland’s College Park Campus, and of course, the statue to Jim Henson erected there.
Finally, ilyAIMY electric. Oh God. I have plenty of time to rethink this decision, if not actually change my mind.
Anywho, while we’re waiting outside, Meg, Amy, Ira and I get to have a little close encounter with some of the Baltimore native homeless in the form of a guy that comes jogging over to grab Ira around the shoulders (friend-like) and begin talking ALMOST incoherently. He wants to talk about how he slept really, really good last night on the steam grate over yonder but woke up really hard and had to do a lot of push ups and look at my knuckles! They’re all scraped up so I probably won’t be doing push-ups again till next week but man anyone gotta a quarter?
Last Monday we got to play at Steve Key’s showcase at the Westside Cafe in Frederick, MD. We were teamed up with a bunch of other people that I really Love, including Uncle John Sawbriar (above playing his new 12 string Rainsong). This was actually the show that Bambi was up to see – since both us and Alex Voegele were playing that night.
Eventually the door guy of the bar we were in front of came and chased him off. Sigh. At that moment, with sirens going by and the smell of the Harbour drifting up, I remember all the things that made me hate Living in Baltimore.
And then Thursday night John was hosting his last open mic at the Cup. We figured we should wander over there and see him off, as well as advertise for our show there on the 19th. To the left is Dan Layman-Kennedy, who will be taking over the Cup’s Thursday night open mic.
Throughout the course of the night, my mood slips further and further until I’m busily sulking in a corner through much of Even So’s set. They power through and the nice thing about tiny tiny bars is that they make tiny tiny crowds seem a decent size. I like the noise but wish I could hear Ira’s lyrics because he’s a spectacular writer.
Friday afternoon at the Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival, Heather comes up with the above bit of engineering genius. Yes, that’s a mic stand.
For no particular reason my mood caps out at around 11.30 or so and starts swinging back the other direction. I’m pretty joyous a couple of minutes later, and not even an absolutely hideous time on stage fighting with Ira’s guitar and Tyler’s bass and finally feeling at home on Brennan’s guitar could drag me back down again. I know we’d made absolute fools of ourselves, but it was mostly people we knew, so I suppose that was alright.
We head out shortly after with Meg kind of drunk but being oh-so-cute and I get to drive and we’ve got the windows down and the music up…. it was AWESOME and I look at the orange sky and we know we shouldn’t but we Love it and moving through Baltimore I’m reminded of all the things I miss about it.
Heather and I performing at the singer/songwriter contest at the Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival. Heather was a finalist this year, and though we didn’t place, I really felt the room was moved by her performance. There are moments where you just feel like an audience is holding it’s breath.
We wander a bit, looking at the Harbour, then wanting to hit Clipper Mill Road (which, unfortunately, is still closed) and ending up at a Dunkin Donuts where the guy offers to put chocolate frosting on anything I want… so full of chocolate donuts and with bathroom catastrophes averted, it’s time to race home. I Love driving other people’s cars.
And the best part? I parallel parked an SUV!
Twrr.
