Tom Petty

My dad had this doctor friend.  He and his wife had a zillion kids, a huge backyard, and was the first person I ever saw cook salmon in a basket on the grill.  Omigosh, it was SO good.  He also let my dad's teenybopper daughter rummage through his CD collection (which was both a novelty and a luxury at the time), and offered to make me a tape of whatever I wanted.  So, of course, I chose the B52s Cosmic Thing and Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever.  I played that tape until it was warped and weird, and loved it.  I can't listen to Tom Petty without breathing a sigh of relief.  Anyone who doesn't sing along to Free Fallin in the car needs to have their head examined.

So I'm listening to Alright For Now, and trying to channel that kind of peace.  It's a hard time right now.  I'm opening a show in a week, opening another show less than two weeks after that, and trying to fortify myself against fatigue, illness, and the general wear and tear of doing this.  My back and neck are angry at me for working on a crazy raked stage, my stomach hates the fact that we're in the land of beautiful cheese and I keep denying I'm lactose intolerant (okay, that's totally my fault), and my body clock hates that rehearsal ends at 8pm, I don't eat dinner until 9pm, and I'm not sleepy until 1am.

At this juncture, anyone who would like to tell me how I've chosen this path and I need to live with the consequences of choosing this career can kindly exit to the left, through the garbage chute.  Haters gonna hate, but singers gotta sing.

Back to Tom Petty.  In college, it was his Wildflowers album.  "You belong among the wildflowers.  You belong somewhere close to me.  Far away from your trouble and worry.  You belong somewhere you feel free."  Now I don't need to be far away from trouble and worry, but I do need to be close to the one I love, and I do need to be somewhere I feel free.  So why is it that the place I feel free (on the stage) must take me so far away from the one I love?

Whining over.  Going to the gym to run out some of the crazy.

**edited to indicate diminished crazy**

This is why I run.  After a few miles, some stretching, and a walk up and down the hill, I feel like a human again.  I can do this.  We can do this.  Except for the dairy part - I really really can't do that :(

We're alright for now.  Really.