catching up...
The last journal entry I wrote about what's going on was from Santa Cruz, California, so I'll tell you what I've been up to since then. I was in Santa Cruz to visit some good friends and play at their beautiful wedding. After two weeks there, I took an overnight Greyhound to Los Angeles, which is of course an adventure in itself. Met up with lin at the airport and then Alice and Kristina at their beautiful home and had an absolutely awesome few days with them. I didn't hate LA at all, which surprised me due to the bad reviews I got from others before I went. In fact, I can't wait to go back. Only to visit, not to stay...of course.
lin and I flew out to Vancouver and she and the fates opened up for Fruit...GREAT SHOW! Got sick in Vancouver...first time in years...bummer. Since arriving back from the coast, I've been trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. It's hard to know what to do with the new record...the music industry is such a grey area right now and it doesn't know what it is anymore or what it's going to look like tomorrow, much less next year.
I've been primarily on the farm and organizing is the best one-word description for what I've been doing. I've gone through boxes and bags and rubbermaid bins full of miscellaneous memorabilia and coins and scrumpled up bits of scrap papers with odds and ends of songs scribbled on them and letters and business cards and phone numbers from would-be suitors...you name it. I have thrown out more than half of the junk that I used to think I needed and I have catalogued the rest in an anal-retentive, overboard kind of a way. I still have a shoebox full of business cards and email addresses and such that I need to put into a phone book and organize further, but for the most part, I am now done. I feel calmer now that I know where everything is and I don't wonder, "do I still have that somewhere?", I just know now.
As far as my emotional state of being, it's a day to day thing, but on the whole I am vastly improved now that I have new resources at my disposal. I have become a whole hearted believer in anti depressants. I was afraid that I would feel different, as in not myself...but I don't at all. I just feel stronger and calmer and more able to cope. I can make sense of my thoughts and I can catalogue and organize them as easily as I did the bins of sentimentality. The ones I love are likely grateful for this, as I am no longer prone to irrationally attacking without warning and my happiness is coming from a real place instead of a desperate one. I still have moments when I fall short of the expectations I make for myself, but it's easier to forgive myself those lapses now.
Anyway, that's about it for now...I'm playing and writing and being grateful and hopeful and just trying to figure out what to do next, so if anyone has any brilliant ideas, let me know, okay?
Thanks for listening.
jas