SassyBlonde

I love the peeps on this tour. I love Lexie, I love Sassy Jo, I love CaraMia, I love Mel, I love Canada, I love BonBon (the concertmaster), I love Yar (singer-- bass). Some of them, like Sassy Jo, I've known for a long time, others are newer, but I really am glad I've found friends like them. They're the reason that I can survive the hell of touring, and mainly the reason I come back every time. It's a great way of getting paid to spend time wtih your friends, and the shared experience really tightens those bonds in a tangible way.

However, friendship, like a marriage, has its ups and downs. Spending hours and hours on a bus with the same people puts every little niggling flaw under a microscope and blows it out of proportion. It's not that you dislike these people, but it's like a concentrated reduction and distillation of self that can sometimes be good and sometimes can go horribly, horribly wrong. That person who you saw before as "talkative" suddenly seems like they never shut their mouth, ever. In your own mind, the one who was "cranky" before becomes a bitch. The "solitary" one becomes antisocial. And the sleepers just sleep and sleep. Unless you have some sort of way to ignore people and make your own little happy place, things can go downhill really quickly.

Different people respond differently to this sort of process, and my defense is to put on my headphones and veg out with my iPod and knit socks. Benighted, godforsaken, oh-my-God-I'm-never-going-to-finish-them socks. I have no idea what possessed me to choose to do moss stitch on these socks, because I. Hate. It. It's become one of those projects that makes you find other things to do-- you get so frustrated that you start to default over to new and different projects-- anything so you don't have to work on that God-forsaken sock. Ah well, I have a hat, scarf, and string bag 99% done, so at least something's getting done.

We're split into two separate hotels tonight and we were fortunate enough to have a Famous Dave's down the street, so a big group of us hustled over after the concert for a little barbecue... you know, there' nothing like a little smoked pig to improve your outlook. We sat around a huge table and bitched and moaned and laughed and discussed until we closed the place down, and there are leftover ribs in the room fridge for breakfast tomorrow. Not looking forward to sleeping on this bed, but there's more bus time tomorrow and sleep is where it's at. G'night, y'all.