Dripping Springs

I met Kelly in Berlin. I was renting a room from Simone, a former East German I found on the internet, and Kelly was a couchsurfer who crashed on Simone's floor. One day Kelly said she was going to Prague and invited me along. I hemmed and hawed and finally said cool.



In Prague we got lost, got found, reflected on communism, and witnessed dandelions growing on the side of a hill.



I didn't see Kelly again in person until she showed up at the American Idol show in Houston with a friend this past summer. This was extra funny because neither of them have ever watched Idol.

She told me at the end of the night, when we were saying goodbye outside of the amphitheater, that she was planning a writer's retreat and invited me. I said I'd love to, that that's exactly what I need.

Last weekend I went to Dripping Springs, Texas, outside of Austin, for Kelly's retreat and it was phenomenal.

I got a massage. I MEDITATED.

This is what I saw when I opened my eyes:



I've never meditated before and I liked it.

I slept here:



The morning after a bonfire:



It was the perfect mix of writing, talking, good food, and wandering around admiring the stuff hanging from the trees on Ricky and Joy's property. Oh, and there were chickens.





Chickens!



The office:



The instigator:



Thanks to Kelly, Matt, Ricky, Joy, Zack.

Open spaces // garbage cans.

I recently took this photo at a gas station in Arizona near the Texas border. I knew it reminded me of something.



Later I remembered that when I drove a van from Los Angeles to New York in the summer of 2001, I stopped at a place called the Badlands Ranch in South Dakota.



HOWDY PARD, WHOA UP!

I was taken with the land in South Dakota and scenes like this:






Which makes me wonder: am I always subconsciously searching for something that I forgot about?

Norma Catherine, Fade to Goodbye

One of my favorite voices.

RCP Vinyl!

I should have mentioned this a month ago at its release but better late than never. After five digital years, RACECAR puts out vinyl! Holla.

Missed

Missed them so much. 

A Place to Bury Strangers

Photo credit: Elise Thompson

If anyone asks if you want to go see A Place to Bury Strangers, the correct answer is YES. They are from Brooklyn but I saw them last night at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. Someone somewhere called them the loudest band in New York. That label seems to be sticking and while they weren't exactly quiet, they didn't make my ears bleed at all. I'd describe them oh damn with a side of heck yeah.

Despite the fact that the venue lost power four or five times during the show, the guys in the band were terribly good-natured and funny about it right up until the end when they may have lost it a bit. Even then, five minutes after the show was over they were outside smiling. Somehow I didn't think it detracted from the show, on the contrary I like it when people rally. When the drummer gets out from behind his kit to share his bottle with the audience. And the crowd claps until they're back up.

The only guy who took it like a chump was the one I couldn't figure out. Was he a guitar tech in a bike helmet or a local crazy? Grabbing the mic stand from the side of stage and moving it or, even better, twirling it in front of the monitor. Yelling about how the art museum can't get their shit together. Dude. They are the loudest band in New York. And people are having fun. You are wearing a bike helmet with rearview mirrors in a dark room.

this is not a story about how I have scabies

This is not a story about how I have scabies. Namely because I don't have scabies! But I thought I did, which made for a fun weekend.

Ten days ago I was getting ready for bed and Matthew noticed that I had red bumps all over my boobs and stomach. This had escaped my attention how? I do not know. They didn't itch and weren't horribly inflamed and I'm guessing they showed up that day. Whatever, allergic reaction. Goodnight.

Two days later they were horribly inflamed and were starting to itch. They had also spread to my back, my crotch, and were creeping up my shoulders to my neck. I am officially gross. I called my doctor's office - a group practice - and got an appointment for the next day. When I told M who I had an appointment with, he groaned. "I forgot to warn you about her," he said.

Several years ago, Matthew had MRSA and this woman, a nurse practitioner, diagnosed it as herpes and sent him on his way. And not just herpes but herpes in his NOSE. Nose herpes! It was MRSA which, in case you don't know, is a bacterial infection that eats away at your flesh. In fact, just the other day M showed me a pit in his shin where MRSA had gobbled him up.

So I wasn't psyched about baring my chest for this same lady but I felt desperate and went ahead, despite the fact that there are doctors that I surely could have bullied my way into. Regrettably, that makes the fact that I walked out of the clinic angry kind of my fault.

The nurse practitioner asked me a few questions and then said it looks like pityriasis rosea. Pity-wha? She said it usually starts with one larger red patch and then breaks out. Did I have that large initial herald patch? Nope. Oh well, anyway, it's often misdiagnosed as ringworm, she said. She had an intern go get a dermatology book and read aloud from it, punctuating the sentences with, "See? I told you!" Making me feel even less assured of her authority than I already was. You don't need to prove anything to me, lady (Actually you do, but you don't know that) you're just supposed to know what you're talking about.

She said there was nothing I could do except wait for it to go away, which might take a few months. I was all AGH! and then GR! and it was at this point that I put my shirt on and stormed out.

I was going to flash forward a few hours here to when I am at home moping, itchy, and mad at myself but I think I'll mention first the spectacularly irresponsible thing I did. I went to Nordstrom Rack and shopped AKA retail therapy AKA I need more clothes to cover this rash that is threatening to devour my entire body including my face. I already have armwarmers but I'm low on turtlenecks and ski masks. Because I was feeling grossly unattractive, my thoughts were developing along the lines of "Does my rash make me look fat?" Yes, I need a dress or two to cover up my fat, spotted ass.

Look. I have never denied being emotional.

Anyway, it was irresponsible not because of the money spent but because I was trying on clothes, rubbing my disease all over that stuff. Remember, I didn't believe it was pityriasis rosea, I was fixating on shingles, bedbugs, and scabies as new and contagious possibilities. Matthew and I went to dinner that night with Doug and Jacquie and I made a point not to bring up my scabes as I'd started calling them.

M and I started calling each other "scabes" instead of "babes". He gave me a pep talk that started with, "At least there isn't pus..." and he promised it didn't look that bad but given the fact that I have eyes, I knew he was just being nice.

On Saturday night, I wanted to see Jane who was in town but I'd gone into full-blown compulsive itching overtime. I went to the drugstore and stocked up on everything that might make my skin feel better: Calamine, Antihistamine, oatmeal bath packs. Matthew threatened to rub me all over with Tinactin. "What's that for?" I asked. "Jock itch," he said and I squinted meanly at him. And laughed. And then squinted again.

When Jane called I was in my oatmeal bath which, incidentally, was kind of torture. Partly because of my jockitchscabieshingles but also because I don't fit in bathtubs. I have to do yoga to try to get my whole body in the water and then I lie there wondering when it will be over. My child pose for the night was the one I created to get my tits and neck submerged. I flopped on my stomach and turned my head to the side, propping the side of my face up on the tub's incline.

When I finally extracted myself and called Jane back, I realized she was out with Seema, our friend who is a doctor. Yes! I would show Seema the rash and grill her on my prognosis while unwinding with a tasty beer. I meant to do this early in the evening but we got distracted by all the commotion in the street near our table: police interrogations, an unresponsive woman wheeled off on a stretcher, a cop walking by with a full sized stop sign, post, and street sign in his arms that someone ripped out. Kentucky is like that sometimes.

We moved on to our favorite local gay bar, Rosie's Tavern, where our neighbor was working. Shannon bought us a round and complimented me on my dress to which I did not respond, "Thanks, I bought it to hide a disfiguring condition, thanks a lot." Several pints later, I described my situation to Seema and told her I thought it was scabies. She asked if there were grey lines running between the bumps (scabie tunnels). No, I told her, there weren't, Matthew already looked for that with his microscope.

Seema laughed and said something about how special it is that he has a microscope. Oh, I mean, magnifying glass. Not microscope. I maybe should have talked about this when I was a teensie bit more sober instead of yelling over the jukebox about microscopes. She said it sounds like pityriasis rosea which would have been awesome if it were treatable / anyone seemed to know what to do about it.

I called the practice back on Monday and demanded a reference to a dermatologist. I saw the dermatologist. I told him I had an Icelandic honeymoon to go on soon and did not want my being a leper to get us kicked out of the thermal baths. It would be a funny story later but I don't actually want to be banned from the Blue Lagoon. The dermatologist was nice and grandfatherly and said, "What you have is something called pityriasis rosea."

FINE. I HAVE IT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

The good news was that even though we don't really know why it strikes - maybe it's viral, maybe not - you don't have to just sit around and take it. I got a shot in the hip, a steroid cream, and an order to get sun. Within a couple of days it was looking a tragillion times better. Yee haw.

His gaze, it is so piercing

Matthew helped his parents clean out their basement. He and I now have something special on display in our home.

Sedona

I snapped this photo with a disposable camera last June when Matthew and I were in Arizona. We didn't get it developed for a full year and when I saw the photos this summer, this was my favorite. There were others that were clearer or brighter but I like the mood of this bend in the road.

23 shots of the summer

June - September



This is a view from the Los Angeles hotel room.

Let this represent the end of May through June since I didn't take a photo in the car. When I wasn't at the hotel, I was at the office or rehearsal studio. I also spent hours and hours in the rental car with Kevin driving between hotel and studio.

After disagreeing about whose route takes the longest, I think we both agree that they both take A FUCK OF A LONG TIME. If there is a hell it looks like Lankershim Avenue.



Matthew sent me this after downtown Los Angeles was lit on fire over a basketball game.

I happened to be at the office the day that the Lakers beat the Boston Celtics and since I know dipsquat about professional sports I was clueless as to why every single person on my floor left early. I was seriously ALONE. I presume they all left to watch the game. Or they all had dentist appointments.



I like this Toronto corner. I like Toronto in general. To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of pissed off that I'm not Canadian.



Good Morning America in Central Park.
Photo: Neil Wilson



Me in Manchester, NH being not amused.
Photo: Kevin Mann



Me in Washington, DC being not amused.
Photo: Kevin Mann





On a day off in Washington DC I walked to the National Gallery of Art. I stopped at the Rothko exhibit, sat on a bench in the middle of the room, and watched people look at black canvases. Ha ha.

What do they see when they look at a big black square? What are they thinking?

According to the exhibit materials, Rothko painted the black collection in 1964 and the gallery invites us to question the simple equation of darkness and despair and to re-imagine blackness as a medium of light - nuanced, expansive, and even hopeful.



A wall in New York, NY



In Tampa I spent the first half of the day working. At 2 pm I went to the beach and roamed around taking photos like this.



A few hours later someone who shall remain nameless, okay it was Neil Wilson, plunked down next to me, spread out his towel and handed me a giant bottle of Stoli Blakberi.

This photo represents the beginning of the end and by end I mean I think I'm due for a blackout, it's been awhile. Take that, everyone who's been saying I work too much.





The good news is that when I'm in a blackout I just get really happy. And mellow. And no one ever has any idea that I'm that drunk. The bad news is braincells. Ah, well.



On a long drive from Florida to Texas, Monica goes to have cereal in the front lounge. The milk from the fridge pours out in icicles. She eats it anyway.



On a long drive from Texas to Arizona, I wake up to this. It goes on for awhile.







A truckstop in Arizona



In my hotel room in Phoenix was a head. When you sat on the couch it stared at you WITH NO EYES. I read a book across from it and kept looking up at its black eye holes. I got increasingly more unnerved and eventually defaulted to one of my fear modes.

Demons. The head was a portal for a demon and I'M NEXT.

When Monica, Kevin, and Leila stopped by I asked them if the head was creepy and they said, resoundingly, yes. I put the head on the floor, facing the wall. That somehow made it worse. Kevin put it at the foot of my bed and they all laughed and I actually got a little pissed off until he moved it. Eventually, I put the head outside.



This is what it looked like if you walked by the patio.
Photo: Tim Urban



In Los Angeles my boss gave me a wedding present, part of which was a Gangsta Rap Coloring Book.



A giant statue in Denver, CO



Towards the end of the tour, I was keeping photos like this on my desktop and sending them to people WHO SHARE MY SENSE OF HUMOR when they wanted something. You want to send a fax? Go eff yourself. I'm going home. Love ya.
xx

Idolbot

Since I was on blog vacation during the AI tour and just got back to my life, there's a big gaping June-September hole of what I've been doing, not just here on Ronckytonk but in most of my friendships. I made very few personal phone calls, I was a machine. Matthew even made a design for it.



Much of my last three months I can't talk about, not because of the confidentiality contract I signed but because of BORING. A bunch of factors kept me in a state of catch-up for months and I'd guess the first deep breath I took was in late July. Ahh. I'd spent my days off until then at hotel room desks and when I got a few hours free I'd walk outside to clear my mind.

Once, in New York, I was desperate to leave the hotel room but HAD to finish some paperwork so I took my folders to a pub in the East Village. I was so pleased with myself that I didn't mind looking like a raging geek and, in fact, happily reminisced about college in Ecuador when most papers I turned in reeked of spilled tequila.

Even when you're a nerd on tour, however, you get around despite yourself so there are photos. I think maybe a pictorial timeline is in order, what do you think?

laughing quietly to myself

About how I just found a draft of a blog post I started in June that says, "I am the most indifferent person I know when it comes to..." and ends. I guess I was too indifferent to finish the sentence.

Indiana: Restart Your Engines

The day after the Idol tour ended in Indianapolis last week, I had lunch with Monica. I was going back to the hotel after lunch to do paperwork and Monica would fly to New York. I was also going to have dinner at Alison's house and was telling Monica about Rocky Ripple, where Ali lives.

It's a tiny town within the city, only a mile square. Actually I made that up, I don't know how big Rocky Ripple is. But it's so small that it has only one cop named Marshal Mike who sits and watches and waits for people to do something wrong.

"Like what?" Monica asked.

"Like roll through a stop sign," I said, remembering what Ali's told me.

"Is it a gated community?" Monica asked.

"Oh no, it's old and wooded with big trees, no gates or country clubs or anything like that."

"It sounds like that black and white TV show that had whistling at the beginning of it," said Monica.

"The Andy Griffith Show?" I laughed and shot down a few more of Monica's ideas about Rocky Ripple, like it having a single-celled jail or a grandmotherly receptionist with a fistful of skeleton keys.

Ali picked me up that night and drove me back to her house.

"Just how big is Rocky Ripple?" I asked her, curious as to how much I had embellished for Monica. "Three hundred homes," Ali said.

Aha, maybe I hadn't lied after all. I love it when I accidentally tell the truth. Just then, she pointed left down a street and said, "There he is, in his UNMARKED CAR."

A ways down the block Marshal Mike sat quietly at the curb watching the intersection.

We drove around the block so we could pass him and wave and giggle because we are like TEN YEARS OLD and that was that. I was ready to sit on the kitchen floor, drink a glass of wine, and try not to pass out because that's all I want to do the day after tour ends.

I didn't quite lapse into a stupor but I did get a tiny bit hypnotized by Ali's baby's feet. I don't know what it is about baby feet but they both blow my mind and freak me out. I can't get over how little and perfect they are and I want to take them home with me. But just the feet, not the whole baby.

I am as disturbed by that as you are FYI.

By 8:30 pm I was full of good food and cross-eyed enough to fall asleep standing. Ali drove me back to the hotel and I thought what nice visit that was and I thought I'd gotten my Indiana fix.

Until I got an email yesterday telling me that I missed this action: A man was driving a golden retriever around Rocky Ripple in a golf cart and almost got macked by an Explorer at the stop sign. AND MARSHAL MIKE MISSED IT WTF.

You have a lot of explaining to do, mister.

I love montessori

Yes, it is called The Evergreen State College.

Thanks Stephen.

Albany huldufolk

Yesterday we had a day off in Albany. By afternoon I got out of my hotel room to walk around because I'm finally getting caught up on work, woo! Good news for fresh air and sociability and HINT for those to whom I owe phone calls.

Also, I bought a new camera in LA, an Olympus PEN E-PL1 that I've been wanting to play with.

It was muggy and hazy which was still a million times better than being inside. I was crossing the street to the Hudson River path when it started to rain so I turned around and ran back to the highway overpass to wait it out.



A few minutes later Monica texted, "Can't wait to see your pictures."

"Well I'm stuck under an overpass because it started raining so the photos might not be awesome," I wrote back.

And a moment later, "Totally feel like a hooker right now."

I climbed up the embankment to explore.



Oh look, it's my feet. I love this camera already.



And my face.

It's hard to make out in this photo but over my shoulder it says death. NICE.



Free your mind from death.

That's the whole message and I wonder who wrote it.



Matthew and I are talking about going to Iceland and in my research I've discovered from Wikipedia that many Icelanders believe in elves or are unwilling to rule out their existence. I'm quite stuck on this piece of trivia. It is debatable, and in fact DEBATED, if elves are the same as huldufolk, Icelandic hidden people. To me they all sound like trolls so naturally that's where my mind went as I hung out under a bridge.

And so I waited out the rain, contemplating the likelihood of Albany huldufolk.

waking up in Albany

laughing quietly to myself

About the sticker on my deodorant, EXTRA RESPONSIVE IN EMOTIONAL MOMENTS. People should come with these stickers.

Goodbye Joey

Here's the funny thing that isn't really funny:

Moments before I learned something huge on Facebook, I read an inconsequential status update from someone. It was a throwaway comment along the lines of CAN'T DECIDE WHAT TO EAT FOR LUNCH!!! The kind of thing that makes me think we are all just wasting our time. I was toying with the idea of quitting Facebook and everything else in my life that might be a waste of time when I clicked on Joey's page.

I started reading his wall and couldn't believe - literally couldn't - what I was reading.

I called Kevin, my assistant tour manager, and asked him to look at Joey's page.

"I don't know if this is a cruel joke," I said, "But I think something's happened to Joey. Something bad."

I've worked with Joey for the last four years. Every time I'm in LA before a tour, Joey works as our rehearsal runner and I've spent between 3-6 weeks every year in an room with him working, laughing my ass off, talking, and appreciating how well he takes care of us.

I called him before I got to LA last week to reconfirm his start date. I didn't hear back so I emailed him. Last Friday I spoke with Kevin on the phone and told him how weird it was that Joey wasn't getting back to me because he's always the first one to call and check in. Maybe he's tired of us, we said, maybe he's peaced out. It doesn't seem like him but you never know, we agreed. I decided the next day to go to Facebook again and try to find him there one more time.

Kevin took one look at Joey's Facebook page after I asked him to, called me back, and confirmed what I didn't want to know: that Joey had passed away and was gone. He died the day before.

What I've learned is that he was having trouble sleeping and was having some problem with his hands going numb. He was going to have a surgery and was given painkillers so that he could sleep beforehand. He took too many. He turned blue in his sleep and was rushed to the hospital. He went into a coma and never woke up. Sometime later that week, the doctors told his dad that his brain had swelled and that if he came out of the coma, he would be brain dead. So his father gathered all of his friends around and they said goodbye and let him go.

Kevin and I tried to understand that Joey was gone. "You know what's crazy?" I said, "I was just thinking that Facebook is so useless, just a huge useless drain of energy, and I go to Joey's page and there all these people who love him are writing to him. Not about him, TO him. They're writing him letters like he's reading it."

In this instance Facebook wasn't a community of people broadcasting the fact that they'd brushed their teeth that morning, it was a central place for Joey's people to share with each other - and, oddly, with him - why he was special to them. I just never would have thought of that.

I did think about little things, about how last summer when I was still on my kick of wanting a pet pig partially out of seriousness and partially to antagonize Matthew, I told Joey and he got so excited for me. He told me about the pig named pumpkin that he'd adopted in Hawaii and told me how funny and smart and cuddly it was.



I thought about how he always seemed to be in the middle of or embarking on a creative project and I probably should have listened more closely. Unfairly I tend to turn off when people in LA talk about film and scripts because it's so pervasive. But Joey wasn't a stupid blockbuster type he was more about darkness and truth and I wish I'd asked more questions.

I thought about how our office sometimes resembled group therapy, all of us sharing what we were going through, the rest of us taking it in and offering our perspectives. Joey was thoughtful. I love it when the person who looks like the biggest hooligan ends up being the sweetest and the nicest. That was Joey. He would surprise you.

We'll miss you xx

I might as well have put it back in his pants myself

My wedding bouquet on a urinal: not cool. NOT COOL. But kinda funny.

Geri Halliwell's abs

Every time I go into the copy room I pass a Spice Girls poster and I can't get rid of the feeling that Geri Halliwell's abs are mocking me.

Dance party 3000 AKA my wedding

I was blown away by my own wedding and it's ironic because I can be kind of a hard sell. When I got engaged, those who know me best said things like, "Ohmigod, I know you're not the type of girl to get all into this but I'M so excited!"

All of the messages we are force fed about weddings: The Best Day of Your Life, Your Perfect Day, all of that makes me see red. I told myself that I wouldn't be the girl who cared if things didn't go as exactly as planned, I would be the girl who laughed. What I didn't plan for, exactly, was how moved I would be. I was so used to rejecting the crushing wedding images that I underestimated my own ability to be happily stunned.

I THOUGHT I just wanted to throw a serious party. And I did, with the help of many, many people, a long list topped by my parents who were - and I need caps for this - UNBELIEVABLY COOL. ABOUT EVERYTHING. I'd put all the emphasis on the party because that was the point, or so I thought.

After Matthew and I were legally married in all of four minutes in Vegas, my mom told me that I didn't really need to do a ceremony in May, it could literally be just a party. Instinctively, immediately, I thought no, it's more than that. I realized I'd been calling it a party to avoid all the connotations I despise about weddings. I craved, actually, ritual.

It came down to this. I believe in love. I believe in deep, searing, beautiful, painful, truthful love. It's the trappings I take issue with, the boring old shoulds and thoughtless expectations. That's what I run from. In a wedding of my own, could I focus on what I think is important and lose the stuff that pisses me off? Could we create a ceremony that reflects who we truly are?

At the Graceland Chapel we'd had a fifteen minute time slot, a fraction of which it took to be legally bound. Elvis was awesome, Allison, Jacky, and their two cousins were great guests, showing up on short notice and jumping up and down clapping when we sealed the deal, but the words we said weren't ours. They belonged to the state of Nevada, Jon Bon Jovi and everyone else who was married there.

Our May wedding invitations sidestepped the matter by inviting everyone to "celebrate our marriage" without saying what form that celebration would take. All I thought of initially was food, booze and music. Then, after my mom gave me the out to ditch the wedding part, I started thinking:

What did I want to say to Matthew and about Matthew? What did I want to say about how we view marriage? How would we articulate our approach? And if it differs at all from the norm, could we explain how? Our minister was to be Sara, my friend of 13 years and a new friend to Matthew. Sara and I have seen each other through much and I wed her to Michael seven years ago. What would Sara say to me, to us? This was a fantastic opportunity! To show off for 250 people!

Oh, that. Apparently I have some social anxiety. Because the thought of 250 people all looking at me, all at once, freaked me OUT. "That's 500 eyeballs," I thought. All watching me walk down the aisle with my mom and dad and watching me talk, assuming I'd be able to.

When I was going over the ceremony in the month before with Sara, I wrote hints to her in the script: Here you speak quietly to us to help calm me down. Here is where I'll be shaking. Here you hold our hands. Sara vetoed the hand holding, knowing we'd probably make a mess of that but she was ready to help me relax.

It didn't matter that I would be with people who love us, as everyone reminded me when I confessed that I was practically wetting the bed thinking about it. I was scared. But the weirdest thing happened. I have never felt so calm and centered and focused as I did during that ceremony. I was high, in a good way. And I don't think it was just the beta blockers I took.

When I stood there, in my blue dress and matching boots - a big honking coincidence, by the way - with my aluminum bouquet, in front of turntables and a sound system powerful enough to throw an actual concert, I looked at Matthew and Sara. I knew I was surrounded by many of the best people in my life. That thing I believe in? Love? It was palpable.

To think that at one point I had even worried that bringing together so many different friends from different times and places might clash. Oh ho, quite the opposite. They got along very well, some TOO well. As Bova stated afterward on Facebook, he attended a very sexy wedding. He may have even mentioned sporadic nudity.

All of the planning around the obscure location we chose with mostly do-it-yourself details had taken on a fevered state in the two days before the event. I was trying to be attentive to my job with American Idol while executing and dispatching rounds of airport pick ups and hotel drop offs and sleepovers at my house. The food for the sleepover house at the wedding, how much liquor to buy for the open bar, the directions for Gail's family who was driving from Minnesota to stay at our apartment and watch the dog.

It was all good stuff but it was compounding all at once. Various people told me that I seemed really chill which shows only that I hide mania well. I had a pit in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon.

I will tell you the exact moment that the pit disappeared. I watched Neil, my dear friend and ringbearer, dance down the last few feet of the aisle with the ring box in his hand and I started forward with my mom and dad. After agonizing over the procession song, I had finally chosen Auto Rock by Mogwai, a song that grows and builds and gets BIG. Auto Rock also means much to me as the first song on a mix I made in Berlin right after I met Matthew. I had listened to this song for hours and hours while walking around Berlin. It was a powerful, important time in my life and it's where I first got to know Matthew - corresponding from that city - to that song.

So I walked forward with my parents and and felt my face start to freeze and tic the way it does when I'm super duper nervous. But when we got closer, people stood up and started cheering. It was like a damn sporting event. It was INCREDIBLE. I started laughing and that's when the pit went away, never to return.

I mean come on, there were camper vans, tents, kegstands and scandal. Two of my fine, upstanding, civic-minded friends were too drunk to put up a tent and slept in their car. My brother, between seizures, stayed glued to my side, saying over and over, "Sister! Sister!" The kids I babysat in Cincinnati danced hard with the girls I ran with through the Amazon. I had friends and family making programs, party favors, and food.

I said SPACE CAMP and UNICORNS in my vows.

I love a good, good man and, conveniently, he loves me back. I don't know when I've ever been so happy.

I'm a Man

Oddly, the only way I'm able to soothe myself right now is by playing I'm a Man by Black Strobe at top volume.

You know you're dirty

When a spider makes a web in your car's cup holder and calls it home.

you know you're tired

When your dog wakes you up barking in the morning and you lay down in her dog bed with her to doze off again.

Project Runway binge: coping with stress

I can't make up my mind whether I'm fine, as my exterior calm suggests, or so deeply stressed that the panic is simply gasping for air under ten tons of to-do lists and can't make a noise. Last Wednesday I told I felt really good. I had a slick spreadsheet of details to accomplish but most were final touches for the wedding, some of them almost fun. More worrying than the wedding was work.

The tour for the summer has been slower in coming together than usual and by now I'd expect to have put in 4-6 weeks of planning. As of last week I'd done next to nothing. It isn't my fault or anyone's in particular, it just IS. And I was starting to think that I wouldn't get the info I needed to start until the week or day of the wedding. I would be expected to be on, available, and in overdrive and I would be distracted, to say the least.

The good news is I have now started working on the tour and am thankful to have this week to get as much done as possible. The bad news is that the day after I waxed so positive about my state of mind, I developed a jackhammer of a headache that all but forced me to lay on the couch and watch ten consecutive episodes of Project Runway.

p.s. So pleased that Seth Aaron won. And does anyone have Anthony's digits because I want to be his friend.

It was suggested to me that the headache was stress-related and that may well be true because what other kind of headache doesn't respond to Tylenol, Excedrin Migraine, coffee, water, snacks and ten hours of Project Runway?

The day after that my Project Runway binge I was back to normal. I woke early, spent a few blurry hours wandering around the Internet before attacking my lists with renewed vigor. I then largely took the weekend off and have been slammed ever since Monday. And that's where I'm like I am REALLY straddling the line that separates calm and cool from edgy and self-destructive. I'm obsessing about taking things to Goodwill and it took seven days of broken deadlines for me to pick a procession song for the ceremony and I might be drinking more wine at night than medically advised but overall, I'm good (ish) (I think). 

I'm thrilled to imagine so many people I love in one place at one time, a remarkable thing in that my crowd has always been so spread out. And I'm psyched that my wedding dress came back de-egged: the yellow is now a dark charcoal grey. And I know that the tour will come together because it must. There is no alternative. It's possible that what I told people last year - that I'd be able to plan a wedding and a tour at the same time - is actually true.

laughing quietly to myself

About how after watching House Hunters International last night, Matthew and I both want to move to Panama.

Lasik round 2

So it seems, as far as my eyes are concerned, that I'm out of the woods. I had my second round of Lasik surgery two days ago.

I was talking to Sunny the night before I went under the laser for the second time. I told her how the first round back in January worked well on the left eye but not so much on the right. I can read and use the computer, everything close up is great but long distances and low light are hard. So I haven't liked driving at night and my depth perception is janky. Oh, and grocery stores. Grocery stores are a mess.

"It is so hard not to knock over the pyramid of cereal boxes," I said. All the different colors and signs and displays confuse me and I walk around squinting and blinking, trying to tell what's what.

According to my doctor, my right eye was regressing. My right eye had been trying to grow its cornea back to its former curvature, the curvature that made it nearly legally blind in the first place. WHAT A JERK.

"But it's okay," I said to Sunny, cautiously preparing myself for failure, "Even if my right eye doesn't get totally fixed, I'm still much better off than I was before. I could wake up without glasses in the woods now and get out without being eaten by a bear!"

Because this is a very likely situation.

"Well, with your left eye," she clarified.

"You're right. My right eye would lead me straight into the den but my left eye would get me out."

Here's the thing about my second corrective surgery or "enhancement" as they called it at the doctor's office:

Surgery #1 was a procedure called IntraLase and it was bladeless and all-laser. It was very early in the morning so I was deliriously tired AND they gave me Valium so I was what we would call relaxed. I was nodding off in the cushy little pre-op waiting room when the nurse put numbing drops in my eyes and led me into surgery. They taped my eyelids back and propped my eye open with an eye speculum. It was at this point, I swear to God, that a song came on the radio, Blinded By The Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Are you serious?

Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night

I didn't know what that means but through the haze, I knew that it was deeply funny.

They told me to keep still and to keep watching the orange dot, a pinhole of a light from the laser machine. I had no problem whatsoever doing this, I was chill. Even when the laser started making a zapping noise and I smelled something burning - my EYE - I really didn't care. Evidently I respond well to Valium.

This time around I expected the same. In fact, I thought it would be better because I knew more and had already been through it. I knew I would be terrified of getting shower water in my eyes in the first few days after surgery so I took extra care to do my hair on the day of in hopes that it would look cute if I didn't wash it for a day or two.

Kind of embarrassing to admit but true.

"Your hair looks really good today," Matthew said in the waiting room.

"Oh? Thanks," I tried to be nonchalant.

They called me back to the exam rooms to run a few final tests. At my appointment the previous week, they couldn't get my eye to dilate so this time they gave me Valium (sweet!) to relax and try the test again. They lowered the lights and left me for ten minutes to think happy relaxing thoughts. For the record, Valium is fast-acting; I was GOOD after about 30 seconds.

They did the test but still my pupil did not want to dilate.

"Okay, wiggle your left pinkie toe," the nurse said, "That helps the pupil."

I started trying to wiggle my pinkie but it suddenly seemed really difficult and then the nurse said, "I know it sounds gay but just wiggle it for me."

Wow. Did she just say that? My pupil suddenly dilates.

I expect to go into surgery at this point but they send me back to the waiting room. I plunk down next to Matthew and tell him I'm on Valium. I really want to smile. I want to smile so much that I become self-conscious and try very hard not to smile because I know there is nothing to smile about. I am acutely aware that my body language has changed from when I was last in the waiting room: instead of primly reading a magazine, I am slouched in the chair, legs stretched out, arms folded over my stomach, trying desperately not to smile.

Matthew can tell that I'm self-conscious about being drugged so he decides to run an errand instead of laughing at me. After he leaves I watch FOX news for about three minutes until I'm getting so pissed that I think it's going to make the Valium wear off and I switch to the History channel. Finally they call me back to surgery.

I spend a few minutes in the comfy pre-op chairs where the nurse briefs me and puts the attractive shower cap thing on my head and then? THEN? A song comes on the radio, a song by Foreigner called Double Vision.

Fill my eyes with that double vision
No disguise for that double vision
Ooh, when it gets through to me, it's always new to me
My double vision always seems to get the best of me, the best of me, yeah-ah

Are you KIDDING? I can't believe this! Is this radio station rigged?

Something Sunny had said to me on the phone was, "I hope you don't get a wandering eye from this surgery." This was purely hype on her part, an attempt to wind me up and get me going. She even said something about me becoming walleyed.

"Well," I responded, "If I do get walleyed, it will sure come in handy on the wedding day when I have to talk to so many people. I can kill a lot of birds with one stone, talking to my mom with my left eye and Aunt Joann with my right."

Anyway.

They put numbing drops in my eyes but instead of laying beneath the laser machine, I have to first sit straight up in another chair. "We're going to loosen the flap first and then use the laser," my doctor says.

FYI: the flap is the circular patch that they cut out of my eye and reattached in January.

"Okay..." I say. My doctor sits across from me with a sharp instrument in his hand. It's a cross between a scalpel and the pick that dentists use to get at the plaque between your teeth. All I know is that he's holding my eyelid open and aiming the scalpel pick thing at me. I see it getting closer and closer and then I CAN FEEL IT. It's not horrible but it's enough to make my face start to crumple and my whole body tense.

The surgical assistant who I keep thinking of as an orderly even though he's not an orderly notices and says, "You can feel that?"

"Yes," I gasp, wanting to cry because suddenly I feel like a big fat baby.

They put more drops in and my eye is totally numb but I am now trying to concentrate on breathing and not panicking. My doctor cuts the circular flap in my eye and leads me to the laser table. I feel nothing but I'm freaked so it doesn't matter. The zapping and burning smell starts and the nurse is counting backwards, I hear her say "Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen..." and I try to blink and I move enough that the laser automatically stops. It resumes and I stay still but I'm telling myself the whole time, "Breathe, breathe, breathe," and reminding myself that I have a mouth and that I should breathe through it.

It's over quickly. My doctor, the orderly, the nurse, the receptionist at the front desk, everyone is so nice. I am prepared to go home and face the uncomfortable sand-in-my-eyes feeling that I had the first time around and I cajole the nurse into giving me the special anesthetic drops that they won't name, the drops that they say only to use in case of severe pain and to throw away after 24 hours.

They give them out in an unmarked bottle and I am convinced they are narcotics. I am fixated on the mystery surrounding the drops since no one says what they are but I don't even need them this time. The pain is minimal. I keep my eyes closed as ordered and immediately fall asleep for five hours.

My greatest fear has been clawing at my eyes in my sleep. After Lasik you aren't allowed to rub your eyes and, after my first surgery, I didn't know how to keep myself from rubbing and tearing the flap open in my sleep so I slept with a bandanna over my face. This time they gave me safety goggles, clear plastic eye masks not unlike the ones you wore in tenth grade chemistry class.

I, however, remembered the eye patch that Rose made for me last summer when my eyes had so many problems with infections and irritations, the reason I decided to get Lasik in the first place. Rose rhinestoned a somewhat creepy and too-large eye onto a patch for me and this week I'm wearing it to bed every single night.



When I wake up, I can see.