Saturday, January 19, 2008

Journey To The Center Of Charlottesville

Its a funny thing what happens to me as soon as I set foot in this Water School van. All I can think about is writing this blog. Every little thing that is said or is witnessed is immediately stored in the RAM of my mind:

  • Adam makes his first ever "That's what she said" joke and I feel like he's finally one of us.
  • Eric uncharacteristically [and jokingly] says "Hello ladies!" when some lacrosse girls jog passed the van as we've stopped for gas.
  • Mike buys a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew with a cap that feels like its been glued on. Eric and I loosened it up, before Adam finally cracked it open.

And here comes my problem. I don't want to say "RAM" again, but my brain doesn't have much RAM, so once I had these three facts stored away, my mind starts steaming and I get dizzy. Its a real condition and I don't know how to stop it.

Plenty of interesting stuff happens to me day in and day out, outside of this van, but I never really feel the need to document it. But as soon as Eric says, "Who packed this thing?," something he says nearly every time that we load up the van with equipment, I knew that I needed to get this all down on paper. And really, I don't know what I'd do without this urge. If I didn't do the tour diary on the first and last Water School coast to coast tour, I would have had a nervous breakdown upon returning home and we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.

So, here we are, 45 minutes into the trip, just outside of DC. The anticipation says that we're about to hit rush hour traffic and spend the next hour or so sitting still. Adam had a motion to take the long way 'round, which I seconded, but we were locked in a stalemate when Eric and Mike wanted to just go through DC. After a few tie breaking phone calls, we decided on DC. Of course, as we're the area, Mike has just given us the kiss of death by saying, "I don't want to jinx anything, but traffic's looking pretty great!" Sitting around should commence in t minus two paragraphs.

This is the first time that the band has left the comfy confines of Baltimore since early 2006 and the first time since Adam joined the band. Our last of town jaunt was to New York City for a pretty successful show with the Oranges Band. That afternoon as we waited around for two hours for him to arrive to pick us up, we had decided it was time to kick our old drummer, Matt, out of the band. On the drive home, we decided it was as opportune time as ever so we told him then. In We immediately knew it wasn't as opportune as we thought, since we still had about 2 hours left in our trip. Eric pretended to sleep, as Mike and I just made awkward glances at each other.

Stuck in traffic.

How did all of you feel about oral presentations when you were in high school or college? I dreaded them. There were a few classes that on day one, when I received the syllabus, I read that there'd be an oral presentation at the end of the semester. I'd immediately freak out, even though I knew that it was still 4 months away. Then I'd do everything I could to keep it out of my mind, only to find myself waking, crying, screaming in the middle of the night. This is also how I feel about dying.

And driving the band van. I've been in the driver's seat one time since we returned from tour in 2004. I was never good at it, but when you're doing 8 hour drives everyday, each of the four of you need to pull your weight. That said, its already been hinted that we're all going to do some driving on this trip. Gimme a break! No way, bro! You don't want me driving. Especially in a populated area. So, I've been making sure to tell Mike that he's a really good driver every so often, in hopes that he gets a sense of pride from it and wants to do it for the rest of the way. If we can keep him in the driver's seat for the entire trip to Mono Loco [did I mention that we're playing a taco restaurant?], then there's no way that it'll require three drivers to make it 2 and a half hours to get home. Plus I'm going to get trashed on margaritas just for good measure.

And so you have it. We'll see if there's a part two to this or not.

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