Oh my gaaaaawd.

So tired. So so so tired. Right now I am trying to resolve the issue of having two separate mailing lists for gigs in Albuquerque and Austin, because it's complicated to to have two but people in ABQ don't wanna hear when I'm playing in TX and vice versa...but the good news is I am doing this because I got a gig at a local Farmer's Market this weekend and I need to promote! Woohoo! I have always wanted to play one of those things, so I asked. And it worked. Always ask.

I had a hell of a weekend. It started lamely enough...I had plans of laundry and cleaning. I enaged in some thrift store wandering whereupon I scored some awesome wall decoration...


and had to explain to the lady behind me in line that no, Civil War songs sung by large choral groups was not my musical taste. Then I gave her a business card and told her to come to a gig. She was pleasant. Her name was Carmen.

Then I went to see Susan play and somehow out of that I ended up in Wimberley, TX on Saturday night at her house whereupon I partook of the ale and wore a mullet wig while laughing at fart jokes. Those are just good times all around. I slept out on the covered back porch which totally just made me want to own a house with a back porch because it was pretty sweet. Although you'd have to live in the country, because if you had a back porch in the city you would be listening to the sweet sound of vagabonds tramping through your yard instead of crickets, I am pretty sure. So Lisa, mayhaps you can just fly to my farm in Texas and sleep on my porch and then once every five years or so you can go to my farm in Virginia, haha. (I love how I invent fake money with which to buy fake houses).

So I went to sleep on Sunday morning at 5 AM and awoke at the butt crack of 7 AM to drive back into Austin and be at the Austin Hot Sauce Festival at 9 AM. That's a lot of AMs all in a row, people. Too many for me to handle.



me. awake. sunglasses to dull the brightness of the AMs. gah.

However, since this volunteer position had turned into a paid one and I am a poor little FFAer (Future Farmer of America, you know it), I got my arse up there. Whereupon I was informed I would be working in the beer tent. Whereupon I then stood around looking at the grass for 3 hours because you can't sell beer on Sunday in Texas until noon. At least I was getting paid. So for five straight hours I explained, "We have Ziegenbock on draft and Bud, Bud Light, and Bud Select in cans and they all cost four dollars. Yes, four dollars for a can of Bud. You're the one that came to the Hot Sauce Festival, buddy." No no, everyone was very nice and happy that I was selling them beer because it was 100 degrees out and mouths were probably burning at a whole 106 degrees.

I say 106 because come on. I have been to the International Fiery Foods Show in Albuquerque and no little park event with tables set up in the grass is gonna top a convention center full of stuff from around the world. I mean, it's cute that they try, and it's cute that they call it "hot sauce" even though salsa is not sauce and neither is jam and neither is guacamole. And I'm sure the habanero stuff was dang hot and it's great to have a taste of home around here...but Texans still don't understand that water and beer are just swilling the capsaicin around in your mouth. I suggested to one person that she should try dairy or honey to kill the burn instead of water and she was like..."hot sauce and ice cream? Ew."

Some people don't know what they're missing.

Genuine Joe

Yeah I'm slow and yeah so sue me. I'm sitting in this cute coffeehouse waiting on an open mic to start and it's really how I envision my living room being at my quaint Virginia farm when I buy it. :) The walls are a calming green and the sofa is yellow and 30 years old but not hippie-gross if you know what I mean. Rock on. Also they sell POPCORN but I spent all my cash on coffee before I noticed that, dangit.

So the other night driving home from another open mic (this is my 3rd one this week), I got off the interstate about 4 blocks from my place and I swear, I saw 4 sets of cops and flashing lights for traffic stops. One every block. I am not exaggerating. It made me kinda happy I was not speeding at the time, really. And then I wondered if all 4 of them were just hiding in the bushes and pounced at the same time or something. Weird.

This place has what is called a "Dr. Smoothie" which makes me think of Dr. Pepper but it looks like a regular old latte and the combination sounds gross and I'm sure it has nothing to do with soda but what the hey.

I have recently started making the tranistion into treating music as a business as well as an art form, and so far I think I am learning a little. I have been forcing myself to get up at 7 AM and actually find it to be a good time to write and get things done. It also, somehow, makes me less tired during the day. I think it's because I am finding more purpose instead of just floating around in job and gig limbo. I find my schedule to be more akin to ye olde college days...work during the day, and then work more at night in terms of either practice or playing out. Which really, I have found, leaves no room for a social life. Thus I understand why many of the artists I love have personal lives that are in the crapper...except the fortunate thing about music is it has its own built in social life. So I am not lacking in people-contact, it's just the people contact is usually at a bar or coffeehouse. Eh. It works. Goodness knows there will always be something to whine about, I know that. So I might as well start here.

Otherwise...well. I dunno. It's been a good week. I like Austin. I miss Albuquerque. I don't think I can ask for anything different at this point. Quite.

Imported Goodness.

Hatch Green Chile
Originally uploaded by Czech Girl.

So apparently the local Central Market grocery store has a Hatch green chile festival every year, with a fresh batch trucked over the border for the Austinites. The store was decorated in all things New Mexico, with chile roasting, chile sausage, chile SCONES (have not gotten any yet), pinon coffee and zia suns everywhere. As I was driving this AM I saw a New Mexico license plate in front of me and I wondered if perhaps I had magically been transported back home. Then I saw someone dressed in UT burnt orange and got over that fantasy "right quick."

There's really nothing for me to say that all 3 of you who read this don't already know. I guess I could document it for later reading. I got a part time job so that I have less time to look for a full time job but more money, haha. Yaaaaaaaay.

Friday night I went to the legendary honky tonk "The Broken Spoke." It was rather charming...lots of people two-stepping and lots of steel guitar and lots of cowboy hats and polite cowboys. I don't think I'll be trading in my grey dress pants for a twirly multi-colored dress, though. Nope.

I need to finish a song. Some song, any song. Bah.

Also I cannot contain my excitement over the fact that Lisa is having a girl and I really did squeal a little in the charts room in the doctor's office while working when I snuck a listen to my voicemail and heard the news. Lydia Eleanor is going to be so cute! And I will spoil her and still be the cool aunt, hahahaha. YAY!

Speaking of being the cool aunt, time for a beer.

Chew on this.

I just finished watching a documentary made by Woody Harrelson called Go Further. It's nothing I haven't heard before, yet it is simply another piece of evidence propelling me to wonder how many times do I have to hear what is good for me to follow through? And how many millions MORE times does society have to hear things to have them sink in? Some facts:

- Food goes into our bodies. It is the thing that fuels our lifeforce. Corporations that own large farms and factories that produce this food are not concerned with our bodies. They are concerned with their bottom line. Pesticides that are sprayed on vegetables are in our bodies. Growth hormones given to cows are in our bodies. We have the option not to buy these things. We can buy organic. If everyone in the country stopped buying chemical-laden food tomorrow, these corporations would have to adapt. They can sell me my organic food if they want. No one loses, everyone wins.

- Soap, shampoo, and cleansers go onto our skin and hair. Again, these items were developed in an era of "progress." We can make synthetic soap! We can inject chickens with hormones to make them bigger! It's as if we were so geared toward progress and the magic of invention that we never stopped to think..."It's new...it's efficient...is it good?" Is it good for me to slather Bath & Body Works all over myself when I can't pronounce the ingredients? Is it good for me to inject my pores with chemicals?

- Using paper causes millions upon millions of trees to be cut down each year. It's simple to make paper products out of hemp or flax, and if this process became as refined and popular as tree-paper...well, we'd be paying no more for paper and the forests wouldn't be assualted like they are now.

- Solar power. Wind power. Electric cars. Biodiesel. They all work. They'd work better if some $$$ and political power brokers backed them up. That's how things get done in this country. That's why ($$$ and politics) the logging and oil industries (paper and gasoline) stay on top.

- So why do I play along? Right now I guess it's because I can't afford organic veggies in mass, or to buy a biodiesel vehicle. But I want to, and I will. And if every single one of us did the same thing...if we all said, "Hey, I'm buying the recycled stuff today," then how long before the powers that be, with their newly dwindling $$$ reserves, pay attention?

- Environmentalism is not against any political belief system. It is not anti-capitalist. It is not "hippie." It is now or it is never.

Pritty Things.

P8100170
Originally uploaded by Czech Girl.

Whew! I am exhausted. In a good way. Some New Mexicans wandered through this week and I got to do a little sightseeing with them. I have gotten pretty good about doing things by myself, but some endeavors are meant to be done with other people. Things like...

TOOBING down the San Marcos River. That spelling of toobing makes me cringe every time, but I'll get over it. We rented toobs and took two floats down the river. All I needed was a giant beer cooler. Full of Red Stripe.

Then today we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Leave it to that Lady Bird to care about nature. Maybe being a First Lady is not so bad...no one really blames you when your husband screws up, and you get to do neat things like save wildflowers. So I took this photo today. I dunno what it is. It's pretty, though. And dangerous...a lot like me.

Now I need a nap. Or bed. Or a nap before bed.

Remember the poor man's copyright.

Last night. Stared at paper all night. Stared. Chicken scratch. Crossed out. New lines. Crossed out. Sat. Fiddled. Drank lemonade. Then, this! I love blind inspiration.

If I could line you up in a chronicle;
Write you down like Kerouac.
I'd get bored in the middle
And ask for all my ink back....

Meet the New Neighbors

Oh yes, beer is tasty. Tasty, tasty beer. My new drink of choice is Red Stripe, which is Jamaican and comes in ridiculously cool bottles. And it's a sweet beer, just like Jamaica. I've never been, but I bet Jamaica smells like Red Stripe. Or something. Oh just look at Hitch and forget I ever typed this.

So I have new downstairs neighbors, and they are a kick in the pants. Upon meeting them, I immediately learned how they met, how they got married, saw Doc's UT Longhorns tattoo (just guess where THAT is), and was offered piano lessons. They have 2 fluffy pretty cats, a baby grand, leather couches, and a giant TV. Like, this TV is huge. I have seen big TV's before but this is movie theater quality. And Doc really is a doctor...so if I ever sever my finger cutting butternut squash and don't have health insurance, I have options. It's all about options, people.

I've been a cover letter writing fool. A fool! I have about 5 to mail out today. Well, I should finish them today. Except I seem to have a mild or perhaps very massive form of ADD and write blogs and check my Youtube hits instead. Go figure.

I have had a steady stream of New Mexican visitors over the past couple of weeks, and it's been a good thing. To be honest, I was dreading the month of August. It's pretty much the pit of heck weather wise, and intense soul-sucking heat does nothing for the job hunt mojo. However, seeing familiar faces breaks up the monotony just enough that I feel like being productive, hence all those cover letters I need to write. I also seem to have met enough people out here to keep my social calendar full if I want to, so that's nice. Not all of them have cats and leather couches, though.

On the music front, I am currently re-obsessed with Tori Amos. I finished her book the other day, which caused me to pull out all her CDs and ponder the deeper meaning of Tori that I have decided I will never understand. I usually really like accessible artists. Songwriting that I can go, "Man! They ripped that line right out of my head!" Tori is someone I will never get and I like it that way. I don't know what the hell she's talking about; I don't think most of her fans know, either...but somehow she connects on some strange level somewhere I have yet to define. And that is the mystery of Tori. Amen.

Redeeming qualities of a day

Well, I was being a little sh*t today. I kind of think maybe I earned the right. Things started out ok, then some job stuff didn't pan out...which, when you have a slew of days (or perhaps 2 months) of job stuff "not panning out"...it gets you. And I had the unfortunate circumstance of having to TURN DOWN a temp job. That was horrific. I had to do it, though, as I have family time scheduled this weekend (which is fabulous). But I've been sick. And I made a list of all the jobs I have applied to since moving and it is LONG. I did it to prove that I haven't been sitting on my butt for 2 months, but it only served as a long list of rejection. So I hopefully sent off another cover letter yesterday, only to receive an email saying, "Yeah we already filled that position." So WHY, then, dear Museum...was the posting STILL ON YOUR WEBSITE IN BIG BOLD LETTERS?

So I whined to people including my mom and I cried and I watched 2 hours of Sex and the City and I ate WAY TOO MUCH PAD THAI so then I felt just...well, ick. Then I opened my fortune cookie that came with said pad thai. It said,

"Stop searching. Happiness will come to you."

That made me smile. For once. Then I had the fortunate circumstance of getting a last minute gig (it pays to be a reliable, non-alcoholic musician). I wasn't really feeling, you know...the MOJO...but I ain't turning down a gig in Austin, Texas. So I haul my crap over there and set up and pray I don't choke on my mucous that has been settling in my throat for the past 4 days. And I play. And some people like it. And some people clap. And some people buy CDs. And tip me. (Good lord, if you ever walk past a musician and have a buck...give it to them. You never know who's unemployed and depressed but overall a nice person that just needs a buck in their tip jar to make them feel human). And afterwards the awesome person who booked me opened up some more musical doors which is really, just what I have been looking for when door after door has been slammed repeatedly and really...here I go into self-pity mode again.

I questioned every turn I ever took today. I can see a path way back there that would have been the path of least resistance. And I can still make my way back, but would that be the right thing? My dear friend and life guru told me today that I haven't taken any wrong turns, because they all lead me to where I am this very minute, and that's where I'm supposed to be at any given time. Which is true. All you can really ask of yourself is to be present for the moment you're living in. I gotta remember that.

And what that fortune cookie told me, too.