So, what did I do for the two weeks while the others were gone? Watched a chunk of Christian’s video collection, dragged out my old method books and flexed my fingers, and slept a lot.
What do other people do with themselves? I found myself wondering, not the first time I’d tried to imagine how the proverbial other half lived. If I had a day job, if I had some kind of social commitments, if I took my vacations by traveling to some exotic place, would I avoid this kind of moment where I could not figure out what to do and had nothing to put off doing? I could not imagine, though, having a girlfriend or boyfriend to spend the idle hours with. For the first time I wondered how Remo felt about living alone.
I began to understand why it was called “down time.”
I did do two things: I rented the loft in Chinatown for another two months so we could get recording and rehearse in earnest for the tour, and I made a lot of lists trying to decide what else to work on. Four songs were basically in the can: Windfall, Way of Life, Intensive Care, and Flashback (Caught). Carynne’s song titled itself in my mind: Wonderland.
Looking at the titles of the songs we’d done previously plus the half-finished ones in my notebook and on scraps of tapes all over my room I found a preponderance of titles beginning with “W.” The first song I had thought of as Carynne’s–Walking in Time–plus Welcome, both from our first EP, Why the Sky from Prone to Relapse. Windfall, Way of Life, Wonderland. Why not?
This is what I was thinking while combing my inventory for ideas to finish the current album with. I had a few more W’s in the backlog: White Flag, Whisper. I also had notes jotted down on a composition of Bart’s that had no lyrics but he had entitled Wish for Birds.
Now that I had noticed the trend, I found I had conflicting feelings for the new W songs. On the one hand they seemed to jump out at me, asking to be finished, but I also held a prejudice against them, like there was something pretentious or contrived about them now. Bart would flick my ear and tell me I was thinking too much. I decided to point the coincidence out to the others and then let music take its course.
When I got too uneasy at home from twiddling my thumbs I walked down to a place on the main drag, Bunratty’s. I think it had started out as a pub like dozens of others around here, but about ten years ago started having blues, white boy funk, sometimes ska. Now there was live music five nights a week with a regular rotating schedule of acts on the weeknights. Bunratty’s was the one place in the Boston area that reminded me the most of the bars in Providence, and of Maddie’s in Jersey. On a weekend I couldn’t get in, not for another month anyway, because they checked IDs. But on a Tuesday or Wednesday they didn’t care and I didn’t drink. If anyone recognized me no one said anything.
On January 4th, Mills called to say they’d finally decided “Why the Sky” should be the next single and wanted talk logistics about shooting the video ASAP. I was halfway through the conversation, talking about dates and directors when I realized I could pass this kind of thing on to Digger. I took notes but didn’t give him any commitments and told him I’d have Digger call him.
20 Comments
You are SUCH an introvert, D, for all you like to perform. No friends? No casual acquaintances to catch up with?
You need a sane boyfriend, not the boyfiend that Ziggy has become.
Er, yeah. What you said. I like to go to movies alone, too. People are tiring, you know?
(and, huh, Boyfiend. Good name for a band.)
Don’t worry about the W thing… leave it as an Easter egg for your fans to notice and obsess over whether it was on purpose or not. 🙂
And good on you for letting go a little and putting some things in Digger’s hands. If he screws up, I swear I’ll want to kick his butt sooo hard.
Yeah, the W thing, I’m like a cat. I land on my feet and am totally like “I meant to do that.”
Time will tell with Digger. All I know is I was going to go insane if I kept trying to do it all myself. Okay, maybe my sanity can be debated either way…
Yep, time with tell with Digger, and who knows, maybe trust is something that’ll help make him a better person too?
And btw… *points to BriAnne’s comment* What she said. It’s only going to be harder and more awkward the longer you try to avoid it. Okay, and well, we all want to read about it, too. But I’m not being selfish here (much), I swear!
Well, I can’t exactly avoid him forever, since we’re about to spend every waking moment together once we hit the road again…
Here’s hoping that everyone comes back from their time off relaxed and ready to go, huh?
… and you really should talk to Ziggy. Really. The situation won’t go away just by ignoring it.
Why do I have to go to him, though? Why can’t he come to me?
If I remember correctly, the last time he attempted to talk to you (well, for some value of talk that involves yelling and swearing…), you hit him. Granted, the men’s room at a club is not the best place for a heart-to-heart… but you can see how it might be a bit off-putting?
Also, your band is used to you calling the shots. You decide when things happen. And I know it probably doesn’t feel like it, but you do call most of the shots in the whatever-it-is you have with Ziggy. At least outside of bed. So it doesn’t really surprise me that he’s waiting for you to approach him.
… wow. I hadn’t looked at it that way. Crap.
If I join in, it’ll sound like nagging. So. Um. This is me not actually saying anything at all.
hah.
Brianne’s got a point about Ziggy. Not that I’m anyone to talk about that kind of thing, that would be pot calling kettle black.
I’m looking forward to hearing about the video shoot.
I actually glossed over the video shoot in the original draft, but you make me wonder if I should do it as a set piece…
Maybe as an extra somewhere down the line 🙂 I’m just a sucker for reading about technical details, that’s all (geek alert)
Oh there’s plenty of geeky technical details to come. There will be more videos. And album recording geekery, too.
Oh I sooo get the “do-to-list thing” great way to keep up with the piles of work and assignments. You should the shelf by my working desk, there are always at least five todo-lists with exclamation marks by the most urgent items hanging there…
the coincidence (or not) with W-songs is charming, I suppose the pretentious feeling would only be the case if you changed already existing titles of songs to fit the W-album.
* you should see the shelf
(I really should read the coments I make before posting them… )
yeah, true. I just wonder if all the w-songs is just a coincidence or if there’s really something going on in my head…? I may never know.
And don’t sweat the typos. I don’t. 🙂