April (snow) showers

Congratulations, you've made it to April. As your reward for suffering through the winter, please enjoy an afternoon of snowflakes.

I got my bike out of the shop today. When it was 80 degrees a week ago I wanted to take it out for a ride and discovered that I had worn the brakes off. So now it's all re-padded and cleaned and tightened up and running smoothly, and I remembered that

I love it.

Got my hair cut today. Pretty short. Didn't end up dying it red, though a little something in me has been itching to play with the color. Problem is I'm a chicken, and I'm aware that my regular hair color is pretty striking the way it is, and growing it out would be really bizarre, and I'd have to color/draw on eyebrows every day. So it's short for spring.

Last night I went out for dinner and beers with my long-lost friend Liz from the bakery. She is awesome, and we get along so easily, but we're bad at seeing each other on a regular basis. We had a great time and had much catching up to do, but hopefully now that we're fairly caught up we can get together without all the pressure of filling in details.

I've had this really weird mix of busyness and lonesome time to kill lately. Busy with the band, which is starting to be really fun. We recorded a version of Oh Susanah for the upcoming volume 4 of the songbook CD. We've been playing at Duke's long enough that people are starting to actually coming out to give us a listen, and I'm hopeful that our other shows in April (15 and the 29, 6920 N. Glenwood, no cover) will have some friendly faces in the house. Look how fun it is!

Check out the dress from Portobello Road, henceforth known as my Susannah dress. I love to dress up for the shows. I'm getting good at rocking the high heels. Our show last Sunday was one of the best, and nobody we knew came out to hear us. But we put on a show for the other band that plays Sundays and had a blast. Getting to know those guys has been nice. We all like each other. It's exciting.

What else. Been working a lot, doing birthday parties for the kiddies, babysitting. But then I keep having weird gaps of free time when nobody's around and I'm trying to find a way to keep myself company. Ben is doing a lot of work with the Chicago International Documentary Festival, which is awesome, but means that our schedules have been totally off. We went to the opening night reception last Friday and had a really fun time, but then I was home alone all day on Saturday and he was home alone all day on Sunday, and all of our nights and days have been opposite each other. We both had the morning open today so we did get to have some breakfast at the Cozy Corner. But that's pretty much it all week. Between the Twins opening day and my guitar classes and shifting work schedules and projecting movies and gigs and visitors in town we just aren't lining up too well. I've been spending a lot of time with the ol' internet, or with a notebook and a pen, or a guitar, or a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, waiting. For my work shift to start or somebody to meet me or the phone to ring. I get my fun in on Sunday nights and Tuesday nights, but my weekends seem barren. And during the week it can get lonesome to have all of your free time condensed into 3 hour chunks in the middle of everyone's workday. Thank god that now I can fill it with bicycling. I need to always make sure I'm doing enough physical activity that I don't get too deeply entrenched in my own head.

I have been feeling lately like a very physical being, and at first I thought this was rather new. But the more I think about myself, the more I realize that I have always engaged myself in activities that allow me to combine the mental or the emotional and the physical or tactile. Swinging, crafting, fixing things, acting, biking, walking to my destination, playing instruments, baking, dancing. I have been thinking a lot about the physicality of singing. When I'm on stage at Duke's and I have the chance to just let my voice fill up my whole self, I feel really present and solid and secure. I have been playing the piano again lately too, trying to remember all of the songs I used to know, and I end up sore. I like the big chords and the rich sounds that I can feel. It's why playing a keyboard is never quite fulfilling, and why being able to experience a pipe organ opening all of its stops thrills me in a deep way. I've been thinking about trying to really take this further and instead of using my free time to sit and write or just think to myself, to take up running or just do hours of yoga or see how far I can bike before my time runs out. I wonder how this would change me. I can only think it would be for the better.