January 15, 2004

7:03 p.m.

Splish Splash

Thank you, lovely noteleavers. I appreciate your reading and taking the time to comment.

Aside from not being able to keep my feet warm, it's been such a sweet day. The hours spun out as I played endlessly with a program I found (I think the link was on a-victoria's diary a while back; sorry if I'm misremembering) called Darwin Pond, which is a virtual simulation of the evolution of life -- wiggly forms in a pond, which have varying combinations of 15 genes and can be manipulated or just watched as they evolve. "Fascinating," she said, feeling like Spock observing a lower life form. Then I continued packing, had a great workout on the TotalGym (while watching a rerun of the old Star Trek, which is why I'm thinking like Spock), took a long oily ginger bath, made shrimp and broccoli and sweet potatoes for dinner, and managed to completely put off stopping at the bank, mailing out sheet music and paying a bill, all of which must be done when I leave early tomorrow morning. I don't care; it's too cold to go out, so I stayed in all day doing exactly what I wanted.

I also had a long talk with Dar (and it's merely a coincidence that I played in his pond all day), who called me on a break from work because he was freezing in place on Charles Street and had to come inside. To my relief we were able to have a normal talk, laughing about things as we usually do, and if we're uncomfortable about the turning of events we're not letting it get in the way of our typical enjoyment of the moment.

* * * * *

It's interesting at the end of each tax year to see, at a glance, how we evolved as a band. Income, outgo, number of gigs, average fee, CD sales. It's exciting that we're doing it at all, though the road is long and success so relative. We have a friend in Minneapolis who has developed tendonitis, and he hasn't been able to play for a month and a half. Read: no work! He's about the best singer songwriter I know, too. Still waiting to see if he will heal.

Something to smile about -- my tax accountant wants to be on the band mailing list because he missed seeing us perform when we were recently in the Boston area. Of course, it reminds me of all the tax prep I have to do when I get back. I can no longer do my own taxes. The complexities of being self-employed are beyond me. Instead, I send him detailed spreadsheets about everything, and right now all that information is either in a pile of receipts that hasn't been data-entered, or it's scattered in other places. It's going to be a hellish couple of days... but I could do it before the band gets back, as they're driving and I'm flying. "Could" being the operative word.

When I close my eyes all I see are multicolored, wiggly things in a pond. They're learning to find food and reproduce. And I am the Sweet Potato Goddess of All Wiggly Things. I daresay I did not evolve much myself, today, having spent most of it overseeing the beginnings of simulated life. But my own genetic alchemy feels pretty good right now. A nice, neat spiral staircase turning in my bones. I feel I'll spin all the way to Florida.