August 22, 2008

7:47 p.m.

Out

Good rehearsal today; last-minute cramming for England. We found that our first gig, a festival, is a 2-day commitment, meaning we have to come up with two full festival- friendly sets in which no songs are repeated. We worked intensely on harmonies today -- reviving a song we haven't done in a few years, and bringing up another traditional one that Carol used to do solo, but adding harmonies by me and Chris. It's a pleasure to hear all our voices singing something new.

Chris is going through a sort of existential crisis in response to the band cutting down a bit on our touring schedule for next year. He has so many skills it didn't occur to me that he might not know what to do with himself if we're not on the road all the time. He has a recording studio, he's built websites and done graphic work... but these things have always fit into the spaces between gigs, and he's never had to try to sculpt them into a part time living. Carol already makes a lot of money with her Feldenkrais clients. I'm bolstering the team to get my book and other businesses off the ground. So Chris has been in a kind of malaise, a limnal hesitancy, over how to ring in the changes. He'd gotten addicted to online poker (with fake money) and was escaping into that for hours at a time. Finally, after a really strange dream about a doctor going into his side with a blowtorch to look into an injury, he woke up with the conviction that he had to get the poker game off his computer. So there has been none for a week or so. Carol is happy that he's more present. We're riding choppy waters, with great vistas to one side and another, an unknown horizon and beautiful music carrying us along.

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I watched "Gone Baby, Gone" last night. The woman who plays Morgan Freeman's wife is an acquaintance of mine, a wonderful photographer who did a headshot for me once. She's also a good friend of Dar's and very active in the Boston acting community. She had no lines, and was riveting. Riveting. Her name is Kippy Goldfarb and it's worth renting the movie just to see her couple of small scenes.

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I spent much of the day in a state of quiet joy and gratitude. I must be detoxing. It is remarkable, how different I feel now. I forgot what homeostasis is supposed to feel like. That I have the capability to create this state of health for myself is happy news. And what if all my food were pure? What if I could afford to eat completely organically, cleanly, perfectly, recognizing what I needed to eat every time I made the decision to eat, and none of it tainted by poisons? My back feels so much better, too, after the adjustment; I feel more symmetrical, easy in my skin, easy among my bones. For the first time I am hopeful about the trip to come, that it could be like this. Suddenly the potential for adventure is tangible. I feel like birds might come and land on me, hummingbirds. I feel possibly that bright.

Or that I could get there.

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It is clear that, when I return, I must look into getting a real bookbinding press and a sewing frame. I'd never even heard of a sewing frame before I looked at this new book on binding. But it's time for real tools. It's like graduating from Grasshopper to Rabbit. A little faster, a little more aware, but still gentle around the work.

Rats, my wine is gone. I've let myself run out of wine. How irresponsible. But I had dinner tonight from Boston Market -- got a whole chicken, and some green beans and new potatoes. Boston Market chicken is addictingly good. It's moist even through the white meat parts, and a little too salty in the skin, so at first the taste buds go zing and then they just want to have the chicken and potatoes on the same fork bite, for balance. The remains of the Australian cab/shiraz bottle that I had was just fine with it. I sit with fans on, bringing in the cool night air to my warm apartment, and hear the distant whooping and shouting from a local baseball field. Fans of a different type, turned on. I have a movie to watch and no work to do tonight. Rose came home and by now she is probably fast asleep in bed. I'm glad she's back.

I have taken the password off this diary, feeling that the events that prompted me to apply it are no longer issues. It's out of the wings again.