Tuesday, September 14, 2010. 28 years, 51 weeks.
Tuesday was a day. That’s the most positive thing about it I can muster. That, and work never reached the temple-pounding stress of Monday. I even left on time.
At home I desperately attempted to render some order to the studio. My gear had been in disarray since our house concert, with mic stands and guitars strewn through every room in the house. The back-to-back rehearsal and gig the prior weekend had scattered things even further. I was finding microphones in couch cushions and quarter inch cables under my bed.
Still tidying, from my attic window I spotted Gina walk across our driveway and up the path to our door. Having shed my work clothes I wore only underwear as I flung open the window and screen and hollered, “Be right down!”
Laundry, I reminded myself, you need to do laundry for the gig.
I barely managed to get myself into a pair of jeans by the time I hit the front door and Gina smiled, accustomed to finding me in states of half dress ever since she lived in the apartment above mine in 2001.
As we sat down to our customary pre-rehearsal dinner I was still harboring angst about our bad good gig over the weekend in Collingswood, paired with uneasy feelings about a post on Gina’s new blog about how Arcati Crisis was comprised of me having lots of direction and Gina providing harmony and color commentary.
Was that really our band? It didn’t sound very healthy for either of us. I pushed from every angle at dinner. Why was the gig so uneven? What did Gina want our band to be? What was her vision of our next step?
It was a good conversation, but I’m not sure if we arrived anywhere new. Now the cumulative specter of both that and the bad good gig hung over us as we rehearsed a final time before our show.
We watched our set back on video. It wasn’t bad, but My “Love Me Love Me Not” was dreadful – I sounded like several baritone cats dying at once. I told Gina there was no way I would play it on Thursday, but that left us at a loss – the only song of mine ready to sub in was “Under My Skin,” which I couldn’t seem to produce the lyrics for after several tries. I suggested our newest tune, but Gina shot it down.
I don’t recommend ending your final rehearsal before a big gig that way – it didn’t exactly put the thrill of anticipation into me. After I heard Gina’s car pull away I realized I still hadn’t sent those reminders, or a message to our mailing list. I sent a few, but I was already worried about the next night: we were scheduled to have our first acoustic Filmstar rehearsal, but my bass was shop-bound until Friday.
I gamely penned some acoustic guitar parts for Filmstar songs, quickly learning that Filmstar songs are very, very fast – much faster than even our quickest Arcati Crisis tune.
Sleep loomed. I still needed to do freelance writing and laundry, plus make a few Brown Bags and send some more reminders. Oh, and make music mixes for our fund-raising campaign at work.
All of that with my approximately two hours of free time between then and our gig.
Awesome.