i'm a tree that grows hearts.
8/1 5:00 PM
the tour is over! we're driving to pittsburgh listening to bjork and i'm having major high school flashbacks. we did make it to the grady tavern on time for our show - in fact in time for dinner and a show, luckily. manchester, "the city of village charm" didn't seem to have much open, and we got excited when we saw a sandwich place called roast beef on wry, but it was closed & presto! the grady tavern had food to spare! we were featured on indie night - !!! - & played with some great company, including dan & liz, who were just awesome. manchester, oh, man. at the end of the night the owner made me a delicious root beer float to take with me. he had hair like george washington and was very sweet. maria set up & promoted really well, so we had some great folks there to listen, and some just there to drink, but we had a lot of fun.
(getting carsick. taking a break.)
now it is the second! 8/2
currently driving from pittsburgh to chicago. we spent last night at alderson with eric & laura & eddie. it was awfully nice to see old friends. but i'm getting ahead of myself. after the grady tavern we stayed with meg, a friend of mine from way back in the day. we had a nice morning and meg prepared a ton of food for a barbeque in the backyard, but there were major thunderstorms. luckily we headed into the gazebo & ate all the delicious food inside the storm without actually being inside the storm. it was very nice. emily slept & read her book alot and we all caught up on old times and had a lovely afternoon. emily, andrew & i headed out to see the simpsons movie, which was of course terrific, and when we got back the house was playing a big game of cards. it was a lovely night. the next day we trudged further north up to boston where we hung out & had huge dinner with my entire family, which was great. i have three little sisters, two of whom were engrossed in harry potter (which they'd finished by the next day) and one of whom is in love with andrew. my older sister also came over with her cat who i cat-sat for two months ago and is huge now. it was really nice to be home and relax & try on outfits for the show. i was more nervous than was reasonable for the tts show - the entire tour i've been absolutely fine, never jittery before a show, only ever excited to see friends who i know are coming out. this show, though, just flipped me out completely. i wanted everyone and their mother to be there, and i wanted it to be great since it was the last show, and i wanted us to be flawless because i wanted to impress everyone from high school plus my dad. a bunch of people did come out, we did play very well and have a great time, and despite the issues with the gingerale tasting gross, we had lovely drinks and dancing. emily played really well, too, and it felt like a great way to end the tour. since i was home (staying in my high school room, which my younger sister grace already has started moving in to) i made a bunch of doctor's appointments and coffee dates with friends and spent monday running around. they gave me a scope at the ortolaryngologist (throat doctor!) and my vocal cords are doing just fine, although they're covered with mucus. this is due to the intense consumption of alcohol, coffee, and chocolate on this tour, topped off by not taking my medicine. i also have "prominent blood vessels", which are kind of the beginning of nodes, but they've been there since high school, so i'm not too worried about it. getting a scope is terrible, though - they spray your nose with numbing spray that you have to swallow and makes you want to throw up. then they put the camera down your nose and into your throat, which also makes you want to throw up, where they ask you to sing while they video your cords, which practically makes you throw up. it's pretty gross and uncomfortable. i also went to the dentist, one of my biggest fears, and when i told them about the tour they wrote me a check and bought the cd for the office. i felt like getting paid made my visit much more manageable. that night andrew & i rented movies with my sisters and had a semi-slumber party with popcorn and sweet tarts and freaky friday, the lindsey lohan/jamie lee curtis version. my sisters aren't interested in jodi foster, which bummed me out, but it was still a fun evening. tuesday was joe's birthday, so the boys went to the battle green (the birthplace of american history!) and then we took joe to walden pond. i bought him an oreo ice cream from the truck as a present and we walked around the entire pond. i grew up swimming there but had never actually walked the whole path - it was really beautiful, and a perfect day for it. then we headed back to connecticut (right through manchester, a third time!) to xci in danbury, where we played folk the system, the folky show on tuesday nights. chris the dj was very cool & we had a great time in the station, including some people who called in during our live set to ask who we were (despite our incessant theanna.com plugs during the set). that night we went to westchester & stayed with emily, so it felt like the real last night of tour. in the morning i overslept and then went swimming again, which was absolutely perfect. when i came back into the house emily had gotten us a bagel & veggie & lox spread, which was also perfect. we chugged on back to pittsburgh and went our separate ways last night. it's weird, feeling like the movement is coming to an end. the trip toady has seemed impossibly long, but the idea of stasis doesn't really appeal to me yet either. not knowing what chicago is going to hold is both exciting & terrifying, as one would imagine, and not having the band with me is the scariest part of all. still, the tour has been kind of a perfect experience (and definitely a perfect summer experience), and no question has been great considering it was my first tour. the car seems strangely empty, and not having eddie & joe following behind is also kind of lonely. we put 4450 miles on the car all together! logistically, alot of electronics broke, i lost my best bracelet, and we left some things behind here and there, but the AC worked the entire trip, our car top-loader never flew off, and we only got slightly lost twice. we broke even money-wise (i've sold over 40 CDs in 3 weeks, which makes me the most excited), got a ton of new names for the mailing list, and got to see a lot of the country. next time i want to go further south and further west. now it's time to go through all of our pictures, put up songs (i'm going to make a 16-song tour album, one song in every city - it should be up on the music page in a few weeks), and start making a new life in chicago. tonight i'm going to start that by having dinner with andrew's family, maybe renting a movie, and sleeping until all hours tomorrow. it's pretty much been the best summer i could've asked for.
the tour is over! we're driving to pittsburgh listening to bjork and i'm having major high school flashbacks. we did make it to the grady tavern on time for our show - in fact in time for dinner and a show, luckily. manchester, "the city of village charm" didn't seem to have much open, and we got excited when we saw a sandwich place called roast beef on wry, but it was closed & presto! the grady tavern had food to spare! we were featured on indie night - !!! - & played with some great company, including dan & liz, who were just awesome. manchester, oh, man. at the end of the night the owner made me a delicious root beer float to take with me. he had hair like george washington and was very sweet. maria set up & promoted really well, so we had some great folks there to listen, and some just there to drink, but we had a lot of fun.
(getting carsick. taking a break.)
now it is the second! 8/2
currently driving from pittsburgh to chicago. we spent last night at alderson with eric & laura & eddie. it was awfully nice to see old friends. but i'm getting ahead of myself. after the grady tavern we stayed with meg, a friend of mine from way back in the day. we had a nice morning and meg prepared a ton of food for a barbeque in the backyard, but there were major thunderstorms. luckily we headed into the gazebo & ate all the delicious food inside the storm without actually being inside the storm. it was very nice. emily slept & read her book alot and we all caught up on old times and had a lovely afternoon. emily, andrew & i headed out to see the simpsons movie, which was of course terrific, and when we got back the house was playing a big game of cards. it was a lovely night. the next day we trudged further north up to boston where we hung out & had huge dinner with my entire family, which was great. i have three little sisters, two of whom were engrossed in harry potter (which they'd finished by the next day) and one of whom is in love with andrew. my older sister also came over with her cat who i cat-sat for two months ago and is huge now. it was really nice to be home and relax & try on outfits for the show. i was more nervous than was reasonable for the tts show - the entire tour i've been absolutely fine, never jittery before a show, only ever excited to see friends who i know are coming out. this show, though, just flipped me out completely. i wanted everyone and their mother to be there, and i wanted it to be great since it was the last show, and i wanted us to be flawless because i wanted to impress everyone from high school plus my dad. a bunch of people did come out, we did play very well and have a great time, and despite the issues with the gingerale tasting gross, we had lovely drinks and dancing. emily played really well, too, and it felt like a great way to end the tour. since i was home (staying in my high school room, which my younger sister grace already has started moving in to) i made a bunch of doctor's appointments and coffee dates with friends and spent monday running around. they gave me a scope at the ortolaryngologist (throat doctor!) and my vocal cords are doing just fine, although they're covered with mucus. this is due to the intense consumption of alcohol, coffee, and chocolate on this tour, topped off by not taking my medicine. i also have "prominent blood vessels", which are kind of the beginning of nodes, but they've been there since high school, so i'm not too worried about it. getting a scope is terrible, though - they spray your nose with numbing spray that you have to swallow and makes you want to throw up. then they put the camera down your nose and into your throat, which also makes you want to throw up, where they ask you to sing while they video your cords, which practically makes you throw up. it's pretty gross and uncomfortable. i also went to the dentist, one of my biggest fears, and when i told them about the tour they wrote me a check and bought the cd for the office. i felt like getting paid made my visit much more manageable. that night andrew & i rented movies with my sisters and had a semi-slumber party with popcorn and sweet tarts and freaky friday, the lindsey lohan/jamie lee curtis version. my sisters aren't interested in jodi foster, which bummed me out, but it was still a fun evening. tuesday was joe's birthday, so the boys went to the battle green (the birthplace of american history!) and then we took joe to walden pond. i bought him an oreo ice cream from the truck as a present and we walked around the entire pond. i grew up swimming there but had never actually walked the whole path - it was really beautiful, and a perfect day for it. then we headed back to connecticut (right through manchester, a third time!) to xci in danbury, where we played folk the system, the folky show on tuesday nights. chris the dj was very cool & we had a great time in the station, including some people who called in during our live set to ask who we were (despite our incessant theanna.com plugs during the set). that night we went to westchester & stayed with emily, so it felt like the real last night of tour. in the morning i overslept and then went swimming again, which was absolutely perfect. when i came back into the house emily had gotten us a bagel & veggie & lox spread, which was also perfect. we chugged on back to pittsburgh and went our separate ways last night. it's weird, feeling like the movement is coming to an end. the trip toady has seemed impossibly long, but the idea of stasis doesn't really appeal to me yet either. not knowing what chicago is going to hold is both exciting & terrifying, as one would imagine, and not having the band with me is the scariest part of all. still, the tour has been kind of a perfect experience (and definitely a perfect summer experience), and no question has been great considering it was my first tour. the car seems strangely empty, and not having eddie & joe following behind is also kind of lonely. we put 4450 miles on the car all together! logistically, alot of electronics broke, i lost my best bracelet, and we left some things behind here and there, but the AC worked the entire trip, our car top-loader never flew off, and we only got slightly lost twice. we broke even money-wise (i've sold over 40 CDs in 3 weeks, which makes me the most excited), got a ton of new names for the mailing list, and got to see a lot of the country. next time i want to go further south and further west. now it's time to go through all of our pictures, put up songs (i'm going to make a 16-song tour album, one song in every city - it should be up on the music page in a few weeks), and start making a new life in chicago. tonight i'm going to start that by having dinner with andrew's family, maybe renting a movie, and sleeping until all hours tomorrow. it's pretty much been the best summer i could've asked for.