Another month, another bus pass

School starts tomorrow for three of us here, with Logan moving to the downhill side of high school, Madison finishing up middle school, and Mom headed back to the second grade. And I start working 25 hour weeks instead of the previous... well... it was supposed to be 40ish (I don't know how anyone does music with a real day job- it's a nightmare). I'm all for a change of pace, usually am, so this week will be good. I can sleep in a little more, only totally hate working for five hours a day instead of eight, and have two easy stress-free logistically simple shows to look forward to this weekend (with really good food involved for one of them).

I'm in a good place right now. Yes, I wish a lot of things were different, but I'm still in a good place. Now that we're in the fall, I have shows booked for the next couple months, then Christmas shows and various other holiday festivities, then my record comes out a) February, beginning of or b) gets pushed back a little because a label is involved. All the time I've been doing this and this last week or two was the first time I've ever had any real time frame, any real idea of time it will take to be successful in the real world. These next 6-8 months will really determine so much about the rest of my life, my label, management, etc... this is the launchpad I've been waiting for. I have a really calm sense of exciting inevitability about the whole thing. Hooray.

Finally got some time and quiet (both of which are absolute requirements) and wrote two songs yesterday. One of them I've been kicking around in my head for a couple weeks, but the other one was a very new concept. I close my eyes when I sing, and after one of my shows this week, my Dad said I should write something explaining what I see when I'm performing. My dad has offered many opinions on material ideas over the years, but this was the first one I liked so I ran with it. It turned into a here's-some-idea-of-what's-going-on-in-my-head type of thing, going back and forth between reality and my own imagination. It was really fun to write. Because I know I sound crazy, and it doesn't even matter. There's a fantastic freedom that comes with writing what you could never say or explain in casual conversation. Puts it all out there and still leaves it open to interpretation.

It wasn't something I was planning on, but I even found the opportunity to use the line "eye to the kaleidoscope".