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Monday, June 1, 2009

patterns

Only in the interest of patterns do I bring you a rundown of the way every evening ended this weekend:

Friday night was Liz Caradonna's going away party at the Tavern on the Square in Central Square. It was a motley crew, and a fun one. Every time someone entered the room I was surprised and delighted to see them. The biggest surprise of the evening came from Three Hole Punch founder (and close friend) Amy "Butts" Koske arriving all the way from Amherst to celebrate with us.
Liz and I had planned to leave by 11pm so I could drive her to Danvers, MA. Her family was waiting at a hotel on Route 1 with the UHaul she would drive to Chicago in the morning.

We left the party half an hour late, got lost on the way to Danvers and ended up in the worst midnight traffic jam of my life on 93N. 93N, by the way, being the wrong highway to take to get to Danvers. After singing, laughing, reminiscing and finally saying "see you later," (never "goodbye"), I dropped her off. Wiping away tears I proceeded get myself lost coming home. A night that should have ended much earlier didn't see me in my bed until about 2:30am

Still I was up early and miraculously arrived at work on time for my 7am shift.
By 10:45pm, having put in a nine hour day at work, gone to church in the North End, and then performed in two shows on the mainstage at IA I was ready for bed. The shows had been tight, sold out and well received. My adrenaline was still rushing as I changed my clothes in the greenroom. However, work that day had been especially rough and now that I was offstage I was also already mentally preparing for Sunday. I declined invitations for rabel rousing and headed for the train station. Unfortunately, on my way there I found a man passed out, possibly hypoglycemic and definitely drunk, laying across a sidewalk. I did not get home right after the show.

Still this morning I had high hopes.
"Only a twelve hour shift," I said to myself, "and then I'll be home and I'll go straight to bed!"
However, by the time 7pm rolled around I had gotten my second wind. We were understaffed for the evening shift, and I volunteered to stay because I was (seriously) genuinely just having such a good night at work. It wasn't an easy sixteen hours at all. In fact I rarely sat down during the two shifts combined. But sometimes that's when I feel like I'm doing my best work. Plus, once your mind is in that kind of zone, it's better to just follow it through to the end. So I did.

I don't regret the decisions that led to it, but it struck me that every night of this weekend ended significantly later than planned. And yet I'm all the better for every single night. I don't regret a minute of any of it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to quietly collapse.

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