What’s Normal?

Been awhile since y’all have heard from Miss Bloggy Blog. I resigned for a bit and let my sweet husband take over. Mostly so he didn’t feel left out. Actually, the truth is, I begged him to blog because I just didn’t have it in me. My brother-in-law has been blogging Mon-Fri, for the past 3 years or so, and I gotta say, that’s quite a feat. Granted, he has two very entertaining sons to draw material from, a job flipping houses that provides plenty of good stuff, a penchant for television programs and movies, and the amazing ability to loathe most everything. This, and several other qualities make him a great blogger; at least when it comes to consistency. For me, I am far too critical of what I write. I won’t even write it if I feel it’s not something others may enjoy, may stir up some debate, or may have an effect good or bad on my readers. Plus, when we started the blog, it was strictly going to be about tour. The anecdotes, the ups and downs, the day-to-day, whatever. But, now that we’ve decided to stay in WA permanently, our “tour blog” has become more of a “Hey, not really on tour anymore so now we’re just blogging about normal stuff.” kind of blog. One good thing is that our “normal”, isn’t. For example…

When most people go to work, they pretty much know what they’re going to do when they get there, as well as what kind of money they’re going to make. This provides a certain amount of comfort and stability to a person. This is very normal and common. We don’t have this life. This morning we get a call that goes something like this…

“Hi. This is ——- from the gig the other day. Is this Jessi?”

“Yes.”

“So, we talked about you guys playing at this festival at the end of August. Are you still available?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. Good! So, we’ll have you play for about 45 minutes and we’ll pay you $100 and we’ll have you play in between the clowns, and…”

This is where he lost me. Clowns? This is our life. One day we’re getting $300 to play at a beer garden stage where someone has actually dragged a couch out to sit in and watch us, another day we’re playing for free at a wine bar having to be extra quiet because some politicians are having a “meet-and-greet” at the same time we were booked to play, then, we’re booked for $100 to play for 10 and 15 minute increments in between clown acts. Clowns? This is our normal.

I suppose we’ll keep blogging.