Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Chapter 3: Landlocked Insomnia

The past couple of days have been blending together. Such is the unfortunate cycle of anxiety-driven insomnia. It all started in Lester Pennsylvania. We had a nice day off between Washington DC and Philly where we took time to work out some major kinks in our marketing. Namely a merchandise display. So we took a few hours, at a random Target in Maryland, and now we have a beautifully colored picnic basket filled with goodies. The best part is the frog-shaped stationary we are now using for our mailing list, leading to the new and effective mantra: Sign the frog. (see diagram 1)




So we were feeling good in Lester Pennsylvania, a brand new merchandise display, a frog to sign, and parking-lot wiffleball. Yet for some reason that night, I was completely unable to turn my exhaustion into sleep. The running narrative in my brain just would not stop. I had "Don't You Want Me" on repeat somewhere in the iPod of my frontal lobe, splicing with a sci-fi story I plan on never writing. Perhaps it was the anxiety of a 6 month tour ahead of me, or the excitement of having signed my first boob. (see Diagram 2)





So many things go wrong when you get no sleep. Feeling hungry and cold then nauseous and warm within a matter of seconds. Moments of drunken ecstasy followed by an envious hatred of those who were able to shut off the night before. Our second night on the tour was at The Northstar Bar in Philadelphia , and despite being absolutely loopy, I decided that it was a good idea to engage in conversation with other life-forms; this dialogued appeared to be more akin to a spoken-word mad-libs than any normative sequence of syntax.

I was lucky enough to get sleep that following night. We are now driving en route to Lancaster PA from Columbus OH. Matt is exchanging sweet nothings with Nuvi, our Garmin Navigational personality. Their relationship started rocky at first, sometimes we take familiar routes for granted, but once Nuvi proved herself right (after we tried to check into the wrong hotel despite her constant "U-Turn Here. U-Turn Here. U-Turn Here. ..... Recalculating.") Now Nuvi and Matt have developed a creepy symbiosis. She knows exactly how fast he is driving, and when we will exactly show up to our destination.

The show tonight rocked. I loved that our audience members danced with us and had a good time. And an awesome amount of people signed the frog. Adding to the list of first-time autographs, tonight I signed a pack of birth control and a beer. Two of the world's best inventions. Hopefully the hotel we get to has internet, so I can finally post this, and get much needed rest. Lansing is next.


Sign the Frog.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Dan! Its Bree from Lansing MI. I totally danced my rox off at your show remember? I like your blog, its informative. You write well :)

    Hope to read more about you being on the road, don't be nervous about the tour, I think you're doing awesome so far if Lansing is any indication.

    Keep singing!

    xoxo Bree

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