August: Katie and I (who give good face when together) played an excellent show at Geraldine’s. We felt swanky. We were swanky. We swanked.

I went to D.C. for the fun, I came back with a (fun) job. It was another musical tourism venture to Wolf Trap for the MCC Hometown Show (if you haven’t been to Wolf Trap I highly recommend it as a venue in general) and some educational and inspirational sight-seeing with both Heidi and my cousins Rochelle & Andrew & Emily (we got a Pentagon tour thanks to Andrew!).

All of it, from the Wolf Trap show to the Lincoln Memorial and the MLK Memorial (lit up at night and gorgeous) to the anti-Nazi rally that Heidi and I attended (BECAUSE WE ARE STILL FIGHTING NAZIS IN THIS COUNTRY) was very heavy with meaning. As I mentioned in the last blog, sometimes you read all the bad stuff in the news and wonder…what are we even going for here in this grand experiment? But reminders through song (like this one), and words in stone on memorials, and the buildings that house the life source of our republic…well, it all helped. The great company helped too:

My friends Walt and Tina Wilkins were playing at a place called The Mansion on O Street the following evening, so of course we went to that. Turns out the Mansion on O is a very special, very magical place. Turns out they needed some social media stuff done. Turns out Walt recommended me and since I was there, I got to interview on the spot. Turns out I work with the Mansion on O Street now. And THAT is called…being in the right place at the right time. Musical tourism DOES pay off! Oh, and Walt and Ted (who, along with H, is one of the awesome proprietors of the Mansion) and Tina and Heidi and I sat in the Amnesia Room (really) for a good spell and sang and played Beatles songs. It was magic.

That’s quite the August in my book. I came back excited about, well…everything. Grateful for the people in my orbit. Inspired by the past and hopeful for what is to come, from the macro level of our country down to the micro level of, well…whatever I am doing here, on this planet, in this country, in Texas, in my notebooks and with my guitar. Good.

September: Another head down “do the work” month, from what I remember. (I’ll be honest with you guys, I am mostly jogging my memory by looking through my phone photos. Thank goodness for the extra brain we carry around all the time). I got to see Susan play with her former band The Groobees, which was insane because I became a Groobees (and Susan) fan right after they broke up 17 years ago…so I never had a chance to see them live. These reunion shows were very much anticipated and went SO WELL. It was fun to see them be all rock star and kill it, as we say in The Biz.

Katie and I played at Emily Shirley‘s EP Release show (and you should go buy her Courage Up record right now), which was a blast. I remember it was hot in Texas, and all I really wanted to do was make it through the month to see…Taylor Swift.

One would think maybe the purchasing of these tickets would have made an earlier part of the year’s recap but NO. Why? Because Melinda Ann and I got these Reputation Tour tickets LAST YEAR. We had been waiting for so long. Soooo soooo long. And finally it was here. We met up with friends in Houston and sang and screamed and danced and sang. Also this part of the show was very warm because THAT IS REAL FIRE:

The Taylor Circus was not done, though…I’d call this a cliffhanger, wouldn’t you?