ceciliatan

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

I took a long shower as if that could thaw my frozen brain. It didn’t work. But Ziggy didn’t object and he didn’t rake me over the coals or anything so that was good, I guess?

When I emerged from the water I spent a very long time combing my hair. I had conditioned it the way I had been admonished to, and it was slick and wet as I combed carefully through the strands. This wet the blue was almost invisible but as soon as it dried it would start to show. Comb comb comb comb… I had been combing so long I had made my good hand cramp. The rest of me was dry and chilly by that point. But at least my brain had rebooted somewhat.

I found Ziggy sitting up in bed, reading a book in the light of his bedside table. The whole apartment was a tableau of urban nighttime blue except for the pool of golden light around him. I thought about what I wanted to say so that there would be at least a half a chance that I might say it, and then I crawled into bed.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

I finally talked to Ziggy for a good stretch on the phone around lunchtime in St. Louis. It had been like seven in the morning when we’d pulled in, Flip made sure I was tucked in and passed out before he went to bed himself, but he’d apparently slept through all the drama on the bus the night before so he got up in the morning and was not there when I woke up.

I ordered room service and caught Ziggy at home.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

(Reminder! Join Daron tonight from 7-8pm in the DGC chat room to celebrate the 7th anniversary of Daron’s Guitar Chronicles! And then ctan will video chat from 8-9pm on YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPUQFyNEBCg)
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Ziggy headed back to the city (by which I mean “the” city, i.e. New York City, for those of you not from the northeast) and I went with the Nomad entourage to Saratoga Springs, which was an old school upstate resort town known for its racetrack. Horse racetrack, I guess I should specify.

I didn’t see much of Saratoga Springs. I spent most of my time asleep in the bus, then powering my way through a cramp-inducing soundcheck, and then praying that the muscle relaxant would work properly.

It did.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

I had restless, relentless dreams all night that were full of snippets of my life–tour buses and parties and album covers and keeping track of my things–but which never made any sense. Maybe it’s an illusion that life makes sense to begin with. At any rate, I woke up confused about where I was.

In my own bedroom. I know. Funny, isn’t it?

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

I ended up seeing Sarah’s doctor, because that was faster and a better idea than sitting around in some New York City emergency room waiting to be seen for a non-emergency. He confirmed I probably had a concussion and said the main thing to do was to avoid things that might aggravate it, including hitting my head on anything else, vigorous physical activity, brights lights, and loud noise.

Ha.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

I had enough on my mind that I forgot to feel crappy about being in New Jersey. For one thing, the Byrne Arena wasn’t that different from a million other venues like it, so it was easy to forget where we were. For another, we saw a lot of the New York crowd, which seemed a positive thing–then again, New Jersey’s best feature was that New York City was Right There. Apparently many folks did not heed Remo’s warnings about contagion and so at various points I got to say hello to Jordan, Jonathan, and Artie. Marvelle was there, too, because he was friendly with various folks–it’s a small world and it would be even smaller if I could keep track of how everyone knew each other.

Anyway, I my Jersey angst seemed low. Maybe the more time passed since I’d lived there, the less stressed it would make me. I hoped that was the case.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

Any thoughts on what Ziggy’s wand would be made of? Daron’s would clearly have a core of guitar string ;)

(A note about the Orlando fanworks & fanworks submitted earlier in the year. I apologize for how long it’s taking to get them posted. I hadn’t counted on traveling taking up July in the way it did, or needing to disconnect from much of the internet after some of the news in the US. It’s been a rough summer, yeah? I have several more submissions waiting, including songs from Bill and Meg and stories from S and Chris, and will be posting those over the next few weeks. I promise you, they’re all worth the wait.  ~sanders)

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

I went back to Boston for one more reset of my laundry and my psyche before I hit the road with Nomad again. On July 19th I flew from Logan to Miami to meet the entourage and who did I run into in the gate area waiting to board? Louis.

“Let me guess where you’re going,” he said, after we’d done the kind of manhug thing where you give each other a mutual backslap. “Aruba.”

“I don’t even know where Aruba is,” I replied with a laugh.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

(See bottom of post for info on a special fanworks call…)

Jordan Travers dropped by the next day while Ziggy was there and hung around for about an hour. He’d freshly shorn down his hair and was looking sharp overall. We hobnobbed.

Three important things were conveyed in the course of the hobnobbing. One, Jordan told me they were doing a thing as a publicity stunt where the record company was going to release the soundtrack album for the OKC film as if it was just a genuine punk album by a band from Oklahoma City. I pointed out that given punk’s anti-obsession with posers, this was likely to backfire, but he assured me we were far enough past the actual punk era that this would be seen as a cool retro move. Um, sure. Two, I told him if he ever gave Ziggy X again I was never speaking to him again.

That might seem kind of like an overreaction but I wasn’t angry about it–it was just a fact not a threat–and Jordan took it in stride. It was like with Jordan I could skip all the explanations and go right to what mattered most to both of us. In my case: Ziggy’s health, in his case: access to both of us.

I can’t remember what the third thing was.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

I was distracted throughout dinner, making notes from time to time but mostly just staring into space and picking at my food. Well, actually I managed to eat a ton, I just was too distracted to notice. Everyone left me alone. I guess they knew me well enough to know when to just leave me be.

Or maybe I actually said something like “I’m not here right now, leave a message,” and they knew me well enough to respect it. Either way.