November 25

I was jolted out of warm slumber to the sharp cold tone of my alarm, requesting that I descend the long flights of stairs and stumble outside to the frosted streets of Chicago to pay the meter a few lonesome quarters for where we were parked… at 8 a.m. sharp. We had a slow exit but soon found ourselves on the road once again. I drove to the next show in Wausau, Wisconsin; a town I had never heard of nor could accurately pronounce. It was a calm drive, lines of frail ailing trees tracing the highway with their naked limbs holding a thin layer of frozen morning dew, like dying vagabonds on street corners with coins in their hands. I had a lot on my mind and the drive went by fairly quickly. Thinking is what I do best when I am guiding the van on tour. After 4 harmless hours, we pulled into the town of Wausau covered in glitter and Christmas lights. It was rather becoming and the décor and layout reminded me of England when we were there in 2005 around the holidays. Traditional clocks and street lamps followed the slender roads through 4-way stops and pedestrian crossings, while the warm glow of small stores and restaurants closed for the night illuminated the subtle rise of the hill the downtown area was nestled on. The show had an impressive amount of kids for it only being booked 10 days in advance. Most of them were very young and all smoked---illegally. 4 bands opened the show and I was actually really impressed by one of them. Their music was too shred metal for my taste, but they were all only 14 years old and could play their instruments really well. After a few hours of walking around and visiting the local mall, it was time for my friends to play and I watched both of their groups jam out. The sound guy was terrible and had more of a fascination with his BMX bike than actually getting the stage to sound good. So we all just did what we could and got through the show with relatively little problems. We loaded up after and it was absolutely freezing. We had the offer to stay at the house of the promoter’s friend, and we gladly took it. It was only a few miles from the venue and soon enough Heavy Heavy and us were shacked up together in a warm basement with some beers and cheese curds to share. I was up very late tossing and turning with the puzzling and frustrating phone conversation I had with my friend before bed. I really don’t want to elaborate much further. But I hope she has a good birthday today.