forty dollars

It's another night when I know I shouldn't be writing, and in fact right now I would rather be sleeping than writing. But here I am again because it's one of those nights where I find myself with too much in my head and in need of an outlet.

Hello, my outlet. How are you?

K, so update.
First of all, it's July. I'm happily involved with two internships, one at a record label in St. Paul and the other with the National Lutheran Choir. Making progress and learning things and figuring out the metro transit system along the way. I'm finding that I'm really, truly not meant for a desk job.
The folk duo stuff is going really well -- we are headed to Georgia this weekend to play some shows in my hometown! We've played a bunch of shows so far here in Minneapolis as well as Cedar Falls and Milwaukee/Madison, and have more yet to come, including the Iowa State Fair in August!

The pace of the summer started out excruciatingly slow, so much so that I had to take on that second internship to keep from dying of boredom. Suddenly, it's almost the middle of July. Within a month I will be starting to pack my life up again and move back home. And this is where my head starts tossing and turning...

As of right now, I have two goals: 1. Play on stage with John Mayer (he needs a fiddle player, he just doesn't know it yet).  2. Start a non-profit. Within the next ten years.

I'm not in a hurry with No. 2, but for some reason No. 1 is really bugging me. I've got the itch to be on a giant stage with other fiercely talented musicians and rock out. I won't lie, it's probably because I saw John Mayer in concert at Summerfest recently and absolutely fell in love with his live performance. It was amazing to hear the voice that I've only known through headphones come from an actual person on the stage. From where I was standing, he was literally no bigger than an ant, but gosh darn it I saw John Mayer! The show was huge and encompassing and moving... I started to contemplate the vast number of people it takes to put on a show like that and I decided right there that I need to be a part of it. In some capacity -- I will bring out water bottles for the musicians. I will vacuum the many rugs that JM requires on stage. I will even be the flashlight person for when they want to make a sneaky entrance, but please just let me on that stage!

So I'm struggling with where I am and what I'm doing, and I'm wondering if I'm on the right track. I didn't choose to be home-schooled so I could practice 8 hours a day, and I didn't enter into fiddling competitions when I was 14.... Instead, I spent high-school learning how to improvise in a praise band and went to college for a liberal arts degree. My dad keeps telling me I'm on the slow burn trajectory, instead of the fast-track to success like some other artists, but I'm having a difficult time accepting that right now. I'm seeing friends and people I don't know find their way into the industry already, and I just want to be right there with them.

I'm completely convinced that I'll find my way there, too, in time. It's just the waiting that's making me antsy.

So until I reach my fortune and fame, here's to late night popcorn, bad TV, and living on $40 a month. Cheers!