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10:40 a.m. alarm goes off.
Hot Cinnamon Oat Bran with Brown Sugar, Flax Seed, Peaches, and Coconut Milk.
The station wagon is all packed and ready to go. Picking up Sarah and Stephanie and starting out towards Baltimore. Stef’s mom is being very mom-like, “Don’t forget socks, Stephanie!”
Stef: “Mom! No moms on tour!”
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Before we even reach Richmond Stef needs to pee two different times.
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Hard Boiled Egg. Quaker Cheddar Cheese Rice Cakes. Honey Green Tea.
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Blaring tunes. Getting into discussions on the repeating conflicts in relationships...the inevitable woes that happen when two people have a history...fighting the effects of the past, your tolerance for the other person’s quirks and attitude. How much of that can you deal with in order to make you happy?
Arriving in Baltimore. Through email beforehand a nice lady invited us to her home to cook a meal for us. She does catering for a living and makes meals for touring bands. It’s called Feed The Scene. She’s quite the character...ecstatic in every way. Not the kind of person I want to be around 24 hours a day but incredibly hospitable. Her kitchen holds the oldest mechanized ceiling fan in Baltimore apparently.
We’re served a delicious Quinoa dish with Spinach, Mushrooms, Tofu, and Shrimp.
Anthony sends me a quote: “I think men, especially those dried-up moderns, have lost hope because they are blind to beauty, and I hasten to say, to its reward.” – Jack Kerouac
Heading to the venue: Charm City Art Space, a garage section in downtown Baltimore. A gritty noisy punk duo called Hive Bent is on stage when we arrive. The kids are packed, maybe about 40 or 50 throughout the night...a really cool crowd.
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Stephanie’s reaction to the shitty PA system provided for us: “It’s 2012 you don’t have reverb?”
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Baklavaa, another noisy punk band graces us with an intense performance. Then we, The Vaginasaurs, go on. We do the best we can with no way to really hear our vocals. The on-stage comical and cute antics seems to woo the audience...
St. Stephen goes on after us, a more melodic indie pop sound with a lot of falsetto leads...a thoroughly enjoyable set.
We’re rewarded with an unexpected compensation from the cover at the door but then find out we got a parking ticket for obstructing the sidewalk even though the promoter assured us it was okay. That’s big city for you.
Afterwards, we hang out with the dudes from St. Stephen and their friends at an apartment down the street. This place has a spiral staircase. Sharing National Bohemian beers (the locals call this Natty Bo) and music and good-humored conversation.
Time to eat. We drive to the Double T diner in Glen Burnie and enjoy a hearty late night breakfast with the bass player Jesse, the lead singer Stephen, and his sister, Ali.
Two Short Stack Pancakes with Two Eggs and Milk.
Stephen confesses his ridiculous obsession with cereal and how he eats a bowl for almost every meal. We joke about starting a fan club entitled “Are You 4 Cereal?” The double meaning is too much to contain our laughter.
We part ways and resign to the promoter’s apartment in Arnold. We take over the couches and floor space. Iron Chef on TV in the background. I settle down on one end of the reclined couch.
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In the middle of the night I feel a startling bounce at the foot of my chair. In the moment I forgot there was any sort of cat roaming around the house and freaked out, but then I was comforted by a warm purring fur coat of body situating himself between my legs. The combination of the rumble of the cat’s body and Stephanie’s looming snore strangely lulls me off to sleep.
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