Musician's Widow

My husband and I are in the process of moving, and as such I post from my Droid via WordPress app until we can get internet in our new place… probably late this week or early next week. Lack of internet is unnerving for me, to say the least! But I have discovered I don’t go into convulsions after all… of course internet on my phone helps, but still. Life goes on without high speed internet on my laptop.

I made other discoveries the last few days. For example, a dusty pair of black dress shoes that I realized I’ve worn maybe once in the last 8 years. They did NOT go in the Goodwill pile because I realized that every woman needs one part of butt-ugly dress shoes for stuffy interviews and the occasional funeral. I have NO plans to wear those shoes any time soon, but I figured I better keep them.

I also discovered that friends who are willing to help you move are priceless, and ones you trust with your underwear drawer are even MORE priceless. Forget worrying about your jewelry, guys who see your butterfly designed underwear and DON’T crack a joke are pretty darn cool in my book.

I discovered we found ourselves a new home that fits us. It reminds me of the one I grew up in, and its just enough country to bring out my inner cowgirl. I might just have to get myself a pair of Wrangler jeans sometime this year!

Finally, I discovered once again what a great team my husband and I make. I swear moving has to be in the top 10 causes of divorce! It’s so ridiculously stressful. We have both been on edge here and there. At times I have been so overwhelmed that I just wanted to sit in the middle of piles of boxes and bawl!! But not once have we failed to lean on each other on those stress-filled times, often ending up high-fiving instead of bickering. We rock harder than ever. And that’s pretty darn cool of a discovery.

Its 4 am.

Yes, you read that right. 4 am. This is not an unusual hour for me. It’s about bed time, I suppose, and I write this from my bed. Quality time with my blog tonight, I guess you could say.

I’m a night owl. I am sure many people think this fact is due to my having married a musician who is, by profession, a night owl himself. However, I think a big part of why my husband and I ever hit it off is the simple fact that I’ve pretty much always been a night owl.

I remember back in Elementary school, I was baffled about how none of my classmates knew that at 10:30 pm, after the news, M*A*S*H came on for half an hour. Bed time was always after that show, of course, but it was perfectly normal for me to stay up to watch the show!

My classmates were all in bed by, I assumed, 8 or 9 pm. Me? I’d be up until 11 pm, mostly because there was no point to my going to bed any earlier. I wasn’t going to sleep anyway!

In high school, I was introduced to After MidNite with Blair Garner while I did homework. IF I was done with my homework, I’d still lay in bed awake until all hours listening to the radio host’s antics. If there was an artist I was really interested in being interviewed, I’d be awake until 3 am easily… waiting to hear the interview.

Now, all this being said, I’ve never been a morning person. I can remember in Elementary school, I’d get up and have cereal for breakfast. I’d build myself a fort out of cereal boxes around my bowl in an attempt to keep the light out. I already didn’t think the day should even consider starting before 10 am. At the earliest.

Somewhere along the way, I learned how to live on about 4 hours of sleep. I did that through most of college. Go to bed around 3 am. Get up by 6 or 7 am. Drive to 8 am classes. I kept this schedule up into my job at a newspaper… staying up late, though, to talk to a guy instead of to do homework.

I married that guy.

I moved to Nashville.

My night owl-ness got worse.

You can ask most of my friends here in Nashville. This fact is not unusual. It’s almost a, “Welcome to Nashville,” phenomenon.

However, its not when we go out, or if I pick up a night working downtown at the bar, that my being a night owl takes a ridiculous turn. While I’ve driven home from downtown while the sun rises, its actually when my husband goes on the road that I stay up super late. You see, sunrise offers me some sort of strange security blanket. Its like the first rays of light bring with them this sense of safety. Like I can relax and go into that vulnerable sleep-state.

I sleep as the sunrises. I wake as most go to lunch. Some days, I wake as the school bus drops off neighborhood kids. I have coffee and cereal, as they have candy bars and cokes. This is normal for me.

I try hard to adjust my schedule from time to time. I miss daylight, and I force myself up by 10 or 11 am. However, I often still stay up late after that… and I find myself sleeping even later than normal the next day to compensate! Its at times like that, that I realize that sometimes its not worth fighting the body’s natural clock. I’ll fight it when we have kids. For now, I’ll just stay a night owl.

It is what it is. And what it is now… bedtime.

This last weekend, I went to two shows to spend the weekend with my husband. He had shows in Katy, TX and then Poteet, TX — about three hours apart from each other — and a no-brainer for me to attend.

Now, before I continue with my story, two things I want to note:

1) No, I don’t “go on the road with the band.” I get that question a lot, and the short and simple answer is, “No.” Now, I know there ARE some acts that do take musician’s wives on the road with them, atleast here and there. However, I’ve not really done it myself.

I’ve hitched a ride on the bus twice. Once when I needed to go to Texas and my husband had a show close to my destination. So instead of flying, the artist he was with at the time allowed me to catch a ride with them down. Then another time I caught a ride to Nashville from Texas. I did get to go to Hawaii for a week with my husband on a gig,too. But past that, if I am at a show, its because I’ve taken myself there, and I’m taking myself back home.

2) This is the second time I’ve done a “two show weekend” to see my husband. Only the last time was about six years ago, and we weren’t even flirting with dating. Ironically, the travel time between those two shows was almost twice the time between the shows this last weekend.

So all that said, back to my story. I went to the show in Katy, and it was the first time I’d seen my husband in a month. I was beyond excited, and I made sure to enjoy every minute of the weekend.

A bonus of the trip is the fact that I genuinely really just love the group my husband is with right now. So I was also excited to get to hang out with these guys that I consider friends myself, and the really cool thing? They were SO aware and accommodating of the fact that my husband and I hadn’t seen each other in so long. A fact that did not go unnoticed and unappreciated.

At the show that first night, I was standing side stage, and when the band was introduced, I was introduced right along with my husband! It’s happened about three times now, and its not something I ever expect to have happen. In fact the first time, I turned bright red (we had JUST gotten engaged that time) and almost ran out of the showroom! I didn’t know how to react! This time, when I was told to, “Wave to the crowd!” I did with a giggle and… what can I say?? It was REALLY COOL!! REALLY cool. I am pretty sure I was beaming. LOL! How can you NOT be blown away by that and get, well, a thrill?

After the show, some fans went and got all the band members to sign a t-shirt… and they asked ME to sign it. “We’ll make you famous too!” they said.

I declined at first, but at their insistence, I signed below my husband’s signature. Bizarre much? Yeah. Definitely. And absolutely something I’m amused about, but let’s face it. I’m certainly not going to let it go to my head, and at the end of the day the only person I care to get recognition from is my husband. I’m his biggest fan, and I have this wonderful fulfillment knowing he’s mine.

THAT is all that matters.

Today was definitely a day of “getting to my roots.”

Inscription on Albritton Clock Tower on the Texas A&M Campus

First, I went out to the cemetery where all my grandparents are buried, and its at the church where my husband and I got married. This location deserves a blog post all by itself, but suffice to say that you can’t get much deeper into my roots than this location!

Then, I visited Texas A&M University. I took some time to walk around a little bit of the campus and take pictures. I took in memories of days now-fairly-long past, and I observed the current student population a little. I am forever amazed by how little changes in light of how much things have changed.

I ran into the same family a couple times as I strolled around. It was a young man with his parents and a couple siblings. He was giving his family a tour of campus, and if I were guessing I’d have said he had to be a Freshman. Perhaps even a Senior checking out the campus he’d be attending in the fall.

I could only hear snippets of their conversations, and really it was none of my business. However, the young mans demeanor amused me. His body language screamed out that he would rather be doing anything other than what he was doing in that moment. Telling his family about traditions, etc. seemed to be almost an annoyance. It was as if they should know these things already.

I shook my head, and deep down I wanted to pull him aside. I wanted to convey to him that I’m over 5 years out of college now, and there are times I wish I’d taken more time to appreciate my campus. I was blessed with parents who took (and continue to take) an active roll in my life. He needs to be thankful to have his family there with him. Many would give anything to have that time. And 10 years from today, he’ll wish he had this time back. I could promise him that.

At another point in my tour, I couldn’t help but overhear another young man fretting over the coming summer. Should he stay in College Station, or should he go home to Dallas?

He was going through the pros and cons of both to his friend, and I have to admit, I was impressed at how he was thinking it through. But I felt the urge to go to him and tell him that neither choice was wrong. He is blessed to be in a time in his life that everything is a chance to grow and experience life. In a weird way, being a student gives him a safety net that “the real world” will not offer in the next few years. Enjoy having that problem. Revel in having the options ahead of you, and know that neither one is wrong. Both will offer lessons in life. Both will find you wiser come Fall Semester.

Its a funny thing about taking some time to visit your roots. You find yourself studying the lessons you’ve learned along the way. You realize you wish someone would have told you these lessons ahead of time. And yet within that, you find its learning these lessons on your own that have made them stick.

So even as I wanted to “offer words of advice” it was best I kept my musings to myself. Those lessons were for me to learn my own way, and for these current students to learn their own way as well. And some day, they may take their own stroll on campus and have the urge to share their own advice, but they, too, won’t.

When you deal with the general public in any form, be it by your job or you’re just that big of a social butterfly, you’re going to run into them. The Entitled. Those people who believe everything is to stop when they enter or that any sort of idea of personal space does not apply to them.

I’ve dealt with many Entitled people. Some of them I actually find funny. Others leave me with my blood boiling.

One such Entitled came up to me one night while working at the hot dog stand. This gentleman came up, ordered a hot dog with mustard, and then proceeded to go sit down at a booth across the bar and wait. Now, see, a hot dog with mustard will take me a maximum of about 30 seconds to put together. So this mans ability to move that fast was impressive and absurd. I stared. In disbelief.

However, I take him his hot dog, tell him how much it is, and he proceeded to request salt, relish and extra napkins. Uhm. See. The idea of a hot dog stand is you make your order, you get it there, and then you go to your seat. Occasionally when its an order that will take longer, I’ll happily deliver to your table. Its not delivery that I minded. It was the attitude of the man, and the idea that he felt I was supposed to wait on him the entire time he was there. Never mind that I had other orders.

Ultimately, I brought him what he asked for, but refused to leave until I got my only salt shaker back, and was left with… absolutely no tip and annoyance. The Entitled had struck.

Another such Entitled was probably  not so much as Entitled as just not thinking. But I still group them as an Entitled.

While working at my parent’s tax office last year, I was helping a woman with her tax information. I had to get something from my desk which is behind the counter we have at the door to log people in, etc. So I go behind the counter and my desk, grab what I need, and turn only to find the women right behind me. Behind my desk. Behind the counter. Uhh… what?

People are amazed that we actually had to put a small swinging door and large sign up stating the area behind the counter is “employees only.” In most cases, people know not to go into a personal working area. But to those that are Entitled, it does not matter. They will go wherever they please, any time they please.

Similarly, we’ve had to put up other doors to attempt to keep clients from other private areas. Attempt being the operative word. It doesn’t always work. Because those that are Entitled, see nothing wrong with walking into private offices at any time. Because, after all, THEY have arrived. Everything needs to stop for them. They take the idea of “the customer is always right” to the next level.

Well, I’m here to say… keeping the customer happy is job one. But the customer? They aren’t always right. Especially Even if they are as Entitled.

I can’t get to upset. I’ve been guilty of it myself.

Fans waiting to get into a show, Fan Fair 2008

That assumption someone remembers your name even though you only see them once in awhile.

This week is CMA Music Fest in Nashville, better known as Fan Fair. It’s honestly one of my favorite weeks of the year, even though it means little sleep and being on your A-game at all times. I thrive under pressure! This is the week in which country music fans descend upon Nashville to get up-close to their favorite artists and get a taste of Music City.

However, its also the time I always make SOMEONE angry. How? I don’t remember them from the year before.

Last year was the worst in which one woman spent an entire night shooting daggars at me, because I dared have no idea who she was… even though she’d met me at this artist’s show in this random city on this random day and we talked for fifteen minutes.

I sincerely try to remember people’s names and their stories. However, especially living in Nashville, I meet literally hundreds of people a year. I am going to forget someone’s name in there. I’m not perfect. I never claim to be.

I feel for my husband and all the musicians. They have is 10000xs worse. Especially if they’ve worked for multiple artists over the years. They have a lot of fans they’ve met over time. Most of the time, there IS facial recognition. But remembering a name and city can often require a little help.

I love that fans remember so vividly ever details of a conversation they had with an artist or their band (or the occasional wife). I did it too for years. I am just as guilty of assuming that the other person remembered me just as vividly! However, the fact of the matter is, its just not possible to remember EVERY conversation. At least not for me. Try as I might, I often can’t remember what someone ordered to eat from me an hour earlier if I’ve made ten hot dogs since then!

I don’t want to offend anyone, so I propose that during Fan Fair, every visitor be given a “Hi! My Name is…” sticker to wear, with an extra line of, “…and I’m a fan of…” at the bottom. I sincerely don’t mean this to be mean, but please… Country Music fans, cut everyone here some slack. We’re REALLY glad you’re here — everyone from the artists to the musicians to the bartenders to the cab drivers — but we’re also not perfect. Please don’t be offended if you initially get a blank stare when you see someone you know. We mean you no offence. We’re just frantically going through our mental Rolodex… and sometimes that takes awhile.