11/21--A Day In The Life: Tour Blog #6

The show at Cicero's in St. Louis, MI ended on a high note. The boys wanted to make the 12 hour trek down to Louisiana that night, post show, instead of using the following day off to do so. I understood this move. If I had a day off followed by a show in my hometown the day after, I would want to maximize my time at home, especially after having been on the road for just short of a month.

When we arrived in Baton Rouge, LA just after 12PM, I checked into a Marriott hotel. After sleeping on hotel room floors and the back seat of a turbulent van for much of November, I was worn pretty thin and needed my space to recharge my weary body and mind. First sign of exhaustion: your legs feel as if they are controlled by another force other than your body. Check.

Barely having put my bags and guitar on the floor of room 504, I took a hot shower as spending 12 hours in a van with five other guys tends to give you a musty stench of pure masculinity. I slipped on my old Miami University sweatpants and faded fast into a dream riddled slumber. Weird dreams actually. Dreams involving the hotel I was in, dreams suggesting the haunted reality behind this establishment. I remember glimpses of a cadaverous child no older than the age of 10. His pallid face was made to look more creamy due to his matted black hair and his wardrobe--tattered church clothes--an old black woolen jacket and knickers.

After sleeping off much of the afternoon, I spent the remainder of the evening in the Marriott's lounge reading and eating a nourishing meal of Cobb Salad (mixed field greens with hard boiled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, avacado, grilled chicken and Maytag bleu) and Louisiana's own chicken gumbo as well as a glass of jammy Pinot Noir; strawberries and black cherries filled its bouquet.

I indulged my body more by hitting the sheets by midnight. Erie enough, it was at this time that I heard two rounds of female screams. At first, as my pupil's dilated, I thought it was a woman reaching climax on the other side of the wall. However, the screams were too inconsistent, too few and too sporadic for it to have been a side effect of good sex. I wonder if this hotel really was haunted.

I had a day off yesterday, so I went to bed at 11:30 only soon enough to wake up at 4:30 this morning with the vigor and zeal of an un-neutered pit bull. I don't understand. I was given the gift of a day off to sleep and rejuvenate, yet my body refused to accept. I spent the bulk of the morning listening to the rain, writing a new song and reading.

We have the rest of the today and tonight off and then we drive 8 hours to Nashville, TN for the final show of the November tour. Looking forward to getting home. For my Thanksgiving dish I think I want to make Grilled porcini polenta cakes with shaved parmigiano reggiano and drizzled with black truffle oil. I'm looking forward to home life.