i am a creature of habit. i am trying to break out of that...and it is sort of working. granted, i am , right now, drinking out of my favorite coffee mug and sitting in my PJ's at my computer like i do every morning...but...last night i went and had a beer at pete's candy store, and tonight i am eating dinner at a vegan restaurant. i know, hard to believe. someone calm me down.

this is why i felt compelled to write today.

addiction.

throughout the course of my life i can honestly say that i have ben addicted to three things that i know of...caffiene, nicotene, and men. fortunately i quit smoking years ago...and have resigned myself to keeping the other two habits regardless of their negative influence on my whatever...however, i have been doing a lot of thinking about Aaron's death lately and now that i am spending so much time with all these crazy passionate additcs or recovering addicts, i think that this issue is becoming more and more intriguing.

i have not, and will not ever experiment with the stuff that has killed my friends. and maybe that means i won't be able to identlfy with their fears and their struggles and their deaths...i don't know. i don't really care. i have watched beautiful people ruin their lives...i have watched some of the most talented people i have ever seen come back to monday nights at the sidewalk week after week and become increasingly more distracted and unhealthy and i just want to shake them and tell them to get their act together but i feel lke i can't because i have no idea what could be so possibly good that it would make them throw their life away in the first place.

in short...i am going to go to a meeting. i'm thinking of it as continuing education for codependent enablers.

and...i am thinking about my limited alchol consumption and considering many options that i feel would increase my integrity and productivity. i'll tell you if i make any decisions.

oh yea...i'm recording this weekend. and i have a show on tuesday....20 songs in chronological order with explinations of their origin. beat that for fun.

ha.

have a great day!

love you.

amy

about a week ago i was on my way to the sidewalk cafe for something...can't remember ...but i was riding the M14 bus, as i usually do to cross town on 14th street. i was running a little bit early and listening to a really good mixed cd so i decided just to stay on the bus and see where it went. i had never actually traveled on the bus past a certain point so it was sort of an adventure...and worst case senario , i was going to end up somewhere really out of the way and have to walk a little bit. as it turned out...the bus line terminates somewhere way downtown near delancy in a neighborhood where i had never been, but the buss that i was on was the first i line to start moving again, so i went in kind of a circle and ended up closer to the sidewalk than i would have been if i had gotten off of the bus where i usually do.

the reason why i am telling you this is two fold.

first, everything in my life seems to be going this way right now and i have no explination for any of it but it really kicks ass. i have been in the market for a new guitar and looked at several and then yesterday my friend beau johnson called me and told me to go to main drag music in williamsburg becuase they had a four year old martin in good shape so i went and, as luck would have it, the guitar beau wanted me to see had sold but they had just gotten in the most beautiful guitar i have ever seen, a 1949 mahagoney small body martin in perfect condition.

second, it was a real eye opener to see parts of the city that i had never seen before. i get so caught up in where i go and which way i walk and stuff like that that i forget just how big this place is and just how much there is to learn from and be inspiried by. lippe and i were walking a couple of days ago to a different guitar shop and had this very conversation because we didn't take his "normal" path. i think i am going to make an effort, now that it is getting slightly warmer, to continue this "exploring new territory" thing.

so...there's that diatribe.

i haven't written in a while. mostly because i have been overwhelmed and could not figure out how to fit everything into one diary entry. no i think i have processed it enough to clue everyone in.

my last two months...

quit my day job, working with fortified records as booking manager at the sidewalk cafe, also running the monday night antihoot there at the sidewalk, my open mic on wednesdays is so good it is out of control, paid off my credit card debt, i'm re-recording four songs and self releasing an indie version of a full cd so i can spend more money on a new guitar, working on a new song for a new movie by the same guy who did the last movie with my song "baby", the antifolk festival was really good, i got digital cable although i am never really home to see it, been seeing a lot of music, not getting enough sleep, had a nervous eye twitch but that is gone, written some new songs, and i think that is about it.

i'm hungry so i am going to make some breakfast. i think i am addicted to soy creamer and turkey bacon. this week anyway.

i hope you are doing well.

have a great day!

love
amy