this is it

I woke up in the city this morning and walked out through the streets, all still trashed from the night before, from all the people blown in by the heat wave, flooding the sidewalks, yelling and laughing and stumbling, still in their beds as I woke, dangling on the last few threads of sleep before the alarm came slashing through.... 

I passed the meter maids making first rounds and unlocked my car, the sound of metal gates raising around me.  I was on no coffee, little sleep, and every sound, every image, every sensation, had such resolution, such vivid importance.  The sun broke through between the buildings and splashed on my dirty windshield.  Chinatown was bustling and the gears downtown were just beginning to turn.  I rolled the windows down and the morning was still cool, still waiting to burst, and on the bridge, the bay shimmering and the haze rising to each side, I reminded myself that a good moment, no matter where or when, is the best of what life has to offer.

Then, back in the east bay, I slept, and then I packed everything, and made the rounds again and again, looking for anything that I might want to have with me, anything I couldn't live without, but most everything I need never leaves my suitcase, I never fully unpack.  I have my guitars, and my computer, and the few clothes I actually wear.  There isn't much else.  

Looking around, I saw the big piece of poster-board leaning up against a wall, passes stuck to it from the days I worked in the kitchen at The Fillmore, lists of songs from the last five years with notes beside them, a list of record labels that had called about Charmingly Awkward, all besides Capitol crossed out, and notes scrawled long ago in permanent pen with such determination, such need, now making little sense.  All of this seemed so distant, but it reminded me that I am doing what I had set out to do.  The meaning of that gets lost in the routine.  It shouldn't, but it does.

I'm in LA now.  This is it.  I'll be here for the next four or five or six weeks - until the record is finished.  I drove all afternoon and evening, the same old drive, and arrived and unloaded into my sublet, and now as I write this, the resident dog is curled up beside me on the bed.  I had made calls.  There are options.  There are bars, and parties, and laughing voices carrying in through the window, but I'm exhausted.  I'm going to sleep.