Seven tour busses pull up to United States customs at 3 a.m.. They are returning from Canada to their home country. Customs officers insist that each of the tour bus residents (Because let's face it; these tour buses are our homes - playing a new city nightly, we don't get hotels. We sleep in a coffin sized bunk - the best money can buy - while we travel to the next city. But a bunk with a #1-only on-board potty, while certainly romantic, is not in any way mistakable for a king sized bed in an actual home. Which is what I am looking forward to. Which is what is waiting for me in less than two weeks) - customs officers insist that each resident rise and actually go into the security building to have their passports scanned and their criminal histories checked. At 3 a.m.. It is far harder to get into your own country (when your country is the U.S.) than it is a foreign one.

I wish the Canadian/United States boarders would open up and we could freely move/work/trade with our neighbors to the North.

Sound designer, lighting rigger, company manager, bass player – all puffy eyed and in decorative p.j. bottoms, slip on shoes, a still-buzzed and grouchy face here and there, but mostly a motley crew of grungy touring rock-n-roll lifestylers who just loaded out a fantastic show in Vancouver BC and enjoyed a fine night partying together, swapping tour busses for a few hours until “we roll. There were silly fireworks brought from Iowa and there are always dancers (specifically 6 – yes, 6 professional dancers, of whom I am one, on this rock-n-roll tour). As long as someone is dancing, it's a party. Invite the dancers. Our lives are a party.

Problem is, my passport has a long, red haired Midwestern looking chick, similar to myself only in a cat-who-did-it kinda smile and well-positioned eyebrow piercings. And Vancouver is recording record snow. We all make it through customs and are shoed back to our beds. But the bus, nor the tour sponsor, Dave, make it across the ice. One moment he was up and just as quick as the sun rises over Manhattan, he was flat on his ass. It must have hurt. Maybe it hurt his pride more than anything.

And in another 2 hours, we will pull into Seattle, WA (my home town - at least that's what my driver's license says. And I will try to sleep, though lately it's been difficult. I have from 11pm to the following day 7pm to catch some zzzz's, but wouldn't you know I'm up. I'm a light sleeper/recovering insomniac. This whole tour thing again, is really my growth point for deeper sleep, you know. This is my chance to really get over it once and for all.


Of course, in San Jose, CA (after Seattle, WA) I will see a man who fits perfectly. I have been counting days since 8 days ago. He comes over to play like childhood best friend and crosses the world to care for me the way a grown man wants to take care of a woman. He wants to be the only one to take care of me. Even though we both know I don’t need taken care of. I'm pretty sure I won't sleep on the bus tonite.

So deliciously romantic is the touring artist's almost-full-moon, traveling winter nite.

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