nomad'z land

aka longest post ever.

1. first things first (i poppa). are you familiar with the phenomenon endearingly or not so endearingly known as “mommy mush brain”? basically, because youve all da sudden got mad shit to focus on such as your baby and caring for it, simpler things fall by the wayside like remembering peoples names or perhaps your own, you know general memory issues. i do believe, watson, that ive discovered through experiential learning a new phenomenon which i hereby pronounce (drumroll please) “travel tush bush.” ………… hahahahhhahah thats so stupid. and kind of perverted sounding right. anyway ill keep it, whatev! survey says it stays biotch. basically, since i all da sudden be traveling like a mofo and cant keep track of where the fuck i am or what time zone im in, when i finally land home-home, im a seriously hot mess, in desperate desperate need of unwinding (and a shower etc but whos counting) but unable to find adequate time to cater to this necessity, and completely incapable of looking or being non-nonsensical. case in point:  somewhere in my uncomfortable last-row plane slumber, visions of in n out were dancing in my head. this is how my cravings appear. so on the way to work straight from lax, i get in n out. i get a number 3 with no onions and a vanilla shake, and an extra hamburger no onions just in case. just in case what you might ask? just in case i want to fucking eat more than one hamburger, duh. or maybe just in case i see a homeless person on the way to work and want to do a good deed. i scarf down my initial number 3 and am left with a few fries and a hamburger (and no homeless in sight oh well sorry maybe next time). i arrive at work’s parking lot and am faced with a quandary. …i dont want to keep this burger in my car because it will stink up the place and im not trying to get in my car and get hit with hot hamburger smell upon returning; i dont want to keep it in my car and leave the windows open cause im not trying to get my car stolen somehow (paranoia); i dont want to bring this to my office cause i wont eat it right away and i dont want it to stink up the place while im working; i dont wanna put it in the fridge cause duh talk about losing the integrity of the bun consistency (thats what she said). so i do the next best thing: i wrap the in n out box in napkins and place it on top of my trunk. not in the trunk. on top. and i hope for the best. 5 hours later, im hungry. this is when i realize how hilariously idiotic i am for having just left my fucking food on top of my car like theres some force field around it protecting it from the elements and the hungry wild ass squirrels that outnumber humans 3:1 on this campus. this, my friends, is travel tush bush. anyhoo, i go to get it and guess what? UNTOUCHED. booya. i ate that shit like a motherfucker and it was goooooood. ftw!

2. does anybody else use bread as a napkin? cause i just did that with the hamburger bun. ugh. and again we say: travel tush bush!

okay this is going to be the longest post ever as if it isnt already. my b.

stop 1: bristow, va (july 12)

i take a red-eye lax->iad thursday night. on united… i. fucking. HATE. UNITED!!!!!! motherfucker. okay i dont hate united when j hooks it up with first class. my hate is not that all-encompassing. mine hate doth not encompass that which douches do love. but southwest is ma shittttt. oh well. slept the entire way thank godddd. only sleep could have calmed my ass down to a normal human level of non-rage. anyhoo landed to rainnn rainnnnnnn (i was singing that part) at 7am! my dear cousin minerva picked me up and it was sooo nice to see her, i love her!!!! we went to her house, super mtv cribs style. her dog diamond, this little mini pinscher, is hilarz. yappy little thing and so hyper but soo cute. then we went to see tashaboo who is about one minute away, i love. reunion! of course we baked since we were awake. something about dubious poison. very dubious i do say! so many memories at that house on cavalier woods lane. you know one time we were playing hide n seek and i had this epic hiding spot in the bar in the basement, in a cabinet. i had to pee sooo bad but didnt wanna lose my spot. so i pissed myself. i wasnt even embarrassed. i guess i won/lost. i hope my future daughter has more sense than i at that age. anyway, at this point j was parked somewhere in bristow but was heading to promo at the hamilton in dc. we rolled up in that bitch why am i talking like this. we met him there and i love when my family meets j cause hes so sweet and lovey and happy and friendly and everyone just loves the shit out of him which duh cause whats not to love, i mean he is the best man ever after all. i gotta say its also nice for people to see us together for several reasons. 1) people get to see our loveydoviness in person not just listen to me yammering on about it making me feel like im making up a fake boyfriend, and 2) they get to experience his coolness for themselves, it is quite infectious and im not being biased. even gavin degraw said so. real crux of point 2 is: not gonna lie i was kind of irritable and by irritable i mean IRRITABLE, and for some reason significant others always suffer unnecessarily as a side effect, but hearing minerva and tasha “awwwww” and “i loveeeee himmmm”  and “you guys are soooo cute” and “hes soooo niceeeee” made me re-realize i should stop with the bitchiness which in my defense was leftover from united (i hate you united).

so promo was cool, love dc, love just being IN dc. so much history!!! SO!! MUCH!!! HISTORY!!!!!! okay thats enough of that. parted with the cuzzos and went with j and all them in a shag carpeted molester van to bristow. i believe we were all knocked out must have been the softness upon our feets! lets see  what else, soundcheck, yoga which was accompanied by a hardy looking bunch for an audience (train’s crew – all tatted and smoking cigarettes. interesting juxtaposition), then showtime! found neil loretta and the kids jacob ethan and ava and watched the show from the audience with them, brought the kids up on stage for ‘say hey’ about which neil kept saying “they will remember this forever!!!” haha. minerva trey and ethan showed up and we all hung backstage in the dressing room then watched train sidestage which was superb although you cant really hear shit cause its all charlie brown style you know what i mean. soooo happy j got to meet more of my family since fam+fam=fam. so good at math. loretta especially was like, ‘keep him!! he is so good with kids and so nice!!!’ 😉  also of note and not surprising is feedback i received from the band/crew of my family, namely that they were so sweet and so nice. duh! although maybe not necessarily duh since i can see how it may come as a shock given my occasional vulgarity and obnoxiousness. im still mostly sweet as pie though right? right????? and now some pics for your viewing pleasure before i go on and on and on..

stop 2: darien lake, ny (july 13)

first night back on the bus: complete. and boyyyyy did i sleep!! i believe it was about 11 hours. gangsta. soo coffin snuggle styles. i was a little apprehensive cause last time i was on the bus (almost a year ago) i was having some serious claustrophobic reactions but it was all gravytrain this time whee!! anyway woke up in darien lake new york which is near buffalo i guess? so crazy how everything stage-related is loaded and unloaded daily to and from a buttload of semis. well this was for train’s shit. sooooo much stuff. requires lots of people! its nuts. yet it gets done somehow. impressive. tried to get reading done which took me forevs to do. i think we kinda laid low this day until showtime. oo! lineup was gavin degraw, mfsh, then train. looooove gavin. this is when we hatched the idea to hook him and leah up which (spoiler alert) we need more time to make this one come to fruition. anyway we also failed at riding these roller coasters that were RIGHT NEXT DOOR ugh!!! fail!! oh yeah! so this night during js show i hung out with my new bff jerry who is guitar/keyboard for train. he is soooo hilarious. we were talking so much shit the entire show it was the best. i wish he were around for every show. but i guess he has other things to do. anyhoo watched train from soundboard area this time then wayyy back in the boondocks. so many people. at one point i had to pee and i was going to go in the public restrooms and j was all “dont do that, its so dirty in there” then he led us astray and i ended up popping a squat next to a fuckin portapotty anyway. thanks a lot boo! in solidarity he pissed on the other side of the potty but he has a weenie so its a lot easier than for me 😦 after train was done we took the afterparty to their dressing room and overtook that shiz dictator communism style but way more fun and less oppression. hilarious times, see pics below for reference. new bff jerry wins for most entertaining entertainer of the night. then we were off to the border to get into canada! but not before a stop at a flying j to pick up super unnecessary things and take pictures but no beer cause they didnt sell alcohol 😦

stop 3: toronto, ontario (july 14)

woke up sunday morning in toronto! actually let me backtrack. so after flying j it was about/aboot an hour to the border. we all had to wake up so customs could give us back our passports etc. this fool manas would not get up. hahahahhahah. so the customs guy just came to his bunk. canadians are so nice. you know if we were coming back into america they woulda found some way to ship his ass back to nigeria for being so difficult. anyhoodle. as i was saying, woke up in toronto to the sound of cars racing! big races going on by the lake that we were on. it was also hot as a motherfucker. loverbear and i went for a little walk since i was like “i want to take a walk” and since he gives me anything i ask for within reason and even sometimes without reason which is why i adore mi amor (color me badd what what). watched some of the races from up top. they go soooo fast!! and its so loud!!!  i want!!!! i want to race!!!! pretty sure j will do anything to make sure i never race in real life so i had to settle for the arcade racing backstage, which was still fun although i drive way better in real life than in video games. ladida, more of the same.. soundcheckity, showtime, oh! this night j mikey and raliegh went up to sing with train and gavin for the last song. so cool! also, hilarious but at someones expense is that train uses a shiny black stage floor thing which looks amaze but also is conducive for slipperiness as evidenced by one of their crew eating shit by where j and i were standing side stage. whoops! blame the heat and the fucking smoke machines. i want a smoke machine wherever i go. whos my secretary, i need you to write this down and make it happen, thanks. anyway trumpet player brian hooked it up with mad knowledge with the 50mm lens. perfect since i am not a read-the-manual type gal much to j’s chagrin and berating whenever im all “i dont know how to fucking use this thing.” i took soooo many fucking pictures this night as if i didnt already the day before fml sorry. i laughed my ass off the entire weekend but this night i laughed the hardest. early night kinda so took the party to the bus where i took pics of everyone smoking weedles and michael dubbed one picture in particular “ganja murderers” which then prompted everyone to bust out with their best barrington levy inspired freestyles/rasta accompaniment or “noises” as i called it to which bulby was like hell no. maybe you had to be there but i was dying and a half. who is even going to read all of this (hi becks 🙂 and boodle?).

stop 4: grand rapids, mi (july 15)

this is the last stop, i promise. are you still with me? i am barely with me so props to you, dear reader, for hanging in there. woke up at some point shortly after knocking out to go through customs on the way back in to the states. i dont know about you all but authority figures put me at unease, hence my ‘fuck des police’ sweater i was wearing all weekend minus whenever we were gonna go through customs cause im a pussy teehee. manas woke up this time which is good cause maybe its just me but us customs seems not as nice as canadian customs eh? they asked us individually what our citizenship was even though they were holding our passports. trick question? i dunno. time waster? probably yes. whatev. anyway it took us forevvvvssss to get to grand rapids, so much so that i had my flight changed from 445pm to 616pm just in case. we were in some mutha fuckin traf-fic. and this is on like a two lane road. so no escaping for us! we were at the mercy of the road. anyhoo got to fredrick meijer gardens or something, in grand rapids. soooooo hot. i mean like SUPER HOT. midwest heat aint no joke!! yuck. i digress. the gardens, from what i saw, were beautiful! wish i coulda had more time to explore! well, more time and cooler weather. they had a runner drive me to the airport which was about 15 minutes away. checked in, then got notice that my flight was delayed an hour. which was not good because my layover in houston was an hour. and my flight from houston to la was the last one out. sooo i stayed one more day! i wasnt ready to leave anyway 🙂 back to the venue i went where i happily reunited with loverbear. did some yoga outside of the bus and tried to ignore the flying annoyances attacking us all the while. dude for real i mean it was HOT. surely there was not one person in that damn state that was not sweating ballsacks. got to meet js bff cathy. i always love meeting js people from back in the day non music related, no offense to those who are music related but you know. just different. liken it, if you will, to j meeting people of mine who knew me before i transitioned to female. haahhahahaah. blah blah, so we were happy we got one last night to snugglefest. drove into chicago where i made the layover part of my flight (i was supposed to fly 555am from grand rapids with a  stopover in chicago until 8) but i just went to chicago obvs and they had cancelled my reservation but i had a ticket in hand so fuck em. fuck em all!!!! fuck united. full circle biotches.

in conclusion:

i laughed SO motherfucking hard this weekend and had such a wonderful time with my lover, getting to see my family and good times with spearhead fam on the bus, traveling around like the circus of misfits and ganja murderaz that they/we are. the little snippets of tour bus life that i get are fascination nation to me. but overall great vibes, super family-like. id give this run an A+ not that anyone gives a flying shiitake. on the reals, i am so grateful for unique adventures and amazing memories with the love of my life. feeling very blessed!! i knew itd get better once i got to heading out of my 20s. 20s, you sucked! oh crap i still have a year left. i take it back. lubadubdub til the next time bubs!