fone freak-out

never call your man / when he's in the van

when he's in the van/ never call your man

never call your man/ when he's in the van

when he's in the van/ never call your man

he's always in the van


(yokos, you do the math)

when your man is on tour, your phone is your worst enemy. nothing good can come out of that thing. its only a tease. you think its a lifeline connecting you to your one true love, but that's a lie from the pit. its a vehicle for illuminating unrealized expectations. its a little evil instrument that allows you to hear what he says, but you can't see him when he says it.

HEARING minus SEEING = CRAPPY CONVERSATIONS

i have released all expectations from my phone. i no longer hold her close at all times, hoping for a buzz from Omaha, or Denver, or Salt Lake City, or anywhere in this massively huge country. Why is America so behemolific??? If we lived in france, and josh was like "I think I'll tour around the country for a while" he could be home every night. commuter tour. this Land of the Free that we live in... its 3.79 million square miles, the third largest country in the world. England? 50, 346 square miles. a dinky country. how does that fare for a band in a van rambling from one good-music-scene town to another in the USA? long. today they're driving for 8 hours then doing a sound check if they make it in time. out of Denver last night they drove for a few hours then got up early today to drive some more.

logic time:

the whole day in the van. then load-in/ sound check. if they're headlining there'll be a good few hours there where there's nothing but dead time. dinner/ watching the openers/ hanging out. this is a good time for him to call. but if josh is in the club, he's in the dressing room with people, which sucks. but the further away he gets from backstage, the closer he is to the noise of another band. if he goes out of the club, there are the fans. where there are fans, there are Punishers. and where there are Punishers, I hang up the phone. (more on Punishers later- they are grotesquely fascinating and usually drunk.) this this this this is when Josh usually camps in the van. this this this is when the van becomes my BFF... my haven... my quiet place... to finally finally finally have a long connecty lovey chat with my man.

if i'm not busy when he calls that is. maybe i am busy. sometimes, yokos, you should be busy. or maybe you're keeping your phone in a heart- shaped holster on your hip/ always ready, always waiting for that next text/next call/ next little breath of sweetness so your conjoined invisible connective tissue wont asphyxiate. maybe.

i have stopped trusting the phone. i trust the love baby. when josh is on tour, i let him be on tour. i don't try anymore to attach his heart to a breathing tube hooked up to our home and my day and elliot's sweetness and phoebe's scrumbly hair. he knows all about it. he lives here.

you know this is mostly all crap, right? i keep my eyes wide open all the time. the phone is charged and ready to go at a moments notice. truth? i dont call. he can call. but i am on his time. he's my man on tour and i'm just another yoko.

18 days.

I could/ would/ should have titled this first entry "On the Road Again." But I'm not on the road. He is. We are here. Home. Waiting 18 days for daddy to come home. Just another Yoko waiting it out while daddy is off living the dream that will not die no matter how many times I stick a fork in it.

Just accept it, ladies, and get on with it. There will always be another tour.

Josh was leaving at 6am. We had to wake the kids to say good-bye. We traipsed outside to wave daddy and the van away and I went back to bed. The end.

Of course, it is Sunday so we go to church. I was totally ready (meaning on-time) and had wrangled a church date- my super- fun friend Lisa (everyone has a friend named Lisa). Sadly, as I pulled up in her driveway her garage door magically lifted and she squints out wearing an old t-shirt and black shiny soccer shorts that I think she had worn the day before on our 25-mile-last-hours-of-freedom-before-he-saddles-me-with-the-kids-for-18-days bike ride.

She looked startled. She squeeks: Wait didn't you get my text?!

Me: No. You aren't going. I have to go to church alone.

She: I no feel good. Woman things. (She speaks it in code cause my kids are in the car... is it wrong that my 10 year old boy still doesn't know what a period is? No! Let him live.)

I squealed away in a blaze of glory. I hate going to church alone. Wah wah wah. I know all you singly singles out there are all whatever but whatever back. I do like going to the movies alone, and eating alone with anything to read, but I like a church friend. Josh is always leading worship somewhere so he counts not, but it's nice when he can sit with me for the message (that's sermon for all you non-church girls out there).

Well, I go it alone, with my two gorgeous and precious kids who for real sit on top of me the whole service and giggle so I'm liking being there with just them.

I skittered out as fast as a cat afterward though. Who wants to answer a bunch of questions about where your husband is and when is he gonna be home and how are the kids and all that. Not me, not the first day. I mean, I'm fine. It's not a tsunami. It's just a little bit of lonely. Which is nice sometimes. I can stop the teardrops.

So the kids are watching a movie and I'm taking them out for a dusky bike ride in about 5 minutes and they will get to sleep with mama for 17 nights until daddy comes home.

What I like most is that this tour, the Smoking Popes opening for Alkaline Trio, is that it is happening during the summer. So I can bop and swim and ride and zoo and laze about without worrying about teaching all the time. (Did I mention I homeschool?) We can hang loose like yesterday's underwear. So we like the summer tour.

Tomorrow: For sure a spin, steam and swim at Lifetime. Doing this almost daily will keep me level for the ride.

Are you dying to know what the One Fun Thing is for tomorrow? It's a swim meet. Em's kids are on swim team so we will meet at the meet and then maybe go eat meat. My kids will cheer for her kids and that's good fun. This is a good opportunity for me to mention that the OFT does NOT have to cost anything. As long as your kids THINK its fun, then you're gold. Also, I should insert that fyi Emily is an Ironman. She will be ever-present on this blog and she will like that a lot.

With Josh gone, I can stay out a little later without worrying about making or meeting up for dinner. But this in itself is a dangerous thing. He's gone. It's too hurty to miss him all the time, so I just stop that and do what I do. Then when he comes home I'm still doing that and I have to start over trying to fit him in where he wasn't before. It's not like he's off at war or anything. He's playing music. So okay bye. Hurts too much to miss him so I kind of try to just forget.

That I'm just another yoko.