CATCH UP

Wow. Long time no see. Where did we leave off?



CHRISTMAS
Went to Oklahoma and hung out with my family. We got snowed in Christmas Eve. Very rare for Oklahoma. One of my sisters was stranded at home and we didn't get to wake up all together on Christmas morning. Bum out, but we were reunited later that day and the gift giving commenced. After a lot of rescheduling and shuffling around, we made it through the holiday in one piece and closer as a family, which is the point, right? It's like a relay marathon. But whatever, our team rules, so...


NEW YEARS
Magic. It was a blue moon on the last day of 2009. I was lucky enough to spend it in total romance. I savored it like chocolate knowing it couldn't last forever. As honest as you can be with yourself, it's still so painful when it's over. If it weren't real, it wouldn't hurt. "Once in a blue moon". Best New Year I ever had. Bar none. Gonna be hard to beat that one. Wrapped up the trip for a couple days, said tearful goodbyes and headed back to LA.


A WEEK TO PREPARE
I had a week to get everything together to go to Sweden and England. Holy shit, I don't even remember it, really. I just remember being really glad that I could pay rent and bills and get everything I needed without worrying about it. First time in my life that's happened. Woo to the hoo!


OREBRO, SWEDEN
So, I went to Sweden to write with Play Production. We wrote Susan Boyle's first single together and, channelling the excitement surrounding those recent events, we were able to pen 4 new songs that we're all in love with. It was so cold there!! I slipped and fell, right on my ass, twice. It's amazing how you can hit the ground so fast you don't remember how you got there, ya know? It was such a great week. The town I stayed in had a castle right in the middle of it! On my last night there, I ate Pike Perch from the moat. haha. To the folks in Orebro, this was like catching fish out of your pond... no biggie. It was fun. :)

After that week, I headed to London... the love of my life.


LONDON, ENGLAND
I visited five years ago and had a blast. Only thing is, it's different when you're there alone. I had way more fun, this time. I absorbed so much just walking around and watching people. I saw a lady feeding the birds, little kids with the teeniest little rain boots on, warm caramel peanut vendors, cobble stone everything and AMAZING street musicians. Everywhere I went, I couldn't help but think how long that city has been functioning and alive with people and pigeons. I met up with an old friend I hadn't seen in five years and got a healthy dose of the place I'd been missing for so long. I have to live there.

Anyway, there were lots of meetings and interviews and then I got to play a show which was soooooo fun! It was my first time meeting the people who are helping get the word out about my music, in Europe. I am so grateful to get to work with such passionate and talented people! I can't say enough good things about my time there. I miss it. London!!

As it was time to start wrapping up another trip, I realized the reality of my life. I'm no longer wishing I were doing the things I always wanted to do; I'm doing them. The funny thing is, I've been doing them, in some way, my entire life. I grew up to be what I wanted to be, as a little girl. Actually, I wanted to be Dougie Hauser or Marty McFly for a while, but I was always making up plays and songs and begging my mother to move out to LA so I could be on Nickelodeon. It's bizarre how a person knows their purpose in life, as a child, and forgets or gets talked out of it somewhere along the way.

The morning my manager went back to LA, I saw a red fox run right down Charlotte St. No kidding. Very cool. I had one more crazy night in Merry Old, before heading back to La La Land.


BACK TO THE GRIND
Jet lag is a real thing. I got over it, once and for all, by going to an all night music jam a few blocks from the ocean. It was the most frustrating and miraculous night I've had in a LONG time. They wouldn't let me sing. All night long they kept hating on me and waiting around for legendary people who said they were "definitely on their way". I heard one guy talking about people asking to play and as he made his best effort to get a drunken/half asleep groupie on his lap, he managed to mutter, "I didn't realize this was gonna turn into a fuckin' open mic night."

Ah, but never fear. My best friend and HERO, worked the room so hard they had no choice but to let me do one song, seeing as they were sick and tired of hearing about it from him. So, after hours of sitting through music from musicians just hoping to be the one on stage when that legendary soul singer walks in, after begging and pleading and haters for miles, at 5 AM... yep... I sang The Happiest Lamb and they liked it so much they me have one more, so I played The River. Exhausted and having won the war, we mustered all the energy we had left and used it to get home.

We pulverized the haters. We slayed dragons that night.

A woman was there that I've known, and had to deal with backhanded compliments from, for a long long time and it was so sad to see she hadn't changed one bit. I remember her, long ago, acusing me of using my family to get ahead. I was playing Genghis Cohen back then and one night she said to me, "Oh, Audra, congratulations on the publishing deal your uncle got for you." This time it was, "Oh, you wrote a song for Susan Boyle. That's nice, but what are you doing for YOU, baby?" Sorry, but if you're not into soap boxes, turn away now.

I just have to say, for the record; If you have to wear it on your sleeve, you don't possess it in your being. Spirituality is not an accessory. There are people like this everywhere in the world. People who exhaust themselves and waste their days trying to hold other people down. What's the point of making competition out of art or how balanced a human being you are as compared to those around you? Do people really need to keep score so much? This just in... there is no finish line. We're playing to infinity.


I wonder if the rock star ever showed up...