Tour Life - A Perspective From The One Left Behind

Touring isn’t easy. It’s hard to be on the road with seven other dudes in a van eating gas station food and sleeping on strangers couches or in cheap motels. It's not easy to be left behind either though. Paul's back in Brooklyn for his show on Thursday, and I am thrilled to have him home. Well, he’s here until Friday at least, and then he continues on to Canada. It’s always a slight adjustment when he comes home, and it makes me realize how much I have to adapt to new routines when he’s away.

I pretty much eat only frozen meals, pasta, and soup when he’s gone. I’m really bad about cooking on my own. Before I met him, I ate hummus and pita for dinner most nights. I’ve gotten a bit better and have mastered the vegetarian stir fry. But he’s not really joking when he tells me I have to learn to feed myself when he’s away.

My other big problem is sleeping while he’s gone. I hate sleeping when no one is around- I grew up with siblings and I always had roommates before we lived together. I become an insomniac while he’s on tour. This has led to lots of slumber parties!! Some of my grad school friends threw an amazing slumber party a few months ago actually. They pulled all of their mattresses into the living room, served baked goodies, and we did karaoke to our favorite 90’s songs. It was perfection. Slumber parties are definitely a big part of my survival when Paul leaves for a month.

I actually just got called out for another thing I got used to while he was away. I took over his closet. Oops. He just had so much empty space in there, and my closet is at the point where it’s hard to get things in and out. So I slowly started moving over some shirts. I figured he might not notice the shirts. He noticed. And I’m being booted from the closet. (They are totally going back in there when he leaves on Friday...)

A month on the road is long for both of us, but I know he loves when he gets a great response at a show. And I do enjoy having some space to do my own thing. Hey, it’s the reason I took the time to start this blog!