Zombass

This..................



is physically the absolute worse I've ever felt in my entire life...

It was during a Groove Company gig the Friday after an over 135 hour-in-10-days-straight insane work week including 7 days of travel to Halifax ...

it's funny the things we do to ourselves to stay afloat...to stay employed...to stay "normal" ...but it is what it is.

I remember getting ready for this gig and Elizabeth said something to me...something I can't even remember now.. ( and neither can she because I just asked her ) ..it was probably nothing...and on any other day it probably would have been fine.. but on this day...on this day....I turned around...walked out of the house ...without a word...if anything came out of my mouth it probably would have been foul, it could have been tears, it may have lead to WWIII ...who knows...either way...whatever was going to come out of my mouth was going to be driven by insanity and unreasonabilityness ... so...I made the smart choice and left and drove down town...and then I walked ..no...plodded around down town in my suit...my bass on my back... a zombie bassist in its infant stages... A walk usually fixes everything for me... but this didn't...I was wasting energy...and my mind was as unclear and unstable as an hour previous...eventually I made my way to Mavors...I hadn't eaten much in 2 days other than coffee and maybe a bagel...had been nauseous.... sat down and had a glass of red wine with Jon MacInnis... and it turned me like poison....and then it was time to play...

I love playing the bass.  I love music.  It makes me happy.

I hated every note I played this night.  every....single...note...

It felt like what I imagine King Théoden felt like while under the spell of Saruman...

I'm lucky that one of my gifts is my memory for music that I play...most of the Groove Company book I have committed to memory... it was the only thing that didn't fail me this night.  I played most songs with my eyes half closed, half asleep....wanting so badly to sleep.  Parents out there will recognize the feeling from the first several weeks/months of their newborn's sleeplessness...that feeling that you want to go to sleep SO badly but you can't because you have a human to tend to....this night I had bass lines to tend to...

In between sets I sat in a booth alone with a glass of water, my head in my hands in a cold sweat...I'm sure people thought I was drunk...I didn't care...

I finished the night and quietly left.... I remember driving home thinking...this is what it's like to drive drunk.  It was unsafe now that I think about it. Thank God I made it home safely.

Hitting the bed that night was the most beautiful thing.  For a few hours...then one of my kids were up and so was I .... Elizabeth had a final exam to study for so I spent the day with the kids and my temporary babysitter Netflix.  Sad.  But I laid on the couch all day while they watched cartoons and movies and played with their toys.  They were happy and safe - that's all that mattered.

I went to bed with the kids that night and thankfully slept all night but it wasn't until late Sunday that I felt remotely human or felt like eating anything at all.

It's incredible the insane motivation of deadlines, projects and paychecks.

I hope I never hate playing bass ever again.



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