Martha’s Nonsense

Wow -

So, I don’t know about you guys, but I am so fucking happy that it’s spring! It’s fantastic! Even though it got cold again, there is a lot more sun, I can feel it and it’s great!

I really hate winter. I mean, granted, Brian and I have had an incredible amount of stress since november - so that makes winter even more dour and difficult to deal with. I might have a little bit of seasonal affective disorder going on or something. It seems easier to deal with if there is going to be sunshine.

Plus - I gave up smoking as my New Year’s resolution. I’ve been doing really well - I think it might be for good this time! I’ll believe it when I get to 6 months, but we shall see. I feel strong. As long as B doesn’t cheat on me and nobody dies - I think I can keep it up! So I guess on top of all the stress I was going through major nicotine withdrawal which is also a depressing mental place to be in, so I’ve pretty much been fucking bummed all winter long.

But - we may finally have a bass player. Yay! We need a new band name, now, however. If anyone has any ideas, hollah! Apparently, Gliss, (we’re gliss.) went on tour with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Billy Corgan last year - and as that’s not us, for name recognition purposes, they win, and we lose, and we need a new name.

Sales have picked up at work, which was much needed, 4th quarter was ass! Of course who knows how much longer physical music media is even going to be viable. Hopefully we have some good years left in us.

I am still, however, looking for a second job for some supplemental income. If anyone knows of anything open, please let me know.

In other news, sort of sad, sort of happy, I was forced to buy a new car! The ghettomobile wouldn’t pass emissions without repairs costing mor ethan it was worth, so I am now the proud co-owner of a toyota corolla, 2001. newest shiniest car i have ever owned. well the bank still owns 90% of it, but whatever, you know what i mean. now let’s just pray that the payments and the insurance don’t break us!

rian and I are doing gret, though - beyond the financial trauma, of course. I’m actually really proud of us. I really feel that our relationship can weather anything.

Laura is moving to Seattle, and I am so sad.

Ok, write me. Love you all.

Hmm. I’m so tired.

Why is the American middle class disappearing? I like being middle class, but I feel like I’m slipping into poverty. Everyone I know is having the same types of problems. How can I ever buy a house, the cost of real estate has escalated to the point to where it’s worth 10 years of the average salary!

Did you know, that in the 50’s, the average cost of a hour was $16,000? And that was equal to the average yearly salary? I mean shit, that makes sense. If houses were like 35 - 50 G we could all have a place to live.

It’s a joke to say that there’s no class system here, because there is. If you aren’t born into money you will never change your scenario. You can get a better job, but you’ll be in so much debt paying for your education that you will still never change your standard of living, and it might even go down hill.

I was so idealistic as a kid. I thought I could be special, i thought I could be an exception. I thought I was smart enough and driven enough and hardworking enough that I could make a change, that i could make a good life for myself. Who was I kidding?

Who are we all kidding? What is going to become of all the regular people when the middle class disappears?

It’s so exhausting.

Oh man -

I’ve had these awful painful burps for almost 4 days now! someone save me! thanksgiving disagreed with me somehow!

anyway, i hope all of you had a lovely thanksgiving, and i hope NONE of you are suffering from digestive distress like myself!

A good many things have happened since i last wrote.

Most devastatingly, Brian unexpectedly lost his job. It was wholly undeserved, and came as a complete shock, and I’ve never seen him so depressed. Obviously I don’t make near enought to support both of us, and he wasn’t making much before, so he didn’t have savings to rely on…so it was pretty hairy there for a little while. but luckily for us, we are very loved and supported by our families, and they were very kind to us in our time of need, so we put our heads together, and brian was able to find a job a week later! phew. and hopefully this one should pay more money than he was making before, and also offer health insurance, so perhaps it was all for the better!

We’ve been incredibly busy, hardly had a moment to breathe. I had a birthday, i’m 27 now. that much closer to thirty. blick.

in fact, now i’m sad, i have to go. i’ll write more another time.

m

Ok - let’s see…what’s going on.

Work still good, although October has been kinda slow. I’m not going to complain, however, because I had two such kick ass sales months for August AND September. Some kind of fun high profile stuff as well, we made the invitations for the BET Hip Hop Music Awards, I’ve been lucky enough to pal up with a customer named Nathan Larson, who is the former guitar player of Shudder to Think, who now has a new project called Hot One, and we’ve been pressing his discs and printed some posters for him. He’s such a nice guy!

One very sad bit of news…one of my clients passed away, Abraham Afewerki, who was a giant rock star in the country of Eritrea in NE Africa on the Red Sea drowned while shotting a music video, along with his keyboardist, Robel Solomon. Terrible loss, and my thoughts go out to his friends and family and fans.

Just got back from Scotty B’s wedding in Maine this weekend, we had a great time. It was a beautiful wedding, and I’m so glad we were invited and able to take part. The fall foliage was blooming, and the weather was sunny and pleasant, and it was just great. A very handsome bride and groom they were.

They are now on their honeymoon, which means more breaks from practice. Brian is champing at the bit, but too much break time makes me lazy. sunday night i’m going to have to spend some very serious time. i’d really like to have words for a second new song ready, that way we will have thrown three into the mix, 2 for me to sing, and one for brian.

b and me are doing great. my gram and his mom have begin to harp on us about when we’re getting married…..jeez louise. don’t you know it takes money to get married, people?

i feel like i really want to make this a great year, and suck all the possible enjoyment out of life that i can…in that spirit brian and i are going to do a bunch of fall things this weekend, carve jack o lanterns, and toast the pumpkin seeds, drink hot spiced apple cider and maybe make some baked apples, that sort of thing. might sound corny, but i am going to enjoy teh crap out of it.

gym tonight, been sort of slack lately, only went twice last week!gotta make sure i make it at least three times this week.

anyway - love you all.

Hmm.

Let’s see - work is going awesome. October is off to a slow start, but it’s early days yet, and i fully expect it to perk up soon. Besides my new office is fabulous that i can hardly be bothered if I have one slow week!

The band is going….ok. We’re having some band drama. I swear being in a band is like being married to three people and it’s a real pain in the ass. On paper things are going well, we’re not having trouble getting gigs, really, quite to the contrary, and of course we made it round 2 in emergenza, which is cool for us, as it gets us more exposure. We’re trying to take October off to work on new material, but since our drummer is getting married in two weeks, we’ve had to miss some practices for various businesses….and because of the drama, some of the wind has just gone right out of my sails. i am lacking enthusiasm, which sucks, hard. i mean, i was really excited to be working n new material as we were all getting tired of the 18 songs we were playing before, and i was excited about the new direction the new music was going, and it seemed cool, but now i’m feeling very blah. I wish that I was able to not work, and work on music 8 hours a day - then I could give everything the attention and focus that it deserves.

Arrgh.

My mom just moved into a new apartment, really cute! i went over last night to help her put her new ikea bed together. i want a new bed. actually what i really want is a new mattress, one of those expensive awesome pillow top ones. right now it seems like…not in this lifetime!

Tonight we are going to see Cursive at the 930, which i am really excited about, but the show doesn’t start till 10 and it’s in DC! so! i will probably not get home till three which is going to put me in fine form tomorrow.

My mom gave us her piano! SO exciting! they couldn’t get it up the stairs to her new place, so i am the lucky inheritor! probably not permanent, but still. i’m really excited. if only i could stay home all day and work on it. i could really use a day to myself. one with no oblugations in it, so i can just do whatever i want.

ah. i can’t be bothered to write anymore, so this will have to be long enough. kisses.

So the crazy week is sort of over.

What do I have to report? The Sonic Youth, Ween and flaming lips show was AMAZING! we didn’t get home till 3 am, but it was so worth it. i don’t even like ween all that much, but they put on a great show, and the Flaming Lips, my god! What a great show! So much visual stuff, and such a feel good vibe. If you ever get a chance to see them, go! I can’t see enough how great it was.

The show at Sidebar went ok. The first band I booked, which was the other local band, didn’t even show, so the club was kind of unhappy with how many people we brought. But Crooked Looks and Life in Bed were fantastic. And for us - we brought a good crowd, considering that was our first real venue. The sound system was terrible, however, they had NO monitors, so I could hear nothing, and ended up screaming, and I am still a bit hoarse. We’ve got tp get through the Emergenza festival on Saturday night, and then I think we are taking a small break from playing, we’ve been wearing our friends out. We’ll probably play Cambridge again in November. Our drummer is getting married in October, and we have tons of new songs we’d like to get ready, so we could use a break ourselves, everything has been so hectic.

If you are local or semi local to Baltimore, please try and come out to Fletcher’s on Saturday 9/9 - we need your votes! We go on at 9:30 sharp, and you vote right after we play, so even if you can only come out for our set, you can still vote for us!

My dad’s wedding was…interesting. The location turned out to be way further off the beaten path than i was expecting, and traffic sucked, and so rachel and brian and i were late. We felt like shit, I was in tears, but Dad seemed to understand, at least we didn’t miss it. The food at the reception was really good, but the whoel scenario was definitely a little weird. I felt like the children from a previous marriage. I don’t really know what to say about it.

We went to Pazo to celebrate Rachel’s B-day last night, as she is going to be in LA on the actual day of her birthday. The food was fantastic, but Rach wasn’t in the best of moods, i think residual dad getting married the day prior stuff, but at least the food was amazing.

Today I am doing a half day at work for labor day….

Thsi is a lot I can’t type anymore, too many things happened to do them all justice.

Anawah, on we trudge.

Hello, and welcome to the busiest week of all time!

I can’t remember right now if I mentioned this or not, but one of my coworkers left the company, and she was the only other person that did manufacturing sales, like me, and we’re not replacing her! So, my work load effectively just doubled. Not that I really mind, I sort of find it exhilirating. Plus - I get her office, which is AWESOME AND HUMONGOUS, and getting all her sales means increasin the amount of commission I get by quite a lot…like before this my sales max was 28 G’s, I ‘m over 50 G’s for the month. I think I made it work and total brokeness is over, and I have a job I like. I feel somewhat validated about my decision to take this job.

The gig on Saturday went well, it was in Cambridge which is always pretty laid back and chill for us. They gave us more money than agreed upon, so that was pretty cool. I love it that the band is starting to be able to pay it’s rent most months from money that we make. I wish we could start making enough to make CDs! Monty Brannock told me and Brian that we were one of his favorite bands, which I thought was really amazing, it made our night, for sure. Got to see a lot of people, and I’m always so full of massive amounts of appreciation whenever people come out and show support - great to see Tori, for example. And some boy I just met, referred to me as her hotness martha, which honestly made me feel like a princess. My only complaint, is that someone told brian he was fat and was really rude about it, and same said person said i needed to work on my stage presence, and fine - i can take criticism, it’s just that I was leaping and dancing around so much that I was completely soaked in sweat, so I’m just not so sure what people want from me. And Brian is NOT fat! Granted, he used to be incredibly rail thin, all his ribs sticking out, and he has gained weight since we’ve been together, but he’s still nowhere near fat. I really don’t understand where people get off talking shit sometimes! Especially since said person has questionable teeth! Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and all that.

Tonight we have practice, which I really hope we nail. I thought we were a bit sloppy on saturday night, and this is the only practice we are able to have before friday, which is our gig at the Sidebar - locals - if you even read this, I expect you in attendance! Doors are at 9, only $7 to get in, not so bad for four awesome bands, all of which I booked, so they can’t be terrible! Please contact me for more info!

Thirsday we are dricing to PA to see SOnic Youth, Ween, and the Flaming Lips. Should be pretty awesome.

And Saturday, my dad is getting married. Yep, that’s right. Everyone feel free to vomit now.

Sunday we’re celebrating my sister’s birthday, so if that is not a busy weekend, I don’t knwo what is.

I miss you all. Be in touch!

Today is our 2 year anniversary! Romance! I’m so proud! This is now my longest relationship ever. Don’t make fun of me if that seems short to you. I’m really excited for us! Especially since I can totally see us making it to 3 years!

Too bad we don’t have time to celebrate. We wanted to go away for the weekend, but our schedule is so booked for the month of August that it became impossible to set up a time. In fact, because Scotty B threw his back out and we couldn’t play all of last week, and with a gig a week in the next two weeks we can’t afford to skip anymore. Aren’t we dedicated?

Ok - so I’m slack and it took me this long to finish the song lyrics for the new tune, but they are done finally, and I feel good about it. Next task is for me to mix Daybreak, and then I’ll start working on another of Brian’s new tunes.

I just realized how much work I have to do today and it’s kind of frightening, I need to get back to it. Talk to you real soon!

M

Hello all,

Been feeling good lately. Don’t know why. One of my mother’s famed perspective shifts, I believe. Whenever I get depressed, my mom always tells me to try and change my frame of reference, look at things in a new way, so it won’t seem so overwhelming, or dire or whatever. Ingenious little bit of magic, really, as you can make almost anything seem ok if you just rearrange how you are looking at things,

So I’ve got not money? So what! Neither do many people I know…it seems to me the middle class is disappearing. There is nothing I can do to control that, i can only keep plugging along. So my car’s about to break down? So what! I live close enough to work to walk if I have to, so all is not lost!

Being so much more broke than I was this time last year is ok, because i’m trying to make a move toward my dreams! There’s a big difference between making a mistake and finding it hard! It’s a case of I knew I was going to get wet when i walked out in the thunderstorm, but I didn’t know how wet till I actually went out in it! So I’m wet! But I’m also brave, and I’m also trying to live an examined life, and to live life to the fullest, and to make sure i’ve nothing to regret when I kick the bucket!

The studio does appear to be coming along. My boss thinks construction should be finished in a month. Still a ways to go, but I am still in it to win it!

in other news…..things with the band are going well. We are working on recording a demo now that we can take along to clubs. We’ve two more songs we’d like to record, and then I’ve to mix. We are also writing new material. Brian is incredibly prolific and hard working when it comes to music. He puts me to shame, but as he is so talented I am happy to help. I’ve got two verses worth of lyrics to work on, and then things will be moving right along. Two gigs coming up - a money maker in Cambridge at the end of August, and then our very first real ‘venue’ gig in baltimore at the Sidebar Tavern. That one is on 9/1, and if you love me and you are in my state, you’ll be there. Talking Head, here we come!

Brian and I are fabulous. We are heading towards our 2 year anniversary, and never stronger! that’s August 22nd. The month of August is going to be very busy for us! We are hosting a 50th borthday party for my mom at our apartment, everyone is invited, contact me for more info (the 19th) , we have our anniversary, and then…let’s see…the cambridge gig on the 26th, a ween/flaming lips.sonic youth show in allentown PA on 8/31, sidebar gig on the 1st, and my dad is getting married n the second.

Whoa there!

Anyway - some of you are slack about being in touch, drop me a comment or an email or say hello! I love yas!

M

Um, so I discovered some random ass lump in my calf on Saturday night?! WTF, right?! I mean it’s very strange, and definitely not on the other side, and I’m also pretty sure it’s new. Could be nothing, like a tensed up muscle or something, but could also be blood clot or embolism! may need leg amputated tomorrow, or could perhaps die!

probably not, but still, WTF?!

it is possible that my dancing days are over. do you think my insurance will cover a prosthesis?!

alright, i’m totally kidding, i’m sure it’s fine, it’s just mildly disconcerting. people just drop dead all the time, you know.

band had gig at abbey in boston on saturday. show went great. had great time, got paid, enough people to make it worth it, got to see friends i never get to see, real good.

brian and i don’t go out drinking all that often, so sometimes, when we do, we go a little overboard, like saturday after our set, and we both ended up vomiting our faces off. i did before bed and also again in the morning. and we had to get up early and drive back. that was wicked awesome.

we were both complete antichrists.

but kesey was really happy to see us when we got home. so happy that he thought he would be awesome and bring mommy a present - OF A LIVE ROACH - into my bed when I was sleeping.

I was not pleased, let me tell you! Again, I say WTF?!

So here’s this week in a nutshell, folks, and it’s only Tuesday….I sleep with roaches, have my leg amuptated, AND I have to go to the MVA tomorrow.

Fucking balls.

Kisses!
m