In which Birdmonster plays San Jose and San Diego, battles nagging illnesses, and relives past shames

There are oh so many little things that remind me we're on tour. Unfortunately, most of these involve some sort of physical or mental trauma: sore back from shows and beds deemed too ergonomically diabolical for state prisons, grumbling stomach courtesy of Jack In the Box and Margie's Diner (whose goal, apparently, is saturating bacon with enough grease to power Woody Harrelson's bus), and the all important overall lack of familiarity with reality. Maybe its Tuesday. Or Friday. Or Arbor Day. Maybe Rhode Island exploded. You can't be sure. And being sure would really take all the fun out of everything.

Of course, we've only played two shows. Above and beyond that, the last two days have been spent relaxing at parents' houses, drinking with old friends, playing ping-pong, and eating home cooked meals. In other words: I need to not be sore. Or confused. It's Tuesday, I've got a healthy bagel in my left hand, Rhode Island: still around.

As I've mentioned before, David & I grew up in San Diego (the not-so-close-to-the-beach part of San Diego, granted, but still: nice weather, bikinis, subpar baseball team) so trips back home tend to be a personal highlight of every tour. This tour, my folks were kind enough to not only cook us dinner, provide housing, and take Zach to the doctor (he's battling the stubbornest fever I've ever hoped I wouldn't get), but also to bring out a snapshot, circa 1992 or so, of Dave & I in horribly embarassing Halloween ensembles (I in some sort of Russian peasant dress, John Lennon glasses, a beret, with a cigar (probably still in the plastic) jutting out the corner of my mouth; Dave looking like an extremely fey Indiana Jones, wearing, for reasons unbeknownst to us all, a blouse with a knot tied in the bottom so as to show off some midrift and give me disturbing, disturbing nightmares).

(Oh, and before anyone asks, no. The picture has been burned. The ashes of the picture have been burned. I then ate the ashes and burned my bowel movement. Then I burned the entire bathroom, just to be safe).

And yes: Zach. Poor Zach. He has the closest thing to consumption I've ever witnessed but has soldiered through two shows presumably rife with feverish hallucinations. I had to remind him after our San Jose show that I wasn't a cat named Rufus, even though I sort of wished I was.

I don't think either audience caught on though. We've had two fine shows thus far, the first of which was in San Jose and was mentally relieving because we played well, unlike our first trip there, a show that involved misplaced guitars, more fevers, and a triumverate of broken instruments by show's end. Always nice to wash that out of your mouth. San Diego was of course wonderful, with some folks I haven't seen since I was eighteen coming out of the woodwork, telling me about their lives, and making me feel sort of immature. Example:

"I'm doing my post-doctorate work at UC & getting married in the fall. We'll be honeymooning on Mauritius. Yourself?"

(spilling free beer on pants) "I live out of a bag in a van." (spills more beer on pants, passes out drooling)

Tonight, we venture to the land where traffic was born, where the Lakers moved, and where various unwatchable awards shows take place for us all to ignore. We're playing at the Echo, so do drop on by if that's your neck of the woods. If not, well, I don't know: it's Tuesday. Go blow up Rhode Island or something.