Boom!

I'm going to spare you 10 Things To Do When You Get A Nosebleed. You can thank me by sending chocolate. And tissues. And ice.


10 Things I Remember From Being on Tour in a Van

1. Meeting this nun/assistant principal and talking about reading. The school used to have a 15 minute block of every day where the entire school, not just the students, right down to custodial staff and cafeteria workers, stopped whatever they were doing and read. She said she used to go through about 30 novels a year when she had that luxury.

2. Performing in the sanctuary of a church. That just seemed like a bad place for me to be.

3. Driving through the UP and keeping my eyes peeled for the bright eyes or white asses of deer because they told you that more accidents happen when people try to avoid the animal than when they plow right through and that just wasn't a decision I wanted to make.

4. Performing all the shows our first week in the tony suburbs of Detroit. Apparently the elementary schools there all come from the same place, like KFC franchises or something, because every school, especially every auditorium, was exactly the same. Precisely. It was like being hit on the head and reliving the same day for a week.

5. Normally you did between 1 and 3 shows per day. Our show was all fancy so it was in high demand and one day they wanted us to do 4 shows in one day. After the third show J took off his little cloth cap and rung it out on the auditorium floor. I bet there was a pint of sweat in that thing.

6. A school in Ironwood, no more than 100 kids strong in 6 or 8 grades. Approximately 1/4 of them were in special ed.

7. Finding weird things in motel room drawers. Like matching his and hers old people's nylon underwear in one place. Bird feathers in another.

8. I felt really badass in my Payless boots even though I knew they were ridiculous.

9. Not looking at the actual name of the Brookland school, doing the show's intro and not understanding why they didn't cheer at my Brooklyn joke. I'm still super embarrassed by that.

10. Being mobbed by enthusiastic co-workers the moment I arrived and totally freaking out. I'm still super embarrassed about that, too, 'cause the 2 people leading the charge are absolutely part of my soul now.