Four days of summer, photoshoots, and being on my own

This week has mostly been stressful but, as of noon today the stress is over. In fact, I was a very productive kitten. As of today: 1)both my summer courses are completed, 2)I’ve put my name on the wait-list for workstudy funds, which means I’d get paid for the Art Director work I do this coming semester, and 3)I’ve budgeted out my financial situation as far out as January. The last part is especially good because it looks like I’m one step closer to living in Portland, which will be excellent.
I have four days of vacation starting tomorrow and then school begins again on Monday. This summer has gone by very fast and it’s been extremely strange. For example, the Rise and Fall of The Gin Circus happened over the course of two months. It honestly seems so much more drawn out than that. I’ve talked to a few people about it and it seems like this summer has been strange for everyone I know. And now, at the end of summer, a five year old boy is moving into my house and I am undoubtedly moving out. Life is strange and I often forget it is quite long even though it feels severely condensed.

Yesterday I had my first photoshoot as a solo artist. Since it was my friend taking the pictures I insisted on her using my camera so that I could get the pictures onto my computer more easily than if she’d had to email them to me. That was a mistake I think because she wasn’t familiar with how it worked and the majority ended up too blurry to use. We know better now. The photos consisted of me running The Dooryard wearing borrowed crinoline and a white fur hat playing and posing. It was fun and ended with free pesto, sundried tomato, and artichoke pizza with three lovely people. I don’t think I’ll get tired of the open feeling I get from people at the Dooryard—I feel like everyone I run into there on a regular basis is there for the same reasons I am and we’re always willing to help each other with whatever strange thing we’re working on. I have four pictures from the photoshoot on my facebook fan page, but for fun, here’s some that would’ve been neat if the lighting had been better:

Pointing out a bruise that was fading on my leg, in mid-explanation of it:


Playing around the innards of a destroyed piano:


Looking all flash-faced and washed out while walking across a board:


And here is one that’s well lit but you can’t see my face. It shows what a neat-looking place this room in the Dooryard is with just one clip lamp on the ceiling:


It’s a bit scary striking out on my own. I don’t feel that Alex and I are communicating as well as we were originally and since there’s no Gin Circus gigs booked coming up we can both afford to have a break from each other. Who knows, though, right? I could be wandering into something fantastic by being on my own. It worked for Cher, Tina Turner, and Annie Lennox, didn’t it? Alex had a point about the current Gin Circus repertoire anyway: when I write songs I tend to bring them to him with music and everything and those are already finished and don’t need him. Gin Circus should be a group effort musically and if I’m incapable of leaving a song unfinished when I write it then I should just be a solo artist. There’s something freeing to that anyway, promotionally- I only have to navigate my schedule for booking, I only have to answer to myself for things in my promotional material, and I only have to explain to myself why I did what I did in a song.

And more importantly, people who have seen Gin Circus now know who I am and that I can sing, which is good because I don’t feel so isolated anymore. I’m in no rush, though. I’m planning on leaving Gin Circus songs behind and generating bunches of new material before I even begin to actively try and book gigs. I also have to wait until I don’t have such a black eye look going on over my right eye (my photobooth is flipped, but I assure you it's over my right eye):


Alright. If I’m going to go out this evening and celebrate my brief vacation I’ll have to shower or nap or both and then get a move on.
-Aubin