Day 9 - Aug. 14 - Thursday

I am writing you from the backyard of the violinist of Stars of the Lid. We met her when we opened for them at the Granada Theatre in Dallas and she let us stay at her place while we were in Portland. She left a note telling us to eat whatever, wash clothes, take showers and use her bikes if we wanted. So nice. I sifted through the sheet music on her stand just because I like to know what awesome violinists spend their time working on. We had a lot of the same scale and etude books and she had one concerto I've played before (though her version is undoubtably way better). Is that snooping? Crossing the line? eeeh..journalism school would tell me no. So I'm going to go with that. She has this really cute dog that likes to cuddle with everyone too--

So I never finished writing this. I am writing you from a highway in washington, yes, I am writing you from the future. Technology. Amazing.

Actually, I'm just lazy and haven't been writing as much lately. lo siento.

Anyway, I don't remember what happened leaving Seattle that put us behind schedule. The Doug Fir Lounge gave us a $60 voucher for breakfast, so we went back and ate our fill. Then we drove. and drove. and drove some more and hit a horrendous line of stand-still traffic...in the heat. I was sitting in our little makeshift seat in the back row of pillows, bags & sleeping pads (since we have 9 people, as Jesy (Tiny Vipers) is with us). It feels to me to be the hottest seat, especially when we're not moving and our "air conditioning" of open windows has no breath. It was gross. There was an accident that we never saw (but heard of on the radio). What was supposed to be a 4 hour drive took over 6. lovely.

Anacortes is a small island town that the locals say is a large retirement community. A girl I talked with said there aren't many young people beyond their high-school years. But The Department of Safety is the exception. It is an old government building turned artist co-op. They live together, run a gallery featuring their work, and host shows out of a theatre-like room (which instantly reminded me of Super Happy Fun Land, complete with art on the walls and couches & theatre chairs as seats. If you've had any kind of experience there, you know that yes, I had flash backs and yes I was frightened by the similarity). It's a pretty large building to be home to only nine people. While walking through it, it kind of fulfilled a childhood fantasy of running around and playing in a school after dark, a school that cooks you really good vegan lasagna. We practically teleported to the upstairs kitchen at the mention of a hot meal.

Twas good. I talked with a guy that hosted us in Springfield, Missouri on our last tour. The house he lived in threw a festival out of their basement and called it Fontee Fest. It was weird but cool to see him there. You never expect to see the people you meet while touring in other places. After some standing around and enjoying the cool air, Brian started his set. Nicole and I had some good chat time outside the garage door and took some fun photos that hopefully you'll get to see. The sunset was beautiful and vivid and I'm glad I got to take it in. It's rare that we get to do our sitting around in gorgeous places.

Our set was alright. The sound situation wasn't as clear as it needed to be, but then again, it's tour. When aren't we playing out of strange PA's? No offense to the sound guy. He was nice. But it's hard to mix us well. Afterward Jesy played and sounded great. She's small but she's got such a strong voice. And when she sings low its a little haunting but in a soothing way.

After the show we took a century to decide what we were doing (some wanted to stay in Anacortes). After a stop at a doughnut house, we decided to drive back to Jesy's place in Seattle where we slept for the night. I took way too long to explain that. If you actually got this far, you're a trooper.

-Aisha