I got a mass email from someone recommending that I go through this past year and acknowledge every accomplishment, usually I would be annoyed at being added to a mailing list without my permission, but I actually really like the idea.  This will probably make for a really dull blog entry, but if you watch “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” before reading this, it will seem like the most invigorating and exciting thing ever. (Seriously, I dare you to watch that movie).

So here goes –  2011: the good, the great and the awesome:

*Booked and embarked on a tour to Chicago and had an awesome time.

*Bought an Airstream.

*Played Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase, discovered a supportive and vibrant community of folk musicians and folk music lovers.

*Booked our longest tour to date and spent five weeks on the road playing shows in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Ohio.

*Sold our furniture and left our apartment (hey, it’s an accomplishment!)

*Met John Platt from WFUV, got airplay and played in the studio.

*Played a Quad showcase at our first NERFA, met more awesome folk folks.

*Got a scholarship to attend out first Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis.

*Improved as a duo and gained confidence as a performer.

*Started designing websites (has nothing to do with music, but I’m adding it anyway).

*Got File Maker Pro (I told you this would be boring).

*Formed a jazz trio (Sadly, not called The Whispering Trio – we’re leaning towards “The Un Deux Trio”).

*Found some awesome pants at Goodwill last week.

*Decided I wanted to learn the banjo.

*Got a banjo!

*Discovered that you can order a vegan pizza from any pizza place – you just have to ask for no cheese…seems obvious now.

*Made a music video (I guess this should be closer to the top of the list, you can see where my priorities lie).

*Got a Kindle.

*Discovered that milk is not an ingredient in Green & Blacks 85% dark chocolate, even though its listed as an ingredient – it’s just processed on shared equipment!

*Watched 15 minutes of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and got my money back.

So, pretty great year!  I wholeheartedly recommend this exercise 😉

I may have spoken too soon.

We’ve spent the past month formulating a Plan B.  When I say formulating, I mean swinging wildly back and forth between different options, then becoming dizzy and disheartened with all the swinging and deciding not to make any decision at all – hence the dead silence on the blog lately.

The short story is that despite our best efforts we just don’t really like living in a trailer.  If there weren’t several set backs in rapid succession we probably would have kept at it a little longer, but with the endless repairs and Elie being allergic to the trailer, the idea of continuing with this plan seems a little masochistic.  It was actually really comical the way in which everything went so terribly wrong – from the near truck collision on our first day and the broken lap top, to driving back to NY during a fluke October snow storm without a furnace, and our electrical plug (only source of heat) falling out while we were driving and being dragged along the road behind us until the prongs we’re all scraped up and bent.  We spent most of our time scrambling around trying to find our way out of one mess when another one would hit.

On top of all the mishaps, it also turns out that touring in a trailer is actually not cheaper than living in an apartment.  It would be cheap if we got a seasonal spot somewhere and didn’t move around too much, but then what’s the point?  We can’t even comfortably fit the keyboard in there – and even if we could, spending the winter at a trailer park, cramped inside a trailer  with our instruments at odd angles and Elie’s nose running uncontrollably doesn’t sound too inspiring to me right now.

On the bright side, we know what we don’t want – and we figured it out REALLY quickly 🙂  We also know what we DO want – but we’re just indecisive about the particulars (where, when, how).

Being the people we are,  we whole-heartedly committed to the No Plan B-ness of this whole situation and therefore have no furniture and no place to live at the moment.  Lucky for us we have generous friends and family to stay with for the time being.  I am REALLY looking forward to having a home again, at  the moment we’re leaning towards renting a place in the Hudson Valley…but I’m open to suggestions 🙂

It’s been just over a month since we took to the road.  Still on the fence about the whole thing, but that’s really just because of all the unexpected repairs.  We’re coming up on the last leg of the first leg of our tour (meaning the point at which I got really bored with booking and stopped doing it).  Next week we’re heading back in the eastern direction with a radio show outside of Pittsburgh and a nice little run in upstate New York culminating in our showcase at The Northeast Regional Folk Alliance and a gig at Bar 4 in Brooklyn on 11/18…which brings me to our latest trailer drama:

Looks like we’ve got to replace the furnace.  We haven’t used it since the alarm went off, but luckily our brand new air conditioner has a “heat strip” in it which can keep you somewhat warm down to 38 degrees.  This wouldn’t be an issue if we weren ‘t going to be gigging in upstate New York and NYC through Thanksgiving – but if the temperatures drop too low our pipes might burst…and if that happens I might just turn on our furnace and fall asleep forever.

So the only option is to winterize the trailer until we can afford a new furnace and/or head back down south.  This entails flushing all the water systems out and filling them up with anti-freeze (or something like that)- which means that we won’t have any running water 🙁  BUT it would probably be too cold to shower anyway 🙂

Still, I’d rather be living in a broke down trailer than stuck in an apartment in NYC – not sure if that’s a reflection of how awesome trailer life is, or how terrible it is to live in the city… probably the latter.  There really is no better way to lower your expectations than spending a few years in New York City 😉

So, Northeastern friends and family, we’ll be boondocking in your neighborhood soon!  See ya then!

To the three people who read this blog: I’m sorry to leave you hanging!

North Carolina was great.  I have another crazy story but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to share this publicly.  It involves a young man joining the armed forces straight out of high school after being assured that he was non-deployable, then realizing that there is no such thing as “non-deployable,” and the resulting ordeal involved in trying to get out of the army before being sent off to war.  Suffice it to say, it wasn’t easy but did make a very entertaining story.

After North Carolina we headed to Knoxville, TN…side note, did you know you could rent a two bedroom house in Knoxville for $500 a month? With a garden and a porch?  And Knoxville is a pretty awesome place – really small, but a TON of musicians there and music happening all over the place…and yes, vegan treats.

We played two great shows on WDVX, East-Tennessee’s public radio station based out of the visitor’s center in downtown Knoxville.  First, how cool is that?  Free, live music every day broadcast live from the visitor’s center!  I don’t know why more cities don’t adopt something like this; it’s great for tourism, great for local artists and great for attracting touring acts.  WDVX is so supportive of independent music AND they started out years ago in a travel trailer! You can check ’em out here.

After four days in Knoxville we headed up to Ohio to visit our best friend, Ryan…and play a few shows.  Friday we were in Cincinnati and next Friday we’ll be heading to Athens for a show at one of our all time favorite venues, Donkey Coffee.

In trailer news, we got some new tires and our trailer started smelling like urine…probably unrelated.  I could really get used to this – not the urine part – but the living in a trailer.  Being on the road has a timeless quality to it, and I’ve lost all concept of time, which I actually really enjoy.

The other night our carbon monoxide alarm went off – we didn’t buy it, the previous owner just left it in there (pretty handy it turns out).  I wasn’t sure if it worked at all..usually there’s just a little green light that flashes sometimes – but the other night an alarm went off and the friendly green light switched to a red light.  This morning I realized that below the red light it says “move to fresh air.”  We didn’t move to fresh air, but we did open the roof vent and turn on the extractor fan and the air conditioner – to be honest, I was too tired to really care much about dying.  My only concern was that I would wake up next to Elie’s lifeless corpse, which I’m not sure I could deal with – but the thought didn’t keep me awake for too long…maybe it was the carbon monoxide.  So just in case we both die of carbon monoxide poisoning (because Elie will NOT be dying without me) take comfort in the fact that we died free and happy, and we do really enjoy our rest!