09/15/04 – “Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown….”

This blog was originally posted to The Dresden Dolls Diary.

The idea of leaving my home for about three months of touring has me feeling miserable and ecstatic at the same time. While touring is wonderful in so many ways…..clubs, people, performing, ahhh, the limelight, ahhhh, the change of scenery, I have to admit it….it can feel like torture sometimes. Not because I don’t enjoy it, but because it prevents me from doing the things that I want….writing, thinking and being alone. I am a homebody. I like to drink tea and read the paper and take walks and write music. I can’t write on the road. Even if there was physical space and time carved out, I can’t imagine plugging a keyboard into a socket in an empty room and thinking “ok. I have an hour.” The only way I’ve ever written is spontaneously. Ride bike to store, have idea, ride bike home, cancel plans, write song instead. Taking that idea, jotting it down and returning to it the next day is about as effective as ligthing a cigarette you plan on smoking sometime next week. Once that shit it lit, you smoke it.
Then again, what am I writing for? Why am I being so fucking hard on myself? We have scads of material, plenty to fill up another record, or two, or three (well, the third record would probably sound like schlager)….so why can’t I just let it go? I suppose in my own selfish way I just can’t stand the restraint involved in touring life. there’s almost no room for spontonaeity, which is the fabric of my existence at home. Seriously, I try to plan nothing. That way, if I am hungry, I eat. If I want to go for a walk, I go. If a song hits, I can write it. On tour, freedom of choice is narrowed down to what flavor sugared beverage this particular gas station has to offer. Splendid.

The other compoudning issue is this one: most of what I write is an outgrowth of the breadth of experince of my day-to-day existance. For a person like me, touring in close quarters with a bunch of friends and aquaintances and being surrounded by people 99% of any given day requires a certain level of patience that takes up a lot of energy. My mind doesn’t spend time wandering creativly, it spends time trying to socially balance with the other humans. Even around people who I know very well, people who I love….it doesn’t happen. My mind just doesn’t function the way it does when it’s alone.