Returning to house concerts

I'm having a house concert tomorrow night.

If I were writing a memoir about my life, the house concert would hopefully function as a symbol. You see, when I moved to Baltimore nearly ten years ago, this was one of my things. I lived in a pretty active house on Walther Avenue, with an assortment of roommates that came and went. I had tons of good friends that I hung out with all the time. I was in great shape; I was dating regularly; work and social life and exercise were co-existing in a symbiotic pattern. And, I did house concerts.

Every month, I did them, at least during the school year. Twenty or so people would come over, and we'd drink and laugh and watch great musicians as they stopped off on their tour through the mid-Atlantic to play a small space in Baltimore. I became friends with the musicians, some of whom I knew way back in my music booking days at Michigan State.

In the ensuing years, however, it just became harder. I don't know why; it's not one thing in particular. The eye surgeries hurt my mojo a little. So did being phenomenally broke and working two jobs. So did moving out of the Walther Avenue house, a little bit too late, a little bit too long after the revolving door of cool roommates stopped.

It's probably no secret that my life right now is a paradox. Professionally, I've never been better. I'm a National Board-certified teacher; I just got a big raise; I feel I've taken a bit of a leadership role on in my school. I feel like I'm doing a good job in my classes. Not good enough, but good. (Teaching is still a job that never quite feels fulfilled; there's always something to do, always something you can be doing better.)

But my personal life? It's the opposite. I get home in the pitch dark and find myself, almost nightly, sinking into a cocoon of exhaustion, lesson planning, websurfing, and TV-watching until too late (teachers should not watch The Daily Show; we simply just shouldn't be up that late. It's not healthy.) I love my job but crave the weekends, if only to catch up on sleep, but by Sunday night, I'm waiting tables and stressed out. I'm waiting tables again, not really for the money, but for the social aspect, to get away from thinking about school all the time and meet some new people. At the same time, I crave talking about school, because (a) I can talk about it easily; and (b) hanging out with teenagers all day makes you crave adult companionship to share these stories with. I'm out of shape (4 times to the gym this week notwithstanding... we'll see how I keep it up) and feel stuck in a rut. To top it off, I'm kind of sick of Baltimore.

So, yes, the house concerts, starting that up again? Maybe it's a symbol of my return and my escape from the rut. Let's hope so.

You should come: Holden's Lair House Concerts