curbing the musician habit...

I've now told all my "boys" that I am no longer available to drop everything and go running to rescue them in their hour of need whenever and wherever in the country they're gigging when their world starts to crumble at the edges... basically cos I've turned up too many times to discover they've got someone else in a shorter skirt than me attempting to assist them and making me feel quite redundant.

I'm fed up of being second best when the "woman they love" doesn't understand their needs or lifestyle like I do. And I'm also fed up of being told I am the most important person in their whole world... but that I'll have to wait a second til they get rid of the substitues they'd lined up while I was busy being at work! And work is a problem too when you work in a theatre and there's this endless supply of new tortured-yet-exciting-musicians that need looking after... it used to be incredibly convenient, but now my work and personal life are becomming really entangled and making each other seem more horriffic.

So I should give all the silly musicians up... but I'm not too sure if I can actually curb my "musician habit" full time, I'm only a few weeks into my Cold Turkey and I'm beginning to loose the plot. I miss that ethereal sparkle that goes on around creative types, and it never sparkles in any personality more than that of a musician. I feel all the fun's disappeared out of my life. I'm getting that need to do impulsively silly things again just to make it feel like I'm actually alive, and that there's a point to being here on this earth.

As Miss Pamela said in her second book, "...all of us have moments in life where time stands still for a few illuminating, mesmerizing split seconds and we are brilliantly grateful to be in our bodies, on the planet, ALIVE right now!! The reason for being comes into focus, everything shimmers with clarity, and The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music. Know what I mean?..." ...I know what she means, but I'm just not shimmering with clarity right now, I'm boringly pondering the thought of existing without the buzz of live rock music, and it doesn't look fun. Stable, stress free, easy to deal with and highly unlikely to break my heart... but sooo boring that you wonder why you should bother getting up in the morning!

I'd try taking up art again but I don't think it would fulfil the need. Rock'n'Roll is so instant, you don't have to spend months creating each individual masterpiece, you can form your piece of work and then re-produce it with slight alterations so many times at each gig and on each recording... and your audience doesn't even have to sit, examine and ponder the meaning of it all (although that does enhance the music once you go through that process). There's that instant spiritual buzz that only music and deep meditation can produce... and I'm not even in a meditating mood... I'd meditate on the thought of being exceedingly bored.

It's a little bit easier at work now that I've been allowed to hide away from the performers in the office and get on with paperwork and greeting the "great British public" (and what a bizarre lot they are... whoever says musicians are from another planet needs to meet this lot!). But work is becomming boring now too, I feel like I need a change of lifestyle. It is lovely to sit and discuss people's reactions to certain performances which I didn't used to get... but the reactive discussions aren't half as fun as the creative ones.

I miss them already... I need a cure for musician addiction... or a suitable substitute to keep me occupied... maybe I'll finally get round to moving to Italy and spending my life adoring Botticelli paintings and eating pasta, pizza and ice cream!