cold and homely in boston

Currently sitting on the floor of a friend’s apartment in Somerville, MA, JUST outside of Boston. Wench had a great show last night at All Asia Cafe in Cambridge. Saw lots of Bennington kids and other friends. T’was swell. We made some cash also. It’s really nice that we’re actually making some money on this tour – much more than anticipated, in fact. Can’t even tell you how awesome it feels to make money off of something I completely love doing.

So far we’ve played in Bennington, VT…Burlington, VT….Asbury Park, NJ…New York, NY….and now Cambridge, MA. Tomorrow we go back to Vermont for 2 days, then CT, then NJ and NYC again. 6 shows in 8 days! Then it’s all over!! Tour has felt like molasses and lightening at the same time. How does that work, exactly? We’ve had much fun though.

Today it’s very cold as we brave out into the Boston streets for a day of exploration.

wenching

I am sitting in bed on a snowy morning hanging out with my laptop. We’re a good pair, he & The past few days we’ve been working hard to promote my band’s tour dates to the vast universe of the internet, hoping that the recipients of our emails will react with enthusiasm at what they contain. Perhaps you, too, could be excited about coming to a WENCH show, yes? If this is the case, click HERE. We’re traversing all over New England, so there’s definitely a chance that you might live near one of our destinations. Or maybe you know someone else who does. Or maybe you don’t, in which case, you could check out our bandcamp and download some tunes, or click HERE to make a monetary contribution. Any way that you can help our cause, the girls and I would respond with unbridled enthusiasm!

I hope you all are having a great start to 2010, dear readers. Maybe you are in some faraway place filled with sunshine and palm trees or in a snowy, icicle-filled wonderland like I am. Either way, I hope you are pursuing your dreams and loving everything you’re doing with your life. At least almost. I have been hanging out with my band in my apartment, preparing for our tour. It is a chaos of instruments, screen-printed t-shirts, dirty dishes, and computer cords in here.

thoughts on paradise

Sitting around at the airport, despite its mundane nature, is also a refreshingly fascinating art. There are so many souls walking past you, some going to Johannesburg or Tokyo, Paris or Buenos Aires, San Francisco, London, Sidney, Barcelona, and some, like me, going to Philadelphia – a city that sounds so dull in comparison to all those other destinations, especially after just being in Barbados for a week. For me, it’s no more than a dirty, crime-ridden place that I rarely visit save for flying out of its airport. But maybe for someone from Tokyo, Philadelphia is a city of mystery and intrigue, loaded with sights unseen, with new, interesting people and culture. How crazy it is that we all view the world in such different ways, eh? Maybe it’s all so interesting because we will never know many of the details of the lives of all these people that pass us by so quickly. In a world where knowledge is usually found by typing a few words into a search box, it seems almost unnatural that we can’t do the same in this context. We wouldn’t find much if we typed “the Indian-looking woman in the magenta scarf walking past me right now”. Maybe there’s a device for that in our future. For now, we have to just sit back and accept the universe of things that we simply will never know.

I wonder what it must be like to constantly live in paradise – if it gets annoying to have foreigners constantly traversing your country. Would that take away from it feeling like home? To have tourists’ rental cars peering through your neighborhood, their mouths eating the food in your restaurants, and their towels and sunburned bodies covering your beautiful beaches. To have to constantly put on a front of friendliness in order to convince them and yourself that your country is a wonderful place. But perhaps it’s just the opposite. Perhaps there’s a pride in having so many people want to visit your country because of its paradise nature – the gorgeous landscape and warm weather and friendly people. Maybe they don’t mind at all. Whatever the case, I certainly don’t know what it feels like to be a popular tourist destination, being a native New Jerseyan.

Wrote a song while on our trip. The lyrics go like this:

I am the ocean and you are the island
And she is your palm tree
I kiss your shore every morn
But she’s sure got her roots dug deep.

I try so hard to impress you
With all my fish facts
I wave to you all the time
But you never wave back.

Why can’t you see that you belong to me?
Why can’t you see that you belong to me?

I try to seduce you
With my cool, consistent water
But she’s got some sweet leaves
That you climb up and pick with ease.

I admire your sandy beauty
And your lush forestry
But all you seem to see
Are the coconuts shakin’ in her tree.

Why can’t you see that you belong to me?
Why can’t you see that you belong to me?

That’s all for now, guys. Goodbye sunny Barbados. Hello snowy New Jersey.
Love and sweet things,

Sara

longing for paradise.

One thing to be grateful for so far about 2010? That my family is going on vacation to Barbados in less than 24 hours!! Sweeeeeeet! Total reverse flip of the current climate situation. Snow/30’s –> Sun/80’s. It means having to finally shave my legs, but I would say it’s more than worth it, wouldn’t you? There’s really nothing to complain about when you’ll be sunbathing on the beach in a faraway place in a day and a half’s time. I plan to get in some quality reading time, play mandolin, write some songs, and get some sun-kissed skin. —- CAN’T. WAIT.

And happy new year, by the by! It feels good to ring in a new set of 365 days, doesn’t it? A clean slate. So many opportunities, surprises, challenges, and new experiences await us. I hope all of your new year’s eves were joyously drunken (or not drunken, if that’s your thing), and that you were surrounded by adoring faces and a pair of lips to kiss at midnight. My evening was without many of these usual new year’s eve staples, but I had a good friend by my side and we just watched movies, played board games and drank Andre. The low-key, popcorn/candy-consuming, champagne-drinking December 31st was definitely what the doctor ordered. Couldn’t have asked for more.

I wish you all a fabulous, healthy, and love-filled 2010. It’s gonna be a good year.

Love love,

Sara

reminiscing.

2009: What a year what a year. I traveled to Costa Rica. I became serious with my band and planned a 3-week long winter tour with them. Made some important personal discoveries regarding my romantic life. Became much closer with some of my girlfriends. Entered my LAST year of college. Moved into my FIRST apartment. Came to the full realization that I want to move to pursue music professionally. Also faced a few new difficulties that brought on a different palate of emotions than I had ever experienced. New confidences and new insecurities. Fully realized my love affair with pop music. Settled more into my songwriting self. Let go of the people in my life that take more from it than they give. All very important things.

And as this year comes to a close, I find myself in the same reflective mindset as millions of other humans right about now. Thinking about the things I’ve lost and gained in 2009, the important life lessons I’ve learned, the things I want to pursue in the coming year, the people I want next to me as I walk forward, and my wants, needs, desires all floating around in my brain as I consider 2010 and its potential. I have attempted a list of resolutions and I only have 3 on it so far, but I think they’re good ones:

1. Letting go of what I can’t control and moving forward with my life.
2. “Owning my sexiness” (i.e. wearing flattering clothes, experimenting with make-up more, continuing with my work-out regime, walking tall with confidence)
3. Doing yoga twice a week and learning about new forms of yoga that resonate with me most.

There. And I don’t really feel a need to expand my list too much more because the things already on it are big things that will require a lot of attention, and the few other things that come to mind to add to it are things that I already plan to do with my life next year – things like moving to Brooklyn, pursuing my music career, and traveling. So yeah. Here I am. Here we are. 2 days left of 2009. What do YOU want to happen the first year of the next decade?

Yours,
Sara

snowflake heart

Despite the good things that have happened the last few days, I’m somehow exceedingly somber this evening. My heart feels like it’s everywhere, filling the air like the beautiful snowflakes of our recent blizzard, sparkling and fading. My life looks beautiful one day and like dirty slush the next. My mind tries to rationalize and explain to my heart what it’s feeling, but to no real avail. So I just sit and listen to the words of songwriters who, like me, have only their music to sort through the matters of their hearts. You know, besides throwing things or crying. It’s hard to consider new love when old ones still have my heart. But I guess moving on is all that can be done.

And singing. Singing my heart out until there is nothing else to be sung. Or until my heart genuinely wants to mend together again, stitch by stitch. I think it was pulled apart too much first time. (Which makes for good song material, at least)

And it sucks because this time of year is no time of year to think about such things as broken hearts, for they say it’s supposed to be about appreciating those around us who are still here, and all the other amazing things that we do have. For allowing in new smiles, new lips, new fingertips to touch us and tell us that we’re special. And hope that we can be brave and confident enough to keep walking with that new hand in ours. To think that maybe that new hand will give us something more special than the last. Or at least something refreshingly different to learn to love.

I hope you all have a contented holiday with the ones you truly want to be with. More than all the rest. And that you do only what you want to do in your life. To sing your heart out anytime you need or want to.

Sara

home lovely home

HOME! home home home home home.
For THREE WEEKS. And then vacation in Barbados. Life is so good.

Show on THURSDAY @ Triumph Brewery in Princeton, NJ. Music starts at 7:30pm! No cover! But come before 9pm if you’re under 21 or else you shall be carded. 40 minutes of music sung by good ol’ me.

Love,

S

new gig at the local 269!

Great people,

I will be playing at the place in the photo above – a Lower East Side dive bar called The Local 269 – on DEC 20th at 7:30PM! Save the date!

Additionally, my band is working out our tour schedule, and we have about 7 shows set out so far. We’ll send out a complete list to everyone very soon! For now, check out our newly released EP! (notice my shameless promo) — download for a mere $2.50! http://wench.bandcamp.com.

Love and amazing things,

-S

WENCH EP AVAILABLE!

Hey guys!!

I’m super excited because my band’s new EP is available for purchase online NOW! You can listen to it here and name your own price! — http://wench.bandcamp.com. Check it out!

So excited.

Sara

snow & lady gaga

It snowed yesterday for the first time this season. It made what was an altogether difficult day slightly more magical. See, Amanda, our guitar player for Wench, has quit the band. Which has officially brought our number down to three from the five that we were at the beginning of term. But we are still going ahead with tour and are going to make the best out of it. Fingers crossed.

I wrote a song inspired by Lady Gaga today. Have you guys ever listened to her solo stuff from before she became a pop icon? It was only a few years ago because I hear she’s only 23 now. But she’s an awesome pianist and a fantastic singer. I was super impressed and now have way more respect for her than I did before. Check it out — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM.

That’s all for now.

-S