My Morning Jacket – er, Blog.

My wireless was down this morning, so you get this near-afternoon session. How are you? Have you done something different with your hair? You look great today! It’s so wonderful to see you. How did that thing work out that you were telling me about? Is that leak all fixed from last week? Wonderful! I’m so glad to hear.

It’s nice that you and I get to have these little chats together. They’ve become something of a moment of calm and clarity – I hope you get something from them too. For any period of time when we miss each other, I think about you – do you think about me?

I was invited to go to Florence Italy yesterday, but I will turn it down I believe. Why? Because I would have to pay to be an assistant for a workshop that I’m only mildly interested in, and assist a woman for 3 weeks who I’m not sure we’d get along in that capacity too well. Basically, I’m being asked to be worse than an unpaid intern for a class I don’t want to take in a country that I’d love to see on my own terms.

After I got off the phone with the woman yesterday, I told my visiting friend what all that was about, and she said, point blank, and in a way I hadn’t considered… “So, what do you get out of it again?” … Hmm. I thought. I’d have to buy my own flight, pay for my own housing, pay for the course, and work for free in a field of mild interest … I might as well just go to Italy myself, if that’s the case.

It really hadn’t occurred to me that I might not want to do this – again, it was only a case of “could I.” That’s really my only question when it comes to jobs – can I do it, not do I want to – and then I back out, if I can, of those that I’ve taken on when I finally realize I don’t actually want the job.

So, I’ll make some phone calls around this, confirm that this isn’t at all a right thing for me, and also take note that the idea of going to Europe is still very strong – whatever comes of it, I have no idea, but, I’d like to go.

I’m also very glad that I’ll get the chance to do it sober, so it’s not like some people I hear, in their 20s at least, who pretty much do a pub crawl through the continent, and may as well be in any bar in the U.S. if that’s the case.

However, I am pretty clear that I’d like a wingman/travel buddy. I love to do solo driving trips, but something about real travel, or camping, or vacations, I want to do with someone. I really want to nudge you in the odd trinket store and show you the trinket. I want you to say – omigod, look at that and point to some local intrigue or view. I want to share those memories with you later on, and in the moment, I want to have that camaraderie of joint experience.

I travel better with people. Without them, I tend to get a little forlorn. It gets lonely to look at something so beautiful or awe-inspiring and not have someone to share that with. Or something funny and no one to really laugh with. There are some things that I don’t mind doing alone, and most of them have to do with local things – going to the movies, going to a restaurant, a gallery. That’s fine, because, it’s local, and it’s intermittent, but a real trip, well, I’d like to do that together.

So, if you’d like to go to Europe with me, travel around with someone who loves curio shops, and hiking, and tourist traps, and little known gems, and walking the course of a city in a day, let me know, because like I said, you look simply gorgeous today – and I think you’d look great in our photos.