Ah, Mondays, Tuesdays, beginning of the week. Mondays used to be may day off to adapt from the weekend rhythm to the weekly one, but this year Dag goes to his play-club on Monday mornings too, which means Mondays has become as shitty as everyone else’s, waking-up wise at least.
When you are away performing it’s often odd to adapt your weekend work schedule to your week-schedule. Although I am used to an irregular routine - the last four years of my harbour work, when I was working as the supervisor, we did five days of evening shift from 15hrs to 1 am, then three days off and then seven days of morning shift from 05:30 to 14:30 (and then we had six days off). I remember reading that mixing shifts like that is not good for your sleep (or for you) as you never really adapt to any regular rhythm, but I can’t really state that my routines would have improved that much nowadays either...
Performing life when away often looks something like this, only the small details vary.
DAY 1
06:00am Leave to airport far too early, especially taking into consideration evening teaching (in this example, you can fill in : performing sometimes too) the night before and late night packing (as always, no matter how well you think you’ve prepared it this time).
Consume crazily expensive coffee and smoothies at airport.
10:00am Arrive to destination, drag your just-a-few-grammes-below-maximum-weight-suitcase(s) along in public transportation to where you are staying.
(Here we are arriving in St.Pauli in Hamburg the other week. The rest of the details and pics will come from that trip. -)
Wait for about an hour for the man with the keys to show up. Enjoy some coffee and a random baguette (the rest of the trip will be healthier!) while you wait.
12:00pm Then sleep. Sleep sleep sleep
18:00 Get up, do some stretching and go grab something as healthy as possible around the corner. Buy some almonds for backstage snacks.
(a little good-late-afternoon-morning peek-a-boo from the next window)
(a little good-late-afternoon-morning peek-a-boo from the next window)
20:00 Put make up on
21:00 Head over to the venue.
23:00-02:00 Perform. Sip on that one; just one, backstage GT during the evening.
03:00 snack on some almonds, project:wash-your-face-and-roll-your-hair-for-the-next-day and then to bed.
DAY 2
13:00 get up. Do pilates. Colleague does yoga. Have some lemon water, almonds and bio yoghurt. Whoop whoop!
14:00 out for a walk, some fruits and soy latte.
(We saw somebody who'd just gotten married.)
16:00 Soup and summer rolls, yum!
17:00 Back home to do some office work - and have a liiiittle bit of prosecco while at it.
(Here working on the Ruby Knuckles Sextet website, by @ruskarieban)
(Here working on the Ruby Knuckles Sextet website, by @ruskarieban)
19:00 Late afternoon/early evening power nap
20:00 make up time!
21:30 Heading over to the venue. No GT today, this evening will be healthier
(Backstage. The usual.)
23:00 -02:00 showtime ok maybe that one backstage GT after all
03:00 SHOTS! (oops)
04:00 MORE SHOTS (oh shit)
05:00 apparently more shots, or something.
DAY 3
12:00 Lemon water. almonds. Damn it, why don’t we have any chips!
13:00 painful movement from place A to B. About a litre of mint tea and a grilled sandwich that could have had so much more cheese on it.
02:30 realising you are way too tired, even though you just had half a litre of cola, to spent time in one of the most awesome places there is (well nerd-wise at least; MiWuLa) and that you are just going to have to come back here the next time SANS shots the night before instead.
03:00 drag yourself up the stairs
SLEEP
06:00 force yourself out again to eat and at this point anything goes
(But we were lucky that this was really good though. Vegan comfort food at Saints & Sinners. Have to go back the next time and eat up the rest of the menu.)
20:00 A quick yoga nidra to try to even up the lack of sleep from last night
20:30 On with the face again
21:30 stack up on chips on the way to the venue. Arrive. No GT’s
(Arrived. Face glued on. Ready. I can do this!)
22:00 ok one GT.
23:00-02:00 Showtime!
03:00 chips. packing
04:00 SLEEP
DAY 4
DAY 4
(peanut butter and vegan cheeseeeemmmm)
09: wake up, grab soy latte, drag 20-something kilos of costumes and make up to the airport, unpack (well MAYBE, if you’re good to yourself). Go to sleep and then wake up and it’s MONDAY, DAMN!