Yesterday (Thursday) I did a private flamenco gig with Ginette. The client suggested that we bring business cards--which normally is not a problem 'cept I ran out of cards. So while I was out and about Thursday afternoon, I had a free hour or two and visited Kinko's, bought a fresh supply of blank inkjet business cards, rented a computer and attempted to use one of the business card templates in Microsoft Word thinking to myself: "This'll be a no-brainer and I'll be in an out of here in less than an hour."

Being the creative person I am, I figured the majority of the time would be spent endlessly mulling over several design options before commiting to one, printing out a small supply of maybe 20 or 30 cards and I'd be on my way ready to promote myself at the gig.

Of course, it didn't work out that way. We've all gone through this before: I'd print out a set of business cards and somehow it gets misaligned such that images or text are cut off. And every time I hit return or try to drag the image around to fix the problem, some unexplainable tiny error happens and the whole thing gets messed up. After spending $14.99 on a pack of blank cards and $10 on computer rental time and not getting any good results, I was so close to blowing up, but I caught myself, took account of the situation, realized it wasn't worth it, took a deep breath and just shrugged it off and decided that at tonight's gig, Ginette and I would just pass out our promo cards for Cabanas and Tapeo instead.

I made it home with about an hour to spare before Ginette's arrival, so I checked and double-checked the directions to the gig, warmed-up a little and tried to decide which of my many black shirts I would wear for the evening's gig.

It was already 5:00pm, our agreed upon time to meet and head out towards the gig. Around 5:15pm Ginette texted me to say that there's traffic and that she'd be a litte late. Of course I felt a bit flustered, but it wasn't her fault there was traffic and rain, not to mention the idiots who drive crazily on days like these. There wasn't much I could do anyway, so I picked up my guitar and practiced to keep myself occupied and before I knew it, I could see Ginette's car pulling up. In less than a minute, I managed to pack my equipment in the trunk, put my guitar in the backseat and take my position up front and finally relax a little--we were on our way to the gig, yay!

The first half of the directions was pretty straightforward--just major streets---so I took some time to ask Ginette about her day (she's on Spring break) and told her about my own. Meanwhile, traffic was stop and go. The directions for the rest of the trip were all side streets so I had to start paying attention. Despite the difficulty reading street signs in the rain, it all went pretty smoothly and on one particular long stretch, we got back to talking again which I enjoyed of course--Ginette's a good friend of mine--but it also served to distract me from the fact that we were running pretty late already. As a courtesy, I texted the client telling her our current location and estimated time of arrival. She texted back instructing me to just call when I arrive at the venue.

We made it to the university campus where the gig was to take place. Time to celebrate? Um, no, not yet. Universities are notoriuously bad with signage and ridiculously labrynthine tangles of narrow streets. Luckily I had been to this campus many times before and our destination was across the street from a building that I was very familiar with. So we quickly found a parking space and quickly headed to the gig. So close 'cept we had a long flight of stairs and 100 pounds of equipment. Normally I could handle this myself, but Ginette offered to carry my guitar case while I focused on keeping the cart steady and as I bounced it down one step at a time which normally wouldn't bother me but since I was moving slowly one step at a time in the rain, I was getting wetter and wetter. It's not cool walking into a gig looking like I just took a shower in my clothes.

We entered the building. I parked my equipment, found the bathroom, grabbed a fistful of paper towels and quickly patted myself dry before heading towards the ballroom.

The evening's event was running behind schedule on account of the bad weather, so in a way, we were on time. Now all I had to do was go into the ballroom and quickly setup and start playing, finally! Meanwhile, Ginette changed into costume. I arrived at the stage to discover that it was carpeted. Ugh. Don't panic. I just put a microphone on the floor and told the client to pass on the word to Ginette of the situation. I quickly setup the sound and lights, took my seat and breathed a sigh of relief as I started to play the guitar and lost myself in the music. The sound system was sounding good: bright crisp treble and full-sounding warm bass with just a touch of reverb. Before I knew it, Ginette joined me onstage and the emcee introduced us and we started the Sevillanas, followed by alegrías.

This was a large ballroom and honestly only half of the room was paying attention. Nothing wrong on our end. It's just not exactly the right kind of venue for a flamenco show. But we still had a job to do and there was no reason why couldn't just perform for each other and just have a good time which we did. For the second set, Ginette just danced her soleá por bulerías and we ended the show sooner than planned since the client had to squeeze in an awards presentation while the guests were just finishing dinner and starting dessert.

On the drive back home, there was no traffic and what took more than an hour going one way, took only 20 minutes going the other. We briefly recounted what a difficult night it had been leading up to the show. But Ginette feeling good from the performance (and the delicious meal they served us afterwards) focused on the positive and said, "I had a good time. The flamenco was the highlight of my evening."

"Yeah, me too." I coudln't agree more.

Of course, we all have our good days and bad days. Sometimes what starts out bad turns out good in the end--and vice-versa. But when the flamenco is good, even for a few fleeting moments, it's all worth it! (And when we get paid for it and paid very well, even better!)

So what inspired me this morning? It's currently 2:03am. For one thing, I told Ginette I was feeling good and that I was going to blog about it. She went on to tell me how writing is easy and natural for me. She meant every word of it of course, but a little ego stroking sometimes helps me to get into the mood to write. Then again, I just happened to have a bottle of Power-C Glacéau Vitamin Water on my desk. Feeling a bit thirsty, I took a swig just before launching into this blog before realizing that it contains taurine---one of the primary ingredients in Red Bull for boosting alertness---hence my early morning loquaciousness. Hehe. Looks I'm going to be up for awhile now. Oh well. Let's hope I can back into the blogging momentum again. We'll see. Ciao for now.