random thoughts – Day 1,501 – (Friday) – town and city planning

It’s usually feast or famine with my social calendar, and this weekend is a feast. But it doesn’t mean it’s all fun. It’s requiring planning, with which I have an intense love-hate relationship. I like when there is a plan, but I hate having to be the one making the plan. This is why my job title is not event planner.

When there is no plan, I often end up doing nothing. The sit on the couch and stare at Netflix while simultaneously messing around on my phone kind of nothing. When there is a plan, I can move from one thing to another and it’s lovely. 

Venue map.

But again, there is the dreaded making of the plan, which is a lot easier when it's allowed to be sequential -- Event A at Location A at time A, then Event B begins at Location B after Event A is done and everything is just a few steps away. Saturday afternoon art receptions sometimes work like this, or pretty close.

This weekend’s issues include the two-day (nights really, but let’s not nit pick) The Town and The City Music Festival. On the Friday night roster, there are several bands I’d like to see, and they are all playing at overlapping times at different venues that aren’t necessarily near each other. Robin Hitchcock at Christ Church United? Heck yes! But why does it have to be so far from the main cluster of venues which has Muck and the Mires at Smokehouse Tavern at an overlapping time? Seriously, why? 

Do I park at the first venue then hope for parking for the second (4 minute drive, who knows how long to park)? Do I park for the second venue and walk to the first (12 minutes, per Google), then hope I still even feel like going to the second one? Park in the work garage sort of in the middle (10 minutes to first place, five minutes from the second)? What in the actual blankety-blank?

Night two of the festival puts it in direct conflict with an event commitment in another town, so I’ll be, as Dad used to say (and still might, but I’m no longer in the audience of his dinner table tales to know), “high-tailing it” from Dracut to downtown Lowell where I will most definitely miss David Amram (Academic Arts Center), but might be able to catch Roger Clark Miller (Thirsty First) or Jen Kearney (Warp & Weft). Who knows? I sure don’t.

Trying to plot a schedule for this music thing feels way too much like the planning and scheduling I do at work, but at least at work there is a monetary reward doled out every two weeks. Figuring out where to be at what time is just giving me a colossal headache. I can't even highlight my choices on the schedule because it is printed on a glossy cardstock that doesn't take ink and is a pain in a butt to fold. Normal paper would have been fine. 

And then there are the wardrobe issues. What jacket do I need tonight? Will it be crowded? Do I have suitable pockets, or do I need a purse? This will be followed tomorrow by full blown panic over dressing for the fancy Saturday night Dinner and a Show event. What fits? Will I be cold? 

I’ll be fine with whatever show I’m at. It’s the coin toss and decision-making on the front end and the related logistics that are giving me heartburn. It’s 2024 dammit, where is my personal jetpack and the “Scotty, beam me up” technology? Elementary school was so full of lies.