I heard that the best way to get over jet lag is to get out into the light and your body readjusts to the new time zone quicker. The problem is that it is zero degrees outside and sleeping times are so messed up that it is in fact during the light that you are sleeping. Arriving at 7.20 AM in the morning on a 6.20 PM flight from New York might be ideal if you were able to sleep seven hours on the plane, which never happens and even if it did, your body clock would still be telling you that the seven-hour sleep was just an unplanned nap and resorts back to American time almost immediately. The only thing to do when we arrived at Olivia’s parents’ house was to have some breakfast and then go to bed, waking up at 7 PM which meant we missed the light and had us up till 6 AM the following morning which means we went to bed again as the light was brewing. Waking up at 2.30 PM two days into being in Germany and I haven’t got close to going outside at all.

Olivia was going to see her friend so she set her alarm, shaking me awake in time for the Liverpool game (they lost) and then two seshes with Jed and Jeff, there was no outside in the light time. After Olivia had gone, I had a classic domestic slapstick moment before the first sesh with Jed. The game finished a little later than I thought so I told Jed post-flight shower was a priority and I also grabbed a sandwich (not concurrently) – an hour had passed, Jed was cool. I brought the last of my not-soggy sandwiches upstairs, my sugar-free Fritz Kola (a German classic) and a nice hot cup of tea. My computer was on the table and the bed that turns into a comfy couch was a little too far away for skyping so I thought, I’ll move it closer. As I dragged the table toward me, I knocked over the Fritz bottle, spilling cola on the carpet, I immediately, and quick as a flash, reached for the napkin on the table at the end of the bed not realising that the cup of tea was partly sitting on it. As I pulled it, I took the hot cup of tea with it, upsetting it on my hand, with the cup falling down and the whole thing spilling all over the floor. It was a battle on three fronts, Fritz on the carpet, my burnt hand and the tea everywhere. I won’t bore you with the cleanup.

All this happened as I was about to talk to Jed, already an hour past our initially agreed sesh time. I cleaned up and skyped Jed, I couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear me. So what next? I haven’t been using Skype so much because of my commitments to all the projects but now I’m back in Europe I’m immediately back in sesh mode with Jed and Jeff today, first day back. It took me a while to figure out that my ace computer speakers that sessioneer Fred kindly gave me wouldn’t work with my Skype, why is a mystery but I also had my little mono speaker which thankfully did work (I really didn’t want to be seshing with just the sound of the computer speakers). Jed and I worked on the 23rd song we have for the next Space Summit album. All we need to get started on the follow-up to Life This Way is the time and the spondoolies.

Music today has been Tom Verlaine’s third solo album Words From The Front (1982), one of my favourites of his solo works. I wore my Marquee Moon T-shirt today, it took on a new meaning.

Music Of The Daze