On February 29th and March 1st, I’m playing at P.A.C.E. for the 5th Anniversary Celebration Taste of P.A.C.E. I’ll be performing 2 songs each night. It should be a fun show– basically a ‘review’ of all the music, theater, dance, comedy, etc. that’s been on the P.A.C.E. stage for the past 5 years.

I remember walking around the Easthampton Fall Festival with my cousin Steve Biegner and meeting Sonia for the first time. She suggested that we stop in and soon after we booked ourselves a Smokejumpers show. In the very early days of P.A.C.E., the rooms weren’t separated and there were folding chairs only. There were three risers and that was about it. I think we played a few shows with me on piano, Steve Biegner on guitar, and Adam Bach on bass. We each had our own little 4′x5′ riser. It was fun times. We used to document these things in our livejournal, but I haven’t read that in years.

Between Smokejumpers shows, Northernly shows, Steve Biegner shows, and my own performances at P.A.C.E., I really feel like I’ve made a little dent in the P.A.C.E. stage. I’ve seen some really wonderful shows there too– Haunt, Stephen Brodsky, Mark Schwaber, The Low Anthem, David Berkeley, Swing Caravan. So I’m psyched that I’ve been asked to play this event, because I get in for free to see everyone else playing and performing on those nights.

Also, Steve Biegner and Julia Suriano are the leads in the upcoming production of West Side Story, so some sort of tidbit of that will be happening I imagine.

This week I headed down to the Advance Internet offices, which are in Journal Square in Jersey City, NJ. It was quite nice to meet people who I generally only talk to over IM or on the phone, since I’m sort of a satellite employee working from the MassLive office in Springfield. Jersey City is interesting, because it’s just across the river from NYC. It has its nice areas and its not so nice areas. Journal Square seems like it’s right in the middle of the two. My hotel wasn’t in an awesome area, but I eventually found it on Tuesday after driving around forever.

There were limited food options, but I wound up going to GoldenKrust, which is a very small chain of “Caribbean Bakery and Grill”s. Most of them are in NYC, Queens, Long Island, etc. It’s like a take-out joint. I had the jerk chicken. It was surprisingly delicious.

We wound up going Wednesday night into the city. It’s a pretty quick ride on the PATH train from Journal Square. Times Square is always nuts, and as a NYC tourist I’ve been there plenty of times, but it always seems to have its charm like anything else. We wound up going to Heartland Brewery. It was nice to share a meal with co-workers and get to know them more.

I was homesick of course, missing Kristen like nuts.

Every time I travel it’s bittersweet. I love exploring and seeing a whole different set of people and how they live. I love eating at different places and getting lost and stuff like that. But after about the second day from home I really yearn to be back in familiar surroundings. I never used to feel this way, but maybe it’s a reflection of realizing that I’m getting older. I may not be a spring chicken anymore, but I always strive to live in the moment and seize opportunities as they arise. I also realize that I can’t do everything, and it’s okay to just chill out once in awhile.

That said, I plan to relax a bit this weekend, and go see The Low Anthem and Steve Biegner at PACE on Saturday night probably.