First! Some general updates.

It's completely bonkers how much work I've finished this month, but I still feel horribly behind.

Instrumentals for Of My Own etc have finally gone to mastering! Kickstarter backers will get those first. Then it will go on Bandcamp and I'll give you all a link -- however, since the instrumentals were a lot of additional work, this is one album that I can't afford to give my Patreon backers for free. Those of you who didn't also support the kickstarter will have to pay for it on bandcamp but I will give you a discount code so it's real cheap.

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Tonight I am playing Rhodes and singing backup with Halou at Amado's! I love these show SO MUCH but last night I had horrible insomnia so we'll see if I can manage a decent performance tonight. (Tarnation is listed as the headliner but we're going on last, fyi.)

www.eventbrite.com/e/halou-tarnation-meredith-edgar-trio-tickets-540213813057

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Next Saturday I'm playing the market for the World Goth Day event in Vallejo! My performances are at 12 noon and 2:15 (NOT at the times listed anywhere else!) No need to buy a concert ticket to see me, but you should buy one anyway if you can.

www.eventbrite.com/e/world-goth-day-festival-tickets-597380058837

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Now, for the first of today's two tracks.

One of my favorite writers (Cheryl Strayed/Dear Sugar) just informed her subscribers that she’s currently transcribing her journals, and she’s noted that even if we were to give advice to our younger selves, they wouldn’t really *get it*. They have to go THROUGH it, as we did.

I feel I should explain this song, because it comes from a few different angles. Literally, the perspectives it’s sung from, and to, are a few different ones.

I don’t know if I can describe all the connections, references, and meanings here, but...

- being a mother and sacrificing important aspects of my identity

- how did early dating experiences influences the choices I made? (references one of the first decent songs I ever wrote, “Running After Darkness,” at age 15, which in turn references Tori Amos’ “Precious Things”)

- being a spider literally consumed by her babies (but not before having eaten their dad) (yes I was reading Charlotte’s Web to Pickles)

- The Old Woman I Will Become - another Dear Sugar reference

- “repeat the past / borne ceaselessly back” - a Great Gatsby reference

- Other Mothers isn’t about other people who are moms, it’s about different versions of myself who took different paths

- The Ship of Theseus

- The very last lines “No man is worthy of those tears” — came to me so suddenly and completely that I’m SURE I’m plagiarizing something (not the words; that’s a paraphrase of a quote as old and universal as language itself. I mean the melodies of the vocal lines.)

I think my next original album — for which I now have 12 complete songs! — will be called Desire Paths. I have a plan to post drafts of everything publicly and include an email address folks can send feedback to. My ego is dead (in both good and bad ways) so why not let people criticize me?