I’m not sure where or how to start, so I’m jumping right in …

We spent Tuesday night at Kara & Jeremy’s, so we could leave bright and early for the airport. I wish I could say I slept well and awoke rested, but, um, no. So, going on about 3 hours’ sleep, we piled into a Super Shuttle and drove to Sky Harbor.

First thrill: discovering that we’d stuffed a few too many things into a couple suitcases! We were overweight on two of them, and had a mad shuffle at the check-in counter, moving things around until all the bags were under fifty pounds.

First bonus: no one noticed that my bass case was over the size limit, saving us $80 right off the bat. Yay!

Then came security, which was unremarkable except for two things: the singing security-girl (“If you’re travell-iiiiing togetheeeeeeeer, staaaaaay to-geeeeeeether!”) and the fact that I sliced open the tip of my right ring finger on some unknown sharp thing in my bag. Blood everywhere. It just would not stop bleeding. Once we were through security, I picked up some bandaids and superglue in one of the shops and fixed it up temporarily.

We got to Portland without incident and gathered up all our bags — nothing got lost or damaged, yay! We found the right train to take us into the city and enjoyed the ride thoroughly, although not so much the Dragging of the Bags three blocks to our hotel.

Kara & Jeremy’s room was ready right away, but ours was still being cleaned, so we dragged everything up to theirs, rested a bit, changed clothes, put some more superglue on my still-bleeding finger, had a brief disagreement about French food, and then headed out to find both sustenance and our bearings.

We’d noticed it on the train in, but it was when we were standing on a street corner with a map that we realized that Portland people are supernaturally friendly. A woman just stopped and said, “Do you have questions? How can I help? Oh, you’re looking for food? What do you like? Are you foodies? Oh, you want local food? Ok, well, do you like drinking chocolate? Well, come with us up here to a place with great chocolate, and we’ll talk about your dinner!”

So we did! And that’s how we ended up at the Park Kitchen, eating phenominal food.

After nipping briefly into Powell’s to escape the rain (which is a reference to both Jeremy’s nipples and how Loki got me to say “nipping in” without me realizing, which I’m not going to explain), we stopped by the Fez Ballroom, just to check it out. There was a girl by the door, and she opened it and asked us if we were playing that night. We explained we were playing the next night, and she invited us up to check out the space.

It seemed pretty large, and the space looked nice. Loki and I chatted with someone while Jay and Jeremy arranged for us to be on the guest list for that night’s show, then we went back to the hotel to get ready. Kara needed to wash her hair, so she and Jeremy stayed at the hotel, and Loki, Jay and I prepared to go back. Sadly, I got half a block down the road to the club before I realized my legs were too wobbly from fatigue, so I went back up and went to bed.

Then came the Curious Incident of the Generator in the Night-time.

Jay and Loki got back sometime later. I was dead asleep, but woke up to Loki stumbling around our dark room, muttering. It took me several minutes to get him to tell me what was going on, but finally he said, “I’m looking for the generator.”

“We don’t have a generator, baby. Come back to bed.”

“No, I need the generator.”

“Ok, I’ll find it, but you need to go back to bed.”

The conversation went on in this vein for several minutes, with Loki insisting we needed the generator, and me alternately trying to reassure him that I’d find it, and whimpering with frustration and fatigue. Finally, I got him back into bed, but I lay awake for quite some time, fuming and exhausted.

The next day, Loki awoke before ten, refreshed and happy. I woke up a few minutes later, exhausted and cranky. We decided he’d been sleep-walking, as he hadn’t had much to drink — was just suffering from jet-lag, tiredness and probably hadn’t eaten enough. We can laugh about it now, and do! But at the time, I was just tired.

So Loki went and got us crepes from a street-food vendor while I showered, then he went for more drinking-chocolate whilst I got ready for a photo shoot with Kambriel, who’d made Kara’s dress, in the Chinese Gardens.

We hiked over to the Hilton, waited around a bit chatting with Kambriel and her friends Claire and the cute boy whose name I’ve forgotten, then took the tram to the Gardens and started taking photos. It was pretty fun, but I was still tired and we needed to be at the Fez for load-in and soundcheck at 5, so Loki, Jay and I left early and headed back to the hotel to rest a bit, gather our stuff and re-superglue my finger, which was still gushing blood at every opportunity.

Once we got to the Fez, we had a proper soundcheck, set up our merch display, and pronounced ourselves ready, so we headed back to the hotel to get some food and see where our Phoenix friends were. We ended up hooking up with Dot and Tom later when we got back to the club, and it was indescribably lovely to have good friends there.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to stop me having a massive panic attack. I was completely unwell for quite a while, waiting to go on, but once we got on stage, the panic evaporated and there was just FUN.

The sound wasn’t perfect on stage, leading to a couple of amusing screwups during Destroy and Dreams Torn Away, but other than that, I had a lot of fun, and startled the hell out of Jay when I walked over to him during Lakme, and we turned back to back, leaned on each other and made like rockstars. It was highly amusing — especially when I accidentally stepped on his expression pedal and turned his guitar off. Good times, good times.

Once we got off stage, there was the traditional milling about, talking to people and manning the merch booth. Kara & Jeremy went back to the hotel around midnight, and Loki, Jay and I stayed through the headliner, sweaty and tired and just coasting. Eventually everything shut down, we loaded up the gear, and hauled it four blocks uphill back to the hotel, getting in sometime after 2.

Then came packing, and lying limply on the bed until 4:30, when we hauled gear down to the lobby and awaited a van to take us to the airport — trams are for those with actual muscles, not us.

There was a contretemps with the van, but we eventually got a minivan and a town car to haul us plus our 10 bags and 10 carry-ons to Portland International, hurrah. There we split up with Jay, which was sad — he’d been a trooper the entire time and really helped out a lot. We went through security (no singing guard, alas) and settled in to nap before our long, long flight.

[ Full galleries for Portland Day 1 or Day 2 ]

More to come. Stay tuned …