Manzin

I prepare a bag with makeup and clothing for each show plus toiletries and 1-2 other outfits for the sake of comfort depending on how long I'm going to be gone. I rent a car and purchase gasoline along the way to fuel it. I also make arrangements for somewhere to sleep, usually with Airbnb but occasionally with trusted friends. The rest of the travel is the physical act of operating the automobile while paying the occasional toll (I recommend EZPass if you're in the Northeast) and while remembering to eat and keep hydrated along the way.

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That's the snark answer. You probably meant "how are you able to do this". I'm a freelancer so I make my own schedule and I spend pretty frugally throughout the year so I'm usually able to save up for tour without too much trouble. I get by with a little help from my friends.

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They're noisy (especially in packs) and expensive. They're a massive drain on time, energy, attention, and resources. You can't behave normally around them, you have to watch your language, you have to watch your topics, you have to not watch or listen to any media too scary or too loud or too violent or too sexual. You have to be quiet most of the time because they sleep a lot. They ask too many questions that you can't answer honestly because you have to tailor your answers to the prescribed intellectual growth chart set forth by their parents. They're difficult to buy for. They expect you to be really excited over inconsequential things you don't care about and you get in trouble if you don't feign interest in whatever it is. They're messy. They waste food. They aren't big enough or smart enough to be near animals (or stairs, or water, or anything with a corner, or outside) without constant supervision. They're boring. Their activities are boring. You get dragged to recitals and games and awards ceremonies and you're like ooh wow whoop-dee-fucking-doo but you have to go because they're your (insert relation here).

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And that's just the stuff directly attached to the child itself. Not only are they annoying as individual entities but the mere concept of them is annoying. "When are you having kids?" "Why don't you want to have kids?" "What's the matter with kids?" "YOU were a kid once" "Well you're just lucky your parents didn't feel the same way or YOU wouldn't be here" and of course my personal favorite "well, you'll change your mind". No. I. Fucking. Will. Not. I absolutely hate it when people smugly assure me that they know me better than I know myself.

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Additionally, beyond the scope of the child itself and the concept of children when applied to me, there's also the way that parenthood changes people that aren't me. Friends get knocked up and they can't go out anymore, you never see them without a kid attached to their legs, they become completely different people. And that's fine for them, it's their choice, they're happy with it I suppose. Nobody should live their lives specifically to make me happy but getting pregnant has enormous ripple effects that changes EVERYTHING in your life. And don't get me started on those entitled little fuckheads that think that they and their children are above every social nicety and law known to man. The ones who let them scream in the theater and howl in the restaurant and run around barreling into people everywhere else. "So what? He's just a kid" SO? My parents never let me behave like that when I was growing up. Mine would haul me out of a place with that upper arm cop grab and lecture me into submission and if I didn't straighten up, we left. I hated other children when I was little. I hated -being- a kid.

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I had another paragraph or so here but evidently there's a character limit on answers. Who knew.

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