Countdown to Sugarland: 3 Days

While trying to figure out a way to get backstage to the upcoming Sugarland concert, I stumbled across Jennifer Nettles' new blog. I'm convinced we'd be good friends were we afforded the luxury to meet one another. She's a personal hero of mine - I assume that once I see her perform live, the feeling will only grow.

She's an entertainer. Read this. You'll be entertained.

Blog From Jennifer–A Not-So-Day-In-The Life


April 27, 2010

“A Not-So-Day-In-The Life” by Jennifer Nettles

Everyone likes to think the life of a musician is all parties and Dom, private jets and shopping sprees. For some, this may be true. For me, it is not, and this fact has been known to disappoint a few people (Though these are the same folks that scurry to read the “Stars: They’re Just Like Us” section of the celebrity rags which captures and displays, for the amusement and amazement of the tabloid hungry viewers, celebrities at the grocery, buying coffee, pushing their kids on the swing, picking their noses etc etc. Hypocritical of those folks to clamor for Brad and Angie’s cotidien, kid-infused pictures strolling the hairspray aisle at the drug store, while hoping to see me swinging from the chandeliers, but I digress…..). However, as I have had a stellar day today, fit for a Robin Leach voice-over, I thought I would share it with you for your voyeur within.

This story is set in Las Vegas where I am to celebrate the ACM’s. I don’t particularly care for Vegas as it makes me think of Disney Land for drunk adults who stumble around without looking where they are walking, blissful to have left the rugrats with the grandparents and, consequently will then proceed to drink as if they’ve just been released from prison. I have to be in a wildly festive mood to darken the door of a casino as it is largely ruled by four of my least favorite things:

1. Drunken adults making up for lost time in gymboree or church so they party like it’s 1999. Again.

2. Recycled Cigarette Smoke. This is where the casinos, in a effort to keep people inside and gambling, allow smoking but try to cover it up with some sort of coconut scent which just ends up smelling like a coconut flavored ass on fire.

3. Cold. In an effort to keep people awake (and to keep the burning coconut ass smell less noticeable) the temperature of a casino is freezing. Remember my olympic blog? I’m not very fond of the cold.

4. Loud, continuous, dinging noises. Annoying unless one is completely smashed or 3 years old.

Now I realize that my personal opinions of our fair City of Scandal may make me sound like a complete and total itch-bay. But, fear not my sweet swillers of sin, I have found an oasis in this dinging, drunken, neon desert and am able to actually enjoy myself on several levels!

I love being from the East Coast while working out West. The time change works in my favor and allows me to feel complete Virgo satisfaction by having me naturally wake before 7am. This is the case today. I casually make my way down to a lazy breakfast where I sip green tea and write in my journal until my breakfast arrives at the table: egg white fritatta and a side of mixed berries.

After breakfast I go and work out. The hotel has a really nice gym and I don’t feel like I need to disinfect every inch of it. Plus, since it’s Vegas and most people are here to forget their minds as well as their bodies, I pretty much have the place to myself. Another perk!

After my workout I stroll by the spa desk and make myself an appointment for a massage. I return to my room and had a shower with some yummy smelling bath products by Bulgari, provided by the hotel. By this time I need some lunch in order to make my massage appointment on time (and since I had breakfast at the ass crack of dawn, I am hungry already anyway:-).

I make my way to the restaurant where I proceed to read Bust Magazine, seated outside, until my fish tacos arrive. The kind waitress asks if I want a glass of wine to which I reply, “I’d like all of them but I can’t today”. I pay my bill and head in the direction of the spa.

The spa is wonderful with comfy robes and, my favorite, cucumber flavored water. (I love this stuff. I also read somewhere that there was a smell test conducted on men and women to see which scents were the most arousing. For women it was cucumber. For men, pizza. No joke. Hey, I read it, so it must be true right?!). I meet my therapist, chose an essential oil scent I like (too bad they don’t have pizza oil as an option. I’m interested), and have a wonderful massage that leaves divets in my face for about 2 hours. I also buy some face moisturizer because I am currently almost out of mine and do not want to be caught in a desert without some.

After my massage I return to my room, read some more, doze a bit, make some phone calls, send some emails and take another shower to wash off the pizza scent, just kidding, to wash off the massage oil.

Presently I am sitting outside by the pool, having a snack and listening to the three little british children in the pool say things like, “Duddy, I wont to du a hondstond in the wotah” (translation: “Daddy, I want to do a handstand in the water”). These are the only children I’ve seen here (Probably because they’re British and don’t know that children aren’t allowed in Vegas and that they should have left them with grandmummy and grandduddy. Poor things are probably trapped here in the Icelandic volcanic ash business!). I came out here to sit and read, but ended up writing this blog instead, and to let my hair dry in the arid desert breeze because I left my hairdryer at home. Duh. In the meantime, I wish you all “champagne wishes and caviar dreams”.