When you’re getting ready to leave for an out-of-town show and you do a last minute facebook message check, whatever you do, don’t get distracted and browse the pretty pictures on the screen. Don’t click on the gorgeous photograph of a little girl curled up in a ball on what seems to be a cement floor and wonder what filter was used to get that grungy, vintage-y effect. Don’t suddenly take in that she’s surrounded by what appears to be an outline of a woman made in white chalk. Don’t look more closely and read about how it’s a chalk-drawing the little girl made in the shape of her deceased mother and about how, after the little girl drew it, she took off her tiny shoes and climbed into the drawing to fall asleep against her mother’s chest. Don’t do this, because it’s hard to concentrate on packing when you have tears burning in the backs of your eyes. And it’s hard to remember why you wanted to write poems and sing folk songs instead of doing something more useful with your life—say, finding a cure for poverty, or moving to Iraq so you can be one of those people who hold orphan babies and sing songs to them when they cry. Don’t do this, because you will forget your suitcase beside the door, which contains your hair straightener and your pillow and your favorite brown high-heeled shoes. Don’t do this, because playing a show with rubber boots on is not nearly as professional as playing a show wearing nice brown shoes, despite the fact that you yourself won’t really care, since, in light of that small girl sleeping inside the chalk, the hair straightener and the pillow and the brown high-heeled shoes hardly seem to matter.