Singer-songwriter Anya Marina is out on tour with the Virgins and Lissy Trullie and sending Spinner her dispatches from the road. In this first installment, Marina is getting ready for the jaunt and shares some photos of her last bout with a tour bus. Follow along on her excellent adventures.

Sunday May 10, 2009: Day before the tour

It's Mother's Day and I'm frantically packing and trying to to do so lightly. Luckily, I gave my dear Ma (Anya Sr.) her gift early -- a flight out to Kansas City, to see me perform on my last tour with old pal Jason Mraz at the Starlite Amphitheatre. She'd only ever seen me in front of a few hundred before, so the crowd of 8,000 kind of blew her away.

But this is a new tour, a different tour, I remind myself: no "joyologist" to give us backrubs when our "chi" is out of wack. No raw foods chef with supergreens shakes in the morning and nori-wraps at night. No luxury tour bus waiting to whisk us away after the show. No arenas and amphitheatres. No, no, friends. This is rock 'n' roll: drive yourself, carry your own bags, get there on time, no sleep, barely shower, rush, rush, rush and rock.

I couldn't be more excited.

I find myself in a massive quandary as to how many guitars to pack. My manager advises me to bring both my electric and the acoustic, but this is easy for him to say; he's not in charge of carrying all this stuff alone. I frantically text all my rock pals and ask their advice.

The Virgins' quick-witted bass player Nick Zarin-Ackerman immediately responds that I can borrow his acoustic on the road whenever I'd like. Relieved and overjoyed with gratitude, I offer 7th grade-scale sexual favors as compensation. Nick's sense of humor is several steps quicker and sicker than mine, so soon a negotiation ensues.

This tour will be fun, I tell myself, and go back to packing.

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