I've found my spiritual home in Berlin.

INTERSOUP: Lounge, dive bar, music venue, and soup seller. I'm in love.

I recently had a conversation with Sunny about what I'd do with myself if I lived somewhere and stayed put for a minute. If I toured less or wanted to add another element to my status as a professional wandering shit shooter manager etc.

I mentioned Dee Dee, who I work with on American Idol, and who lives in Austin and has a business. I think it's a coffeeshop laundromat and her business partner handles things when Dee Dee's on the road. A lot of roadies I know get antsy when they're home for more than a few weeks because they get bored. This isn't the case with me because a quadrant of my brain creates projects to fixate on after I've caught up on sleep and watched every available episode of the The Office, but still.

We thought about what kind of business I would have, what I'm interested in. And came up with a coffeehouse specializing in soup because soup is the best most comforting food in the world. And alcohol. And good coffee.

I never understood the concept of comfort food until recently. I usually just obsess on the food of wherever I am, a prime example being that I dreamed regularly about shrimp when I lived in Ecuador. But for me, soup is different. It crosses international borders and I want to eat it every day. I miss it when I don't and I clap my hands when I see it. On tour people know me well enough to report to my office daily to let me know what kind of soup is in catering.

The day after the Spice tour ended, I was in the airport business lounge with Michele, our ticketer, experiencing extreme levels of hangover. When I saw the tureen of broccoli and cheese soup, it was all I could do to keep myself from sticking my entire face in it and inhaling. I needed so much comfort. Instead, I just kept filling up my little bowl and bringing it back to my chair where I'd half eat it and half splatter it all over my shirt, the moral of this story being don't let people order rounds of shots the night before that have HAIRY, FUZZY, OR SLIPPERY in the names.

"You and your soup," Michele said. "You need to join a soup of the month club."

"Yes, I do" I said. "Or soup of the day."

Until then I'll just go to Intersoup in Berlin and ingratiate myself on the people there and then steal their recipes.

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