There’s something I must admit.  On Thursday, I had a little show at Club Good Hurt.  It was the first performance I’ve done since January…  Seriously, that’s crazy, right?  What have I been doing with myself for the past five friggin’ months?

I have no idea.

Um, this blog was meant to support and foster my music aspirations.  And yet, in the week leading up to and the day following, I focused on everything but my music.  It is interesting what fear and stress can do to a person’s dreams and goals.

I’m going to try to push on through anyway.

Thursday was awesome.  About 30 of my friends/fans were there (the friends and fans are pretty much one in the same right now, which is how I like it).  The sound guy kept flubbing my stuff but I think I rolled with the punches pretty well.  I decided to not stress about it and while deciding to do something and actually following through are two separate things, I learned once more how unnecessary it is to stress (some things are just ever-repeating lessons).  I borrowed a guitar from the main act and a strap from the one I followed.  Seriously, most unprepared musician award goes to me.  Or most resourceful/persuasive musician award… Yeah, let’s go with that.

But let’s address the fears.  All I could think of when I was on stage was “STOP MESSING UP” and “YOU CAN’T DO BAR CHORDS.”  But when the lights would stop seizing momentarily and the smoke machine would take a breath, I’d see the happy faces in the crowd of loved ones and relax.

People always ask me, “Don’t you get more nervous because it’s people you know?” I always say it’s the strangers who scare me.  They don’t already have a first impression of me.  They don’t know who I am and won’t be as forgiving as the people who care about me.  I have to prove that I’m not just a girl who thinks she can pick up a guitar and sing about boys and people will think “isn’t she pretty?”  I have to prove that I love music.  And I love being about music.  And I don’t just wanna be the next goddamn American Idol.

So I finally picked a recording place.  He’s all the way in Silverlake…  Oh, the sacrifices we must make for our craft!  Really, though, this is big.  This is me admitting that I can do this.  This little thing is tangible and wonderful and exciting and all I need.  As a friend once recalled to me the other day, “Shoot for the stars and you’ll land on the moon.”  Well I like that idea too but I think I’m gonna shoot for the moon.  And land there too.