It is always a great way to start the day being awakened by twenty men stomping across scaffolding right outside your windows destroying your walls with the loudest power tools known to man. It is especially delightful when the demolition party starts at 7 a.m. and you've been up until 3 a.m. the night before (and suriving on minimal sleep before that).

Oh, exhaustion doesn't really kick in until my first caffeine high has faded and I'm in my office spellchecking the most boring documents known to mankind. That's when the world becomes the dimmest shade of gray. When my self-confidences morphs into self-pity. When what appeared to be my rising star reveals itself as just a cheap neon sign at an abandoned motel on some stretch of sad and lonely highway. When my metaphors become ridiculous.

Last night was not my finest hour as a musical performer. Oh my friends all smiled and said I sounded great, but I practically fled the stage during the first set due to a panic attack. Me! Who gets up and sings karaoke at the drop of a hat for complete strangers. Who, as a youngster, played Chopin nocturnes, Beethoven bagatelles, and Mozart sonatas to largeish crowds for years with only one major flub-up (which we shall not discuss at this point in time). Who usually loves nothing more than to get up and regale adoring crowds with my wit and wisdom.

I don't think it was stage fright so much as just plain old panic due to 1)sleep deprivation and 2)stuff. I came in late on my first solo, completely effed up my second one, then screeched more than usual in my first song. My nerves calmed for the second set, luckily, or I would have had to resign the band right then and there, which would not be a good thing given that major label contract we just got offered!

Anyway. Moving on. Isn't it great when you see ex-boyfriends who, seemed, when you dated them to be emotionally unavailable and incapable of settling down, only to find out that immediately after you they found the love of their life who tamed their bad boy ways?

Yeah. Well this has never happened to me, but if it HAD, I would surmise this: whatever it takes to be a bad boy tamer, I don't have it. Making a general and very damaging extrapolation from that, which my therapist would never let me make, I will say this: whatever it takes to get someone to fall in love with me, I don't have it anymore.

Oh I have what it takes to get ten million admirers (and they seem to have multiplied this week) but love? I don't even know what it feels like anymore and I wonder if I ever will.

Says sleep deprivation.

xo
BB