My knee hurts.

Wow, booking emails are brain scramblers for sure. Just when you think you have the perfect stock email and your venue list is perfect and your calendar is wide open and your band is eager.... you realize that none of that is perfectly true and that everything shifts. Constantly.

You may be thinking, "This chick is approaching rapid burnout."
It sounds like it, right? I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg. It's funny how many hours upon hours I will pour myself into something mindless and tedious like booking emails just for one 45-minute set that flies by in a heartbeat because it takes no work at all to have that much fun. Or, it's that much fun when you get to share it with other people. Hence the booking in the first place. That should be my header: "Please enable a good time. Preferably with pay." .... hardly sounds legal.

I'm not complaining. I have it good. I spend every day thinking of ways, bigger and better, to make 'playing' a profession. My work is to hang out with my guitar. I write music and get to play it with people for other people, who in turn inspire more music. I have supportive parents who believe in me and are willing to put up with their 20-something daughter NOT becoming a doctor. I've been like, "Listen, if I was going to be a doctor, I wouldn't even get a REAL job until I was 30. It's JUST like being a musician!" And they're actually cool with it. (I guess the random Bachelors degree in Theater is paying off after all. The minor in Biology is not).

Despite the benefits of my feverish plotting and self-created haze of idealism, there must be something to counter-act all of this artistic chaos. Nothing perfect can be created without balance-- a truth I am discovering the hard way. Just like all of those hours in the Swarthmore library that guaranteed the expansion of my brain -- with the gain came extreme loss of social grace. Similarly, the life of a professional musician provides some very interesting pendulum swings that require reins. I, for instance, used to be a varity athlete. Now, after only a year and a half of living in a practice room, sprained my knee by getting onto a stool at a diner. Right before consuming a breakfast for two. Seriously?
 I need balance, people.

So here I am, writing to you from my bedroom where I am currently icing my injury and planning a future of balance. This requires ample rest, scheduled socializing (mostly so I don't lose the wonderful friends I am lucky to have. Love you guys!), REGULAR EXERCISE (oops, that was on caps lock, but I like the emphasis), being outdoors, and the occasional zone where nothing goes through my brain at all (good luck with that one). I realized very abruptly this past weekend that actually, NONE of these things were happening in my life. I had become a machine. And this was a detriment not only to myself, but also the people around me. Lets face it, machines are frustrating. Especially ones that have system meltdowns and need new parts.

Plus, at the end of the day, summer is coming. And I am not going to be this damn pale the rest of the year.

I want to be a very successful person professionally-- I plan on it. But I already am successful in many ways. I have a wonderful family, amazing friends, and an unerring passion. And those things not only fuel professional success, but also make any of that eventual success worth it in the first place. Thank you to all of you who have continued to support me, even as I get nuttier and busier with this music business. I love you, and you're the real reason I work so hard.

From the Bedside, signing out.

-<3- Lic