I’ve played music on every continent except Antartica, famous stages, not-so-famous stages, brushed shoulders with household names, and happily strummed away in gainful annonimity.

I’ve kept the fridge full with a guitar in my hands for a long time. It’s a good life - an enviable one, even - and I’m grateful.

But it’s still a day-to-day struggle not to get discouraged.

Jiminy Christmas, is this business ever unrelenting in its poking, prodding, and generally agitating, and today I wish the murky waters I navigate in order to keep making stuff up for a living would evaporate into blissful nothingness.

But it’s 85 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, the vegetables I’ve planted haven’t died (yet), and I have a sneaking suspicion the world won’t cave in on itself in 24 hours. Fingers crossed, anyway.

So, I reluctantly accept that I’m not perfect, and would be more tedious than I already am if I were. I’ll get another shot at this.