We’ve sold out every show on this tour, and yet I’m feeling like a chump today, fixating overly on who’s doing what and where and how that highlights my currently not being and never having been cool.

But masochistically satisfying as it is wallowing in self pity, I recognize that being overwhelmed is a choice. I have plenty to focus on, new music and developing skills and fresh perspectives, and it’s on me whether I choose to indulge the knife-lined bouncy castle of comparison.

Some day, I will be cool. I don’t know how it’ll look, but goddammit I’ll be a veritable James Bond, armed with smarmy one-liners and a miraculously classic jawline. But until then, I shall slog away in glorious anonymity, tortoising my way to the finish line.