The sound man snapped at me while sound checking. Confession: whenever someone yells at me, I instantly feel a). five years old again, b). deeply hurt, and also c). kind of mad. But, I simply thanked him for his work and smiled.

Like this, I guess.

One guy came up to me and told me that I look “much taller!”

“Taller than…what?” I asked. “Than on facebook,” he said, “And thinner, too,” he added.

Which doesn’t say much for my pictures on facebook, I guess.

There is not much else I’d rather be doing than singing my songs for people. And every time I get to do this, I am reminded of this fact once again.

I also sometimes get the irrational fear that, now that people are actually noticing, What if I never write another song again?! Sort of like the other day when I was hand washing my delicates (which is an even more embarrassing word than just plain underwear, I think; and don’t even get me started on panties!), and the socks, in particular were taking a very long time to dry (I guess we say delicates because socks aren’t considered underwear, right?). I literally entertained the thought that my socks may just never ever dry. Like, AT ALL.

But guess what? My socks are now dry. Therefore, since that irrational fear did not materialize, I can also trust that I will continue to write songs.

Yes, I will write songs while wearing dry socks and life will be good.

Because, really, does it get any better than that?

My room.

Well, my current room, anyway.

See, for the past couple weeks now, I have not slept in once. Not once! ‘Welcome to adulthood, Jessica,’ is what you might be thinking. But, when an adult happens to be an artist–well, there still isn’t often a reason to get up early. Okay, maybe for auditions–I will give you that. Oh, and church. But certainly not when I was touring. Really, getting up early on tour meant having to be at the theater by 1:00 for a 2:00 matinee. Me and my roommates would try to be in bed early the night before–like by 2 or 3 am.

But now I’m having to get up around 7:30 in order to be at rehearsal. And I am on a tight schedule once I get up–like, I need to be in my car at a certain time and I don’t give myself a lot of time to do nothing. Or even something, for that matter. And the morning generally consists of trying to find something, which is generally not scheduled. Today it was my purse. I finally found it buried under a mound of clothes. Yesterday, it was a certain pair of pants–I found them in my closet. Well, the floor of my closet. Tonight it was some underwear. Which is still MIA, actually. Anyway, my problem is that my room gets completely unorganized.

And it’s not entirely my fault, either. The two reasons proving this point, are 1). I have my lifetime’s worth of stuff packed into a tiny, strangely shaped room and 2). The other day, I found a large step ladder smack in the middle of my room. At first, I didn’t really notice it (yes, my room is that unorganized right now. Unorganized enough to miss a huge step ladder parked in it), but well, it’s here–and I didn’t put it there. So please enlighten me, folks: just how the heck is a girl supposed to keep a room neat when people are putting step ladders in it?

Another problem is that every time I decide to clean my room, I end up writing a song instead.

And guys, I am pretty prolific.

So…let’s just say, yeah: my room is, um, pretty messy; it’s simple math, really.

But tonight I made sure to put my purse in plain view. There is other underwear I can use. I have already planned out the pants I want to wear tomorrow. And the stepladder is now an extra couple of shelves for clothes (what else?).

And someday I will be perfect and my room will be neat all the time.

Or maybe not.

Until today.

See, I know I have it in my range–it’s really a matter of nerves. And today I decided to just go for it. What do I have to lose? So I sang the song in front of the creative team of a show currently running on broadway and, well, now that note will no longer be optional for me.

Cause now I know I can do it. All the time.

The audition felt great, actually. I was myself. I connected with the people behind the table. I even made a few jokes. I sang three songs (which is a good sign when they let you keep going). I had a really good talk with someone from casting afterward, too. She told me they are excited about me and will definitely be bringing me back in at some point.

Then I went to the gym and realized that I forgot my shorts. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except that I was wearing a skirt that looks a lot like a tutu and, well, that’s just a little too ridiculous to think of lifting weights while wearing a tutu. So I found a tank top in my bag and fashioned it into a miniskirt type thing and worked out wearing that.

Cause that didn’t look ridiculous at all.

Honestly, I looked cray-cray. It didn’t help that my tank top was white and my underwear was bright pink, either. At least layering your clothing is so in. Although, I don’t think anyone has ever included underwear in the list of appropriate and trendy layers. And I was annoyed because what I really wanted to do was practice my handstands, but the mini-skirt put a stop to that.

Tonight after class I took a long walk from the East side to Columbus Circle. It was absolutely lovely. The rain was dying down, just making the city look a little misty. And I wanted to smile at every last person and dog that I passed on the streets. I kept thinking that I didn’t know one could feel such peace while walking alone on a rainy night in New York City.

I didn’t know until tonight, that is.

And kind of shocking, to say the least.

See, Jason and I were driving along the PCH, on our way to pick up the kids, when we noticed a man standing off to the side, wearing a bathing suit. Nothing too weird about that, since the ocean was right there, too. And then he starts to lean forward, holding another pair of shorts in his hand, all the while. And I get this funny thought that he is starting to change right there. But not a big deal–well, not if he’s wearing underwear, at least.

And then he starts dropping his drawers, and ohmygosh, Jase and I both gasp, because he just drops them.

All. The. Way.

And he is standing there naked as we pass by, and we are both shocked and then we start laughing. Because it was so weird and startling and I was not planning on seeing any of that.

And then, when we’re telling Lyric about it, Jason’s like, “And you know what the worst part of the whole thing was?”

“What?” she said.

“We were in the convertible, riding with the top down, so we shared the same air with the naked surfer guy!”

And then we all sort of said “gross!” simultaneously.

Seriously, that was totally illegal. And inappropriate. And man, I really didn’t need to see that.

Like, at all.

It was on the ground, sitting there, and I might just have easily not seen it. But I did see it and horseshoes are generally thought to be good omens. I don’t know if that will rile people up, me saying that something I saw is a good omen. Maybe that sounds superstitious. But well, perhaps it is a sign. Signs aren’t so controversial. Perhaps it is a sign that good things are coming.

And I would add: in addition to what has already come. Because, look: good things have already come.

Like, twice recently I’ve gotten called in for new shows from casting companies that I didn’t even know knew me. This is good. It’s a whole lot closer to a gig than dancing around my room in my underwear.

Speaking of underwear, sisters are such fine things, aren’t they? They really don’t mind you, underwear and all. Like tonight. I was all comfy downstairs when I remembered I left my phone upstairs. Drat. And I really couldn’t be bothered with pants, so I went upstairs as is. Jenna told me that she needed to give me a hug, since I was leaving for CA soon. I was like, “Is it a problem that I am not wearing pants?” And I think my mom said something like, “YOU’RE NOT WEARING PANTS?!” And Jenna said something like…Well, I can’t really write the words and no, it’s not because I am trying to censor her. It’s just because there were none. She simply hugged me. And I was like, “I guess not.”

And it’s weird, because I am leaving for the land of mountain lions and many poisonous snakes–at least that’s what the signs out there say–on Wednesday, but there’s so much to do before that happens, it’s hard to let my mind rest on that fact. But Wednesday will come and I will get done all that Monday and Tuesday require of me before that.

And I did see that horseshoe and whether you want to call it an omen or a sign or just a piece of metal that fell off a horse’s hoof, I am gonna believe that good things are on their way.

In addition to what has already happened, don’t forget.

And some of it is spelled T-A-X-E-S.

And some of it is spelled D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

And some of it is even spelled E-S-T-H-E-R. Um, lest you think that Esther is some chick that I need to do, let me explain.  I am referring to the rest of the music I need to write to go along with the script that my brother Jason has written for the church Easter musical.

But I took a bath tonight and it’s like all my energy went with the water once I unstopped the drain. Seriously, I was so tired that I didn’t even bother putting lotion on before hopping right into bed. And I’ve got the kind of dry skin that is at such a deficit that even a whole bottle of lotion would leave me still not quite as soft and silky as the average Joe. And there’s Joe with his nice and smooth skin and hardly even caring that it is, anyway; and here’s me with my skin that was only soft once in my whole life and that was the time that I almost died in bikram yoga, it was so hot and humid in there–and tell me, is this fair?

But then there are the small comforts that seem to leap out at you. Especially when you are tired. You know, finding a pair of clean and matching socks without even scouring your room for them.

And then there’s tonight when I reached into my underwear drawer and right there, sitting pretty at the top of the pile, was one of my absolute favorite pair to wear. Yellow and soft and huh, I wonder if this is TMI…oh well, it’s not like I’m saying it’s a thong or anything like that.

But despite that rush of extreme tiredness that about knocked me over, I smiled. And felt just a little bit happier. And I wonder how it is in a world where such horrifying things have recently happened to me,  effectively causing me to stop caring about most things, that I am now reduced to feeling happier because of some underwear. Or maybe it’s not reduced, maybe it’s that I am feeling a little better. And able to appreciate some details again–which is so different from just not caring.

Cause seriously, I had stopped caring. I’m sorry, but it’s true. When that horrid earthquake devastated Haiti it was hard to drum up a lot of feeling at all. I guess I was so busy taking inventory of my own self, wondering if there were any survivors deep inside, listening for some sounds of life, that I just couldn’t bring myself to think much about whatever was happening on the other side of the world. And don’t quote me on that–the other side of the world, I mean–I am admittedly bad at geography.

Haiti might very well be somewhere in Canada.

Okay, so I’m not that bad at geography. But pretty bad. Just today a dear friend and I were laughing about how, when we were growing up as some of the coolest home schoolers around, the subject of geography was covered by a silly little game called geosafari. I guess our moms just thought that fifteen minutes of that every few days oughtta do it. And if the fact that I recently asked a friend if Kentucky borders Pennsylvania doesn’t prove that little theory flat out wrong, I’m not sure what does. In my defense, however, I had heard someone say the word Pennsyltucky and so concluded that must mean that those two states touch at some point.

Oh, but they don’t. Just to be clear.

And yes, heart wrenching things have gone on and are continuing to go on, but there it is: a pair of underwear makes me happy. Or at least happier. And I don’t know quite what that says about the world and I don’t know quite what that says about me, but well, I’m grateful to be wearing one of my favorite pair of underwear.

I guess I’ll leave it at that tonight.