Last Saturday night I played guitar, both solo and accompanying my friend Rob Balder, at a gig at Balticon, a sci-fi/fantasy/gaming convention in Baltimore. It was not one of my best performances. Rob and I did a new arrangement of a tune we had done before, and it never hit its stride, it felt slow and square. Another tune I sang well but my guitar work was kind of iffy, it was the first time I’d done it in front of an audience. (I did a fine job on one song, where all I did was play guitar instead of having to sing as well, and I just executed the song.)

I can pick out greater and lesser reasons for my struggles.