Up at 3:30am

I never do this. Laying in bed, I'm thinking about the release of Crepusculo, my latest album, this summer. We're planning a tour from LA to Seattle and  I'm lying half awake with weird surveys I'm taking in my dreams, and names of friends in these cities circling my brain, and I think, should I spend this hour laying here frustrated or get up and send some emails? It feels good to just scratch the itch. I can nap tomorrow.

Except that when you get up in the middle of the night, when your eyes have been closed and look at the computer screen, it's impossibly bright.  I had to half cover my eyes for five minutes! The computer is so full of fake light, how can we look at it all day? 

In my half-awake state, I start thinking about sending this record to be reviewed, a process that's part rewarding, ego-boosting and part high-school, "am I popular?" - feeling.  I remember one review from the Portland Mercury where the guy spent 2 paragraphs talking about how there were birds on the cover of my album and birds were SO last year. Then he spent a couple sentences writing about the music, and how it was pretty good.

At the same time, I've never felt more like I don't need to read the reviews.  I love these songs, I love the artwork, I like my life, I get to play music, isn't this great? I get to play music!

So hopefully bitter Jess will stay home when we play this tour,  and happy Jess will be present as we open the paper, sitting at a pizza joint an hour before we play a show and read through local reviews, I hope I remember how good I have it, and let it be fun to read what these people I've never met have written about what I wrote. I hope I remember happy hours at my baby grand, with the window open, listening to the mockingbird outside as I play away...