The "N" key on my laptop has suddenly begun to stick, and requires repeated taps before the letter appears. It irritates me and makes me feel vaguely hopeless, like this is just the start of my computer's death spiral. Also, I'm irritated because the word I wish to write about starts with an N: nightmare. As in, the one I had last night.

Actors experience a phenomenon known as the Actor's [tap tap tap] Nightmare, wherein the dreamer finds himself onstage in an unfamiliar play. It's very common, and I used to have it a lot when I was involved in theatre, a form of nightmare in itself. Last night, I experienced something I guess would be called the Musician's Nightmare. While I'm only marginally a musician, the prospect of this Friday's gig is apparently enough to start the wheels of horror turning in my sleeping brain. It was a vivid dream, seemingly hours long. Since there is, as you'll agree, nothing more fulfilling than hearing about the dreams of relative strangers, let me enlighten you!

Also, before I start, I should mention that I stayed in bed all day with a rotten flu or cold or something, so I'm slightly incapacitated, not that that should influence your decision of whether or not to abandon me while I tell this story.

My dream began at the club in which my band was scheduled to play--wholly fictive, with rows of seats and private boxes and all. For some reason, my band had invited two people to join us for the gig--one was my friend Moniquah's husband Kermit, the other some young girl. Instead of waiting for the rest of us to take the stage, Kermit and this girl ventured off into a free-form rock exploration, complete with extended spoken-word sections, ignoring our setlist and our eye rolls from the wings.

The audience grew restless, and I started to feel anxious that our time would run out and we'd have to concede the stage to the headliner. Eventually, we took the stage, to find that two band members had taken off to go shopping. My guitar came unstrung, and I called for a replacement from the audience. A guy reluctantly handed me an orange Danelectro of an unusual shape. It was a left-handed guitar, and when I began to play it, the strings turned into keys, leaving me with a Keytar, which is uncool, and which I don't know how to play.

The best part of the nightmare is that the audience remained very enthusiastic throughout the show, so I'm relying on that feeling to keep me psyched for the gig.

I am sorry. This isn't a very interesting entry. (UNLIKE ALL MY PREVIOUS ENTRIES!) Did I mention I have the flu? Yeah. I do. All I did today is drink orange juice and loll around watching re-runs of The Office, which allowed me to pretend that I was at work, and not because I so love John Krasinski and wish he was my secret work crush. I also worked on a first draft of "Call Me (When You're Old Enough To Drink)" that should prove a number-one hit on the country charts, once it is finished and recorded by one of the major stars on my short list.

And so you see that even in my infirmity, I remain a Highly Effective Person. Learn from my examples, children. Watch, and learn.

Star of the day. . .Luka Bloom