I had my first "gig" tonight, and made $225. Ooh, I would love to just stop the entry like this and leave you to guess what I did for the money. But I'm too longwinded to do that.

I played piano at my friend Tiff's mom's wedding in Rochester this afternoon. I played about 20 minutes of music prior to the wedding, Pachelbel's Canon while the bridesmaids strolled in, and the wedding march for the bride. I then played for about half an hour during the dinner.

I was pleasantly surprised when nobody really listened to me, even while I played during the wedding itself. Not only were people talking while I played, they were yelling and cackling and chortling to each other. This was great news for me given my immense stage fright. My hands were literally trembling when I started to play, even though only two people were in the room at the time. Pathetic.

Having a complete absence of audience, I was able to make mistakes in contended bliss, mistakes that would normally cause me to hate myself and lead me to develop a mantra for the drive home reminding me what a lousy pianist I am. I even fumbled my way through a few of my own arrangements of songs... a little BeeGees, a little Carole King.

But nobody cared. Or could hear enough to care. Some day I might be a good enough player to actually take offense when people don't listen to the mastery with which I tackle "Air on a G String". (Bach didn't write it for strippers, by the way.) But for now I delight in playing amidst a roaring din of noise, especially when I am handed a sealed envelope at the end of the night with a pat on the shoulder and a vague, mumbled thank-you for "making our wedding so special."

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In other news, I watched the movie "Pay It Forward" as I got ready this morning.

In writing this statement, I am attempting to absolve myself of the sin of wasting my semi-precious time on such a piece of fluffy, vomitorious refuse.