So much for my theory of the Elks...

It wasn't a truly bad show, it just wasn't very good--the crowd was thin and not entirely sure what to make of yours truly, the mic kept cutting out, and performance space was just weird. A lone snackbar chair in the middle of a linoleum expanse with track lighting.

Ah, experience.

The best part is I don't feel bad about it, just, "Oh well, it just wasn't my night." Am very pleased to be so sanguine about it, and am glad to not feel bruised today (that has happened in the past).

Oh, and the french fries (I'll save the sweet potato fries for another day) at the Wagon Wheel were the best I have ever had in my life--and I've had lots of fries in my day, let me tell you. The burger was burnt--and while I've managed to enjoy burnt burgers in my day as long as they were covered in lots of ketchup, lettuce, and tomato--this burger was burnt beyond the usual repair.

But I still ate it.

I don't know what that's about (Grandchild of the Depression Syndrome, perhaps? Hunger?), but my friend Holly, also a rather non-assertive Midwesterner, was moved to return her burger for a refund.

My goddess, I'm less assertive than another Midwesterner? That's like a few steps from spinelessness.

However, Holly's beau Dave also ate his whole burnt burger, and was going to eat the charred remains of Holly's if she wasn't going to return it, so I don't feel so bad. And Holly did announce, frequently, in case I missed it, that she was "In a mood." A mood in which you tell everyone exactly what you're thinking.

Yeah, so maybe she was a Midwesterner in a fleeting feisty phase (say that five times fast)--that may have been it.

So maybe I'm not as wimpy as all that; maybe I've just got a healthy appetite. Or? (Never mind, I know what you're thinking.)

As for the future, I'm off to Worcester tonight, to try out a "new" (well, for us) open mic with my comedy buddy Jennifer. Who knows what's ahead--a great new place to perform, a terrible new place to avoid like the plague, a new story? That's just a few of the possibilities--we shall see!

This a.m., I heard that Phyllis Diller, perhaps the first woman comic I ever saw (or was it Minnie Pearl? I can't remember--my earliest days are a blur), has an autobiography out. The title is something about being a lampshade in a whorehouse, and I can't wait to find out what that's about. She was on NPR this morning, and it was beyond good to hear her laugh--that laugh was the salvation of more than a few of her near-misses, but more often, the icing on top of her countless wonderful creations. Miss Diller's 88 and retired from the stage, but still coming up with priceless material: She told a joke about women with facelifts that I will cherish for a very long time--gives this relatively young comic all sorts of hope.

As for NPR, my hope is running thin--they did a piece this morning about a series of articles in a Kansas paper that tried to rebut "What's Wrong with Kansas?" the book that discusses the bizarre voting practices of people who ultimately have little to gain--and a lot to lose--from their picks.

Ah, the poor regressives were feeling picked upon, so they came up with a "Nothing's Wrong with Kansas" campaign, that focused on local talents like a woman who whistles, a guy who makes sourdough bread, and other contributing members of society.

Ah, people--what the hell does whistling have to do with picking representatives who send the Bill of Rights rights packing at the first signs of trouble? How does making good sourdough bread make it okay that your reps are sending your kids to die in a war that was based on lies and is a recruiting vehicle for terrorists worldwide? Where does "nothing wrong" square with your government's plans to hand big pieces of your Social Security over to financial institutions who may or may not handle it wisely? In fact, may leave you scrambling to make ends meet when you're least likely to be able to do so? Will the sourdough bread guy be there to feed you, when the time comes?

Oh dear, I'm in a mood myself. Didn't help that I ran into a friend at Dog Heaven this a.m. who is convinced the religious nuts--Christian and Muslim--are going to kill us all in a final, bloody war. She found out she might have diabetes and wasn't feeling exactly upbeat, shall we say, so I suggested she go see "Mad Hot Ballroom." It won't change the largely terrible state of the world, but it might just give her some hope.

And as long as we've got hope.....

Ah, I've got a set list to write (you're pardoned if you're relieved). Better quit pontificating and get typing.