At 8am this morning, there was a woman standing outside of my apartment building. Apparently, she was trying to contact someone inside. I have determined this because she kept looking up at the 3rd floor and shouting "Fluffy! FLUFFY!"

At 8am. Classy.

Or maybe she was just wandering around shouting adjectives. She may have moved to another building, and chosen a new word. Perhaps 'Stinky.' It would be like the worst performance art ever.

Or perhaps the best.

Anyway. Hi there. Good morning.

I had my last singing class last night. It was so incredibly fun. I could scarcely be more pleased with the way it turned out.

Like I said before, the song I had chosen to sing to my classmates was 'Twist and Shout.' I had been practicing it all week, and I got the guitar part down pretty well. Not that it's difficult, being three chords and all. But, since I was going to be doing this for actual living humans, and not just the wannabe rockstar I see in my mirror, I wanted it to be good.

It fucking rocked!

Well, maybe that's going a bit far. My guitar chops aren't the smoothest. I can play rhythm passably, but you'll never see me on stage noodling out an incredible solo.

It was really fucking fun, though. Really fun.

When it was my turn to go, I grabbed the guitar and stood up in the center of the room. A semi-circle of my classmates surrounded me. I was incredibly nervous, just as each of my classmates who had gone before me admitted they were. Everyone was going to get two chances to sing through their songs, though, so even if I completely flubbed my first attempt, all was well.

I had a false start or two. I finally got the key right, and off I went. I was doing it. For the first time in my life, I was singing and playing guitar in front of people I barely knew. And it felt incredible.

I was involuntarily swaying back and forth on my hips as I played. That wasn't the way I practiced it. My body had a mind of it's own. I was striking all the dumb little rockstar poses I absorbed from nearly two decades of MTV.

I got to the climax of the song. If you've ever heard the version where John Lennon goes absolutely monkeyfucking crazy, then you know exactly what I did. Amazingly, I managed to get back on key afterwards.

My classmates were going nuts. Laughing, clapping. I felt like I was looking down on myself from three feet above me. I felt the same way I do during improv. It's like you feel like you're simultaneously controlling every atom in the universe and still have no idea what's going to happen next. I was out of my mind and loving it.

Somewhere during the last 16 bars or so, my pick shattered. It snapped me back into reality. I can honestly say that, without missing a beat, I turned the now oval shaped piece of plastic to the side and continued to play.

I finished the song. Much clapping. I felt exultant.

The teacher gave me a few notes, and asked me to play the song again. This time, I was a lot more relaxed, and slowed it down a bit, really trying to play for the sake of craftsmanship and singing this time. It didn't feel quite as amazing, but the second time through was a lot more solid than my first.

Wow. It was great, people. So fun.

I don't know if it's cool or not to talk about how much fun it is to play rock and just take pleasure from the sheer rush of performance. I hardly ever hear musicians talk that way. I don't know why that is, as, to me, it's pretty much the most incredible aspect of it all.

The reason this whole singing class was so important to me was because singing and music does not come naturally to me at all. It's stuff I have to work on to be good at, and I usually don't bother with something if I'm not good at it right away.

I live so much of my life up in my head. That's probably part of the reason I like performing in improv and acting, because they give me a chance to act on pure instinct, to get up and do something without second guessing it. To just be and do and feel 100% alive and pure in that moment.

Oh, the sincerity of it all! It really is a good feeling, though, and it makes me so very, very happy. That's what last night was for me. A complete abandonment of rational thought, and an embrace of gut level instinctual madness. And I want to do it again.

And it wasn't until two or three minutes after I sat down that I realized that a large section of skin on my middle finger was somewhere else, and no longer on my middle finger.

Rock n' roll.

Now, I have to go to work and be very much not a rockstar. I will, however, be about an hour late.

If that isn't rock n' roll enough, maybe I'll knock someone out for no reason.