Luckily, the French aren't a critical people

Tomorrow, I'll be playing at the French Embassy, with my friend Mark. We have yet to practice for this performance and it's increasingly looking like we are going to wing it--a plan that doesn't seem to bother Mark. I'm a little concerned, myself.

That's because Mark is steeped in the debauched worlds of rock and jazz, whereas I spent 13 years playing in orchestras and other classical ensembles--groups that tend to have a hardcore attitude about rehearsing. In college orchestra, for instance, we'd practice for an entire semester to prepare for a single performance. As a result, I felt pretty relaxed on the night of that concert. Even if I completely blanked, it wouldn't be a disaster--I was be just one violinist in a sea of thirty, and right in front of me was sheet music that detailed every single note I was supposed to play.

Compare that to the plan for Friday: There I'll be one of precisely two people on stage, and I'll be relying on some dark corner of my brain to come up with the notes. (No wonder rock stars are drunks.)

Unfortunately, my neurons have a checkered past when it comes to clutch-situation performances. Yes, brain, I am still mad about that 6th grade class debate. I'd prepared for weeks, writing animals-rights organizations, digesting their rhetoric and practicing in front of my two golden retreivers. On debate day, I came armed with index cards of arguments and piles of harrowing, factory-farm images. As Ghant--my arch-nemesis--gave his opening salvo, I sat on the edge of my seat, ready to convert everyone to vegetarianism. But when it came time for me to talk, my brain decided that the best course of action would be to cry. On closed-circut TV. In front of the entire middle school.

Don't worry, I probably won't break down in front of the French tomorrow. I am 15 years older, much more confident, and my skin problems have cleared up. The free Champaign will help too.