It's been quite a week. I sit here in my hotel room taking it easy tonight. The other guys are going out for a night in the windy city. I'm taking it easy because my throat is in it a bit of pain. I really must be careful not to over do it and today I had a pretty long-winded interview prior to the show. Normally it would be fine, but when your vocal chords have shut down and they are unnaturally being used before they are allowed to heal normally, you gotta be careful and baby them a little.

But there is one thing I think I need to make clear. I don't feel bad. I don't feel ill. I'm not sad. I'm actually quite good humored about the whole thing. I may be quiet and not very talkative, which is annoying and some people may misinterpret that like I'm in a mood. But I'm not upset about any of it. In fact in can be quite funny trying to mime what you want to say or really react to people's comments in a non-verbal way. So I feel good. I'm excited and happy to be here where we are and doing what we are doing. I just know that if I want to deliver every night and really give people my best, I gotta take it easy with things right now outside of the performance. I hope none of the people who come to meet us after our set take it the wrong way and think I don't want to talk to them. In my mind I'm screaming "I'm really quite personable!!!" I really love being able to put my heart out there every night. If anything, this whole experience has been really heart-warming. Normally, I wait until the end of the tour to get all mushy on the people who have accompanied on us tour. But so many people have been so wonderful showing their concern. From Gas, Burton, and Linde in HIM, I've been getting the status check up every day just simply asking how the voice is coming back. The fact that any of these guys take time out of their day to be concerned about lil' ol' me says something about the character of this band. Then you have their entire crew really just being so good to us since we were in Europe with them all. They are all such wonderful people to be around and have also gone above and beyond in being helpful towards all of us in Dommin. We've also become acquainted with the other bands on this tour: Drive A and We Are The Fallen. All of them full of cool people are a joy to be around. We had to share a dressing room today and to tell you the truth, I hope we are forced to do it again. I like the camaraderie on tour. Then we have the boys in Dommin. I'm so proud of the guys. They've really stepped it up. Not only have they been going out there every night and kicking ass with me every night, but they've helped be my voice when I haven't had much of one. It's really a pleasure to be sharing the stage with these guys every night. So hell, I don't know why I'm getting like this right now...maybe I'm PMSing... All I know is I feel good and I think that part of it is due to the really great professional people I am surrounded by on this tour. And it is great to know, that this is only the beginning. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other in the future. It seems to be the nature of this small rock 'n' roll world.

So as I sit here in my hotel room, putting all this into perspective and thinking about the many ways I'm blessed, I can't wait to see what the rest of the tour brings. Something tells me it's going to go by very fast. So I'll keep trying to remind my stubborn self to take it easy and keep my mouth shut. I guess that's all for now. I probably should have been asleep two hours ago...good night world!