Nervous? Who, me? Of course I am...

"I always feel pressure. If you don't feel nervous, that means you don't care about how you play. I care about how I perform."
~ Tiger Woods

Okay, I'm no Tiger Woods (my teeth arent ginormous). But I can relate to his quote on nerves and/or pressure.

You see, I am emcee-ing my brother-in-law's wedding this Friday, and to be honest, I'm a little nervous.

Nerves are natural, etc, etc -- blah blah... but for this cat - they are not usually an issue. Unlike 87% of the world's population, I do not have an issue with public speaking. I enjoy it acutally. I thrive on it. I love it. Maybe its just my ego's way of getting what it needs - as you are never more the center of attention than when you are the sole man at a microphone at a family wedding.

I have emceed (is that even a friggin word?) a few weddings prior to this one, so I pretty much know what to expect and how to conduct myself - but as this one fast approaches, I find myself lying awake at night hashing over the program and going over jokes again and again and again.

Am I confident? Abso-fucking-lutely. There will not be a single person in attendance on Friday night that would be able to do a better job than I can. I'm serious. Does that make me sound cocky? Maybe - but its the truth.

But that still doesnt prevent me from asking myself questions repeatedly:

Is this funny?
Does that flow correctly?
Should I leave this part out?
Hows my timing on that joke?
This isnt too offensive, is it?
Is this funny?


Now, this mental scrambling is human nature I guess... but, as I said, I really havent been this nervous before... maybe its the fact that its a family wedding (my wife's family - but family nonetheless)... maybe its the fact that I really want to do a great job for my brother-in-law and his new beautiful bride... actually...

I think the main reason I am suffering with a little case of the nerves this time is because - well, this is my 4th trip as an emcee, and it is getting really really hard to come up with new material... re-using jokes is not an option for me, as I know that I am far too talented to fall back on an old bit, and also, all of our friends will be in attendance - so they have heard them all before...

So, like I said - the pressure is on... but like Tiger... I thrive on that pressure...

I'll be damn sure to bring the funny on Friday night - and I'll be back here tooting my own horn come Monday morning...

So, until that time -- don't let your meat loaf....