Dayton Ohio Rhythm

Sound check was at 7pm.
Show started at 8pm.
I didnt know what time i was scheduled to go on, but i had already forewarned my contact that i would arrive shortly after 7pm due to my day job.....I think I had tweeted or maybe facebook’d the eery calm I had over me that day.  Usually I’m butterflied up and super nervous, but this day, I was chill the entire day.  I was excited, I was ready but I was calm.  unusually calm.  That kind of calm makes me nervous.
We got to Dayton right at 8pm.  I wasn’t too worried about missing soundcheck because I’m a poet….I don’t really NEED to sound check.  I can just back up or scoot closer to the mic; depending on which is necessary.  I had let my guard down.  We were ten minutes tops, and that includes time getting lost, from the venue.  I knew it was being held in the Dayton Convention Center.  We were on our way…until…..
red lights.
left lane…..right lane….both middle lanes…..there were red lights every where…..as far as the eye could see around the bending highway, brake lights were at a standstill.  This was unbelievable.  We were stuck in non-moving traffic.  I franticly begin to txt my contact to keep her posted, as this was my first trip to Dayton.  This was her first time seeing me perform live, and she was going solely off the word of a fellow poet.  Although she had been able to view a few videos online, I think she was still a little worried about bringing someone she didn’t know and hadn’t heard of, to a show as big as The Signature.  So I can’t say I blame her.  But on my end, the traffic was starting to stress me out and unravel my poetic confidence that I had managed to hang on, despite a semi-troubling conversation I had about messing up my poems.  That has always been a weak point of mine. 
In the car, we kept the conversation moving and laughing, while trying not to go too far in depth about the fact that we were not moving.  An hour later, after going approx. ONE mile, I convinced my “driver” to get off on the strange exit we were in front of.  We took it, found a main street, and I became relieved.  I sent a text and let my contact know I was back in route and things were looking up.  we got all the way downtown and missed one turn, according to GPS, and spent the next hour and half lost. 
Every time we asked for directions or sought help, we seemed to encounter only the non-hospitable people of Dayton, who would respond in ways that let us know if we were going to find where we were going, it would not be because of them.  One guy, after ignoring us for a few minutes, told us straight up, “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, and I ain’t telling you nothing.” Nuff said. 
We went to the wrong place twice.  The one person that did offer us help, helped us to the wrong building, but it wasn't her fault and at least she tried.  We got turned around, rerouted and confused.  In the doorway of one venue, which turned out to be the usual venue for The Signature, just not THIS night, I had to break down and cry.  I was embarrassed.  I didn’t want to make the person that brought me feel bad or feel like any of this was her fault, but the stress had hit a level inside of me that had me wanting to turn around and go home.  I had to let some of it out.  I just sat and cried real quick, stood up and left.  After speaking with my contact, whom I had just sent the text "we're here", we found out we were STILL about three streets over from where we needed to be. 
We tried again.  But once again, we were turned around and lost.  Come to find out, I had the wrong address in the GPS the entire time.  But even when I put in the Convention Center, we were taken thru a residential neighborhood, over a highway and back on the street we had ORIGINALLY arrived downtown from.  By then my contact was calling and she was frustrated and I could tell thru her voice.  I tried to keep my business face on, and to sound unlike the dumb blonde I felt like I looked like and told her what streets we were passing.  She suggested I ask someone for directions and it was all I could do to keep from screaming in the phone.  I’m so happy to be a mild mannered person who usually attempts to think about what she says before saying it.  In my head I was thinking “I’m not asking any more people from here for a damn thing!”….I was frustrated, I had broken down and felt defeated.  I expected to either wind up coming all this way for nothing or making it and bombing miserably on stage.  My mind was in a break fast scramble. And just when I saw signs pointing us towards the convention center, she told me I had five minutes to get there because I was on stage next.  Unknowingly, we were still about a mile away from the venue. 
It was official.
I had been thrown completely off my rhythm. 
And the blues were written all over my face.