She is a singer/songwriter who performed at the Hotel Bar on Cahuenga Boulevard last night.

I don't get out much, and watching her, I was impressed that though she was young, she was so poised. Her diction was careful, her voice clear, her posture graceful.

And yet there was real passion in her performance. Up on stage, she rocked and swayed with the rhythms of "1492" and "Life Could Be." Working that smoothly tamed sensuality into her performance must have taken a lot of practice and discipline. I also liked her strong voice; she complimented her piano beautifully, without overpowering, and vice versa.

After seeing her performance, I was dying to go up to her and say hi.

But I'm shy. I talk fast, and it gets worse when I'm around someone I like. The joy of that person's presence just whooshes out into every syllable. My agitated words flow out in an unintelligible, anticlimactic torrent of blahness. I'd be ashamed if I did that in front of her.

But she completely rocked and there's no way I was going to come out all this way and not ask her for a photo. She actually beat me to the punch; as luck would have it, she is kind of nutty about polaroiding her fans.

After we each snapped a few, I noticed she had her albums stacked on a table: "In This Life, On This Road," and "Hail to the Queen." I'd listened to her over MySpace before, but after seeing her live, the idea of an actual disc with her songs on them took on a special power. It was as though she had personally burned and blessed each $5 disc she had on the table, and I was desperate for a holy token. Too bad I was broke.

I know it was wrong, and I didn't mean to say it, but moments later, while I was chatting with her again, out it came:

"I wish I hadn't spent my last 4 bucks on cheap beer."

She swiveled around and grabbed one of each album. Poised and smiling, she held them right in front of me.

A slightly awkward moment of silence...
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And then, still smiling, she said "If you wanna just take them, it's OK."

I rolled that around in my head a few times. I didn't want to appear crass. But her performance totally enthralled me, and I really really really really wanted to take her music home with me. Tonight.

I thought about it some more.
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"I'll owe you," I said.

She smiled again. She was totally cool with it.