My presentation topic is “newspaper street teams” and I’m sitting in a coffee shop at 10 p.m. in Columbia, Mo. while desperately searching Google for band flyers.

I’ve chosen a Creative Commons image of a small child with cigarette dangling from his lips, matches in his hand. “FREE BYOB” screams the flyer and it will be my introduction to this group of publishers and executives.

Around me are dozens of college students, shuffling papers, dragging trackpads and wasting time. This is better than my hotel room, though.

My girlfriend sends me a note: “you’re really going conversational, eh?” I mumble something about it being the only way to rise above the fray.

There are massive contradictions sitting side by side in this presentation. These land mines are how I work – a bomb planted to catapult me into Mr. Extrovert.

I sometimes speak to college students, but it’s always with expletives carefully exploited. A “damn” reference is retained this time, but nothing stronger.

There will be a confidence monitor tomorrow, ready to show me a typo forgotten and a good idea gone bad. Hook me up.