Monday, March 30, 2009

a list of things to remember, dr. lanny latham style.

  1. Be confident
  2. Remember what you do best
  3. Have fun
  4. Make the move
  5. Drink plenty of fluids
  6. Be confident
cross blogged from my tumblr, sorry internet.

Friday, March 27, 2009

an update made of nerves and adrenaline, fashioned on a skeleton of confidence.

signed up for a harold audition slot, and again a slew of awesome people picked the same slot after me so i have a great group to go in there with. i am really excited to grab dinner and chill with them beforehand, and then get all warmed up and head into the audition room. we are 9:10 friday evening, and the group consists of myself, dave beezy bluvband, matt little, steven slate, drew nelson, sarah claspell, adam bozarth and jeremy bent! what a group! fun. looking 'forward' to that. i am actually looking forward to playing with them, not at all looking forward to the 3~ weeks after 9:30 friday night, which will suck to varying degrees no matter what.

in conclusion, a list of things i am potentially obsessing about:
(i.e. i could be obsessing but am not necessarily actively obsessing)

harold audition
general harold night changes unrelated to my own position therein(/out?) (oh no change!)
my maude audition
new roommate (oh no change!)
sister visiting (oh no, other person in my space / grill!)
a party in brooklyn (out of comfort zone)
the chrononauts
the show i am trying to finish writing and submit
what i am going to do about the lorelei
will hines 600
my laundry
returning some clothes
wearing a dress
skin/face/body
work stuff (expense reports oh no!)

that might be it.

<3 u, internet.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

not cool

i want to write about meeting my heroes, not falling on the damnable sidewalk!

congrats, gethard. that's literally the coolest thing ever. jealous.

when first typing that, i first wrote 'songrats', which kind of works, and then 'congreats', which works a little better.

i am tired. i am already sick of these jeans. it's going to be a long day. harold night sold out like a week and a half ago, so i will have to run out after new team harold to wait in the standby line, which sucks. it only sucks cause i am a whiny baby and i miss being an intern.

bought a new scarf. ANOTHER ONE. it was on sale though.

can it be spring now, plz?

Monday, March 23, 2009

falling

i tripped on the smallest, most pathetic sidewalk imperfection on saturday - full on spill, scraped my knees, palms out splayed on the sidewalk. LAME TOWN. even more frustrating was that i was with friends. some people might prefer to be a friendly, sympathetic face when in pain, but not me. like a dying elephant, i want to be alone to lick my wounds and pretend everything is fine. however, i surprised myself by not crying this time. had my palms been scraped up to the point of bleeding i probably would have cried, but it was on the edge just before that. i actually really thought i was going to hit my face on the sidewalk too. that would have sucked. although i have a weird fantasy about getting a black eye or scraped up face and pretending it's no big deal, but really letting people know how much of a bad ass i am.

that was weird. but true.

i later fell UP the subway stairs. that same night. i haven't fallen in new york ever, not in sleet and ice rain, or snow or iced over cobblestones downtown. or even down my uneven and rarely salted apartment stairs. and then twice in one night? not drunk. what the eff? i am blaming it 50% on the boots i was wearing (even though i wore them all winter) and 50% on probable lou gehrig's disease.

i can feel the nerves hovering, spinning, circling like a whole frenzy of sharks, right above my head. which is strange because you'd think the image would be below my feet. but it's not. above me. but fuck them! i shall continue to ignore them as long as possible.

somewhat conversely, i am trying to let myself truely feel things as they happen, and not just try to control myself and my reactions. it's 1) not healthy 2) bad for my improv and 3) i am not very good at it. i can control my attitude, not my reactions. oh AND it's a waste of energy and fuck that in the face. a phrasing that came up in conversation later in the night on saturday was that i need to say yes to me first, before i can say yes onstage. that's a pathetically improv-specific way of saying 'be content with yourself', but that's how i am packaging it to myself now. i am trying.

the lorelei was fun last night! the chrononauts had our first new, official show, which was fun and a bit crazy, but overall a good experience. can't wait to get some rehearsing in! 1872, and not a year we had before. good stuff. karate parade was fun, brought a mom. always entertaining. daystallion (bleastallionlinetv) had a SUPER fun show, and it was great to see them for the first time in a while. my stand up was okay to mediocre. the band that had the room at 9:30 got to the space at 7:30 and then decided to sit at the very front table, judging me and pretty much stay stony-faced the whole time. YAY i love that shit, except the opposite of that. it was really odd. but yeah, was a fun night regardless. i am considering leaving the parkside though... as much as i love the space, and i have had my show there for going on 3 years now, the turnover has just gotten ridiculous. it was a great space because of the people i worked with there. the current bartendars crank the music up to a ridiculous volume out front, and it's just not tenable for a some-percentage-will-be improv show. don't know what else to do, but it's something i am unfortunately thinking about. blergh change is for losers who like losing at things!

sister might come up for the weekend, which would be awesome. parties and comedy and all sorts of other fun things with my awesome sister. NICE.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

i think

she may have made my bourbon and coke with FUCKING CRAZY juice and coke. i am freaking out right now. there is no reason to have the energy i have right now.

unfortunately it's not an... 'active' energy... i am just sitting on the couch vibrating gently. this is bullshit!

guess i'm up for a while longer. sigh.

when i say 'sigh', really i mean 'aaaghghhahahhaahhaghvrfehgwnksnc as-fajr seihfkls'.

Friday, March 20, 2009

things

unacceptable:
your father friending you on facebook
grandmothers popping on gchat unexpectedly when you have a status message about cocks (even if it was a quote from a legitimate british television show)
excessive nerves
incredibly rude assholes talking loudly during the end of a show because their show is next and they think they should already have been able to get onstage (NOT FUCKING TRUE, DICKWADS).
negative thought spirals

acceptable:
the F train
breakfast
work

awesome:
friends
comedy
conversations about the following: comedy, other friends, ayn rand and the ridiculousness therein, die hard, college
books
walking around
improv comedy
cagematch
bars
new friends
comedy
the word shmugadoos
sean hart
comedy... wrestling!
cagematch shows

okay i will stop. friday! focus! expense reports!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

don't panic

it's beautiful outside. utterly gorgeous. i wish i was at home so i could throw some windows open.

last night was preposterous amounts of fun. had a great last class with christina gausas' 2 person scenes class. such a great group of people, and despite being skilled, funny people before the class, we all bonded and ALL became... MUCH MUCH MUCH better improvisors. it was an astonishing transformation from everyone. i will post some more specific stuff i learned tonight, but i have finally gotten the impetus to have a permanent attitude adjustment, i think. towards positivity, and fostering that amongst my friends and peers. SUPPORT IN EVERYTHING!

after class got out, i made a short detour to drop off my maude actor submission thingy, and then to a liquor store for some fancy jim beam whiskey, gristedes for a fancy bottle of coke, and then to wait in line to see if we'd be let into o'harold night (no). however, i dealt with it by getting pleasantly drunk and fucking around with friends in line. then the show ended about a half hour before anyone expected and various people were poured out of the theatre (hope everyone is okay today, hugs all) and we were eventually told to bugger off since the mono y mono show had been post-poned. then we attemtped to scale mount mcmanus-on-st. patricks day but rapidly thought better of it and headed to the ever-so-lovely flight 151 and whiled away a few hours with equally lovely company. all in all, a most successful evening.

didn't sleep much, but work started fine. some focusing issues, but mostly good. however, in the afternoon, harold team auditions were announced. heart immediately began thumping in my chest, trying to escape maybe. ugh. i am going to try to chronicle my experiences this year, since i tend to gloss over a lot of what is really going on in my life in this blog, in the interests of some weird notion of privacy, or fear, or whatever. silly things. i want a record for my own purposes! anyway, that's happening soon. should be interesting. before that mind-fucking madness, i have several awesome shows this weekend to look forward too, an awesome party next weekend AND a potential little-sister visit AT THE SAME TIME, and general awesomeness spread equitably therein.

it's really, finally spring time. and i love it.

Monday, March 16, 2009

monday? really?

god fuck monday. this is miserable. i found it basically impossible to wake up this morning. sucked.

--caffeine+calories injection--

positives:
okay, i am making some progress on the stack of expenses i have to process today. and accidentally spending twice as much time on my hair this morning seems to actually have helped, since i my hair looks decent. i just need to accept that the length is terrible for curls right now and i need to plan on blowing it out. and that i need a flat brush because the round brush i have is infuriating. i also actually put make up on as well, let's see if this works to trick my self confidence into kick-starting. like pushing a standard transmission car until it gets to 35 miles an hour. same dif!

we have a 2 hour long company wide meeting starting at 3:30 today. i hope i shouldn't be nervous about it anything. boo economy!

i hope this week is 75% more awesome than last week.

time for $1.90 pepperoni pizza special! boo yeah!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

could i revive within me her symphony and song?

my cat and i are sitting next to one another on the couch, facing each other, both nearly asleep with our heads propped awkwardly to one side.

i win though, i am wearing my best sweatshirt. BLOCK ISLAND FOR LYFE!

day 2 of zicam. i think it's working. most of the time, it feels like i am having a cold in fast forward, and then i occasionally get sorta dizzy and whatever i am looking at looms strangely large in my field of vision. fascinating!

i had such a lovely night on friday. teched the rogue elephant show, every group was really fun so i was able to find them good black outs. then we went to the bar, and i had literally dozens of excellent and fun and interesting conversations with new and old friends. what! my perfect night!

my sister is awesome. i called her up before the show on friday and figured out that she had been the jerk who'd gotten me sick, and she gave me two little gems:
1) wait, i can't get you sick before i show any symptoms, can i?
(katey: um... i am pretty sure that is the point of illness.)
2) is it bad to go drinking after taking robitussin night-time?
(katey: alexis... that's how like... um... a bunch of hip hop artists died. i think it's called getting crunk.)

i returned some shirts to uniqlo today, and ended up finding a pair of jeans i actually liked and fit well. they were under a sign that said $19.95, so i just grabbed them. the woman at the register was like 'you know these are 2 for $49.95, right? and i was like 'yeah', thinking that made sense. dumb face. i guess i need to go back and get another pair, because as of right now, i have stupidly paid double for a pair of jeans.

finally, a difference between me and douglas has appeared: i rarely clean my arm with my ear / vice versa while napping. success!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

song to the siren

long afloat on shipless oceans
i did all my best to smile
til your singing eyes and fingers
drew me loving to your isle
and you sang
sail to me
sail to me
let me enfold you
here i am
here i am
waiting to hold you

did i dream you dreamed about me?
here you hare when i was fox?
now my foolish boat is leaning
broken lovelorn on your rocks,
for you sing, touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow:
o my heart, o my heart shies from the sorrow

i am puzzled as the newborn child
i am troubled at the tide:
should i stand amid the breakers?
should i lie with death my bride?
hear me sing, swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you:
here i am, here I am, waiting to hold you

-tim buckley (not jeff buckley, as i had originally blogged here; this is a song written by his father, who also died at a shockingly young age (28)).

i am addicted to root beer

lately, i can't go a few days without buying some sexy brown glass bottle, claiming to have the best, freshest, most herbal rootbeer imaginable. i don't know why. i will settle for national brands, but for some reason, bodegas throughout the city seem to be prejudiced against barq's so i hardly see it. A&W is acceptable, but just barely. maine root beer is good, abita root beer is acceptable, virgil's is great, stewart's is good, but colored by the knowledge that their birch beer is better and available in only 2 locations in manhattan... that i have found so far, anyway.

someone schedule the dumbest intervention ever, please. i am off to go to hale and hearty for lunch just so i can buy a bottle of boylan's to go with.

i was wrong

the other movie i was even MORE scared of was 'the last unicorn', because there was a talking skeleton that tried to get drunk and it scared the shit out of me. so that and backdraft. i don't think i even saw all of backdraft, but it was enough to scare the shit out of me.

annoyed with my hair.

i have an idea for a poem.

i feel frustrated and blank and stupid but also totally fine and content with pretty much everything in my life, and even excited by some things. mercurial forevah!!1

i have a bunch of stuff i should be working on. might take the day off tomorrow so i can do laundry and also get some work done. probably won't though.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

transistioning

i like being asleep. i like being awake. it's the transition between the two that i can't get right.

this is a cover of jeff buckley song, song to the siren, by (gasp!) david gray. i just stumbled across this earlier today... it's so fucking beautiful. check it out:

right click, save as

my sister might come visit this weekend. i think it would be awesome if she did.

okay, lunch time.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

oh, it was 'bright lights'

how apt.

disparate thoughts, mayhaps a common thread

have you have found yourself drawing in those deep, shuddering breaths common after a desperate cry, but with no memory of such a cry?

today, i felt like a functional, responsible adult for the first time in probably a year. maybe ever. i didn't procrastinate once, i ate responsibly and at reasonable intervals, mailed my tax forms, and paid several bills. fancy! i even had enough stamps!

it's gloriously liberating to do a scene and worry not even one bit about game or finding a game. it's strange how much that low level dread and worry and anxiety to FIND a game has been filtering in and choking my scenes and reactions. there is a douglas adams quote relevant here, i will find the exact phrasing later.

i forgot about matchbox 20 for awhile. then, tonight, i had one line refrain from some matchbox song and i couldn't, for the life of me, figure out which. so i listened to them all the way home, and remembered why i used to listen to them so much. maybe a little heavy handed and occasionally simplistic, but for the most part, i really love rob thomas' songwriting (and singing) and i think they are really fun as a band. they will be reintegrating into my line up.

it's silly and exhausting to me to worry about whether or not what i am doing is 'art' or a 'hobby' or a casual pursuit or a social network... it's art. i have decided and i will not be made to feel shitty or weird about. i'm not in 7th grade anymore.

it's time to find things to have joyous adoration of; and then share them with one another. those are the things we love about one another; the things WE love. vent, yes; bitch, no. i promise to do it as well. plan on hearing 100% more stories about my sister, music i like, concerts i have been to, comedy scenes i love and british authors.

Monday, March 2, 2009

a long one.

fun weekend! friday was a great show at the old ucb, featuring one of the beast krompf shows i have ever seen (suggestion: california). then i grabbed a drink at mcmanus with a lovely lady from my time capsule class; we exchanged stories about growing up and getting into improv, then RAN INTO A GIRL I GREW UP WITH. and not just anyone i half remember, a girl i went to pre-school with, who was one of the 'cool kids' who thought i was a weird asshole, then she became somehow less cool and joined my group of friends in HS... and she still thought i was a weird asshole. it's somehow uncouth to remember all that shit, i think, but i remember it. like it or not, ms. griffin, you had a big influence on the person i am now. anyway, it was really weird, and i was a little tipsy, but at least i looked fucking awesome, etc, etc. also she was married. weird!

anyway, we headed over to the current UCB to see the amazing thank you, robot anniversary show. 5 dudes performed as well. eugene and gethard had a staring contest for about 2/3's of the set, and it was amazing. then gethard gave TYR a really sweet introduction, and thank you, robot came out and had an amazing show as well. i gave them the suggestion of 'marriage', and they had a fucking great, varied and super-fun set. it was awesome. then they did a quick mash-up which was also great. i love how great all my friends of 'my' improv generation have become. we are all so good! gah it makes me happy! then we went out to the bar, and i got slightly more drunk, and i hung out with my friendssss for another 4 hours! as several people noted, i was kind of manic, and everyone else was tired, but obviously i can't really help that so i just had fun!

yesterday i went to see coraline with ms. rubanova. we had an adventure, and ended up seeing it at the zeigfield on 54th. it's a gorgeous theare, i am glad i 'found out' about it. coraline was... decent. it really was gorgeous and fun and beautiful. the story felt lacking, somehow. i haven't read the book in probably almost 2 years, and i remember it being better than that. i will have to read it again, i think.

then i ran to the village lantern to perform in the action pals show at 7 with irritated max (phil weintraub and myself). it was really fun! 2 man improv is really interesting to do. i would have expected it to be really tiring and hard, but it isn't tiring at all really. part of that is because i am working with phil, who is utterly delightful and totally brilliant. but there is something really fun and relaxing about not being able to WATCH and JUDGE a show you are in; you are only in it. and it's relaxing because you know no one else is going to come off the back line and change or take that fun away. you can just have fun. i think our irritated max shows end up fairly silly as a result, but i am okay with that. hopefully we will be able to keep doing shows and improving. the rest of that show was really fun as well. great teams.

then i teched 'moor der', L, D & The Scientist's show at the red room. as much as that space is wicked awkward and not that fun, the show WAS really fun. one thing that really struck me during SOCK (puppet-prov) and L, D's set was how incredibly lucky we in the improv community are; we get to see our friends SHINE onstage in front of unsuspecting audience members. that's pretty uncommon, really; unless you work with your friends... but even then it is different. it is just transcendant and awesome. it just makes me really happy to see. we went to the telephone bar because grassroots was even more packed than normal, and it was a blast! i hadn't been in ages, but they added cool couches and it was a blast. then i embarrassed myself in front of jason sudekis and did a little grocery shopping.

now i need to go get coffee and eventually go watch the oscars and definitely not at all play werewolf at bluvband's. FUN!

_______
that's all from sunday. i had a little freak out when i got home so i decided not to post that and almost deleted it entirely, but instead i just went to bed. might as well update from monday through today.

gods MONDAY SUCKED! it was a haze of busy suckiness. everyone needed something right then all the time, all while i had other projects that needed to be done 'yesterday'. and one of my nice bosses sent me a long, terrible email berating and flipping out on me for something that wasn't actually my fault, although i understand why he was mad. it was bad y'all.

monday ended in a haze of shittiness. worked until 8, went home and watched tv i think.

tuesday: determined to be better. it was, sort of. i worked to catch up and chase down on stuff i'd been neglecting, generally tried to get more organized. tried to get ahead of stuff. finally pushed one thing through like 12 levels of bureacracy and shot out for my christina gausas 2 person scenes class that started last week. running a bit late, got dinner. i was too hot because i hadn't been thinking and had worn a heavy-ish sweater with a zip up AND my heavier coat AND i was wearing leggings and jeans and boots. i felt constricted and overheated most of the time. usually i love that sweater but it was all itchy that night. anyway whatever, fuck the sweater. gausas class: it's awesome and REALLY fucking hard. i wish i hadn't had it the same night as the time capsule, as she is whipping me out of my bad habits and into a better improvisor... i just need some damn time to decompress and not pop onstage and do all the things i've done for years but really shouldn't be doing. head explosions. anyway, the final time capsule show was a frustrating one for me personally. a lot of what i did didn't land, i felt untethered and weird during the opening, and we were making some negative moves that frustrated me because i KNOW we know better than that. the show over all was fun, and another for the books under 'show i hated but people found funny so just take the compliment, damn it, don't argue with people and be an ass about it'. went to the bar, it was fun. worked on not being crazy.

wednesday: i don't remember. got work done. i think that's it. oh i teched a show at the broadway comedy club. i will avoid playing there for ever. they have a giant 'APPLAUSE' light up sign.

no.

thursday: dunno again. freaking out about apartment stuff. work. home again after work. insanity! i managed to drag myself to cagematch. i bought a ticket and sat in a seat. both experiences were a little strange. i felt really isolated from people by sitting in a seat; i ended up just reading my book instead of chatting. it's been almost a year since i've been 'able' to do that. kinda sucked. EXCEPT that i was rereading American Gods again, and that book is awesome so it was okay. show ruled, the scam did musical improv accompanied by tanouye on guitar, and it wrecked. bangs had an awesome show as well... but there was no way. birch was also on fire on thursday, and there is no beating that plus hiller singing. got hurt by some offhand comment after show, went home and not to the bar.

friday: work; a lot to do, but got a lot done. did some work on a show proposal i am working on. upset someone, in turn upset myself, went home. stayed in. showed apartment. failed watching sweeney todd.

saturday: had my mind blown. ate some cake. went to fisher's birthday party. took the wrong subway, walked 15+ minutes in a poor to mediocre part of brooklyn. the A train was running on the C track and then became the F train. OBVIOUSLY. it took me 1.5ish hours to get home. billiard hall behind apartment playing crazy loud music. called 311. they were running up and down the fire escapes screaming their fucking heads off.

sunday (yesterday): slept in some, got coffee at new favorite starbucks on bond street, saw olympia dukakis. then some kid who was in my year at hamilton. then went to UNI QLO. walking in soho, saw stone phillips with a wife-type. had the lorelei. fun. line up was packed but i only went 1 minute over my time slot. i am hating all my material. need to make myself write JOKES every day.

monday (today): running late because i forgot to do the litterbox before i went to bed. then two 6 trains passed my station. got in at 10 of 10, to find my mouse not working. called for a replacement. was informed that there was no way to open our email program without a mouse (what?). then a fire alarm went off and the building smelled like burning rubber and flaming electrical wires for 3 hours. mondays are meant to be eased into, not for throwing a bunch of curveballs. a brief highlight was lecturing about my various favorite british authors to two of my coworkers for 15 minutes. now i have some work to do that's going to be both mindless and complicated, and i don't want to do it. i really feel like i mentally need to take the day off tomorrow, but feel guilty and probably won't. lame.

it's already 4? what the fuck.

bad at updating

i have a long blog entry covering much of the last two weeks that i haven't managed to pull together yet. it's coming soon, AS IF YOU CARE.

quick thought: it snowed last night and into this morning. i tried to get a picture of it falling in front of my apartment, but i didn't want to open the window so they all came out like crap. the manhattan night sky in snow turns a lovely, utterly unnatural pink - orange color, and it is beautiful sight. even though i want it to be flipping spring already, i am glad we got one last REAL snow in this winter.

i am trying to find internet evidence for some terrible event in chinese history i read about in w.g. sebald's totally mad and fucked up book 'rings of saturn' but i can't find it. i know roughly when it happened but am at a loss. i will have to try to remember to look it up when i get home.

i need to organize my books. and get a coffee table. and put up some art. maybe make some art! oooh fancy that!