Here We Go

Sorry about involuntarily disabling comments for that last post.

In other news, I've been taking improv classes here in New York at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre for about seven weeks. UCB has nightly hilarious sketch and improv shows which I attend at least once or twice a week. It is something I have never had before to just go and see amazing performers after work all week. Amazing performers.

I am stuck in this bleary state where I want nothing more than to be on stage, but envisioning the large chasm that exists between where I am now and where all of these great performers are is so daunting! It's like that big ravine that Indiana Jones is blue-screened over in Temple of Doom or any of those other Indiana Jones movies where there's a huge chasm and we don't know what he'll do next.

Oh! Oh! This is turning into a better analogy than I thought. Because here's the thing, I know I have the potential to really knock em dead up there. I've been doing improv for over two years now and loved every minute of it and have received a lot of motivation from performers who I respect intensely. So I know I can get there. It is just this what seems to be completely empty space in New York where I can't imagine that I'll ever get to be on that stage and having a good show. The last show I did was in Olympia, WA and it was my best show to date. I yearn for it again and can taste that feeling of numb energy blinding me as I'm standing in front of a bunch of skeptical Olympia kids who would rather be at a show in a nasty basement in which some dude is twanging on a nylon stringed guitar he found in the living room of the house who's couch he's crashing on with a goddamn fork, and he's closing his eyes and feeling the adoration of ten greasy kids who are disappointed again with another ill-prepared spectacle of megalomania.

Anyway! I yearn for that feeling to be in front of that skeptical audience and then see them all start to smile and then start to laugh and then bust their britches and then fall on the floor next to their seat. All because of something a stupid character in me said.

Back to the amazing analogy. Remember in the search for the grail Indiana Jones where he gets through a bunch of obstacles and then comes to the great chasm? Then he gets this amazing idea to throw gravel into the chasm and it lands on an invisible flat surface that will safely guide him across!? Right? Are you seeing how great this analogy is yet? So the thing is that I'm Indie and I'm trying to get that holy grail right? That holy grail that is my pride and my happiness and fulfillment and I think that I've got so much shit to go through right? But the only obstacle is my own blindness to how easy it will be. So, let's plug this into reality why don't we?

Okay reader. Let's get serious here. I promise. I promise to do a show within the next seven days. Don't ask me how. Just know it will happen. And know that I will give you the details. I love you all. Thank you for your support.

The Good Stuff

The big, fat, pillowy, good stuff is still around in my life, in case anyone was having doubts. First off, the responses have filled me with the courage to go on talking about myself and working out my experiences. Thank you. But then of course there are nights like last night when, despite a jerk or two, I had a bunch of nice people over who cooperated with my weekly potluck. I've been trying to pull off a weekly potluck in my apartment since the first week I moved in. It's sort of a continuation of a delicious event we got to have at the precious angel Allison's house. She was our mother who took us into her kitchen and everyone loved to be there. I couldn't dream of being this to other people, especially a motley crew of friends and acquaintances from all over new York city. But I wanted to provide a place for people to eat real food, to share with each other, to force themselves to cook something, to meet new people that they might like to be around, etc. At first it was like pulling teeth and it still sort of is. But when I moved the night from Friday to Sunday I started to see more takers. Last night, it wasn't just me making the food. In fact, all I made was vegan cornbread and a boiled artichoke with dip. There was carrot soup, vegetarian chili, a chile casserole, curry chickpeas and rice, hummus and pita, an avocado salad, and several varieties of bottled beer. I was so excited to see such a lovely assortment and so many hungry mouths eating. The cornbread wasn't my best but everyone praised it none the less. That was a pillowy night despite being made fun of for my taste in music, which hurt my feelings an unnecessary amount. Evidently I had been living in a bubble in which I thought that an adult would not be judged for his/her music taste. It's been a long time since high school.

There are nights here that could not have taken place in any city but New York that have made all of the loneliness worth it. It is all worth it because of those lovely encounters with total strangers, those times crossing paths with familiar faces from across the earth, staying awake for this sunset here that I have never had the point of view to experience before, standing on the rooftop and drinking it all in as if you yourself owned it, boarding a train for the long ride home and having a partner to fall asleep on, witnessing earth-shattering performances by the earth's heroes, falling down the stairs because you were awoken from the blackest sleep and because you aren't used to heels, kissing someone that you live with in new York city and feeling like you're on the biggest adventure yet with the person you love. These are all things that have happened to me here... funny and delicious and scarring in a good way.

P.S. I am changing the look of my blog to feel it out and to see if it makes Sam Goldsmith's eyes stop hurting.

Terrified of my blog

It's the truth. And it's happening. I've spent so much time here at work staring at the computer screen thinking to myself, "I have so much to say. I have so much to write. My ideas are endless." And then I look at my blog and become discouraged. Like getting the balls to give a speech at your middle school and then coming out on stage in the cafeteria and noone has shown up except for one dude and he's eating his lunch but he's listening (that's noah, you guys). Don't you realize that if you don't comment on someone's blog they feel lonely and they feel like noone is listening? Well I guess I only realized that yesterday while reading Sky Cosby's Pirate Papa (it's about being a good daddy to baby elves). He was talking about feeling like everyone forgot who he was when he didn't get any myspace messages. I am the same. I am trapped in the bottom floor of a luxurious showroom. Out of the four flourescent lights over my desk, three have gone out. The third just went out yesterday casting a deep, sad shadow over me all day. I was also enduring one of the most excruciatingly painful and creatively enlightening hangovers of my life. So it just gets darker and darker here and then I go outside and all I want is for someone to meet me for dinner that's all I want in the whole world. I call those few that I know and of course they are all busy. Every last one of them. Or they don't answer or they don't call back. And then the loneliness pushes me underground and onto the train and I go home. So yeah, it's amazing to feel like this again. I haven't felt this way since public high school. I miss everyone I ever knew.