It's what keeps me writing.
Once, during my freshmen year of high school, a girl wrote me a note saying that she liked me. I didn't respond. The next day, she wrote me another note that simply read "DIE, BITCH, DIE!" and had a picture of me hanging from a tree with a knife in my torso.
As I was running (re: jogging (re: power-walking (re: walking on the treadmill at 2 MPH))) at the gym today, I started thinking about all of the times I've been embarrassed over the course of my life. After fifteen minutes, I had to stop because I was feeling pretty shitty. I'm not very smooth or suave. I'd make a list of them here, but I figured I'd hold on to those memories and bury them in my brain, where no one can ever find them.
I used to love the Planters peanut guy, Mr. Peanut. I thought he was really elegant for a mascot. Not like Charlie the hipster Tuna who wears a beret and emo-glasses. Mr. Peanut wears a top-hat and a monocle, so you know he means business. Then I found out that he's now being voiced by Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, he's a good actor and all, but Delma once drunkenly confessed to me that she thought Robert Downey Jr. was attractive and now every time one of those Planters commercials comes on tv, I just sit on my futon and tremble with rage. I keep picturing her making out with Mr. Peanut.
Such a smug son of a gun.
In 6th grade, a group of 8th graders kept pressuring me to say that I liked peanuts. Then they kept laughing whenever I would say "I like peanuts." It was only months later that I realized "peanuts" sounds like "penis." Oh, meddling middle schoolers and their homophobic homophones.
If I could go back in time, I'd play basketball.
I'd change a lot of things. Wouldn't have majored in English. Wouldn't have gotten my gallbladder removed. Wouldn't have spent $800 on a drum set that I'd only play for three months.
But if I could only change one thing, I'd probably play basketball. And I don't mean going to Duke on a scholarship and becoming the fifth overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft. I mean playing basketball since childhood. As a hobby.
I want to play basketball now, but I haven't developed any skills and I'm scared of acting a fool in front of all the cool kids on the court.
I've tried in the past to develop skills. Gabriel and I would play one-on-one back in the summer of 2008. We'd work on our shot selection and on our man-to-man coverage, but we couldn't set screens since there were only two of us and after a week I sprained my ankle, an injury that kept me out of the game for over a year. Even thought it only took two weeks to completely heal.
I think that's the biggest thing I'd change though. I mostly like where and who I am now. I always think I could be doing more now, but I'm in a good spot and I've got a lot to look forward to. Also, I'm having lemon-pepper chicken and a baked potato for dinner tomorrow.
Baked potatoes are my new favorite food. The secret to a delicious baked potato is stabbing it with a fork twenty-seven times. The other secret to a delicious baked potato is to bake it for an hour and fifteen minutes. The final secret to a delicious baked potato is lathering it with olive oil and kosher salt. GAME-PRO TIP: Allow two to three minutes for the baked potato to cool, otherwise you may inadvertently play a round of "Hot Potato" with yourself ending with the potato being dropped into the recycle bin.
I just finished Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops and I was telling Delma that it was weird how well it applied to improv. But then I thought about it and realized that, no, it wasn't weird. It makes perfect sense. Phil Jackson is all about that Zen which is about not thinking and trusting that your instincts will take over. That's one of the secrets to improv as well. Getting out of your head and whatnot.
The book also mentioned that a big reason for the Bulls' success was their ability to push aside their selfishness and sacrifice their own personal glory for the good of the team. I find that the best improv troupes do that. I always cringe when I see a guy walk into a well-established scene that's moving along at a slower pace and try to be funny by himself or take over the scene instead of trusting that his teammates have it under control. With the best shows I've seen, every single walk-on has a purpose and is used to enhance what the two scene partners have established. During the past few weeks of class at the Annoyance, I've noticed that there's one guy who will walk into every other scene in an attempt to insert some funny line into it because he thinks the scene's not good enough. It's usually not very funny and destroys any momentum built by the other two players. It's verrrrry frustrating.
I analyze improv too much.
But at the same time, I don't analyze it enough.
There's a bunch of quotes from the book that work just as well for improv as they do for basketball, but I'm only going to quote one.
For the raindrop, joy is entering the river. - Ghalib
I feel like it applies to life as a whole. I really like it.
In fact, I like it so much, I'm going to update my Facebook profile so that it's underneath "Wait, I'm missing two titties!" uttered by the beautiful and wonderful Delma Flores.
I'm not even going to explain it because that would rob it of its magic.
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