I am not using any of these mugs right now, unfortunately. My coffee is currently frothing about in a stupid, plain black mug that we got from Ikea. It only holds a singular cup of coffee. My favorite mugs can hold anywhere from 2-3 cups of coffee so that's probably why they're my favorite mugs. The more coffee the better. They give me the shakes.
I'm frustrated. Blah-frustrated. Not grr-frustrated. I'm blah-frustrated with my coffee. My improv. My writing. The weather. Life.
The mug situation is my own fault for letting the dishes sit in the sink for a week. I keep hoping Delma will do them. Eventually, she will, but until then, I'm stuck with lame mugs. Maybe I'll do the dishes. Just this once. Just to use my Jurassic Park mug tomorrow. Maybe.
The improv situation is... I don't even know. It really is starting to feel like I've forgotten how to improvise. I don't even know how that's possible. It's like forgetting how to chew your food. Or how to poop. I hope I never forget how to poop.
It's getting to the point where I'm feeling really anxious before I get on stage. Apprehensive. Agitated. At cetera (I know, I know). I'm not really enjoying it and I'm not having fun.
It might be because I'm nervous about the Harold Commission watching all of our shows? I desperately want to shine in each of these shows and look good so I can be put on a Harold team.
It might be because I've resumed classes at the Annoyance and the change in mindset is fucking with me? I freeze up because of all the rules running in my head. I need to just be. Zen and the art of shut the fuck up.
It might be because I suck? That would be the worst situation. I don't think I suck. I've had kick-ass scenes before where I can feel the eyes of the audience widening because of the shit I'm pulling off on stage. It happened this past Sunday.
But those scenes are staring to become few and far in between. In fact, when I have one of those, I'm amazed with myself. They serve as a reminder that "Hey, yeah, I'm actually pretty good!"
But the majority of my scenes have been bland, mundane, uninspired and just plain boring. I hate it. I don't know how to break out of this rut. Maybe it'll end once the shows are over?
Maybe.
It also feels like I'm definitely not up to the level of a bunch of my peers. They're so quick and witty and fast with words. Motor mouths. I'm slow. Very slow. My improv is more physical as evident by the scene last week where I ate an iPhone for love. It's always been that way.
So it's not that I'm not good, just that I'm different, maybe? Maybe I should try to accentuate my strengths rather than work on my weaknesses? I'd like to be quick and witty, but I have more fun when I'm being silly and touching and grinding and grooving.
I don't know.
I mentioned to Delma that I'm considering taking a short hiatus from improv once the shows end to gather my thoughts and try to reassemble myself and she gave me this look.
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And that's all she needed to do, really.
It was a tut-tut look. A look that says when-the-going-gets-tough-you-quit. It wasn't a malicious look. More like a quit-being-stupid look. Because it's true. If shit gets hard, I phone it in and say I can't make it to work that day. It's what happened when I tried to do electrical engineering at UT again. Differential calculus took too much effort so I was like "Screeeeewwww yoooooou, Gottfried Leibniz!"
But I don't think it's like that with improv. I love improv. I moved up to this wonderful city for improv. I hope that, on my deathbed, I'm still doing improv. It's fun and I like creating things through improv.
It might just be the people? I've never understood how some people can improvise with ANYONE and do a bomb-ass scene. Susan Messing, TJ Jagadowski, Blaine Swen. They turn shit into gold. They really do. I want to be that way. And maybe in time, I will be.
But right now, at this moment, at this point in my life, I am not. I need to be comfortable with my partner to have a decent scene. I do my best improv with people who play a certain way. Which doesn't translate well for auditions.
I had two auditions this past week. I didn't bomb them, but I also didn't bomb-ass them ("bomb-ass" is a positive adjective, noun and verb, btw). I just... Eh. Granted, there were 80-something people competing for less than five spots, but still. Them's excuses and America wasn't built on excuses. America was built on hard work.
So what else can I do? Just put my head down and keep on trucking, I guess.
Hm.
I don't know if anyone's going to actually read this, but that's fine. This post was mainly for me to air our my frustrations and try to figure out what the hell is going on with me. And I still don't know what's going on with me. But it'll work out.
One of my favorite improv teachers, Christy Bonstell, said that the life of an improvisor is filled with highs and lows and that it fluctuates quite often. You can have an awesome show and be convinced you're headed for SNL one week, then have a bad show the next and be certain that you're going to spend the rest of your life living in your mother's basement because you suck.
I need to stop putting so much pressure on myself to be "good" and just remember to "have fun." I'm not getting paid for this. Shit, no improvisors are aside from TJ & Dave.
My coffee is gone.
The mug might not have been my favorite mug, but the coffee was still delicious. And that's all that matters, right?
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