Posts

The Power of Improv (Or, a Continuation of How I Justify Making Up Damn Near Everything in My Life as I Go Along): Part 3

Image
           A quick rewind as we move into the third significant “yes, and” moment: Late February of 2019, the local community theater had auditions for a musical called “Hands on a Hardbody” (my overenthusiastic review of that will surface eventually). But what’s more, I actually suggested to the theater that they look into this show last year. AND THEY DID AND DECIDED TO DO IT. I WAS SO DAMN EXCITED, IT’S OBSCENE. I realized one night, after debating whether or not to try out and ultimately deciding to do so, that I could not be in this show—my vacation time fell during the last weekend of shows. I was disappointed. I was frustrated. I was surprised at how much it aggravated me. Finally, I came to the conclusion that even if I couldn’t be IN the show, I would find a way to be as involved as humanly possible. I showed up to auditions and explained my position to the director, who, for some reason, just sorta nodded and was like, “Yeah, that’s cool, rehearsal starts next week, see you
Post a Comment
Read more

The Power of Improv (Or, a Continuation of How I Justify Making Up Damn Near Everything in My Life as I Go Along): Part 2

Image
          I last left you with my history of improv and the theory of “yes, and”—we’ll pick up from there.             I’m not sure what’s in the water, but I seem to be encountering an unusually large number of “yes, and” situations lately. Let’s take a quick look at the most significant ones of 2019 so far: A simple one to start—I met my friend, Seth, in yoga at the local YMCA. He once upon a time was a doctor who commuted to hospitals by helicopter, and now he splits his time between our tiny little southern town and sailing around the world while writing a novel. …Okay. Right. Totally normal. To say I was fascinated by his story would be an understatement. After a couple weekly yoga classes, I finally got to know what his novel was about (still under wraps for you general public folk) and somehow it came up in conversation that I was an English major with a writing concentration. What followed was a beautiful back and forth of “yes, and”—he asked me if I’d be interested in
Post a Comment
Read more

The Power of Improv (Or, a Continuation of How I Justify Making Up Damn Near Everything in My Life as I Go Along): Part 1

Image
                         I was in yoga just a couple weeks ago when a friend of mine and I began discussing how we frequently find ourselves jumping into situations with both feet and figuring out how to do things as we go. Obviously, it is advisable to avoid this method of learning for things such as learning to drive a car or base-jumping, but it drove home a couple points I’ve always tried to practice in my regular life. I cannot pack everything I want to say into one post, so let’s begin with a little back-story and a basic lesson on rule #1 of improvisation.             As a self-professed perfectionist at heart, this is something I struggled with as a child and young teenager. I’ve gotten much better at letting go of some of the stress and anxiety-inducing perfectionist tendencies over the years, but I always know they’re still there (note: photo of extremely focused 9 year old self on perfect Candy Bar the pony above). A big aid was the fact that my heart settled on the s
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
July is my least favorite month.  Most people experience seasonal depression in the winter, but I experience it July-October. Maybe it’s because I live in this strange no man’s land between the swamplands of the Florida coastline and the south Georgia farmland. Historically, people came here to quail hunt each winter, only to flee for the summer months ridden with mosquitos of nightmarish size and oppressive humidity. Even the wildest of dreamers will be suppressed by the heat. New Yorkers and Arizonians may think they know heat; yeah, sure, the concrete of the big apple absorbs the sun’s rays, and the deserts bake to no end, but this part of the world is different. Here, we steam. It’s this inescapable swollen pocket of damp heat that gradually intensifies as the summer mercilessly marches on into the months of fall. I’m no stranger to the heat—I was born in Texas and raised north of Atlanta—but the summers here are a torture truly unique unto themselves.
Post a Comment
Read more