I just got back from Montreal and I’m exhausted. I need another weekend! The party was insane fun though. I spent most of Saturday helping to dress up the party room, including hiding lights above the ventilation system so it glowed orange, attaching black lights to the ceiling and then stringing fake cobwebs everywhere that would glow purple under the black light, and stuffing clothing to look like dead bodies to hang from the ceiling near the entrance. People were brought up to the party in the freight elevator with all the lights turned out. They were let out into a darkened hallway with a strobe light and smoke machine and scary decorations (tombstones, hanging bodies, hanging sheets sprayed with blood, etc.). When they got into the party space itself it was all wild and crazy dancing and music accompanied by free booze. Apparently 250 people showed up for this year’s party. We danced until 5AM. Everyone was dressed up. I bought stuff from Value Village and dressed up as a ping pong champion in tight yellow and blue shorts, a tight t-shirt, wrist bands, sweat band and knee socks with blue stripes. I carried a ping pong paddle everywhere. I looked like such a loser! It was fun.

Not so much fun was waking up this morning. I think I was suffering from alcohol poisoning, which caused me to hug the toilet for quite a few hours before I was finally strong enough to make the drive home. Anyway, it’s great to visit Montreal, but it’s just as good to be home. :nod:

Ok. Starting to feel better about things. I’ve got an idea to pitch to the Staircase about a run of four improv shows called Crazy 8’s. I’ve been working on the details of this new format and will explain it when I’ve got it figured out entirely. I guess the cancellation of our existing shows has given me a chance to try on the producer’s hat, so that’s what I’m going to do.

I’ve also been buying stuff. Lots of stuff. I bought a new computer chair because the old one was slowly killing me by breaking my back. The new one is comfy and speedy looking. As advertised, it was easy to assemble too.

In addition to the chair, I bought some lighting equipment from Alien Bees. I ordered an additional B800 light, a boom arm attachment, a remote control trigger kit for lighting, and a background light stand (which is just a smaller light stand). This stuff will allow me to do stuff that I’ve been imagining for the last year, including lighting a scene entirely with spotlights, and having a low-angle backlight. The boom arm will allow me to suspend a light directly over the subject for some pretty dramatic lighting effects. I can’t wait! :bounce:

I went to see Team America tonight. All I have to say is OMG. It’s probably the funniest movie I’ve seen in years. I have never laughed continuously for so long. The movie is filled with absolutely ridiculous parodies of everyone. I thought it was just going to be a stab at Americans going around the world and fucking shit up, which it was, but they also made fun of the other side too. Hilarious. Go see it now! :nod:

I played in my last Theatresports competition tonight. It was kind of bittersweet. We had a decent-sized audience tonight, and it was a very professional, funny show. That still won’t prevent the axe from falling on our fun though, and the owner reiterated his plans to kill the extended run of Theatresports and Saturday Night Jive at the end of the month. In its place will be an “Advanced Level Workshop” on Thursday nights. We’ll be able to pitch shows for performance on weekend nights. But I’m not confident this will actually work out. Already we’ve been told there are no performance slots until February, which means three months with no improv in Hamilton. I’ve got a few show ideas but I’m not convinced the Staircase is the place for them any more. It’s really hurting me. I once was asked if I had a choice between giving up photography and giving up improv, which would I choose. Without a doubt, I’d give up improv. But, I never thought it would come to actually having to lose something that’s become integral to me. In fact, it’s the catalyst that in November, 2002 got me kickstarted in photography too.

I feel like total shit right now about the whole thing. The Staircase, which was such a welcoming home for me for many years, now feels like uncomfortable territory. When I think of how much of my heart and soul I poured into that place for the last two years, it makes me want to puke.

I’ve been spending some time talking to Laura, who wrote the article about me in View Magazine. She turns out to be quite a talented artist. Last night I had a couple of very vivid dreams that I woke up thinking represented her feelings about her own art being butchered by economic pressures. It was all very symbolic, and involved me finding a beautiful elk that had been shot by hunters and had its antlers torn off to be sold. It had been left to bleed and die in the forest. For some reason it was able to talk, and was also able to use a gun that I gave it to put itself out of its misery. Since Laura had never expressed such ideas to me about her own art, I have begun to think that perhaps this particular dream is actually about my own feelings about my own artistic pursuits. In fact, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems to me that I would attribute these dreams to her feelings when all I really have access to are my own… especially when my own coincide so neatly with the dream’s symbolism. Hmmm. Anyway, it’s time for me to go make some more dreams. I hope tonight’s are happier. :nod:

For the past few days I’ve wanted to write stuff in here but I haven’t been able to. Quite honestly I haven’t been feeling very well in the head. I’ve been feeling very beaten down and low. I know that fall is the season of change, and I should expect things to be changing, but some of the recent changes in my life have been depressing.

One of the major downers has been the death of performance-level improv at the Staircase. The management of the cafe decided that improv wasn’t making enough money, and was taking valuable booking time away from profitable bands and other shows. The end result is that our Theatresports and Saturday Night Jive shows are history as of the end of the month. No one ever got into improv to make money, so this is a very sad turn of events. However, I understand their reasoning behind it and I can’t argue with it. We will have to do shows that pander to the general masses if we ever want to come back, and that depresses me too. Obviously there’s no room for art for its own sake at that venue any more. It’s a shame because The Staircase is the original home of improv in Hamilton, and very few can argue that we were putting on some cutting edge stuff there, especially with the Jive and the Jabberwocky shows.

In other news, I’m happy with my monologue experiment so far. I’ve been finding it easy to get into these characters and just write their stream of consciousness. I’ve avoided doing things like looking up details for historical reference on the web, or editing the sentence structure because I want these to be as true to an on-stage experience as possible. The real fun would begin when you put all those characters on stage together and have them interact with each other. Stephen King apparently writes this way too. He creates these characters and sets them loose on each other to see what happens. They are given life of their own and the stories end up writing themselves. Anyway, I’ll continue with this experiment. More suggestions?

God. I can barely breathe. The corset is digging into my skin, my hair is pulled back so tightly it feels like it’s going to tear off, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll be walking down that aisle and into the rest of my life in less than what, an hour? I’m trying to be brave, but I feel like I’m going to faint. Forty-seven minutes.

I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for this.

When Scott asked me to marry him last year, we’d only known each other for a six months. It seemed impossibly good though. He was kind, and smart, and sexy. He still is. Don’t get me wrong. He could make me laugh like a maniac and not even care where I was or if anyone was looking. I was completely unself-conscious in his presence, like I was safe from all harm. And those eyes! Deep and soulful yet still sparkling with life. He could turn my knees to jelly with a single, smokey glance. I got caught up in the magic that he spun. Last summer we’d gone on a trip to Whistler and got drunk on the newness of our love. We hiked in the Rocky Mountain forests and made love on a bed of soft pine needles by a glacial stream. When we finally reached the top of the mountain, spent in every way, we sat and enjoyed the vista. The earth stretched out below us, endlessly rippling into distant haze with deep grey, granite contours blanketed unevenly with evergreens and capped with snow. He turned me gently to him and looked at me with those eyes. Those smoldering dark eyes that dwarfed the entire world, and burned away the bite of the mountain air. And when he asked me to marry him, I had no choice but to say yes.

That was a moment of weakness though! I knew I wasn’t ready to get married. I don’t know why I agreed to it. Okay maybe I do know why I agreed to it. The moment was so perfect. He, was so perfect. And so happy when I blurted out “Yes!” on that mountaintop. And after I agreed to it, it seemed like a freight train. I was powerless to stop myself from getting involved in the arrangements. Booking the hall. Hiring a photographer. Choosing the color theme of our flower arrangements. Going for fitting after fitting for this dress, that still doesn’t fit right.

But damn it, I’m not ready. For the entire year since I gave away my life to the mountain air, I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s the right thing to do, but I’m not succeeding. And now there are forty-six minutes left.

I’m not ready! I’m not ready! I’m not ready!

Of course Mom and Dad were thrilled to hear about the engagement. They thought I was too old to be single. Kept asking me when I’m going to settle down. They’ve been asking me that since I was 24 when I decided to take a trip to Columbia, just to check it out. Like I was going to let their need to be called Grandma and Grandpa keep me from living my dreams. And then when I got back two years later it got even worse. Mom kept trying to introduce me to “nice boys” she knew. These were the loser kids of her friends from the bridge club. Guys that were 30 and still living with their parents without a job, without a life, without a clue. Did my mom seriously think I was in the same category as these leftovers?

I went back to school at the age of 29. Part-time, of course. I wanted to finish my Bachelor’s degree because it seemed like a good thing to do at the time. Scott was in my Macro Economics class. The first time I locked eyes with his across the lecture hall I knew I was in trouble. This was going to burn fast and hard and at the end of it…

I’m not ready! I’m not ready! I’m not ready!

So here I am. There are forty-five minutes left. Do you think Scott would ever forgive me if I disappeared right now? Climbed out of the bathroom window like I was part of some bizarre prison break? Do you think Mom and Dad would survive the shock and loss of their planned grandparenthood? Would the 300 carefully chosen guests at our wedding understand my need to flee? Or do I bury my panic and my feelings of doubt right here and march bravely into the rest of my life? I have no fucking idea.