The Day After

I can usually tell if I'm becoming obsessive about something if it starts to interfere with my work.  Today, I found myself wanting to leave early to update my blog and respond to comments.  That's a sign.

Yesterday, my anxiety level was off the scale.  Which is weird for me, because just doing an open mike {see Comedy Show Coming Up and On the Day of My Show, afternoon} isn't usually enough to get me that ramped.  And even for special events, like speech contests, it's usually not until I actually get there that I get nervous.  A lot of times, I don't feel nervous until right after I finish!

Of course, this time, it was more about the performance off stage than on.  J was there. {see Two Beasts , Comedy Show Coming Up, etc.}  She was wearing a shirt in a shade of soft, lemony yellow that made me want to touch her.  Made it hard to breath.  I had spent the afternoon making up five bouquets -- one for each of the women friends who came to the show.  I used purple and red callias and assorted carnations, wrapped in yellow tissue with pink ribbons.  Then, for J's I added two pink roses.  I have wanted to give her flowers for a long time, and I knew that this way I could without making her feel self-conscious or uncomfortable.  But she is very smart, and like me, survived a childhood that makes one wary and watchful -- she doesn't miss much. 

She got there about five minutes before the show, along with two other friends from Toastmasters, my roommate Dan and his girlfriend, and my friend Jim and his woman-friend C.  I had very little chance to talk to J before the lights went down and the show started.

Open mikes are a strange environment, usually populated by other comics and their friends -- not the friendliest of audiences -- but last night the audience was surprisingly large and unusually friendly.  One of the perils of the open mike is that there are often 30+ comics going on for three minutes apiece, and if your name is too far down the list you can sit for an hour and a half waiting to go on stage.  It is very hard to maintain your focus and energy for that long listening to a lot of other comics.  Fortunately, last night, I was number four.

Ever since I planned this event, I have been agonizing over material.  I always do that, and I always end up back at the same place:  I am most effective and most powerful when I am the most vulnerable.  So I ended up doing material about dating.  I thought about posting it here, but it really doesn't work if you read it.  It takes the attitude, which I think I got this time.  In the past, that's been my problem with comedy.  I don't the get the attitude right, and then I get too self-conscious or hung up on the audience's reaction.  The great thing about comedy is the immediate feedback, you know right away whether people think you're funny.  The worst thing about comedy is the immediate feedback.  I've bombed more than once, and there's a freedom in that.  You know that the worst has happened and you've survived it.  Last night, though, I was really happy with my performance and got great feedback from everyone.

 J told me after the show that she liked it better than the political material she had heard me do before.  I was standing there on the sidewalk (the same sidewalk I wrote about in Two Beasts) with her and two other Toastmaster friends, saying good night and I wanted to say "Call me" or "When can I see you again" but I didn't do either.