TBT: Yellow Submarine

The Beatles tune came on the Muzak a few seconds ago and it took me back.  Way back to my 7th grade year, when I was dorky cool enough to be a part of the Kids Helping Kids Singers.

Yes. I was a part of the Kids Helping Kids Singers.

Let me explain a little bit what this was about. We were kids. We sang. And we raised money for kids with cancer.

See a theme in my life?

The first show I did with KHKS was a Beatles review. Yes. A Beatles review. We wore tie-dye vests with white shirts, shoes, GLOVES and pants.  I was a brace faced bleach blonde who was super awkward.  And I really wanted to sing "Let It Be."  I got to sing Ticket to Ride instead. He's got a ticket to ride. Not she. Cause I'm a girl.

We toured through the county, playing at church fairs, old folks homes and non-profits all over. We had props.  A yellow submarine. With portholes for our heads to fit through.  Fish made of wood that would swim around the submarine.  There were dancers...beautiful little girls who made me jealous cause I was uncoordinated and gawky.  We did one show where we were supposed to meet Joe Namath.  He bailed. I'm pretty sure that was the only KHKS show my dad came to see.  He was lucky.  My mom, not so much.

We were super dorks. I remember getting super excited about meeting my first celebs. The dude that played Peter Brady in the 90's film.  The chick that played the middle sister on Step by Step...the ditzy one.  You know the one.  I got their autographs. No one was impressed.

Our next big blockbuster was our rendition of The Lion King.  I should point out that the only color in our cast was a young Indian boy and girl. I sang Can You Feel The Love Tonight dressed like an angel while two young kids played Nala and Simba in front of me. It was lame, but it was at the Kravis, guys.  The mother fronting Kravis!

It was awful in hindsight, but when I was doing it I felt like I was making a difference through song.  We'd meet little kids with bald heads who were finishing treatments. We would perform and the older folks would tell us how cute we were and would give us standing ovations. It was the one place that this nerd felt comfortable and it has effected adult me in so many ways.

I then went on to do similar things with Up With People when I was 18, though that was on a much bigger and more professional level than anything I did in KHKS. It made me different.  It made me the butt of a lot of jokes, especially when I was already ostracized for having braces, pimples, and glasses. It also made me who I am today, and I would never change it for the world.

Improv hiatus...OVER!

I've been an improv recluse for the past couple of months year. It got so crazy for a second there, running my own improv troupe then deciding to no longer run my own improv troupe.  It was too much. Too much responsibility.  Too much stress.  Too much distress from trying to fund shows that were costing me more than they benefited me in terms of money and mental health.  Too much me being mean to people I should have been building up and supporting.  I tried it, and it failed.  I failed.

I distanced myself from improv in order to lick my wounds. Wounds that finally started to heal two weeks ago during a March Madness Improv show at Just the Funny when a director I had never worked with trusted me enough to do a two person scene with me. Wounds that continued to heal this past Sunday when I was invited to teach an improv workshop in Miami for Improv Rising. Someone I had never played with trusted me with his brand to teach an awesome group of up and coming improvisers.  Wounds that have fully closed and have left no scars after a rehearsal I was invited to last night with the Sick Puppies in Boca Raton.

Improv is hard to explain to people who have never done it before. It's a combination of terror and joy.  I've jumped out of planes, bungee jumped over a raging river, hang glided...and none of that even compares to the adrenaline that seeps into your body when you are about to head on stage with no lines, no blocking, and no idea what will be thrown at you by the audience.  There is nothing in this world that compares to the feeling you have after a great improv scene. It's like really great sex. You glow afterwards.  And you're pretty sore.

Last night was an orgy.  An intense, hysterical orgy of shared ideas, great characters, awesome jokes, and camaraderie.  I had met half of the people in the rehearsal before.  The rest were strangers. But it did not matter at all that we had just met and knew nothing about each other. What mattered was the art form. The banter. The back and forth. The emotional highs and lows created on the spot by people interpreting a word, color, sin, sensation into a scene for the amusement of others.

It was great. GREAT. I sobbed afterwards...you know, just like after really good sex. Happy tears. I didn't have a cigarette, cause cancer.   But I glowed.  And it's been a really long time since that happened.

Thank you, Just The Funny, Improv Rising and Sick Puppies. You are great.

Author's Edit: Negative Four Months hosted the March Madness event at JTF, so I should thank them as well.  I'm a jerk.

Throw Back Thursday

I'm hungry.

I reach into the large desk drawer that is dedicated solely to snacks.  Who needs places to file things anyway? I find a bag of Jolly Ranchers I bought when I was having vocal issues and decided that after a balanced breakfast and a small salad for lunch, I could splurge on a sour watermelon candy. Red dye #5 billion be damned.

My taste buds tingle. My senses flood with the fake aroma of watermelon.  My mind flits back to a simpler time, when my family lived in a brown and tan condo on Blue Ridge Rd. in West Palm Beach. My brother was 10, Brooke was 6 and I was 8. We walked to school every day, as Berkshire Elementary was a block from our house. We'd slip under the 6 foot wooden fence, backpacks sticking occasionally. There was a freedom to walking without an adult, though on the hottest days it felt like a chore.

One day, our parents decided to let us go ACROSS THE STREET to a convenience store.  BY OURSELVES.  It was heaven on earth. Mom gave me 5 dollars and we were allowed to not only cross the street, but to buy WHATEVER WE WANTED AT THE STORE.  This became a bit of a habit for us, as I'm sure Mom wanted us out of the house.  Brooke and I always got the same thing.  I grabbed the long, stick version of a Watermelon Jolly rancher. (See? I got to it eventually.) I usually got fancy and bought a Bluebird Pineapple juice, an odd pairing with the candy, but it tasted like freedom mixed with sunshine. Brooke would get a Sour Apple Jolly Rancher stick and apple juice.

I don't remember what Dan bought, as he was usually trying to distance himself from his stinky sisters as much as possible.  But he walked with us. He made sure we crossed the street safely.  He made sure the guy behind the counter gave us the right change. He was simultaneously protective and disdainful, a trait which lingers to this day.  Nothing tasted better on those summer days than that candy and that juice.  Never mind the home cooked dinners that always greeted us when we got home.   Ignoring the home made ice cream we had every Fourth of July. That candy and that juice taught us how to be independent. It taught me how to look out for my sister.  To bond with her. And any time I taste the overly sweet, somewhat sour taste of a Watermelon Jolly Rancher, it takes me back to those days of innocence that I will never, ever get back.

I hope that some day, when I have kids of my own, I'll be able to do the same for them.  I haven't give up hope for this world that we live in to get better.  There's overwhelming evidence that we are on a downward spiral, but there's also glimmers of light everywhere that make me think that someday, my kids will be able to play in their own yard with no fear.  That I'll be able to call them in from scraping their knees and enjoying the sunshine.

Eh, who am I kidding?  My kids will probably need to be called from their rooms where they will be reading.

Nag, nag, nag.

I was at the pharmacy yesterday morning, putzing around as I awaited a prescription written by my 24 year old, model like female doctor. I picked up TP (I was out) and new deodorant (thinking my old stuff was causing issues that the prescription was supposed to remedy.) As I was looking at the "As Seen on TV" section, I heard an elderly woman's screeching voice from over the rack of Hallmark cards on my right. "WHAT DID YOU DO?" she yelled in a harpy like fashion at her husband,  limping towards her with his Hurrycane that he had probably purchased from the very section where I was browsing.

"What?" he asked, obviously cowed by the angry visage of the woman who was once the beautiful girl he danced with at a sock hop in high school or who he shared a milkshake with at a Walgreen's counter. We were at CVS.  I don't think they had counters.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" she screamed again, ignoring social norms and an inside voice to prove that she was upset with the man and also to register through the hearing aids Mr. Harpy was sporting.  "YOU KNEW I WANTED TO USE THOSE POINTS TO GET NEW SOAP!" she yelled, face burning.  " I AM DONE WITH YOU!  JUST DONE WITH YOU! YOU KNEW I WANTED TO GET THAT SOAP! WHAT DID YOU BUY?  WHAT DID YOU BUY?!?!?!?!"  The old man stuttered, "I got myself some shaving cream."

Harpy Lady stormed to the front of the store, repeating over and over how DONE she was with the man and the whole situation/marriage/store/soap deal.  I was taken aback by not only her vehemence, but in her complete disdain of a man she had probably slept next to for a good portion of her adult life. And the only thought that popped into my head was, "THIS is why I don't want to get married."

A weird thought, for sure, but one that I have been turning over in my head again and again after the last several cluster f*ck relationships I've been in.  I'm typically a monogamous person, in that I date someone for 1-2 years, even if they are complete toolboxes and I knew I should get out. I've had a dry spell lately, mostly cause the last few were such doozies that I needed time and space to not only heal but to stop hating myself due to their view of me or who I turned into while dating them.

I never want to be that woman. I would never want anyone I love to be that man. So, is it marriage that's the problem?  Is it me and my fear of committing and then only realizing that it was a bad decision years and years later as I'm screaming at my significant other in a CVS about soap?  Could be both.  Could be that I haven't "met the right guy yet." But I've met all the wrong ones already, haven't I?  So...who will know if there will ever be a right one, as I am the common denominator in these failed relationships?  Will I some day snap over used CVS bucks because I finally realize that this person cares more about their morning shave than my needs?  GAK.

Bucket List 2014

I recently had a birthday breakfast with a friend who decided to start striking things off of her bucket list as a result of turning another year older.  She and I talked for hours, and she challenged me to create my own bucket list, a challenge she had to repeat after a previous conversation regarding said list showed no results. I'm not a fan of the bucket list.  I pretty much try to live each day as if it was my last. Morbid, I know. Or realistic. Your choice.

Instead of a bucket list, every year I add to my Done It list.  I've posted it here before.  I don't like to feel like I'm bragging. But I'm bragging.

Done It List
I was born.

In three separate instances, broke my nose, arm and paper-cut my eyeball.  Tore my rotator cuff.  Had a benign tumor removed from my neck.

Have visited almost all 50 states. Still on the list-Wisconsin, Idaho, Hawaii and Alaska. Have traveled to Europe and British Columbia, Canada, visiting these European countries: Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Austria, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic.

Seen and done these things: The Little Mermaid Statue, Berlin Wall, St. Charles Bridge, Bergen Belsen, Mozart's Birthplace, Anne Frank House, Praha Opera House (saw Rigoletto), British Columbian Rain Forests, Bungee Jumped over a river in Canada, flew a Cessna, White water rafted on 6 different rivers, hiked in 12 states and 3 countries, parasailed over Lake Tahoe, rollerbladed at a Vans Skate Park, went camping at the Red River Gorge, Rock Climbed in North Carolina, did a back country trip for 5 days in the woods, flew on a trapeze and performed a catch.

Performed in:
Deadlock (ha), Oklahoma!, Fools, Guys and Dolls, Steel Magnolias, Roads (175 shows), Baby with the Bathwater, Naomi in the Living Room, StoryBox, Standprov, Page to Stage, 3 years of Shadowbox Shows,
A Christmas Carol (2 years), Finalist in a Rock and Roll Karaoke Semi-finals at Roxy's 2 years in a row, Vanities, 3 years of Jove Shows, Beauty and the Beast, Really, Created a two person improv troupe called I'm with Stupid. Ended a two person improv troupe called I'm With Stupid. Karaoke finals at Fosters.
Performed in the Maltz Jupiter Theater's Talent competition, badly. Started my own Improv troupe, The Rejects. Ended my own Improv Troupe, The Rejects.

Performed with-Michael Winslow and Garrett Morris, met Bruce Campbell.
Was in a Duffy’s commercial
Did a crap job in a Labor Finders Training Video

Wrote a Comic book

Was on Burn Notice 3 times.  NECK BOMB!

Went to San Diego ComicCon twice and plan on going again this year.

Was interviewed on a podcast.

Met Christopher Moore. Sent him my web comic. Met Jim Butcher.

Published a web comic. Spoke on a panel at a comic book convention.

Took 2 Stand up Classes. Performed my first routine. And performed at several open mics.

Wrote and Produced 4 shows on my own and donated over $3,000 to Gilda’s Club.

Visited New York City and touristed it up by myself.

Cruised twice to the Bahamas as an adult.

Rappelled off a building for charity.  With a torn rotator cuff.

Went Sky Diving.

Wrote a parody song and performed it at my brother's wedding.

Went Hang Gliding.

Shaved my head for charity.

Bold are things I've done since my last Bucket List post.

What's on your list?

St. Baldrick's and my bald head

It's been a long 5 months of anticipation. I decided, on a whim to raise money for St. Baldrick's by shaving my head. I set the date for St. Patrick's Day, compromising my parents 35 year anniversary. I facebooked. I tweeted. I bombarded. And I had no idea the support that was going to come my way.

Thanksgiving happened, and I had learned that a friend of mine from my Up With People days had a daughter who was fighting cancer. I had already signed up for a fundraiser for Gilda's Club, a charity I have supported for the past few years with shows and jumping off a building. I was set to jump off the building again, but my mind kept drifting to this little girl, with her Iron Man masks and huge smile. I wanted to do something different.  Something to help kids like her.

So, I signed up for St. Baldrick's at midnight after a long day. It was an impulse decision, so I immediately put it out there so I couldn't second guess myself.

It was a slow start. I didn't want to be too pushy. Then I realized I should be pushy.  And my $1,000 goal became $2,000. Then $2,500. Then $3,000. Then $4,000. And people kept donating. And supporting. And messaging me. About their own experiences with family in treatment.  With loss of loved ones.  And each story made me more determined.

The day finally came.  I was good. Fine. Until about noon. Then my stomach dropped. I felt the way I felt before jumping out of a plane. Nerves kicked in. I couldn't breathe.

My co-workers, my mother, and my grandmother talked me down. Grandma flew down from Columbus to cut off my pony tail.  Then we decided to raffle off opportunities to slice one of 6 tails, thus making more money for the charity and involving everyone in the event.  Grandma got to cut the last one. My brother's best friend from high school, Brian, who I've known since I was 14 was the first to be picked.  Then my friend Steve. Then Jason Burgoon, a friend and the husband of Jessica, my sister's best friend, who got to chop off the next tail. Finally, I picked my sister's boyfriend, Nick, who a)is awesome and b)I have a jokey love/hate relationship with (I nicknamed him Doodle after our first meeting).  Grandma cut the last one, gave me a kiss, and then Jen Cross-Van Portfleet (Jess's sister) of Aspen Falls Aveda Salon and Spa did the rest.

As I'm typing, we have raised $5,025 towards childhood cancer research.  THAT IS FREAKING AWESOME AND I HAVE YOU TO THANK!  All of my friends and family have been so wonderful and supportive of not only my fundraising efforts, but of my bald head and me in general.  It's been an incredibly humbling experience, and I am so glad that you all were on this journey with me.

Thank you to a long list of donors, supporters, cheerleaders, and friends.  You guys are the bees!

Ponytails

Before

After

Wig #1

Bah

You know how much it sucks to be the only one of your friends who ever takes the initiative to reach out and plan something?  Or even the only one who checks in with other people?

It sucks.

A lot.

And it's lonely when you decide that it's just too much work to try and make people want to hang out with you.

Friends are stupid.