2002-12-05 11:28 a.m.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Drinks

*sigh of relief*

So, another 24-Hour Plays come and gone, and while I don't think I did that great, you be the judge.

I had a lot of fun meeting everyone and taking part, but I think, at the end of the line, I had a bit of performance anxiety. It's been three years since I last did one of these, and the only writing I've been doing is for comics or a long-term stage project...no improv, no recent 24-Hours for reference (which is why I think I did so well at the 08/99 one...lots of both under my belt).

Mike Doughty (of Soul Coughing fame) threw in a pretty funny piece about the next television craze...Studio Fishing (bad pantomime fishing with a hot girl go-going along with it).

The company's brewing up a cold-reading series, which one of the producers sounded excited about having me involved with...I'd love to get elbows-deep in a theater company again. I miss the Garage.

Tabi and I have been spending mad time together, as she and her boy are spending more time apart, and for a rare stretch in the three years I've known her, she's got lots of time to hang.

Two major karaoke jams in the last week, and I'm still chomping at the bit to do more.

Highlights:

• "Common People" by Pulp @ the Karaoke Show...I heard at least a few girls completely freak out that anyone was doing that song, let alone hitting it with Jarvis Cocker cool (if that's what I was doing);

• "Under Pressure" with most of the cast of The Karaoke Show (The Comedy of Errors filtered through a karaoke cabaret)...cacophonous, but hilarious;

• "Sabotage" with a drunken guy from Jersey and another from Athens, GA @ Timboo's...never underestimate how much fun it is to get full of drinks and then scream onstage;

• "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" @ Timboo's...I had two hot friends (women, not guys) grinding and go-going as I was throwing down at the Church of Stipe...the strange dude from Athens gave me a very sincere talking-to in the loo that I was SUCH a rock star.

Okay, so that was pretty much the whole thing, not the highlights.

In any case, I haven't cut loose like this in a while, and before I met S and lived with D&R, I hadn't really at all. It feels like a great mix of energies between two lazy people...I encourage Tabi to push on to get through school, life, etc., and she get me to get my drink on and whoop it up more often. Good trade, I think.

Lots of late nights and bleary eyes, lots of slow Q trains home, and my coat's all smoky. Oh well.

Wait, did I just say that? Nice.

My rosy cheeks are all frostbitten, I've got a big smile on my face, and I'm dancing in the snow at dawn.