So, it was another busy improv weekend with a show on Friday night in Baltimore and a nice long workshop with Upright Citizen's Brigade on Saturday. Then Sunday was filled with 2 hours of a writing session for the Pig summer show. Applied to Baltimore Improv Festival for the Pigs. Ran some errands and tried to relax a little on Sunday (not easy to do when I feel like I have so much to catch up on or in some cases, start)!

Friday night's show with Gus introduced Alex as one of our newest members. I am no longer the new guy; however, Alex has been involved as a performer with BIG longer than I have. He was doing a lot of short form with another troop and then came on board as one of the first members of Mister Licorice, which is a long form troop I started in November. I'd say he is doing well with both. I like his physicality on stage and how he adds to the scene. I think our styles are very similar and compliment each other well.

Overall, I thought our show on Friday night was okay. I would have to say that it wasn't my best stuff but I enjoyed being out there. I thought we all did a pretty good job of listening to each other and trying to be creative. My major problem is that I doubt myself a lot and, honestly, we don't get complimented by the audience very much. I mean, at least for me (and maybe this is true for others), nobody pulls me aside or even in passing and says, "Great show" or "I liked that scene where ______." Just doesn't happen much. But then again, maybe I am not that good, which is certainly a possibility. Does this mean I would stop? Not ever! I just need to keep practicing and perfecting myself in this art.

Satuday's workshop was with Neil Casey from UCB. I saw him perform with one of my favorite troops that I watched at the Dirty South Festival this year, Death by Roo Roo. They were so over the edge and came up with same really interesting characters. He was really good at showing us how to pull the game out of long form. We concentrated on the Harold, which is a well known long form format. We only concentrated on and opener of word association and then 1st and 2nd scenes of a Harold. Typically there are 3 scenes for each and then a group game and then those three scenes are brought back again, group game and then 3 more times it is completed. We just did the first set of 3 and then another set of 3. But actually we were focused only 2 person scenes so we did it 4 times. I learned a lot about responded realistically to my partner. I mean, like having a honest reaction to what they are saying and then responded appropriately.

Yesterday I went over Anne's house and we just tried writing down every thought or idea we have about "Going Green" and recycling. I think we came up with some cool ideas. We are going to split up the list we made and try to write something on our own. I think it will be cool to see what develops. I don't do a lot of sketch writing so this practice will help me improve.

Other than that the weekend was fair to moderate in terms of my mood. This was my 3rd weekend in a row without seeing Susan and it's still tough. I am sure that it hasn't helped that we've spoken on the phone during the week and talked about why we shouldn't be together. But for now - Que Sera Sera!

Okay, you may want to stand back for this one! I am in one of those mean moods where I don't care what I am about to say but then later I look back and say, "dude, you are over dramatic man."

Well, first let me say that my girlfriend and I are calling it quits. So that has me in a really really bad place right now. I am not going to get into all the particulars about it but let's just say that I know we need this time away but it is very upleasant. I miss her and I hate this terrible feeling that I have in the pit of my stomach. Will it go away? Sure, eventually. But in the meantime, the second hand on my watch is reminding me of how precious my time really is and what am I doing with it? I mean, really. What am I doing with my life.

I hate my job. I want to go back to school and am very hopeful that I will but it is somewhat an overwhelming process when I start to think about it. In the end, I know that it will be the best thing I could ever do for myself. In the meantime, I am scared and worried about my finances. I am concerned about how I can make this all work and still survive. Will I fail? Will I fall completely on my face? I guess I'll never know if I don't do something. I just need to get past all of this insecurity first. And the only way I know how to do that is by just doing it. If it's mean to be it will!

Well, I was going to talk about my frustration with the MET and the Comedy Pigs but now that doesn't seem as important. I will just say that there are a lot of expectations about putting up an original show but not a lot of support. Where's the support? I have no clue how we are going to get a show on its feet by mid-July when we don't have a concept that we all agree on, no director or stage crew for that matter, and a bunch of chiefs and no indians. It worries me. I mean my Baltimore troop is doing a fully improvised play in December and our director has already begun to work on the concepts and mechanics for it because there is a matrix to make it work and come together.

Anyway, that's all I can say for right now because I think my emotions are tied up in other directions right now. This is when I have to be careful what I say to people and what I think. I have a tendency to get very negative when I think things are fallen apart. And they may not be right now but it's my perception at the moment because of uncontrollable circumstances. My wants not being met.

Life is just tough sometimes. Here I am in my mid 30's and there doesn't seem to be much stability. I have all these goals and, while they don't seem out of reach, they aren't close at hand. I would love to be one of those "go lucky' guys, who has the world by the....well, you know...by the cajones.

So this hasn't been a great start to my month. My girlfiend, Susan, and I called it quits over the weekend, I hate my job, and just plain bummed about things. You know, you try so hard sometimes but when you look back you realize that what you were doing was never going to match up to your effort. I mean, some things just aren't meant to be. Some things are. Guess you never can tell until you do.

And I do and do and do and it seems futile. I watch everything with a wary eye because you never know if it's going to work or hit you in the bum when you're not expecting it. I have compromised and sacrificed and for what? I know what I want in life and yet it seems to be so far out of reach.

First, I want to have a family. I want to raise my children in a decent home with lots of love and fun times together. You know, a typical suburban type family: yearly vacations to the beach and maybe to somewhere in the U.S. that we haven't gone before like the Grand Canyons, pizza and a movie rental almost every Friday night with the wife and kids, go to work and come home to my family every night for dinner, do stuff around the house and play with the kids, go to church on Sunday's or visit family. I mean, that sounds like a dream. I freaking dream that I've had all my life but I keep muckin' up.

The problem is me. I am too difficult. Sure, I am funny and creatively can come up with cool stuff to do. I love people and enjoying almost everything and anythihng. You won't find me sitting home on Football Sunday in front of the TV. I am just not that kind of guy. I'd rather make a pasta dinner with my wife, if I had one. But I've been told that it can be like walking around on egg shells with me. I hate that about myself. I hate that I make someone I love feel that way. Nobody should feel that way.

Look, I have no problem admitting my faults. I do try to be right as much as I can cause I've always felt that I am wrong much of the time. However, admitting something about yourself and actually doing something about it are two completely different things. I have difficutlty figuring it out. Or maybe I am just completely stubborn. It's surely a good possiblity.

I don't know. I just want to be a normal guy, doing normal things, living a normal life. The problem is that I am far from normal. I'm not crazy but I know I can be a little weird and strange at times. I've got a ton of energy that can seem out of control. Like people will say, "Jiggy, what the hell did you have for breakfast? Chill out, bro!"

Okay, I am going to post this the way it is. If I read it, I will think about it too much and then it whatever I post after the edit won't be 'real' or 'sincere', which is the difficulty I have with bloggin personal stuff. I believe it's better to write out what you're feeling on paper. When it comes out and you see it, it makes better sense and can be relieving.

Later....

Okay, so I am in the mood to write while I am sitting on a boring butt call that barely requires any interaction from me. In fact the program that this telecon addresses doesn't really involve me at all. I think maybe 10 percent has to do with my team. However, the boss wants me on and so I am on it to report issues for our informational purposes.

Last night was our first Pig rehearsal with our newcomers, Laura and Tres. They are both going to be great additions. I think they each offer something different and unique. I am really excited about the direction and momentum that is taking place with us. At the moment I am the only guy. Denny is sitting out and directing for the next 6 months, which I think is going to be very beneficial for us as we work on our show. I believe with his outside view and experience with the Pigs, we can really shape our troop and provide the audience with a more entertaining show. It would be nice to experiment with new games and mess around with more technical aspects. For example Anne brought up a game that we are going to practice and see if we should add it into our next show. It's kinda like Scene Styles. But instead of asking for a variety of genres from the audience, we are going to put together a music playlist with different types of songs. Dan will play little snippets of it for like 15-30 seconds and we think it will change the move and create a new mood for the scene. So maybe he puts together 3 song choices (melody of music only like a soap opera would have I imagine). Maybe something horror-like and they something upbeat. That's the idea I get. Looking forward to see what happens. Again, just experimenting with some new games.

So, check this out. I had this incredible dream last night. I am not one to usually analyze my dreams even though I do have very vivid dreams with some color at times. I've got to tell you about last night's cause it was pretty awesome. I only usually remember the last portion of my dream. Which was this:

I went over this guy Eric (Asian guy that is a senior database develpoer on my team at work). The reason I am pointing this out is because I see him as pretty intelligent and that reflects in the type of job he has in life. Anyway, I went over to his house, which was furnished with lots of cultural type of nicknacks and other things like this cool small bongo drums from Africa. The one really cool thing he had was this telescope. When I came over, with my girlfriend, Susan, he was working on tracking movement with some of the stars in a nearby galaxy. He told me to check out Mars cause the planet was doing some ultra cool stuff. It was like a wild child acting out; changing up its movement and just having a good ol' time. As if it was trying to break away from the norm and show off to the rest of the planets. (I am probably analyzing this too much but it was just such an awesome thing to watch in my dream). So, Eric allowed me to look through the telescope that was very technilogically advanced and sophisticated. I mean you could magnify stuff up pretty close (so frigin cool). At first, I could look through it and see the Milky way and then began to move it to my left when I saw this one red dot that stood out from all the rest. Eric tells me to look closer and bring it more into view. As I began to do this, I noticed that it wsas teh "wild child - Mars" and the Red Planet was spinning out of control. It was chagning its axis from left to right and right to left. It was moving in such so many different directions and had incredible motion. I had to keep up with it through the telescopem, which was difficult at first because of the planet's erradic behavior.

So as I magnified it up closer I could see that it was spinning and at the north end of it's axis, which was similar to our axis, there was this weird dome shape to the planet. I can't really describe it in words. But imagine one of those small lightbulbs that are kinda round a fat looking. The the end that you screw into the light fixture was the top of mars but a little more sublte than the light bulb and it was located on the side of Mars that we don't usually see. Kinda like the Moon's dark side.

Well, that's all I remember. It was so cool to see. Makes me want to go out and buy a telescope. All of a sudden I have an enourmous interest to learn more about Mars. Something very intriguing about that dream. Not sure why it's been on my mind but it was one of those dreams where, after you wake up from it you wish you could fall back to sleep to continue it some more.

...happy planitarium day to you!