This past fall I decided it was time to shake it all up a bit, make some new friends, get involved with my community in some way that wasn't just going to the grocery store.
I don't want to work for money anymore. Enough already. I have faith in the rest of you.
Keep at it, please, that GDP isn't going to raise itself.
Instead, I signed up for a class, then another class related to the first class, and so it was that two nights ago I wrapped a performance in a play by a local author.
Not me and I don't have the name handy but I hope it will be me next fall.
It was fun. So much fun I'm doing it all over again. No, don't try to stop me, it's too late.
I'm hooked.
Meryl Streep get out of my way!
Anyway, the original title of this blog entry was going to be "Leaving Normal", and it was the result of being online more than was good for my well-being. We all have our rabbit holes, and mine was increasingly bleak. It's easy to lose perspective, though, which is the real problem for some of us social media users and political junkies. So to save what was left of my sanity, because it's looking pretty... not good... out there, I knew it was time for something completely different.
Real life!
Well, fake real life!
Shakespeare, who I read online the other day may have been plagiarizing Emilia Somebody, was absolutely right. Turns out, the play really IS the thing! Who knew?
Originally, my idea was to take the scariest class I could think of, which was Improv. But once started, Improv seemed right up my alley and not scary at all. Meanwhile, an Improv classmate assured me acting would be the fright I was looking for and so I took her advice and signed up for an acting class.
I didn't realize at the time, even though it says so right in the course description, it meant putting on an actual play in front of a live audience, or I never would have done.
Also, I really only took it to learn how to adapt my book into a play, not inherit TWO ROLES when two different people dropped out for this or that reason, including the classmate who'd assured me acting would be the fright I was looking for but she'd be there to calm my jitters.
It was. Oh indeed it was. But why didn't I have even an inkling how cool it is to take on a different character and act out a fiction for the sole purpose of entertaining a live audience of friends and family? Times two because two very different characters: An insecure young stage hand who accidentally outs herself during a monologue to the director and an assured and bawdy costume designer paired with an older censorious one trying to outfit the wrong actor for a community theatre production gone off the rails.
Terrifying!
Also, just what I needed, I guess, because I feel so much better than I did going into it all.
It's the people, of course, the social interaction, sense of purpose, feeling of accomplishment.
The power of the arts?
And now, bonus, I have a template for turning "That Looks Good on You - You Should Buy It" into a play, the process of which I plan to blog on Kathryn Writes Here so it actually happens.
(The play's the thing but only because the audience is REALLY the thing.)
So stay tuned. In the meantime, get out there and be with other people in whatever capacity you can. Hell is us, yes, we can be, sometimes. More often, though, we're the antidote to it all.
Finally, a fun story about men vs women that sums up a lot of our (women's) suffering while men live out their lives reasonably content to be anywhere at all while not doing much of anything.
A fellow improvisor asked me what I was doing for Christmas. After a long involved story of explanations, rationalizations and justifications as to why I basically don't do anything for Christmas anymore (oh except for making a grabillion dollars and hours of labour worth of organic granola to give as presents) I returned the favour and asked him what he was doing for Christmas.
"Nothing", he answered.
It was during a break in our Improv class, ffs - I could've gone with, "Christmas? Wtf is Christmas??"
Oh well, lesson learned. I'm sure there will be a next time.
Until then, though, have a Merry Merry and Happy Happy!
