What a Jerk.

[mattpack]

Blackout!

A mosquito got sucked into my nose after making the unfortunate mistake of flying too close when I was running at 2 in the morning. The weird part was before I knew what had happened I had sucked it through my nasal cavity, into my mouth, and spit it out. Gross.

My friends and I were supposed to go to Mohigan Sun Casino in Connecticut tonight to play blackjack, but at 4:30 this afternoon a monsoon came down on Nyack, NY. A few minutes after 5 our power went out. I was in the middle of my best attempt yet at the TPC at Sawgrass on Tiger Woods Golf, and was very disappointed.

It was when the power went out that I realised how absolutely dependant upon electricity I am. TV. CD player. Playstation. Email. This website. DVDs. Books (not enough light). Writing (same problem). Working out (again, too dark!). By the time my friends and I had decided it was too messy out to drive to Connecticut, it was pitch black out.

Pitch black is an exageration, as Nyack is pretty close to the city, and on cloudy nights like tonight the lights of New York reflect off of the clouds and it's not too dark out. Lighter than it seems when the streetlights are on anyway, since your eyes adjust better. Anyway, I took a bath in the dark, then I gathered up everything I could find in the kitchen that would not require cooking in the dark. I had a dinner of Wise Salt and Vinegar potato chips, Gingerbread cookies, and Foccacia with olive oil. After using up the batteries on my laptop and cell phone, I decided that the night when there was literally nothing to do in my house was as good a night as any to resume good exercise habits after a month and a half pause. That's why I was running at 2 am, and that's why I pulled a mosquito through my sinuses. Again, gross.

When I got home, I discovered a flashlight, and was able to read some before deciding to go to bed. And then, after laying awake for quite some time (no clocks because of no power), the power comes on as I'm drifting out of consciousness, waking me up as every appliance in my house springs to life. This occured 11 and 1/2 hours after my power went out. You suck, electric company.

 

[mattpack]

Plugged!

Yeah! My journal got a plug in the Plug your favorite journal thread! And the person who gave me the plug isn't (A) someone I know, or (B) someone I put up to this. (Not that any of the plugs are, but that just strikes me as something I might do if I were 1/37 less wholesome) Anyway, I salute you, Katy Jack!

 

[mattpack]

I dig improv

When I started this journal, I put a sort of informal mission statement into the first entry.

to chronicle my life during my journey into the world of improvisation

For better or worse, I seem to not be writing very much about my experience as a burgeoning improvisor. Today that all changes!

Since completing the UCB Summer Intensive class, some friends from class and I have been organising practice groups every Tuesday. They've been sort of smallish, but that's ok, because it leads to all of us staying very busy during practice. Shannon O'Neill has been coaching us, and she's been mega-awesome. I think our group as a whole feels pretty good about what they're getting out of practice.

I feel great - I think after the intensive class I was a little overwhelmed by everything being so new to me (I had no imrov experience prior, and outside of a couple of high school plays, no acting or anything like that either), and going into our practice group, I was pretty bad. The first day of practice I stunk up the joint something awful. But the big things I was doing wrong (not yesanding enough, falling into conflict instead of the game of the scene) were things that Shannon pointed out to me right away, and she had us do some exercises our second week to drill home the fundamentals even more. I think in those first two weeks of practice I improved exponentially - from what I'd classify as bad relative to my peers in class, to feeling like I was at the right level for where I was. Now I'm even starting to have moments where I even feel like I'm pretty strong relative to where I am in my improv development (which is admittedly still in its infancy).

Two great feelings I've had in the past week that I'm sure every improvisor has in their learning process: The first was when the realisation that I've finally gotten to a point where I'm not a liability in a scene. For most of my time early into training, I when I was in a scene, it was the other person who was doing most of the work and having to try to make me look good as I tried to keep up. Now I'm starting to feel like I'm not a liability out there, and that even when my scene partner struggles, I'm comfortable enough to be able to concentrate on making them look good like people have done for me. The other great feeling I've had recently, is for the first time when doing improv, the scene has seemed to slow way down for me several times. Not actually slow down, but whereas before I felt like I was flying down a hill out of control when I was in a scene, recently I've felt very calm and deliberate. Both of these feelings were wonderful.

Last night I attended a practice group organised by another class. This was the first time I'd ever played with a group other than the people I took class with. I really enjoyed it. While I think that the group of people I took class with are incredibly talented, as well as kick ass people off stage, it was really fun to play with a new group of people who I had no idea what to expect from. I had a blast. They all seemed cool too. And unbeknownst to me, their coach is Shannon too! Badass.

So that's the update on my development as an improvisor. Hopefully it will turn out well. I'm working really hard to get better. I had always heard people talk about how if you really love doing something, working hard at it doesn't feel like work. As a slothful young man, I never really believed it - but hey, it's true!

 

[mattpack]

By the way

(I hurt my foot runnung, and the injury has caused me to have a bizarre limp in my walk. Think of Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects and you'll have a good idea. While composing the above journal entry my phone began to ring, so despite my limp I ran upstairs to get it. My limp caused my run to consist of my right leg propelling me forth and then my left leg almost collapsing under my body as I tried to swing my right leg forward fast enough so I wouldn't crash to the floor. Probably the most crochety run you'll ever see. Who likes parenthetical paragrphs? We like parenthetical paragraphs!)

 

[mattpack]

Clipped!

I shaved my armpits today. For the past few weeks I've been wondering what it would be like to shave my armpits, and today I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror and I decided the time was right. I actually never got to the shaving part, so to be more accurate, I buzzed my armpits. When I was using my clipper on them, my right armpit (being done by my left, uncoordinated, hand) was punctured by the corner of the clipper blade, causing blood to go everywhere. After the bleeding had stopped I decided that repeating this ordeal with an actual razor might be better left for another day.

In keeping with my malady themed update, my (most recent) foot injury celebrates its one week anniversary tomorrow. I took a photo of my bandaged foot to put in the journal whenever I get around to adding pictures, but that's not today. The only real downside to my gimpy foot is that it's preventing me from running or even walking very far, thus severely hindering my exercide regimen. I have, however, been able to keep up my regular lifting schedule since it resumed a few weeks ago. I'M HUGE!

More later...

 

[mattpack]

New Direction

Wow - so long without an update.

I've decided to take the journal in a new direction. You see, since graduating from college, one of my projects has been to get into better shape. When I graduated (May 2001) I was in what may have been the worst shape of my life, weighing in at 240 pounds (the other candidate is the middle of my junior year of college when I weghed 230-ish with less muscle). Anyway, with a lot of hard work and eating right and whatnot, I managed to get down to 191 by the beginning of this June. This was when I began improv, and unfortunately, my meager willpower was not strong enough to maintain my motivation while in the thrall of longform improvisation. I put on about 14 pounds over the course of June and July, before getting back on the fitness horse near the beginning of August. So anyway, these days I'm weighing in between 200 and 205, depending on the day.

So now for the new direction I'm taking with the journal. My favorite form of aerobic exercise is the long walk. I love long walks! While spending a month in Europe earlier this year, I kept track of how far I was walking every day, and it came out to an average of about 10 miles (16 km) per day. The most I've ever walked in one day was 24 miles while spending a day alone in Berlin. Most of the 45 or so pounds I lost in the past year was due to these long walks.

I also love the radio show Love Line! It's one of the few things on tv or radio other than Conan that regularly makes me laugh outloud. Don't let the spottiness of The Man Show turn you off to Love Line! Adam Carolla is much funnier on the radio show, and Dr. Drew is great too. However, the real gem of Love Line is the callers. Truth in comedy, baby! Love Line is broadcast in New York from 11pm through 5am each night (two repeats sandwiching a live broadcast) - I've grown into the habit of strapping on the walkman around midnight and taking my long ass walk. Good times!

So anyway, NEW DIRECTION: In an attempt to motivate myself to keep exercising and shed these last 20 pounds, I've given myself a challenge - walk 1000 miles. As long as I eat right and keep lifting weights, I should be in great shape by the end of the 1000. Each day I'll update how much I've shaved from the 1000 miles, and I'll try to include the Love Line highlights. Hopefully this will motivate me to be diligent with both my exercising and journaling. And I'll still be writing about my journey as an improvisor! (I'm starting Billy's level 3 next Wednesday!)

(side note: I was a little scared this would be too much like Andy Rocco's awesome The Andy Rocco Diet, but I don't think it will be. Plus, I'm sure there's room for more than one fitness related journal around here!)

So here goes!

Monday, 8.19.2002:
11 miles (989 remain)
LL Highlights: I hadn't yet decided to do this on Monday, so I didn't really make note of any, although the British band Coldplay was the studio guest and I decided that I'd like to live in London at some point during my twenties.

Tuesday, 8.20.2002:
I had Jay-Z/N.E.R.D./Kweli/Blackalicious/Nappy Roots tickets, so no walking or LL highlights. Great concert though. I danced and jumped around a lot and felt guilty for staring at a very hot girl who couldn't have been more than 17 years old. N.E.R.D. was great but almost caused a riot. My friend Jolie went to the show with me, and it was our last chance to hang out before she left for Georgetown Law - we'll miss her while she's gone.

Wednesday, 8.21.2002:
9 miles (980 remain)
LL Highlights: A phone sex operator calls in because she gets paid more for keeping people on the line longer, but she can't keep guys from finishing quick. Adam and Drew decide that she should try inserting subliminal unsexy words to turn off the guys - i.e. "Oooh baby, you're making me so hot hitler I just want you so so bad cancer..." and so on. They attempt to give it a trial run with the word "Vietnam", and have an absolutely normal 30 seconds or so of 'what are you wearing' type phone sex type conversation with the caller (named "Sugar") - but she never mentions Vietnam. They ask her why she didn't and she admits she doesn't know what subliminal means. So they explain it again to her, and have her try again with the word "holocaust."

Sugar (in a breathy, sexy type voice): Hey baby, what's your name?
Adam: I'm Adam, what's yours?
S: I'm Sugar baby.
A: What are you wearing?
S: I have on a black bra and panties with a black garter belt. I'm just lying here in bed thinking about the holocaust baby.

Everyone in the studio completely lost it. It was ridiculous. They had to take a commercial everyone was laughing so hard.

 

[mattpack]

New Direction v. 2.1

Thursday, 8.22.2002:
10 miles (970 remain)

I've decided to ditch the Love Line highlights idea after just one entry. I think it was driven by the awesome awesome crazy callers last night - but that ain't gonna be happening every night. Today they actually replayed the call I mentioned in yesterday's entry - apparently the first time they've ever done that in show history. I'll still be enjoying the show while I walk, but usually not mentioning it. Anyway...

Robin came back to New York today from North Carolina! Yea! It sucks for her because the only reason she and Cassie are back is because their lease got f'd up - but I'm happy to have her around - more fun for me. I picked the two of them up from Port Authority in between the 8 pm Harold show and Cagematch - Robin brought me a present - a magazine called WWDBeautyBiz - with August covergirl Michelle Branch! (for info on the significance of MB check out an earlier entry called "An Open Letter to Michelle Branch"). Go Robin!!!

Only 5 days until my level 3 starts! Excitement!

 

[mattpack]

Wild on lazy

Friday, 8.23.2002:
0 miles (970 remain)

Didn't get to any foot-travelling today. For some reason I was a little grumpy for most of the day. Watched One Hour Photo (scary movie starring Robin Williams) with Robin and her crew - I'd give it a rating of "OK" - worth seeing I suppose.

I'm feverishly following the search for a Brooke Burke replacement on E!'s Wild On. So far I'm rooting for Cindy Taylor of NYC, but for the shallowest of reasons (which I suppose is in the spirit of the show).

I have the sensibilities of a 16 year old.

 

[mattpack]

Floundering

Saturday, 8.24.2002:
0 miles (970 remain)

Rain rain rain. Two straight days of no walking - even when the rain stopped, the dead batteries in my MP3 player were enough to kill my motivation (no Love Line on the weekend). I'm not sure why the idea of walking with no entertainment seemed so offputting, but I only had to consider it for about 12 seconds before deciding to stay home.

Instead of exercising, went out for a nauseating amount of pizza with my friend Mike.

Sunday, 8.25.2002:
11 miles (959 remain)

Ah, back on track. Even though today was a good return to form, my first week total of 41 miles is no good. I need to be getting at least 8 per day, and I'm more than 2 miles per day under that so far. I'M WALKING 1000 MILES!!!

Classic Love Line rerun on tonight. Adam and Drew spent 15 minutes (spanning both sides of a commercial break) trying to guess the name of a caller's crush. Just 15 minutes of name guessing. It was awesome. Turns out his name was Justin.

I've really done nothing of consequence all weekend.

 

[mattpack]

Back to class, baby

Monday, 8.26.2002
9 miles (950 remain)

Tuesday, 8.27.2002
0 miles (950 remain)

Literally almost nothing happened Monday or Tuesday. I put air in my tires, bought a new radio for my bathroom, and played video games. That's it. No walking on Tuesday, as I mostly stayed in bed all day. You know who is the victim of my boring boring weekbegining? That's right, you, the reader. SUCKA!!!

Wednesday, 8.28.2002
2 miles (948 remain)

Level 3 class started today! I'm happy. The people in the class seem real cool, Billy is an awesome teacher, and I don't think I sucked things up. Like I said - I'm happy.

After class it was up to practice group for three more hours of improv. Katty coached us tonight, she was great. I think I was pretty depleted by the time we started practice though, and my performance showed it. Oh well. I need to figure out if it's worth it for me to go to practice right after class when I'm already beat. I'm thinking probably not. We'll see.

My Mom brought me all these berries from her chef school. I just ate a blackberry the size of my thumb. AWESOME.

 

[mattpack]

MK & A

Thursday, 8.29.2002
3 miles (945 remain)

The 1000 miles are going very slowly. I must do something about that.

I'm watching the MTV Awards, and even though I know it might sound creepy, I'm going to say what's on my mind. The Olsen twins are really hot. I think I prefer Ashley, but it may have been Mary Kate. They came onstage to music by Michelle Branch. I can't ask for anything more.

Spent the entire night watching shows at the theatre. Everything was great, but cage match was especially awesome. Trash talking for fantasy football began. I'm more excited for football season than I've ever been. I got a flat tire on the way home, then stopped for ice cream. Life is good.

Holy crap! David Lee Roth is like 80! That's insane!

 

[mattpack]

Sloth sloth sloth

Friday, 8.30.2002
0 miles (945 remain)

Spent another night at the theatre watching shows on Friday. Two sets of friends tagged in with each other to split the duties escorting me during the 5 hours of funny. My sleep cycle is such that if I lay around watching Tivo for an hour after I wake up, by the time I shower and dress it's 4:45 or so. This is a problem common to many around these boards, I think. I've been like this as long as I can remember - I think my body is secretly wired on a 25 hour clock. Every 6 weeks or so I'll take a few days and stay up about 5 hours later each day to reset my sleep habits by going forward. This never really remedies my problem for more than a few days. I'm not sure if this problem is curable, but I do know that the only way to force myself into containing this is to get a job. The job is coming soon I suspect.

Saturday, 8.31.2002
10 miles (935 remain)

I finally got some good milage in Saturday. I would have had more, but my mp3 player's batteries died, and took my determination with them. I just lay in bed for the non-walking portion of my day. I really need to email several people foremost two professors who I absolutely love and a former roommate who is one of the greatest people on the planet. I've meant to email all three of these people for at least three months, but I continually forget/am too lazy. Wow, that sounds really pathetic. Email will be written.

Sunday, 9.1.2002
0 miles (935 remain)

No walking today on account of rain. Good workout was had in the basement, however. Over the weekend I spoke to several people about help finding a job, which is a necessary step in my forthcoming move out of my house. The current fallback plan involves a friend from high school who works for Crunch fitness. I've asked her if she could get me a job with as little responsibility as possible, and she can. So "Welcome to Crunch" could be coming out of my mouth with regularity before the end of the year. I have a few other possibilities that could result in better (read: good-paying, 9-5) jobs. If nothing pans out, I could always go back to a former gig teaching LSAT and SAT courses for Kaplan. Fun, but not very reliable work.

My fantasy baseball team, reinvigorated by the salvaged baseball season is making a run. I'm in second place, but my friend who is in the lead is way over his innings pitched count, and only has 19 innings remaining for the year. I have over 100. The standings as of today:

Ravi 6778.31
Matt 6414.67
Nolan 6262.07

I'm closing fast.

 

[mattpack]

Football baby!

Monday, 9.2.2002
7 miles (928 remain)

Tuesday, 9.3.2002
0 miles (928 remain)

Wednesday, 9.4.2002
2 miles (926 remain)

Thursday, 9.5.2002
12 miles (914 remain)

Had my second class of level 3 with Billy on Wednesday. My feelings are still the same - the class, the people in it, and Billy are all really awesome. The only thing that hasn't been awesome so far has been my improvising. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. What I've been doing hasn't been bad persay, it's just that I'm at a stage in my improv development when I feel like I'm in a lot of scenes that I cause to be sort of boring. Nothing really wrong with them, but still very boring. Like this journal.

I'm not too worried though. I'm trying to keep good perspective on my development as an improvisor, and that means not going too easy or too hard on myself. I want to keep pushing myself so I get better, but I also have to remind myself from time to time that three months ago I had never improvised a thing in my life, and I need to be patient. I really love doing this work though and the thought of never being good at it absolutely terrifies me.

My friend Jolie left last week for Georgetown Law, and yesterday we finally caught up with each other on the phone. I never realise how much I really enjoy and appreciate Jolie until I talk to her after being away from each other for a while. I'm really happy and proud of what she's doing too - I think it's neat that we both have foiund directions in our lives that we're really excited about, and it amuses me that they couldn't be more different. I think part of why I'm so amused by this is that until about eight months ago I was planning on going to law school too, but I decided not to apply two days before I was supposed to send out my stuff. I think Jolie and I are both in the right places.

My sleep cycle continues to be spotty. Wednesday after class I came home and fell asleep at 11pm, but since I normally go to be at around 6am, I awoke at around 2am. I then fell back asleep at around 1pm, and slept for another three hours. I'm all f'ed up. In my tiredness I blew off going to Harold night in favor of staying in my pj's and watching the return of the NFL. I was literally giddy about the return of football. I've never been this excited about the NFL before this year. Who knows why. It may be my foray into fantasy football, where previously my fantasy sports intake was stricktly MLB and NBA. My excitement also may be a trickle down from Michael Vick and the Falcons. Or maybe it's realignment. Who cares? I'm ready for some football.

Billy gave us a homework assignment to watch a nature documentary. I was perusing the options on Tivo - check out all these channels: TLC, Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Science, History Channel, History Channel International, Discovery Civilisation, Discovery Home, Discovery Wings - DISCOVERY WINGS!?!?! It's all about airplanes. That's awesome. I think that Discovery Civilisation may be the most promising for long term entertainment. Maybe science or History International. They all seem fun though. I don't know when we got all these, because last time I checked we only had like three of them. But I'm psyched and my Tivo is jammed.

I should really try to go to bed now. It's 7:31 in the morning. This is ridiculous.

 

[mattpack]

I got class

Friday, 9.6.2002
6 miles (908 remain)

Saturday, 9.7.2002
6 miles (902 remain)

Sunday, 9.8.2002
2 miles (900 remain)

Monday, 9.9.2002
0 miles (900 remain)

Whole lot of new improv stuff this weekend. I started my Armando improv class on Sunday. I like it - when I left I felt like not only was I a better improvisor than when I got there, but I could pinpoint individual and specific things that I had learned - good feeling. There's a interesting mix of people and experience levels in the class - I'm not sure where I fit in - I suppose somewhere in the middle. I think the thing that bothers me most about my improvising these days is that half of the time I'm very happy with my performance, and the other half is terrible. I guess this will get better with more time and practice.

Sunday night was sketch writing class (also with Armando). We workshopped our first sketches, and I think mine went over pretty well. I was pretty happy about that. I like the people in my sketch class - after reading everyone's sketches I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with next week. I think there are some funny people there.

My weekend of new improv stuff came to a close on Monday with my level 3 class' first practice group with Jon Daly. I sucked it up pretty bad - oh well. Daly was great and hopefully I'll be better next week.

Before practice, Robin, Laura and I went to Chelsea Piers to hit baseballs and golf balls. I hadn't hit baseballs in about three years and golf balls for maybe two. Baseball was disasterous. Completely emasculating. Fortunately I redeemed myself on the driving range, where I was absolutley killing the ball. There aren't too many feelings better than crushing a golf ball and watching it fly away.

I don't have too much else to add here.

 

[mattpack]

Bizack

Tuesday, 9.10.2002
2 miles (898 remain)

Wednesday, 9.11.2002
12 miles (886 remain)

Thursday, 9.12.2002
12 miles (874 remain)

Friday, 9.13.2002
2 miles (872 remain)

Saturday, 9.14.2002
0 miles (872 remain)

Sunday, 9.15.2002
3 miles (869 remain)

Monday, 9.16.2002
0 miles (869 remain)

Tuesday, 9.17.2002
0 miles (869 remain)

I've been a slacker about writing in here lately. I got on a pretty good roll as far as keeping up a good walking schedule, but then it sort of sputtered out. Tomorrow I'll make sure to make some progress on that.

I had a sort of rough week as far as my improvising goes. Just a lot of sucking. It's really frustrating. Part of my brain knows that I've only been at this for three months, and that I'm not going to be great right away and I should be more patient with myself. But there's a much larger portion of my brain that's really frustrated because I know exactly what it is that I want to be doing and I can't do it. I'll just keep on plugging away - if I do improv almost every day, I can't suck forever.

Anyway, I'm looking for a job. I think I'm about ready to get a job and an apartment and get on with it. Yeah.

I'm loving sketch class. I really like writing sketches, hopefully it will keep going well.

Ugh, I'm really tired. Sorry this entry sucked hard.

 

[mattpack]

Round Mound

Saturday, 9.21.2002
6 miles (863 remain)

Sunday, 9.22.2002
9 miles (854 remain)

Wow, I've been slacking all around with everything.

We had our first New Team Harold last tuesday. Fun fun fun. A fun little twist was that I was sick as a dog for the show, and so I decided to dope myself up on all sorts of cold medicine. By the time I hit the stage I was so pumped full of Comtrex that you could have punched me in the face and I wouldn't have known. Our team was called "Joe's Bar and Grille" - I misheard though and thought that we were "Joe's Barn Girl" - which I thought was a pretty cool name. I think I'll request that we use it for the next show. My scenes were with Kommander, who I think is an awesome improvisor. I think both of our classes teams had pretty good Harolds. Good times all around.

Anyway, tonight I went with my friend Amanda to see the debut of Police Chief Rumble. I thought they were great, and seeing how excited everyone was really cool. I'm happy for them.

After the show we went down to Chinatown and had what I guess could be referred to as a "night of truth" - we just talked all night about everything that was on our minds regarding our group of common friends and everything semirelated - with the rule that we would be completely totally honest about everything, and never reveal anything that was said. It was really cool. I learned all sorts of interesting things - I should hang with Amanda more.

Nolan, who's one of my best friends in the world was in town too, and we got to link up late after I dropped Amanda off. Didn't see him for long, but it was good times.

Tomorrow my mom graduates from chef acadamy. AWESOME.

I have Charles Barkley's cell phone number in my possession. Take that for what you will.