First Sunday February

I made a big fuss about no alarm clocks, but I rose at seven. I did the good morning writes and sits and reads on the couch. In HIIT I did the most burpees in the class. I did box jumps like a true beast fueled by the previous night's gig in Indiana and the oatmeal creme pie I ate on the way home. I was so spent I couldn't imagine eating yet. I texted Puhg and we walked through the snow to the grocery store. Everyone was buying chips and dips. We passed a pop-up brunch at our favorite veg cafe. Cruelty-free chicken & waffles. I don't remember what we talked about. I responded to a promising email. I organized my sweaters and laid down. Lesson plans over two eps of Big Love. A little watching the guy play Until Dawn. My bus didn't come, so I met my girl on the train platform. We were both late for our own meeting. I saw three other comedians standing at the Red Line. Sometimes Chicago is the smallest. The bar we walked to was closed, so we sat in the balcony of Whole Foods with serious faces and then outlining our new project. Oh, it's good. I can tell. I walked across the street to i_. My Harold team goes on every week, but there's a jubilance when we arrive to the same green room. I cherish the night and play an overbearing marketer. Our coach says, "I'm glad you worked through the Winnebago scene" and if that's not priceless improv garbage, what is? I couldn't interact any more, so I sat next to two people riding home, not speaking. The bus would take five minutes. I was cooked. I stood looking out for it. It arrived, empty save a man sleeping on it with a six pack next to his head. The driver got up and shook him. The man took his sweet time debarking. It was fine. There but for the grace of God. I forgot my keys and had to call up. I wasn't just ready for bed. Reddit posts until the blanket of tired tucked around me.

Happy Is What Happens

Yesterday I sat in the big fancy conference room with my coffee mug filled with the last of my Starbucks birthday card Macchiato and signed my name to contracts to literally work my dream job. And then, we rehearsed. Dreams come true are curious creatures. Is this the dream? The closer it gets in the first place, the less glowing it seems until for lunch you are eating a cold piece of avocado toast and highlighting haphazardly.

But I DO still feel full of something--zip or zest--that tightens around me. This was day two of rehearsal. I woke up early to run lines on the gym elliptical. I ate a spinach bowl. I answer emails furiously on the train. I laugh a lot. I think a lot. I try a lot. I wonder a lot. Everything you get you once wanted very much, and that is strange.

There's a kind of a sort of cost--

There's a couple of things get lost.

They Could Be Calling Your Name

Two new girlies tried step class today. Step is a different language. The bass is bumpin (today was "Heaven is a Place on Earth!), the shorts are short, and the instructor doesn't have time to dilly dally. He calls the moves as we go, and we follow right behind. "Reverse ham hop! Sashay, over the bench, three knees, hop and box!" It makes no sense unless it makes sense.

So the girlies were floundering. I always want to go up to new people and say, "Really, don't be embarrassed. No one has a good first day." But I don't want to be condescending. Our instructor did such a great job with the ladies. He called the advanced moves while demo-ing the basic combos. Amazing, I think. It was incredible how much the class became about them. Really, all about them. Never-ending extra thumbs ups and encouragement. More reminders, tips, and advice. "I wish I had gotten so coddled my first day!" I thought indignantly. It was St. Patrick's Day, and I was failing hard. I sweat a lot, but I sweat twice as much that day from being a complete doof while old ladies bopped circles around me.

And then I remembered all the talking on the mic. The instructor was chatty, but I wasn't attune to the reverberations of a gym yet. I could barely hear him. I was so focused on my feet I could barely hear the music. In hindsight, I know I was just as cared for, encouraged, talked to on my first day, but I literally didn't hear it over my own concerns. This has some meaning.

Think About Moves Only

Saturday in aerobic step, I fell off my platform. I guess it's a right of passage, and allegedly every one has done it, but it's still a total shock. One minute I was doing a kick ball-change, and then I hesitated, and then I was on the ground.

I was so shaken that I was determined to get the rest of the hour right. I went full-out on each leg lift, arms high on knee steps, big spins. At one point the instructor forgot to call the next routine, and I alone was so focused that I chugged right through the class confusion. When everyone was back on track I thought, "I did great just then." And then I jumbled up the beginning of the next combo. As long as I was focused on the moves, I was killin' it. As soon as I thought about how I was doing the moves, I biffed.

Gym Rat

CNN with closed captioning on. Chlorine and carpet floors. Lines of lockers. Sticky sweat rice around my collarbone. Hood up, kicks on, headphones in, out the door. Towel bins. Tile steam room. A wet hot vacuum, swallowed up whole. Pull extra hard on the suction door. Gasp at the coconut air, designer soap. Glass shower doors. Back into the night. Comedy club marquis dotting around. Salon with blinky lights. Baked chicken and pop music wafting from Brazilian Bowl.

My Place

I didn't say a formal goodbye to my graduate university. I wasn't really sure when it was the last day. I kept remembering teeny reasons to go to campus--more annoying than sweet (return this key, drop off that book). And then suddenly I was moving, and I wasn't going back. But the day before I drove out of the desert I went to throw away my v old tennies and remembered the shoe recycling program in the gym. I had long cleaned out my locker, but I swung by, less than a day left in the state, just to drop the old soles into the bin. And then I almost cried. I got a theatre degree, and yet, I will miss that gym a dozen times more than any black box. This is the place I trained for marathon number two and where I spent hours on bikes reading Atlas Shrugged before classes started when I had no homework or friends.  This is every 6 AM my first spring before I had an iPad when I had to settle for closed captioning of that dumb Amanda Bynes sit-com. Backstroke with palm trees smiling down. Step class that launched me into graduation. Midday showers on the hottest of hot full days. Every Wednesday on ellipticals reading my peers' plays. Those Saturday nights when I was a single girl trying to get a lift workout in before close. Those Sunday mornings ramping up adrenaline before improv rehearsal. I swallowed because I had so much more packing left and I'd been doing pretty well not crying.

Open road, leaving AZ.

Sometimes I find myself shakin' in the middle in the night

and then it hits me and I can't even believe this is my life.

Adventures in Gym Class: Part I

After the marathon I wanted a change from running. April 1st I purchased a month group fitness pass at the university gym. It's been an experience.

-My first step class I was told, "This is really an advanced step class..." I thanked the instructor, but I knew I could keep up. How tired could one get from merely stepping up and down on an itty platform? UM, A LOT TIRED. Also, so so confused. Like, how do full-on Britney Spears backup dances happen in a 50 minute step class?! Several times in the routine I completely lost the choreography and just marched in place.

-There is a Mennonite girl who takes Zumba with me. If you don't know about Zumba, it is Latin hip-hop cardio. Lots of hips. Ol' Menny busts it out like the rest of us--except instead of booty shorts, she's wagging a huge tan floor-length skirt.

-I've come to really love Step now that I have the basics down pat. It's a workout for the body and mind because you have to continually remember the combos while doing them. I like running to unwind, to clear my head, but this is a different type of head-clearing. Nothing in the world can possibly pop in the noodle when I'm rocking-horsing like a champion. It makes me sad these types of exercise are seen as "girly" and stupid because they're actually challenging in a completely different way than lifting weights (for example). More Dudes in Step Classes 2014.

-My fave class is Boot Scoot. Yeah, that's the real title. It's aerobic country line dancing, AND IT IS GLORIOUS. Apparently this opinion is not widespread because sometimes I am the only person in class. Besides the retarded man who sometimes joins, talking nonstop to himself as "Wagon Wheel" blares and I try not to grapevine into him.

Shots

ACTF 2011--Huntie plays a man with one arm. I am his partner.

Today I took a Zumba class. I've taken Zumba before at the Y in the Midwest. There it was very salsa-y with a bit of hip hop. Here at the biggest party school in the country? Zumba involves a lot of butt-shaking and shimmies and the salsa beats are few and far between. More raunchtastic rap including a fully choreographed exploration of the song "Shots." You know the one? The chorus is "SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS!"

Anyway, based on the aforementioned facts, men rarely visit Zumba. But, today, we had a special guest. A 40something retarded man. This man really enjoyed Zumba, but he had no idea what he was doing. He kept approaching girls in class and starting to ask what to do, but the moves go so fast, even if we WANTED to help the man, we could not. He aimlessly bopped around and eventually picked up some weights and made everyone really nervous.

A room of young women shaking their booties plus one confused retarded dude pumping weights randomly. SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS!

Eventually, he tried to dance in front with the instructor, and she pointed him back to the masses.

In the locker room I saw the tube-top wearing, rap mouthing, instructor. "Hey," I said. "Way to navigate through an awkward class."

She blinked at me and put on a tiny pout. "You thought it was awkward?" She was bummed.

"Oh! No! Just...the company..."

She cocked her head to the side, bewildered, then decided to smile it off, and said, "It was really hot in there!" Then she skipped off.

I am a horrible person apparently.

Not Watching Spring Break!

1. At the gym, turn on MTV.
2. See that it's MTV's Spring Break.
3. Wonder what the point of MTV's televised Spring Break is. Kids that are doing it are there--having fun. Kids that aren't are watching and feeling lame about their lives.
4. Wonder if the majority of kids currently on MTV's Spring Break spent a Spring Break watching MTV's Spring Break, feeling like a loser middle schooler/ high schooler, and promising to one day BE on MTV's Spring Break.
5. Therefore, by broadcasting what a "cool" Spring Break is, MTV has defined it for hella peeps and perpetuated it through peer pressure via programming.
6. Realize a sad cycle for our youth.
7. Decide to watch MTV's Spring Break to see how lame it is.
8. Change my mind!
9. Decide not to even give MTV's Spring Break that satisfaction!!!!!
10. Listen to "Put on a Happy Face" from Bye Bye Birdie!


My Spring Break partners in crime. Photo post-Robin Hood. May 2010.

And spread sunshine all over the place. Just put on a happy face.