Spring Break Sunday

There's a special kind of elaborate trick the other participants in the 9 AM Maximum Force Kickboxing class pull on you when the instructor says, "Okay guys, let me hear you on this next set of jabs. YAH! Let me hear you!"...and you are the only one who screams "YAH" in the studio room of forty people.

I have officially submitted my musical to a festival. This is big. The first time you send it out "there," it's real. Not perfect, but it could be real. I hope I get in. I've been getting mostly rejections lately. I think rejection always stings. I've been improving my recovery time though. I can wallow for one, two minutes tops sometimes. The more rejections, the shorter the wallow time. This is an important tolerance to build.

To celebrate Bisque and I saw It Follows which I'll talk about another day. I ate gummy bears and all of my peanut butter M and Ms. Still, I was ravenous on the way home, emotional from lack of food and probably blitzed out with PMS. Crankily I cried into the wind that I wanted Taco Bell.

It is spring break for the Chicago City Colleges. I will always remember fondly the first night of Spring Break when I was in 8th grade. My friends and I piled into the Chevy Lumina and saw Josie and the Pussycats together. We left the theatre screaming "SIX WHOLE HOURS AND FIVE LONG DAY-AYS." I wrote in my diary that I was happy.

Basic Bean pic.

My mom was visiting Friday. To kick off break festivities we saw 9 Circles, a play about an American soldier who committed warcrimes in Iraq. A little different from Josie and the Pussycats, but rather satisfying. Plus we walked half a mile for the churros she likes. I took in the lights from downtown. Even the big fat TRUMP all sparkling. I am thinking Chicago, you are not so bad. The redline was full of people getting ready to party, but I was reading A Separate Peace, ready for bed.

Dat Art Life

Today has been a very art day.

7:30 rise and get ready for the day while listening to showtunes

9:00 read inspirational essay about originality on the train

9:30 attend a theatre educator's conference

1:30 teach a high school playwriting class

3:30 make the long commute back to the north side while listening to a improv podcast

5:00 workout at the gym while listening to the demos from my new musical

6:20: eat cheese and chocolate while reading an improv blog

7:00 perform music improv show

9:30 go to bar with music improv cast

10:15 purchase tickets to a show tomorrow

10:30 come home and write in this blog

Art all day. And today is not an exception. My life is mainly art all day. Truly, I am doing exactly what I set out to do when I accepted my seat as a new MFA candidate four years ago. And yet, so many days it doesn't seem like enough. Beyond the schedule I posted above, I got two emails about sketches to write, had to resend my film script to Shells for her most recent revisions, and get propositioned for a new comedy team. I repeat: I'm doing exactly what I set out to do. And, still yet, it can not seem like enough.

But it must. Because there is literally nothing else I can do. I have thrown myself full-force into these worlds: improv, musicals, theatre ed, screenwriting. Some days it feels there's so little to show for it. Why are my lyrics so basic? Why can't I get another joke in these pages? Will this kid ever learn? But I am doing all I can do, and if anything, I need to do less.

 I decided to spend fifteen minutes in the steam room after my work out tonight. No phone, no thinking about scripts, no one else. Just me and the steam. In the silky hot tile room, I felt truly at peace. I'm not trying to do it--I am doing it. As long as you're doing it, you're doing it.