Miscellaneous

Hey there! How are ya? Good, good. Glad to hear it.

Well, I have been working on one or two updates to this little space this week, but then I stopped. There are reasons and I'll list them for you now:

1. My roommates just signed up for a membership at a local "Chicks Only" gym, and I've been talked into checking it out this week as a guest (they are trying to get me to sign up - ha ha, suckers!) So I have been too busy, and alternately too exhausted to sit at my little laptop and write this week.

2. I'm slow. I don't mean developmentally (although a case could be made I'm sure), but in terms of getting any task done. I'm a dawdler, always have been, probably always will be. Some of my earliest memories are of me and my sister having to do the dishes after dinner. She absolutely hated it when I'd wash because I'd take my sweet time and it tortured her to see precious daylight being wasted as she waited to dry (there was maybe only another half an hour before the street lights came on, after all).

This tendency to take my time when doing a job has carried over into my adult life and it is one of the reasons I will never be what is called a "success". When I worked in advertising it was all about GETTING IT DONE YESTERDAY!!, which you might have guessed by now, is not my style. I lasted about two years in that industry and to this day when a job opportunity comes up my stomach starts to hurt just thinking about going back to it.

I'm also very slow when it comes to writing (again, stating the obvious for your enjoyment). I've never really been able to whip something up really easily, and I don't really enjoy it when I do, although there are times when I get an idea that comes out pretty quickly, but it's rare that it doesn't need to be edited quite a bit.

This is perhaps why I am not so good at improv or the quick witty banter, at least not as good as I'd like to be. My brain just takes it's time thinking over things and coming to its conclusions. Granted, I've gotten much better at it in the last ten years or so with practice, but I'm still not really great at it. I really do enjoy thinking something over and picking out the mot juste, it rarely comes to me at a moment's notice (a lot of times half of it does, though. It's like my brain has a lot of hang time, like when your computer is downloading a picture and you get the top quarter... and then you wait... and wait... by the time you get the whole thing you're starting to wonder if it was even worth it to begin with).

Which brings me to another thing: having the goods. I know a shitload of funny people, truly funny people, people that have a natural ability to think quickly and turn a humourous phrase seemingly out of nowhere. People who are good at improv and rarely go for the obvious joke. I am deeply jealous of these people.

I realize that practice does help, and as I say I've gotten better myself over the years (by my own standards which is admittedly biased), but I don't have that thing... you know that thing that just sparkles and takes off and dazzles without real effort? That thing that makes someone worthy of an audience? I don't have it, but I've come to terms with that I think. Because I've got something else and even if it's not what I hoped it to be, it's still something.

Did you ever see Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels? You know how Michael Cain's character is a frustrated artist? Never had the talent he desired, but he came to terms with it by becoming really good at stealing lots of money and buying legitimate art to appreciate in his spare time when he wasn't stealing money? Well, it's kinda like that.

I appreciate humour, I study it, I absorb it. And in my life I make people laugh. Granted, it might not always be my own joke or observation, but does that matter? Does it make the conversation any less pleasant or the laughter any less genuine? I never take credit for someone else's humour (at least not on purpose, but as stated earlier my brain is mostly unreliable so there may have been one or two instances), and in the meantime I'm spreading it around for the good of everyone involved. And thankfully, I have a bit of a gift for delivery and mimicry that certainly helps.

Sure, I still work on my own stuff, but I'm under no illusions about it. No one will ever accuse me of being a comedic genius, but people seem to like having me at parties and other social gatherings. And that is pretty damn cool. I still get wistful every once in a while (usually while watching or reading something truly funny), but then my boyfriend or roommates will laugh heartily at something I offhandedly mutter and things are put back into perspective for me.

So... um... yeah. I had a point here, but I'm fucked if I can find it now. Huh.

In any event, I am working on updates. I'll see what I can do next week, but you must remember that it is the Twelve Days of Halloween and I will have a lot to do in the next little while, what with putting the finishing touches on costumes, decorating, making food and refreshments for the party, etc. etc. There's so much to get done... and we all know how I am with deadlines.