What can you say..

I need to get up and create a driveway. But..

- Hot Yoga again! This time I dressed appropriately, brought water, and survived! Perhaps not the mindblowing experience of last time, but delicious!

- Tried Yoga Sculpt. It was a poor decision, although I may go again. (pleasepleaseplease let not the 23 year old yoga instructor think that the classics station is perfect background for body rock. Jon Bon Jovi, unless drunkenly sung at a wedding, is nasty.)

- "Yoga Sculpt" handed my ass to me. Ow.

- This studio (I feel like a tool saying studio) is not about happy-making yoga. This is get-fit-and-talk-about-your-abs yoga. I like the exercise, but miss the happy-making yoga. I will go on search for happy-making yoga. Until then, my "abs" feel super special.

- It's such a weird mix of people. There's people who look like me, then there's suburban housewives, there's generally two business men, and then there's people who are probably fire dancers and models in their real life. (The firedancers and models come to class in dreads, earrings and little else. Amongst the suburban housewives dressed in Calvin Klein yoga gear. Fascinating!)

Beyond that...

- I've gone to some auditions, I've taught, I've worked, I've seen some lovely people..

- Spiked opened! Delightful! Again, secret code of "Santa" gets you discounted tickets, yes. :)

- I've been basically circling. Not really getting anything done - - just maintaining. My house is basically clean (even if it needs repair), my laundry is kinda clean (it's folded!), the dishes are kinda clean, the pets are basically healthy (gotta dope Pickles' ears).. Maintain maintain. Anything new or created? Not so much. ... Except for my 2009 Xmas mix, which doesn't really count. If you would like a copy, I will be sharing with you as soon as I see you in real life.

Time to shower and freeze..

Onward!

People seem happy

People seem happy at the museum today. That's nice. I forget that people, when they come to a museum, are generally happy to be there. It's a break in their routine. That's nice.

Things:

- Diego (as in "Go, Diego, Go") is teaching our children ("our" children? What a jerky thing to say. Presumptive.) ...things. I do a short show about Bears at the Museum. I've had at least two under-five kids get all up about the Spectacled Bear (the only bear in South America).

a) Spectacled? That's just damned hard to say.

b) What person over 30 has heard of the Spectacled Bear?

c) Chupacabra-Diego-mash-ups are inevitable.

- We went to Java Train yesterday. It was actually really lovely.

a) It's.. train themed. Trains and silos.

b) They have a train for your children to play in. When children play in a train, they scream a lot. Much like hobos would.

c) You can get hot dogs, mac n' cheese and ice cream at Java Train. ALL AT THE SAME TIME!! Hoboriffic!

- Back to tech rehearsal tonight! Er.. Dress rehearsal. Since I'm pattering in three's..

a) The music is beautiful! That Dennis knows how to arrange a song!

b) The sketches are funny! That Jim! That Josh Will! That Racheal! Delightful!

c) Pickles might have a part in it. (Pickles is my tiny dog with a bum leg.)

Pickles says promo code "Santa" for tix! And check out our calendar, to see what fancy guest star will make a fancy cameo appearance! (This Sunday, Ferrari McSpeedy!!)

Spiked.

Onward.

Tut tut...

Yesterday was a grease'plosion! A delicious delicious grease'spolision. Along the lines of "hey, 23 year old, wanna live? Like really really live!? Let's do this!"

To show you how serious we were, for a tiny dinner, we shared some poutine at Duplex.

And you're thinking, Jen, that looks disgusting. To which I would answer:

a) yes. It is. It's french fries, fresh cheese curds and gravy.

b) Canadians love it!

c) If you order it at Duplex, it looks all sexy n' stuff, honest.

Just a little half order. To justify, you can say, well.. it's like you ordered fries, and then a cheese and gravy sandwich. Somehow, that makes it better.

And, then, around 10 p.m., we made scotch eggs.

Egads! A scotch egg is a hardboiled egg, wrapped in sausage, breaded, then fried. We did it all homemade..

a) Fairly easy to make!

b) It's super comforting food! Like if breakfast came in baseball-sized portions.

c) Yeah...

Today, it's all oatmeal and apples and seaweed and slaps in the face. Promise. Yesterday, truly, was epic.

Saturday was a trip to Duluth! Unless you work in the service industry, people move a bit slower in Duluth.

a) Hi lake! Except when you swallow people, I likes ya!

b) Got up to do a couple of guest sets. Yes. I am trying stand up. I have some jokes. I need to write more.

c) I improved! Second guest set went fairly well. First guest set, I heard the drunk guy on stage left whisper "transsexual". What? Fine.

d) Met one of the most terrifying people. A very very drunk 23-ish year old 6'4" blonde tattoo'd infant of a man with military training. Who wanted to tell the stand ups how awesome they were by yelling and slapping them hard on the shoulder. And then getting horrifyingly quiet for about 30 seconds. Jesus.

We ate breakfast at Uncle Louis' and headed home. (Some guy wanted to win the "Hey I'm gregarious game!" here. Super jovial, his whole family basically surrounding me, but got almost offended when I tried to talk back. Let's play the gregarious game! Nope, it's a one man show. Sorry.. jerk.)

Ended up hosting Sunday Funday Double Team at the Spring Street, which was fun, until I was reminded about that whole not-being-23 thing again.

Note: If you do stand up, people might want to buy you shots. They think it's fun. It's really not. Really really not. Please eat some seaweed.

Happy Wednesday, friends! :)

Onward.

It's a little bit funny.. this feeling inside..

- I have a new tire. Thanks, Tires Tires Tires.

- Some gentleman who wasn't quite right decided to show everyone (including my mom) in the waiting room why men like Dodge products, as the Dodge Ram logo looks like fallopian tubes.

- To South Dakota! Grandpa looks awesome. Pam got a sassy new haircut. We ate a plate of beige. I've blogged about Tobie's before!!

- We drive back from SD through NE to IA. Rolly pretty. Mom points out where another horrible massacre happened. (That particular account linked is from 1896 and is wincingly horrible and racist. And the accounts that actually happened are also absolutely horrible.)

- Despite the horrible things that happened so close, NE Nebraska/NW Iowa is filled with some of the nicest people in the world. Eye contact and hellos from strangers! Dreamy!

- We get home and a lovely friend stops by! Yeaa!!

I don't wanna go. It's starting to hang in. This was too short. I miss my family. It's nice to be all together again.

"Pushing Daisies" really is a lovely show.

Onward.

P.S. Soon to come, a breakdown of Venture Bros. females! How all of the women who will actually have sex with the male characters must have one horrible, possibly disfiguring flaw (low creepy voice, invisible outer layer of skin) while the one actually possibly physically perfect woman (Molatav Cocktease) won't. What does it mean?? (NOTHING!) You're welcome.

Onward.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Quick little notes before getting back to SUX family mom time:

- Up was a beautiful, loving, funny, cautionary tale about obsession.

- I loved it, and laughed and cried much.

- Finished off, with mom, that bottle of 2002 Beringer White Cabernet Sauvignon from the basement.

- Did the aging process help it? What was originally supposed to taste like? I'm assuming apple juice.

- Should a cab be white? No! It was a very racist pink bottle of wine.

- I have the slighted, pink-colored headache this morning.

It's good to be back in the familiar. I am thanksful for blue skies and couches, and to just having family and for the family themselves. To house and home and shelter, clean air and water and the good things that come from them. To puppy dogs and kitty cats. To the people, who aren't here, whom I'm lucky enough to know and love. Which includes you - - THANK YOU!! Sending love your way. I am blessed and thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving... :)

Onward.

Am I doing this wrong?

There's moments, such as last night, such as this morning, that I get stuck and sad. And right now, that brand of stuckness is "am I doing this wrong? I might be bad at life. This sucks. I'm sad."

I don't feel like counting blessings. I feel like wallowing in this for a while.

I will count my blessings. I just don't feel like it right now.

Before jumping into the pile of Fuck-it-All, let's check on our weekly horoscope..

I agree with football coach Lou Holtz, who said, "The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren't in a very good mood." It's possible to work around this difficulty, however. What you have to do, before you unleash your levity, is conjure up empathy for the sourpuss in question. You should also make sure that your intention is not to mock or poke at the person, but instead offer a potential escape from his or her locked energy. By my calculations, you could be an expert at this kind of psychic judo right now. For best results, practice on yourself. Whenever you're headed toward a negative thought or emotion, nudge yourself away with a jest or wisecrack.

:( .. I will get on that. As soon as I'm able. I promise.

a) Dr. Rocket had one of their best damn set at Six Ring Circus last night. Goddamn. I greedily want them to submit for TCIF and IAGG and all that goodness. That little light of their's, I wanna watch it shine for a very long time. Go, gentlemen, go.

b) I've started Christmassing. I do like Christmassing. Certain things are being purchased. I hope certain people like them.

c) I didn't get the part that I had second callback for. My response to this is mostly "Aw, that's okay." I wanted it, but I didn't really expect to get it. Just proud to get second callbacked.

d) A poorly done haiku:

I'm jumping into

My Kia. It needs an oil

Change. Such is life, yes?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your's.

Onward.

Ohhhh, Thanks, Friends!

Thank you so much for a) reading b) responding. That's it. Michele is right. There's nothing better than people letting you know they read and they're okay with what you're writing. Thank you thank you thank you!!

Sunday was a lovely zoom. My Saturday horoscope told me to be on time for everything on Saturday (I did good!) and it carried over to Sunday. Yea! We Tony n' Tina'd for over 300 people, then to Improv A Go Go (where we got to be dirty and at least talk about all the stuff.. - - naughty, but fun. We didn't actually get to the skullf**king, but we probably should have.. maybe.)

And then Troy and James made me cry. w00f. In that deep-I-am-so-throughly-delighted-way that my nose has no excuse but to run. Yea! (James Moore, my friends, is up for anything, and that's makes me so happy. Very lucky.)

Then to SpringStreet to see good good people, and to home.

Monday got usurped by "Hot Yoga". One hour of "Hot Yoga" and I was worthless for the rest of the day.

a) You step into a room in your already stinky, unwashed yoga clothes. You notice that the room is set around 100 degrees f and humid. Dear god.

b) You lay on your yoga mat, contemplating the fate you have actively chosen for yourself. The person beside you is already sweating. We're doomed.

c) A very positive and firm woman walks in, and shows you how to breathe (first by pressing your fists into your neck.) I assume that certain things require that you breathe differently, but the only other thing I can think of beside yoga is pregnancy.

d) You sweat and sweat and oh and you stare at yourself in the mirror and you look at other people and your mind is so caught up in how damn hot it is, that there's no time for any other annoying nagging grocery-list thoughts. Enlightenment achieved!

e) We start doing alot of little Savasan (death) poses in between moves towards the end, which sounds all sexy and petite mort-ish but is really, at this moment, laying down for 20 seconds and praying that the firm woman will let us do this more.

f) She also has us rub our third eyes on our knees to "wake it up". I love the idea that my third eye is just really sleepy from too many cartoons and milk shakes.

g) Some of the stretches were for "wringing out our colons" and some were for our lymph nodes. I am soaked in colonic excrement and tummy toxins. I wonder how bad the room must smell, but it's currently too hot to smell anything. Everything's instantly turning to vapor and then to find particulate ash, certainly.

h) There is always at least 1-2 yoga bad-asses in the class. They tend to have chunky arm tattoos and concentrating snake-like eyes. I wonder how they go through the rest of their lives, what they do for a living. Does the rest of the world see how bad ass they are? Do they actually float to work or just materialize? I do not know.

i) Class is done. The firm woman shares in her thankfulness. We are all exhausted and beaten and thankful.

k) I am soaked. The women's showers fill up really fast. (I think there were only two gentlemen in the class itself.) I ask the firm lady about my hyper-extending elbows. Her name is Jennifer.

l) I leave shaken and floaty. I feel destroyed. I cross Excelsior to wander blinky through Trader Joe's.

m) I NOW FEEL GREAT! Water tastes amazing. Let us unyieldingly step into the world and breathe. I buy frozen veggies and use my purse as my shopping bag. I am wearing a Rainbow Bright sweatshirt. W000000...

n) I spend the rest of the day intaking cream based soups, cured meats, wine, coffee, 2 cigarettes, and 3 pieces of frozen pizza (which has formed a baseball shaped lump in my lower.. tummy). ...Owww.

Also, got to see dear friend Sue yesterday. Awesomes. I think I talked her ear off. I owes her.

Today is taking some photos (I hope it goes well! The subject matter is awesome, I just worry about light and things) and Six Ring and hanging out with the boy until tomorrow comes. Tomorrow begins family. oooooooof! Good, but also very comfortable here in Minneapolis. Right now, on the couch, tomorrow sounds intimidating. But it will be good! GOOOD! (right? please?)

Onward.