Man. I don’t know what got into me. I want to go out and punch a stranger. All day, all I have wanted to do is kick someone’s ass. And for those of you who have seen me, you know this is close to physically impossible, unless the stranger is an 8-year-old child.

I can’t explain it. I’ve been boorish, aggressive, and unable to hold a civil conversation. I lightened up around 2:30, but around 5:00, I just started thinking about joining a Fight Club again.

Duff repeated his mantra. Thanks, Duff, for reminding me.

I had 12 people IM me to ask me if they could buy my Stanley Cup tickets today. I will come to the house of the next person who asks and bring them the tickets, but cut off one gonad and punch them in the eye repeatedly. And maybe tear out their vocal chords, shave their head, and pierce their nose for good measure. Oh, yeah, and pour sugar in their gas tank.

I liked Star Wars, though.

Existential crisis. Canes tickets one section away from mine are fetching mega-dollars. I was gonna sell mine to Ben and Wade at cost.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl…=ADME:B:SS:US:1

Bryan confessed last night that he was getting tired of Kim because she doesn’t have a whole lot going on. I find it funny that Rebecca and Kim were so different, and disliked each other so much, but in the end, were really the same– average girls who would have been perfectly happy sitting around watching TV all day if you let them.

It was really good to spend time with Bryan– not that we did anything exciting, but he’s a good friend and I’ve missed him. We’re going to see Attack of the Clones tonight.

Had lunch with Billy Cockrock today. He also came over to do laundry last night. I think Bryan was wondering why the hell he still comes to do laundry.

I am steadfastly avoiding real work. Caught between apathy and overcommitment to the same cause.

Amy Barefoot e-mailed back last week and I’m sitting on that. I am more often finding myself attracted to women that I know I’m not attracted to, and I can’t quite figure that out. All stupid attractions, too. Duff told me a few days ago, “I know what you need. You just need to go get laid!” Heh. I’m just not functioning like that right now, where I could go out and have a meaningless sexual encounter.

Part two of the Buffalo observations, and then I’ll be done with it:

• I thought it was odd that the Comix Cafe staff came out to TGI Fridays after the show, where the owners and house performers were, and didn’t really stop to even talk.

• I forgot to go to Tim Horton’s, so that I could weigh in on the Krispy Kreme/Tim Horton’s debate. I will continue to believe that KK is better hot, and Tim Horton’s is better otherwise.
• We listened to Digital Underground in the car. The whole “Sex Packets” album. Awesome.
• We had a chance to drive through a bunch of small Pennsylvania towns while we were lost/off-course. It was neat to see how small-town America celebrates Memorial Day. It seems to have a more profound impact there, especially in these towns where you get the sense from looking around that everyone is older and there’s probably a large veteran population. (Well, ratio-wise.) Memorial Day really means something in places like that. It seems like more of an excuse to take a day off of work in Durham or Chapel Hill.

Accomplished a laundry list of savory items today: a pissing contest with Jorin over promoting people in our troupe (notably, he wants his wife promoted but is trying to rationalize his behavior by also asking for someone else to be promoted as well… I don’t believe either is particularly deserving or that his nepotism, however veiled, will benefit the troupe in the long run, since this was Steve Lesser’s M.O. all along as well), got my first AIM warning– a wrongful one at that (Mr. Caustic’s forces…? Nah.), drank a 20 oz. Pepsi after 8 pm when I knew that the caffeine would keep me up all night.

Blech. Blech to all.

Check marks in the happy column: had a somewhat positive indirect interaction with Lex Luthor (the evil instructional designer) and took the high road there, formed improv supergroup Frick & Frack with Krista (a concept so revolutionary that I’m certain the Improv Everywhere cats will be jealous!), Canes win 2-1 in OT after making my heart beat so loudly that I felt it in my ears, hung out for a while with Bryan King and made plans to go see Episode II tomorrow night with him, got the Warcraft III beta up an running finally and played with that a little.

Someone told me that she had a dream that she read about in my journal about me being on fire. I used to love a poem written by a grad student in Maryland called “My Father, Seized by Fire.” I need to go dig that up again.

Speaking of fathers, mom and I had a nice laugh on Sunday night at the expense of my father. Joking that he had/has no friends. Which is true, and seems sad to me in retrospect. I guess I would qualify as his friend, but I don’t put a whole lot of effort into the friendship. Weird to me that this is a man who used to be my hero, and sometimes he just seems like this sort of lonely half-man, barricaded in an empty house.

A quiet road trip. 26 hours in the car. Roughly 20 hours conscious in Buffalo. Three of those at the bar watching the Canes drop a heartbreaker to the Leafs.

Observations from Buffalo, part one:

• We stayed with Karen Reese’s parents, who raved about the fact that I made my bed so well that you could “bounce a quarter off of it.” I stayed in Karen’s old room, which had this ridiculously awesome bed/monolithic structure that could only be practical for a 12-year-old, but was kind of fun to sleep in.

• As much as I love Randy Reese, it pained me to hear him say that he’s “probably been doing improv longer than those guys at Second City Toronto, so I think I know how to mime a telephone.” I guess I just want my friends to continue to try to get better.
• The Big Lots outside the Comix Cafe is gone. Dollar General has moved in a few doors down. They do not have regular marshmallows, but do have the mini-mallows.
• Maid of the Mist is as cool on the American side as it was on the Canadian side. Eric Smith berated me pretty hard for making JMatt and Larry stand in the wrong place in the boat, and said “I can’t believe you didn’t take them to the right side on the front of the boat, like last time!” But I have not been to Maid of the Mist with Eric Smith. So I just nodded and said, “Sorry. I forgot.”
• When we had “Canadian accent” as an endowment, we were supposed to say “aboot” and “hoser.” Our failure to do this resulted in much less laughter than we could have gotten. I will store this fact away. A grievous oversight, I assure you.
• Dave the floor manager has both a drinking problem and an anger management problem. But if he knows you’re not serious about fighting him in the parking lot, he will play along gracefully.
• Jeremy Hardwick is the coolest 17-year-old in the world, choosing to spurn three cute girls to come hang out with us after the show. He says it’s because he loves us so much, when in fact, he is just scared of girls.

Certainly, I will continue these observations. But I guess I should do some work. I mean, technically, I wasn’t even gone, since yesterday was a holiday, but I feel like I’ve been gone for a week.

Whew. Napping, packing, cleaning. Think I am ready to hit the road for Buffalo. Larry Larr the Wizard is on his way here now. Will be on the road in half an hour. Nice. Hate to miss Game 5 of the Canes series at home, but you do what you have to do.

Had lunch with Rebecca again today, which was nice. We’re trying to navigate the streams of friends in the post-love fallout. I think we’re doing OK, except she doesn’t seem to want to talk much about what she’s doing with herself. She’ll talk about family, job, feminism… just not what she’s really up to or how she’s feeling. I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed because she doesn’t have much going on, or feeling really guarded around me, or thinks that I’ll be pissed about something she’s doing, or what. It’s funny that I have run into her with dates but she steadfastly refuses to admit that she’s dating. Whatever. I don’t intend to pry. Well, maybe a little. Out of sheer “I’m doing better than you are” spite. But I don’t intend to let her know that.

Led a rehearsal last night with no real plan. I made up most of the exercises, though I used one from IRC where the participants made an amusement park. That was awesome. I don’t know how much learning got accomplished, but the stated goal of the rehearsal was to re-discover “play.” I think it worked. We did two long scenes outside, with a two-block radius for our theater. One was on a cruise ship, the other in Warsaw 1943. Both were pretty intense, and everyone seemed really pumped by the possibilities that they explored when we left the confines of a traditional performance/rehearsal space. I’d like to see people work more creatively with the space available to us, and not feel confined to the stage as they create, so I hope that lesson got across.

I think people need to have a thicker skin when it comes to message boards. I hate piddly sniping. It’s beneath most of us. I’m not talking about the IRC, either.

I guess I’m not feeling all that contemplative, since I keep opening my journal to write and getting distracted by Instant Messenger, which has brought me so much closer to high school kids all across the country. I am now making a conscious effort to block them out, lest I lose my night to them again. (Actually, I don’t mind losing a night to someone when they need to talk. When I’m a good way to burst the boredom bubble, I don’t feel as bad about tuning out to read or do whatever.)

Got highly motivated for a couple hours at work this morning, which was groovy. It’s nice to like what you are doing, have a sense that it’s worthwhile, and feel like it needs to get done. Then had lunch with Billy Cockrock and The Bone, my two friends with the gooniest penis-oriented nicknames. After lunch, the impetus for zealous work was diminished.

I wonder if The Bone was a little intimidated by young William. We sat in silence or I talked to Bill while all 3 of us were eating, but when Bill left to hit CD Alley, The Bone and I had a nice chat. I made a point to tell him that I’ve all but lost interest in ComedySportz, which I think bummed him out a little bit. But I did point out that I really don’t bother teaching much in the way of shortform these days and he said he’d noticed and enjoyed. If we can get longform shows up before August, I may never bother to play a ComedySportz show here in Raleigh again.

Ben and Doctor Wade both said that they might come out for the Del Close Marathon, though Wade is skeptical that the missuz will let him stay out in Manhattan past 3:30. Boo on that, but I may be able to convince them with the promise of some beef jerky. It’ll be cool to have some of the Monsters get a good look at some good longform. I’ve told Ben that he needs to see The Swarm or I will bitch-slap him. Corey Brown is back in town, and is dating Miss North Carolina 2001, who is in NYC for the summer, and he plans to come up that weekend to see her. Meat Lodge: we bring our own crowd.

Excited to see tubby bitch Zach Ward– because Dual Exhaust rocks rocks rocks– and Megan Grano, who I haven’t heard from since the summer of 1999, if memory serves me correctly.

Meat Lodge is in the Del Close Marathon! Whoooo-hooooooo! Mullaney had grouped us in with the NYC groups since he recognized Charlie’s name. So I had the mad mood swing today– bummed to ecstatic in 6.2 seconds!

I am annoyed right now with my tendency to try to fix things. I have to be willing to say that there are some situations for which I do not have the knowledge, experience, or eloquence to make a damn bit of difference to someone who is hurting, and the best thing I can do is listen and wait. Of course, I am also annoyed that my virtual life is in some ways more fulfilling than my actual life.

But annoyance is not the prevailing theme of the day! Canes won a satisfying overtime game, we got into the Del Close Marathon, and I’m getting pumped about road tripping to Buffalo with JMatt and Larry this weekend. Onward, Christian soldiers!

My cat punched me in the face this morning. I was lying in bed petting her (she slept right by my pillow), and moved my hand away for a second to shake her fur off of it, and I guess she thought I was getting up, and popped me right in the eye. Her claw was not really out, though I do have a tiny cut, but mostly, she just punched me. Hard, too. It’s bruised. I mean, I know I am a wimp, but I had no idea a cat could kick ass if you were close enough.

Toronto fans showed up at the Hurricanes game in droves today, as it was a long weekend in Canada and Canadians are insane for hockey. It was actually great– so many of them brought an incredible enthusiasm for hockey and were really, really classy fans. Some of the people I was with were outraged that “they’d come into our house,” but I thought it was awesome to have that kind of passion on display. My young friend Katy Jack is a Leafs fan and came with her family, and wandered up to chat with me and Ben in her brand-new Cujo jersey, which sent Sarah Garguilo into a fit of righteousness. Sarah has decided to hate Katy, who is in our High School League at ComedyWorx, simply because Katy posts pro-Leafs messages in our forums and was “taunting us” by wearing the opposing team’s colors. Sarah’s husband, a Leafs and Canes fan who has decided to wear a Team USA jersey for this series, sat quietly.

On the walk back from the game, a guy in a SUV yelled “Hey, Canes fans!” and threw a can of Bud Light out his window, which I caught and carried back to Ben’s. A little surreal. Everyone honked as they drove by us. Clearly, we needed reminding that the Canes won the game.