06-02-2003 06:58 PM
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This Broken Tooth

I’ve had such a hard time finding time this past week to write in you, journal. I only have about ten minutes before I teach a class, so I want to tell you a few things that have me excited.

Last Tuesday: I started my management academy at NC State. I’m there for 5 weeks, learning marketing, accounting, and project management. Wonderful level 1 class that evening. I am most pleased with the prospect of teaching these guys in future classes! Bought new radiator for $351. Stole rocks from roadside for my yard decoration.

Last Wednesday: Heidi and I went and looked at some houses. Nothing thrilling. Lots of mgt academt reading.

Last Thursday: I went straight from class to hanging with Zach to work on DSI stuff. 4 hour dinner turned out some good results. Plans for long range.

Last Friday: Got real pumped, more DSI stuff and a little time with Heidi, to boot. Have not had enough of that just recently.

Last Saturday (May 31): Inside Improv opens at the Inside Scoop. I figure I will want to record some of this stuff for posterity.
• First reservation: Greg Brainos. He sat in the Ice Cream throne.
• First paying customer: Michael Cochran was the first person who intended to pay to show up. It didn’t hurt that his older brother was in the show.
• First host: Corey Brown.
• First performers: Two Horsemen and Senior PGA
• Estimated seating capacity at first show: 28
• Paid customers: 60
• Places to sit by midnight: 0 (I ended up sitting behind the counter on an ice cream cooler after Two Horsemen went on.)
• Places to stand comfortably by 12:05: 0
• First DSI intern: Jen O’Bryan
• First impression: Awesome. I am so stoked to get this going. And we’re gonna keep it growing.

Yesterday: Good practice with Unnamed Practice Group. Anthony King on TNN 8 times in the half-hour that Heidi and I watched. Hooray! I thought several times of his mother, who I am sure is smiling down on him. It’s an oddly somber thought, but I know she would have been so amazingly proud of him that she wouldn’t have known what to say. Looked at house of a friend of mine– underwhelmed again. Stole rocks.

Today: Visited a modest-sized classroom in Carrboro today that will become the dedicated DSI practice/class space on July 1, pending some final negotiations. But we’re pretty confident. Show on Saturday, practice space today. It hardly feels real. But it is.

Heidi’s job is going to require her to work six days a week instead of five until August. Me no likey.

06-05-2003 08:21 PM
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This Beautiful Bruise’s Colors

I haven’t had so much time to write, but when I do, I find myself staring at the screen. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say– I feel like there’s a good bit going on, I’m just too tired to write it down. Or it feels insigificant… but I guess that several days worth of classes and house-hunting pales in comparison to last Saturday.

I’m having a beer with Bill Cochran tonight, which is welcome downtime.

06-06-2003 06:47 PM
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Walked the Edge of America

My sister called today and followed up on my mother’s request for us to drive up to Virginia to spend a few hours “with the whole family.”

What exactly entails the “whole family” is a little something of a mystery to me, since John has three kids, and those three have not been in the same room with me and my sister since before mom and John got married, and then even a few times.

So I always wonder if John feels a little slighted by her “whole family” comments, since I think he does consider me and Mary partr of his family, but my mom seems selective when she considers Nikki, J.P. and Chris part of hers.

Of course, J.P. is a crackhead.

That aside, I snapped at my sister, so that I later felt the need to call her back and apologize. I really thought she was calling to whine at me, which would be poorly timed. I’m in school all day, trying to keep up with DSI and work and failing (work is getting the short shrift, DSI seems to be kept pretty current). Heidi is buying a house and working more than a human should, all of the sudden. Guilt is not working right now.

Heidi just called to let me know that we aren’t looking at the kickass house tonight. Now it’s Sunday. Poop.

Suburbanites filming tomorrow.

Happy birthday, Anthony King and Jack Spencer.

06-09-2003 10:19 AM
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Shit Adds Up At the Bottom

Someone tell me why men are so averse to flushing in public restrooms after they take a heinous dump. That’s just fucking gross, dudes.

Mister Diplomat was born yesterday in practice. Awesome.

I got real drunk and went bowling with Corey and Dana last night. Great fun, not because I am a good bowler (I am not), but because I am the best smack talker in the ENTIRE WORLD!

06-11-2003 01:18 PM
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When the Night Has Come and the Land is Dark

[dream] I was in a desert environment with a bunch of improvisers, mostly New York people that I have seen in shows but that I don’t know. At some point I suffered a blow to the head which upset my balance– every time I would get myself upright, I would invariably fall down, slamming my head into the ground each time. In the dream, I was in pain every time, but I had to keep trying to keep my head up. All of the improvisers I don’t know kept trying to hold me up. [/dream]

I’m convinced the dream is more about balance than failure.

06-15-2003 10:29 PM
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Under a Tahitian Moon

Gonna see Sarah Harmer Tuesday nght! Very excited. About a bunch of other stuff, too. General good feeling.

I like Mister Diplomat practices. I like going to BW-3 afterwards to play trivia games and rack up silly players’ plus points.

Heidi’s ring came back from the jeweler. It looks amazing. We had the band rebuilt, and they made the diamond look spiffy. I see it on her finger and I feel like we’re the most elegant people alive. Then I do something crass, like burp or fart. And I still feel kinda elegant, albeit in a stinky way.

We’re picking Ellen Bush up from her France trip in half an hour. I hope she made the French connection again. She was beaming after last year’s trip.

Business school is great insofar as I needed to learn these concepts, but it makes me a little bit tired.

Ben Hauck is right: the song does rock.

We’re watching Six Feet Under on DVD. I shouldn’t get so excited about TV. It’s resplendent.

Heidi signed the contract on the house tonight. We may be able to close by the end of the month. Guess my hopes for livinig at 1701 Kirkland forever are dashed… I think I’m moving in with her in July.

06-16-2003 07:01 PM
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Observationally Perverse

All these new buttons. I don’t know where to begin. About seven minutes until my last level 202 class begins. I’ve had such a good time working with this group that I’m not looking forward to class being over. But, I am glad that they’ll end up with a different perspective in their level 303 classes. I think it’s poisonous to stick to one person’s view of improv.

The new eels album arrived in my mailbox this afternoon… through six tracks, it sounds pretty good. I’m not sure I as fond of this one as I was “Souljacker.”

I’m social loafing on my project for business class. Pretty badly, really, though in my defense I have volunteered to engineer all of the group presentations, since I feel I can adequately present without much prep time. I am looking forward to b-school ending, I am finding that I miss my job. I really like what I do– this is excellent validation.

Radiohead’s North American dates take them… not really all that close to here. Poo.

06-18-2003 07:04 PM
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Let It Go at Kill Devil Hill

“The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.”

-Captain Kirk

Yeah, dude, I am watching that episode of Star Trek where whenever they think of something or someone, it appears. And Dr. McCoy has a hot girlfriend.

06-20-2003 09:49 AM
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The Break Was So Loud

Well, GD, I wrote a long-ass entry while I was pretending to pay attention to the interviewing section of my management class, which is entirely geared to people who don’t have jobs. I know that I could use some of this, but they’re talking to the undergrads here.

So, run-down of what I was writing when I lost the entry…. grrrr.
• Heidi and I don’t see as much of each other since I started classes again… I’ll be glad to get back to work in Chapel Hill so we have our time in the car. Sounds piddly, but is good.
• I’m developing an interest in screen printing. I hope to buy some stuff ot put in Heidi’s garage when she moves in… July 4th!
• My typing styles is bass-ackwards but it seems to work for me.
• Picked up keys for the new DSI training center space. Looks nice– fresh paint. Needs carpet cleaning.
• Went out with new pal Traci, who is a recruiter for IBM that I met through the management academy. She’s super-nice!

I hate when I lose a long entry!

06-23-2003 12:15 PM
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Throw It All Away, Start It Again

Well, they say all good things come to an end, and I guess Before I Sputter Out is no exception. This journal has been the source for friendships, discoveries, and epiphanies– I look back at it sometimes in wonder. I never knew when I started that I’d be so happy a year and a half later. I had no idea what all I would learn along the way.

I’m not done journalling; in fact, I am 100% certain that I’ll continue to journal online. Already set up to do so, in fact. But what comes next won’t be available through the IRC, which makes me sort of sad, but exceedingly happy at the same time. There’s just a lot going on in my life that isn’t appropriate to share here any more… I think I have a lot to say about improv that may show up in another journal on the IRC one day.

But part of what was so liberating was that I was writing to an unusual group of strangers whose lives I had peered into. And now, I find that most of the journals I am reading are NC improvisers, and they comprise the majority of the people reading mine. And I find myself saying less and less about what I’m thinking about most.

So, if you’re interested to know where the next journal will appear, just PM me in the next couple of days, and who knows when a link will appear in your inbox. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a few weeks, maybe when you finally get off your duff and move to Chicago or New York and make yourself a superstar.

This won’t be the last BISO entry– the rest will all be songs from the journal entry titles.

And to anyone who ever dropped me a PM or e-mail after reading BISO, thank you, thank you so much. You have no idea how much being heard did for me that day.