Yes! And...

I'm halfway through two crazy weeks. I'm definitely not firing on all cylinders, but am making do with what I've got.

Last week I had two days of workshops, had a quick trip to LA for a conference at which I was presenting, had my brother and sister-in-law in town for the weekend, had the final show of Into the Woods, and had to strike the stage and had an insane cast party that had me heading to bed on the side of morning that I usually only see when I'm waking up.

Now I'm preparing for four days out of the office for workshops this week, with a glimmer of a normalcy sprinkled in there. I laugh as I type that though, what is normalcy?

At any rate, I'm drawing on the lessons I've learned from Improv these days and am "Yes! And-ing" the hell out of my life. I'm taking what I'm getting as a gift and trying to run it as far as I can--sometimes even farther.

Note to self: When you are frozen and have no idea what to do, pick something bold and commit yourself wholly to it.

In our closing performance I was doing one of my bits, one where I have to sing a small solo, only I completely locked up. My mind went blank when I got my cue (I almost started singing someone else's line from a previous part, that's the curse of having every other person's lines memorized), panic set in. Instinctively, I made a crazy face (that I think fit with the character and the frustration she was feeling in the moment, "why won't this damn shoe fit?"), and made some horrible frustrated, grunty noise that was actually somewhat in-time. I was thinking, "I have absolutely no clue what I'm supposed to be singing right now, but I know what comes next..." and then just jumped back into my song. The cast mates on stage with me were all dying trying to keep from cracking up at my response and when we got back stage we all broke out into hysterics.

I'm not sure if this is progress on my over-perfectionismness, or if it was just a function of me being so ridiculously worn down that I just didn't have the energy to "beat myself up" over it, but I like to think I've grown after going into the woods. There was a time, not too long ago, where this minor blip would have sent me over the edge, replaying the gaffe over and over and over in my head wondering how I could have ever done such a thing. But last night, I committed to the moment and went with it. Then I just laughed my tail off (almost on stage) and moved right along. I do keep replaying it over and over and over in my head, only this time I'm laughing more and more each time. I have to admit, it feels really good.