I’ve been calling myself a writer forever, even when I didn’t write, so now I’m just going to go ahead and call myself a comedian and see what happens
Remember when you were little and you’d watch a movie or a TV show or read a book and then you and your friends would act out the good parts?
I remember how freely I’d say, “I’ll be Gilligan” or how quickly I’d call the scary sister in that Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte movie and all I’d have to do is sit there and try to think my eyebrows skinny and make my eyes crazy wide – which is probably why I have such an effective glare today and every day – even when I’m not trying.
I have resting Bette Davis face
Due to things beyond my control, mostly windows, sometimes the screen on my laptop is suddenly reflective and I see myself, imperfections very defined and often glowing, and I always look cross, suspicious and devious even when I’m feeling the opposite. Especially in those glasses I bought on impulse like everything else, including the raspberry sherbet jumpsuit that makes me feel great until a mirror comes along.
Point is, and thank you for asking, it used to be easy to declare yourself whatever you wanted. Whoever you felt like being you got to be. I say let’s not grow out of this.
Quick. Who will you be?
I’ll be the comedian, as I said, because I have either visions or fantasies or hallucinations about being one. The stand-up kind. Seriously.
When I watch Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee I so completely identify with those guys that I sit there nodding at the TV set – coffee in hand – guffawing, throwing in punchlines, and I know Daisy and the cat exchange those glances and when they can’t take it any more off they go into the kitchen for a howl and then they come back and pretend nothing happened but their smirks last longer than they know.
Another thing they don’t know is that I’m cracking them up on purpose. I am practicing. Just like I’m practicing now
You should practice, too. You can be anyone. You can be Atticus Finch, Serpico, Isaac Dennison, Wednesday Addams, Barney Fife, The Professor and even Mary Anne if you’re having a good hair day, which I can’t image you would be with all this humidity that’s making the rest of us look like the cast in a muppet movie.
Let’s be the weird old guys in the balcony!
One of the outstanding features of this practice is that it’s non gender-specific. Why just this morning I was Eddie Vedder at first and I couldn’t find a better man except maybe Freddy Mercury, and while I’m being completely unanything about gender – and therefore immune to scorn – guess what song I listened to? No, No, and No. I listened to Fat Bottomed Girls!!! Yeah. That’s right! And we were awesome. It was like a morning at the opera. It was rhapsodiacal.
I was slightly too pumped when I got on the train and had to calm down as per GO train etiquette and convention in general. But for the record, I was only acting.
The real me was blue-eyed floozy-ing all the way to work. And then some
Anyway. Have a great weekend. It’s a long one. I have no plans and will therefore pretend I need some rest. I’ll just hang around the house, you know, practicing, and maybe I’ll go out once or twice when it’s dark.
