Posts from — September 2007

Tonight before dinner, the Bug was occupying himself while I cooked by trying to copy the Sunday comics with his orange Silly Putty. Alas, color print doesn’t come off on Silly Putty the way good old fashioned black and white does, so I helped him out by flipping to the next page of the paper to find something more inky.

The result was that I found a full page Macy’s ad for women’s lingerie.

“Oh, look,” said Bug. “Naked Mommies! I like naked Mommies!” And happily went about his imprinting.

There is now a blob of Silly Putty atop our kitchen table, complete with a picture of a woman in her bra and panties on it.

I guess she might be somebody’s Mommy.

Last week, I started a sketch comedy class that meets once a week in a black box theatre space near my house. I was a little nervous about joining up, seeing as I have just about zilch experience with acting (I mean outside of just a couple college things) and even less comedy experience. But OMG. It is So. Much. Fun.

First of all, there’s this warm up exercise we do called “Get Your S*#t out”, where we all stand in a circle and take turns going up to another person and saying a line off the top of our head. The approached person then has to come up with a responding line, and then the original person says the last line. So it’s basically a three line exchange of whatever comes out of your mouth. The teacher encouraged us to come at each other with any emotion, and to try not to make it a question (which is surprisingly hard). Some first line examples:

“If you ever do that again, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“So, we had our first date last night.”

“I…I…think I love you!”

Or the classic:

“Hey.” - (I got this one, and came up with the ever-witty response of “Hey, yourself.”)

But you get the gist. And I found that once we got going, it was pretty freeing to just let yourself word vomit over and over again. It really did feel like “getting the s*#t out”. One of the exchanges I started turned out to be an angry shouting match, and wow, should I do that more often.

Second, we get to make fun of imitate our family! It’s homework, even! The teacher says successful mimicry is one of the greatest acting tools, so we are to hone away. With the lifetime of practice I’ve had, I should soon be head of the class! No, strike that, it’s actually crazy hard. Knowing someone really well, and trying to BE them are totally different things. Also, I don’t think I’ll tell anyone in my family who I end up picking, because inevitably they’ll say “Oh, show me! Oh, no I promise I won’t be offended, I’ll love it! Oh, come on! It will be great!” Only, it won’t be great, and there will probably be hurt feelings and a big DEAL about it, because, really, would YOU want to see yourself imitated? Truly? All your tics and gestures and zany characteristics? Probably not. So I’m keeping mum and leaving them (and you) to wonder.

(I’m TOTALLY doing my dad.)

Reason #3746 Why I love the Bug:

He runs up to me while I’m washing dishes/surfing the net/folding laundry/whatever and looks at me with his deep, soulful brown eyes and with a straight face, says:

“Langosta.”

This, of course, is the Spanish word for lobster.

Thursday night I saw an adaptation of As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner at the PushPush Theater in Decatur. It was amazing, creative, moving….. and performed entirely by marionette puppets. I know! Faulkner done with puppets! Why has no one thought of that yet? A fantastic addition to the show was the use of hauntingly beautiful Sacred Harp shape note singing at various points in the play. Very fitting.

I’m hoping to take the Bug to see a puppet show soon - you know, in hopes of adding more culture to his life. But I opted against As I Lay Dying - I thought that a Southern Gothic stream of consciousness novel adapted as a full length play might be a little bit too much culture. Perhaps we’ll catch the next Sesame Street Live instead.

Tonight the Lorso and I are taking my brother to see Stomp at the Fox for his birthday (which was in June). Now that I think about it, Bug would probably like Stomp, too, in a few years. The reason I think this is that he is really into being loud lately: loud jumping, loud banging, loud noise making, etc. His favorite “game” these days is “the Fall Down game” which is just what it sounds like. The game includes running for a bit, falling down, laughing uproariously, and repeating. Favorite locations for this game include the grocery store, the library, and the aisles of the sanctuary at church amidst the slowly exiting elderly parishoners.

Hmm, better get on that culturing.

So that’s the thing about blogging, then, that I’m learning. My intent is to post daily (we’ll see how long that lasts), and the thing is, it’s ALREADY time for post #2. God, time just won’t let up.

There are probably 2 people reading this blog now. In fact, I know there are, because I’ve only told two people about it. Well, I also told the Bug, but I’m pretty sure he couldn’t care less - to him, the laptop is the evil device with which he has to compete for Mommy and Daddy’s time and attention. When he was younger, he would toddle up and peer at the screen, thinking, (I’m sure) “What the hell is so freakin‘ interesting that you guys can’t gaze at me and remark on my every noise and gesticulation as per usual?”

I’m currently sitting on the couch with Bug while he watches Clifford the Big Red Dog. I think some of that computer-envy remains: there are two small stinky feet creeping their way onto the keyboard, poised for kicking.