magically delicious

ok so first, i totally should be packing the stuff i need for the wedding on friday since i'm not coming home tomorrow night. but i'm not. i just got out of comedy sportz practice and i have been thinking and now i have things to say. so there you go. i'll sleep when i'm dead. actually i don't know that we will have to sleep when we're dead. i mean i will probably still enjoy sleeping so i might do it but i don't know that i will actually need to sleep. but that wasn't my point.

anyway.

tonight at comedy sportz we were talking about stuff because the theater opens in less than two weeks and i realized that i am extremely, over the top, some times cry about it, passionate about comedy sportz. and i said self, why is that? and now i would like to document why.

when i was in high school i was a dork. a nerd. uncool. whatever. mental picture for you... josie grossie in never been kissed.

bad hygiene, didn't relate to other humans outside my brain, thought tucking in your shirt was a requirement, had about as much self confidence as i did friends. like for real i'm not just saying this. it was bad. any one reading this who knew me freshman / sophomore year is welcome to back me up when i say it was kind of horrific. whatever i own it, that's life.

my junior year of high school i began sitting in for the comedy sportz lunch time practices. i would just sit and watch in amazement as they kids fearlessly just got up and did things. yeah most of the time it was terribly bad but they got up they tried and they carried on.

i never in my life thought i would ever get up and talk in front of people. especially without preparing in advance. please keep in mind that this was during the time period that i was utterly convinced i had a lisp (actually i still think i have one... but enough people have told me i don't that i think it's maybe not noticeable to anyone except me). anyway one afternoon before a game the team wound up randomly being short a person and for who knows what reason i volunteered to play without ever having actually played in a practice. i had been to many practices, knew the games, but had never had the guts to get up and try but no big deal i would love to do that in front of an audience. and out of sheer desperation and maybe the geniusness of mr conacher (our advisor) i was up on the stage that evening.

and i fell in love.

absolutely head over heels in love with making people happy. making them laugh. making them feel connected to me. and that day my life changed. my life changed for ever. and for that there is no amount of money or good words that can pay the debt that i owe to comedy sportz. that day and the months that followed taught me to be my own person. to take ownership for my decisions. to have a voice. to commit. to be who i was going to be, to own it, to love it and to take others there with me.

i doubt that i would have learned that lesson anywhere else. i doubt that i would be even a fraction of who i am today if it wasn't for this organization.

it is my hope that some day i will be able to share that with others. to have others see that this isn't just about a comedy show. it's a way of thinking about yourself, about others and the things that are given to you. it's about building relationships and learning to trust and to commit and to be honest and real. to live a life that is bold and passionate and isn't sitting in a chair watching other's live.

comedy sportz also taught me a very specific lesson that i am extremely passionate about. it can be summed up in two words: FAIL BIG.

those instructors would always tell us to go out there, make mistakes, jump and don't have a plan but try something. if you're gonna do something you might as well fail big and you'll be surprised how more often than not when you go all in it works out. it's improv magic. and you do you know why it's improv magic? because it's also life magic.

life is here waiting for you to step out, take a leap, be passionate and open yourself to possibilities. whenever i'm wondering whether or not i should do something or say something or go somewhere i always remind myself to fail big. because years down the road i want to be able to look back and think of all the amazing things i've seen and done. i want to be able to say i lived in arizona for two years and i bloody hate the desert. or i told some guy that i wanted to date him and he said no thanks. or remember that time i tried to drink a gallon of milk in an hour and it started pouring out my nose instead of going down my throat? do you know what it feels like to vomit half a gallon of liquid?!?

in life if you aren't getting dirty, if you aren't scuffing your knees and and stretching your brain, what are you doing? what's the point? forever i will be grateful for being taught this lesson. and i am grateful for the hand comedy sportz played in molding me into the person i am.

“I realized the point I was trying to push with these two programmed robots was the desire for them to try and figure out what the point of living was…It took these really irrational acts of love to sort of discover them against how they were built…I realized that that’s a perfect metaphor for real life. We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people. of dealing with the person next to us. That’s why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another. I thought, ‘That’s a perfect amplification of the whole point of the movie.’ I wanted to run with science in a way that would sort of logically project that.”

- Andrew Stanton, director of WALL-E

on that note, i have sent in my resume for a job in la. with comedy sportz. i don't know that i will get it. i don't know what i would do if i did. but i feel like i would closing myself to the lessons that comedy sportz taught me if i didn't try. i know that i will wind up where ever i'm meant to be. part of me would love a new adventure in la... the gypsy part who is dying to move. but part of me knows that i love richmond and that she owns a a very big piece of my heart that i don't know i'm ready to be without. in the meantime, i will be here loving every possible moment i have in this city who brings me daffodils every spring and finding the joy in my journey. i have a ring i wear every day and on it is engraved the saying 'it's not the destination it's the journey' and that's who i am.

in other news i just joined twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ElainaToGo follow me and life will be awesome.