Insert tattoo here

So I’ve always liked entertaining people, but besides my small role in the junior high play or spontaneously belting out, “GOOD MORNING, BAAAAAALTIMOOOOOORE!” in my kitchen, I really have not spent much time focusing myself on “the arts” or “honing my craft” or anything like that. (Because I am not artsy. Because I do not actually have a craft to hone. These are the lies we tell ourselves.)

Almost eight years ago I started this blog because, as I said, I really liked entertaining people and I also liked writing and I found I could do both here. My readers were, and still are, limited to pretty much family, close friends, and some of my aunt’s coworkers. Readers didn’t really matter—I just really liked this place where I could be brutally honest (embarrassingly so, sometimes) and I think people enjoyed reading one person’s account of how she (and possibly they) really felt about the topic at hand. Occasionally this blog is serious, but mostly I just aim to make people laugh. This is me in real life, too. Serious when I have to be, but mostly not.

My dad (hands down the funniest person I have ever known, ever) has been telling me for years that I needed to do something with the blog material. Like standup comedy. And I knew that! He was right! As he said, “You’ve written it all down already! You already have a tight 5!” But even though it was all written down, I just could not put together how I was supposed to do this. Like, mentally, I couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t a fear of being on stage or speaking in front of a group (TWO THINGS I LOVE EVERYONE LOOK AT MEEEEEE.) I can’t really explain it except to say it just wasn’t computing for me.

In late September, I somehow found myself watching a video online of an improv show that I had actually already seen once before, when it first aired on tv a few months prior. But seeing it that second time, it computed. I needed to take an improv class. I did a quick Google and found two options for comedy schools nearby, then went with the one that got better reviews on Yelp. The class started the following week.

For the next eight weeks, I got up in front of my class and told embarrassing stories and acted like ridiculous characters. I learned the fundamentals of improv and had a lot of fun. And then I signed up for the next level class. I told more stories and learned a lot more (A LOT MORE.)

The night of our last class, I asked my classmates what class they were planning to take next. I wasn’t sure what I was planning to do…Sketch writing class, standup class? As we were wrapping up, our teacher said that some of us would get the invite to play on the developmental team, which performs every Wednesday, and that some would not, but to not feel bad if you didn’t get chosen. Keep working at it, etc.

This developmental team was not on my radar.

The next day as I was reading the class descriptions for sketch writing or standup, I got an email inviting me to play on the developmental team. As someone who cries maybe twice a year, I actually started to tear up. I was so honored and excited and surprised to have been chosen.

For years I’ve been trying to figure out, within my own mind, how to make this thing I love happen. Well, as Scheana from Vanderpump Rules so delightfully reminds us with her forearm tattoo, IT’S ALL HAPPENING.

Every week I get to go and act like a loon in front of strangers (and sometimes not—hi, Mom and Dad!) and practice and get better and make people laugh. And best of all, it’s a relief. It’s a relief for me to feel like I’m finally on the path to where I’m supposed to go with this.