iO Summer Intensive - Time to Think

Week 2 of the Summer Intensive is dead and gone and I'm set to languish in this 3 day weekend we're cursed with for five straight weeks. It seems dumb to complain about time off but I've been doing 40 hour weeks since I was 17 and 60+ hour weeks since 19, so time off is a hard concept for me to wrap my head around. I spend weekends pacing around like a caged animal, unsure what to do with my hands or all of the thoughts I've got kicking around in my brain. I try to catch up on TV or read or do anything normal humans do, but I lose interest after an hour and my restlessness gets the best of me.

The effects of that restlessness are amplified by the giant pause button for my life that these five weeks at iO represent. I get to step back and take a breath from all of my relationships back home, all of my work, all of my ambitions. There's nothing I can really do about those from up here except pop in occasionally to remind some of those folks that I still exist and I still care about them. Nashville Improv is doing their first full month of shows without me in over 3 years. Third Coast will debut their main stage cast without me there. My godson will probably be on an Olympic Track and Field team before I get back. I guess it's just time for me to contemplate my next move.

Captured this image shortly before I captured a Dragonair on the bridge near iO Chicago

When I get back I want to do more shows with the people I work with best. I want to go to festivals and show off the kind of work I do. By November or December I want to start phasing out my day jobs and make the switch into supporting myself through teaching and performing. I want to be an active pillar of the comedy community and maybe even step back into theatre again. It's time for me to hunker down in Nashville and help push our scene screaming into the sunlight.

Two weeks in and I've learned so very much, but the most important lesson has been about who I was already. I am as good as people have told me. My ability isn't some illusion cast on me by the protection of my very talented and kind teammates, it's something I've actually cultivated through years of intense work. I met Susan Messing the other day and she said that by the end of the intensive I would be exhausted, but I think that comes from the assumption that I don't live and breathe this work. This week will be the real test of my mettle and I'm champing at the bit. I promised I'd come up here and give'em hell and I aim to deliver.

Hard Lessons and Pleasant Surprises - iO Intensive Week 2 Day 2

Today was wayyyyy more enjoyable than yesterday was for me. I came in on time and rested and I was ready to dive into the work immediately. I think the reason it worked better for me is that we did less all play work and actually got to see specific examples of things we were working on. I worried that I might've been tuning out yesterday because I didn't get any me me me time, but I feel happy about the lessons taught and learned today even though I was sitting an inactive for a lot of it. I also briefly wondered if my frustration stemmed from the fact that I've learned and taught every technique that we've used so far this week, but again, I wasn't bothered by that today. It helps that we were using every game differently and far more patiently than we would in Nashville,  so the development of the essential skills they employ is multiplied a ton.

One of many great quotes today: "Please don't abandon your shit." How funny that I'd talk about Adal's lesson of patience and working with what's in front of us just ahead of a week that's focused on those two things. I'm getting positive notes from Eleanor (we all are) but I am catching myself not contributing enough and going a little too fast, so I'm just starving for more reps over here. It just dawned on me how doing five weeks of improv class means going at least five weeks between actually performing in front of an audience. I'm fuckin hungry for the applause and laughs and just being able to get up and fully be myself for 90 brief minutes. I feel caged up by the class structure and it takes a lot of effort to not monopolize speaking and performing time for the rest of my classmates.

This year in improv has been kind of painful for me in one very specific way: realizing and accepting that I won't get along with all improvisers. That, in fact, some of them might really hate me. Nashville Improv Company has a ton of people who I've connected so thoroughly with that I naively believed it would be like that with everybody who makes this weird, dumb art if I put enough effort into it. Expanding the circle of people who I'm working with has just let me see that I'm not everyone's cup of tea and that's going to have to be okay. I'm getting better at recognizing when it's time for me to shrug my shoulders and stop trying to make a good impression. If they can come around on me, they will get there eventually. Plus, not meshing well with some people just makes the people I get along with that much more special to me.

One more thing that I've noticed: I don't feel nearly as lonely as I expected to. My darkest expectations had me coming up here and earning the ire of everyone in Chicago on day one and having to endure five weeks off feeling like and being treated like garbage. My friends and family expected me to come up here and have such a good time and make so many friends that I would decide not to come home. The reality is that I've made a few friends, met a lot of great people and have learned a lot, but I'm no more lonely than I'd have been at home. I spend time on my own pretty regularly and I am very grateful for it, but I have also been too busy to wallow or to even consider that I have something to be upset about or uncomfortable with. Honestly, this feels normal. Living in Chicago is the same as living anywhere else, there's just a lot of stuff to do here.

It feels like I'm trying to run while I'm being taught how to crawl, and I wonder if I want to run because that's all I know how to do. I probably know how to crawl, I've just been exclusively running for far too long. 

Intensive Week 2: RIP 2 Scene Work

We were told that week two of the intensive was going to be about physicality, but that's not all it's about! It's about environment, character-work, and group-work. Physicality and patience are the bridges we're going to have to cross if we want to make it to those goals. Hilariously, our instructor Eleanor Hollingsworth is about as different from our week one instructor as can possibly be. She asked us if we had any questions at 11;10 in the morning and when she was met with silence she said, "Really?! Really?!" and then dropped into the James Brown splits and yelled more. The words "dope" "meatsack" and "poophole" are scattered throughout any instructions that we're given. It's almost a shock to the system after last week's very thinky lessons, but it's a welcome change of pace.

Physical stuff is the kind of stuff I spend a lot of time on, so the wheels are still turning for me on how I feel about things. We did a lot of full group exercises and everything we tried today was something that I'd done many many times before. I feel... unfulfilled(?) by the things we did today. The promise at the start of class was that we'd spend way more time on things than would be comfortable, and after managing six exercises (including the warm-up) over the course of five hours, that has to be true. Less stuff that blew my mind today, but maybe tomorrow will be different.

Here are some quotes:

"Flawless is not the point."

"There is no next better, there is only what you're doing."

"Follow your body, not your mind."

"Panic creates speed. You want to create a new thing but newer won't be easier because you'll be starting from scratch. Sit in what you're doing and dig into it."

"I'm not trying to make you feel self-conscious, but I'm trying to make you feel conscious of self."

Those are wayyyyy more hippy-dippy than I remembered them sounding in the moment, probably cause I edited the curses out of them. Eleanor is fantastic and hopefully the speed with which we're moving through the material means we'll get to do more tomorrow.

iO Summer Intensive: Week One in Review

Hoooo boy what a busy 7 days I've had this past week. I'll give a broad overview here and as I iron out time to write in my very full schedule I may manage to come back to specific things. I took a lot of notes!

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The first day really had its tone set by the welcome we were given to the ceremony. All 143 intensive students were gathered in the Del Close Theatre and Charna (the owner and co-founder of iO) gets ready to enter. We can tell that she's coming because she's preceded, no, heralded by her dog Stella. She then spends a few moments on stage debating across the room with instructors whether or not we should get started. I say debating, but what I mean is Charna wanted to start, they suggested we could stand to wait a little longer, Charna started anyway. It was pretty funny.

I am really glad to be a member of the section I'm in which is filled out with some very talented people from around the world. Our class has people from California to New York to Australia to Sweden (and a couple states/countries in-between) and there's a pretty wide set of performance experience among us. Our week one instructor was Bill Arnett and he essentially guided us into scenework and essentially playing ourselves. From the way he taught, I get the feeling that he was teaching us a lot of dangerous secret techniques that are banned at this dojo. He also kept saying, "believe it or not, sometimes people struggle with this" after we'd do surprisingly well our first run through exercises. We learned a bit about openings here, a bit about scenework there, a little of how to gather inspiration, and a little more about varitions on edits. Then on Thursday (the final day in our week) he drew out a diagram of what the classic harold looks like and then insisted it didn't really need to be that way. We did three harolds which had bright spots and weak parts, but were shining examples of the work we'd done and the amount we'd grown as a class. With week 2 starting tomorrow morning, I'd say that we've only just started to get very comfortable with each other.

It was Wednesday before I decided I was ready to play without reservation and accordingly it was Wednesday before I felt like I did anything really fun in class. Nobody else has mentioned feeling antsy about performing with new people, but I doubt I'm the only one who feels trepidation about it. At any rate, I'm doing my best to get to know the people I'm with better while also stealing all of their good and fun habits while they're on stage.

There's a lot of things I like about the program so far, but my favorite has to be that I've met so many people who I would have probably never met if the intensive didn't exist. I've spoken to a fellow student from Pakistan whose love of this artform is downright inspirational and who reaffirms my idea that improvisation is a life-changing thing. I've done an incredibly silly but very well rounded scene with a classmate from Sweden that felt better than some scenes I've done with people I've worked with for years. I even learned what Lance Storm's wrestling school was like from a Canadian classmate who studied there for a little while! This improv thing isn't nothin', y'all. To bring together this many talented, kind, smart, and wonderful people, it's gotta be a pretty big deal.

Have Fun and Indulge A Little!

I had a workshop with the very talented and insightful Adal Rifai of iO Chicago and he gave me something very interesting to consider. The key to entertaining improv, in my opinion, is fun. If the performers enjoy themselves, the audience will enjoy themselves. However, I've been routinely stopping myself from having the all of the fun available to me in scenes without noticing it. Part of me thinks that I was playing scenes with a fear that fun is a limited resource and if I took all the opportunities that presented themselves to me I'd eventually run out of them. The other part comes from this weird "take your medicine" thought process that I've found planted deep in my brain. It took someone calling it out for me to actually notice how much those thought processes can limit my work.

I'd start by collecting the ingredients for the scene. Defining the location, naming the characters, labeling the relationship, all of that good stuff. Then I'd combine them and work with them but never take the time to really explore or justify them. It was always a mentality of "that's good, but what's next?" instead of just accepting that what's next comes from what came before. My scene partners and I would spend the whole scene generating awesome, silly ideas and would never get the chance to give them the attention they deserved. We go in and bake 40 cakes but get to eat exactly none of them because as soon as they came out of the oven we were onto the next thing.

It's like Lex didn't even take the time to realize I meant metaphorical cake.

That workshop got me to slow down and do the thing that I always wanted to do in scenes but I avoided because I thought it'd come off as too indulgent. But indulgence is the whole thing! Why run from it? Because I might have a good time? Because I might not get to rattle off my 20 other ideas that I also won't have time to explore? It's such a strange, needlessly difficult tactic. Plowing blindly ahead almost assures that I'll never find the joy in what I'm doing, which is a real shame. I'm going to be sure to stop and smell the pantomime roses and eat every single improv-cake that I find myself baking.

The Journey Begins

I woke up at 5:45 yesterday morning and with a focus unsuited to the early hour I packed and tidied my house and stepped outside to be ferried off to my destination. Honestly, the day was a million times better than I expected it to be considering all of the anxiety I'd had leading up to it. Who would've thought that spending an entire day cooped up with 10 very funny people would be a really good time?

I felt a couple of things that I think are important to highlight. The first of them being the first time I've ever honestly thought "I can do this. I can handle this, no problem," with regard to iO Intensive. I've puffed up my chest a lot and shouted a bunch of bluster into the wind, but this is an example of "fake it til you make it." At long last, I experienced a few flashes of genuine confidence that have been sorely missing in the lead-up to my trip to the improv monastery. Baby steps.

I also noticed a feeling that was a little gross and that I need to be pretty aware of and steer myself away from. I had a moment when I compared myself to the performers in the shows we saw and I thought, "They're not better than me cause they're in Chicago. We're probably in similar places as performers," which is a kind of shitty but not necessarily inaccurate thought. However, it led to a panic that people will assume I know nothing because I'm going to be a student. A fear that all the work I've put in over the years is going to be discounted and I'll be looked at like I'm less than the things I've aspired to be, and it made me angry.

That line of thinking is super dumb and I know it. There is no point to comparing myself to some strangers and bristling at the idea that they might somehow be thought of as "better" than me. Improv and Theatre are art and the qualities of what makes a performer "better" are incredibly subjective. Also, who cares if someone is legitimately better than me? I'm here to learn and improve, not demonstrate that I'm already a perfect and unstoppable force. If someone does things that I like, I will learn from them (read as: steal all their awesome qualities) and I'll be better for it. If someone assumes that I don't know anything and continues to believe that after seeing me work, maybe I should consider the idea that I don't know anything. 

Be kind, be thoughtful, and be humble. Those are the directives beneath everything I'm going to do here, I just have to continue repeating them.

A Pep Talk for Myself

As I get ready to head up to Chicago for over a month for the iO Summer Intensive, I've got a ton of things rattling around in my brain. It has not been a particularly easy month leading up to this big dumb adventure and I'm more than a little stressed about it. I'm being supported by everyone I know and that is for sure the driving force behind me going. It's always been a little bit of a pipe dream, but the moment I even mentioned making it real every single person was like "Yeah that's a good idea! You should do that!" Here I am, a victim of surrounding myself with wonderful, positive, encouraging friends.

I could sit here and list all of the reasons I'm nervous or afraid to go up there and finally commit to this escapade, but really none of those things matters too much. I've found solutions to basically all of my points of stress and I'm not feeling a lick better for it. I'm nervous because this is a big opportunity and I don't want to squander it.

I am going to ignore the thoughts that tell me I'm probably bad at what I love and just generally existing. I'm choosing to listen to my friends and family who believe in me 100% and have seen how I've grown in the past couple of years. I'm not perfect, but I promise to always show up and to always try as hard as I can. Stubbornly. Persistently. Until I make even an inch of measurable progress. I'll think and think and do and do and listen and listen. My goals of being kind, and generous, and thoughtful won't be put on hold because I'm uncomfortable or scared. I'm gonna get up there, meet some new and awesome people, and make some damn things up.

Pep talk for myself complete. I feel much better now. Whatever happens, I'll figure it out.

Improv Scenes Are Like Dates

I've been thinking about what makes a date enjoyable and I've noticed that a lot of the time, it lines up with what makes a good scene work. I know this is kind of a weird way to approach this, but just hear me out.

Scenes and dates are both better when there's chemistry between the people involved.

Chemistry is a thing that can be developed over time and it starts with effort. If you make an earnest effort to find something you like in your scene partner, chances are that you'll find it. Be patient and don't expect magic to always happen immediately, the relationship will develop if you keep at it. Eventually you'll find where you and your partner line up (easier in scenes than in life!).

Don't just talk, do something!

Talking heads scenes and dates where you just sit and chat can work out all right sometimes, but a lot of the time they are boring and fairly unrewarding. Instead of just sitting and talking, maybe try an activity. Hike, paint, cook, anything to keep you from just blathering on from one unimportant thing to the other. In a scene, it's more interesting to watch people do something physically than talk. On a date, it's more interesting to do something and it also takes the pressure off of everyone to be super clever at all times. Lord knows I'm guilty of talking head scenes and chatty dates, but the activity-based ones are always better.

Forget stuff, talk about how the other person makes you feel.

Now, I'm not telling you to just recite poetry and make googoo eyes at someone instead of sharing information about your life. I am, however, saying that you shouldn't get so carried away with your own cleverness that you forget to be a human with emotions. Most experienced improvisers can weave a joke or story out of any subject, but instead of doing that we should practice just letting some stuff land on us and having a real reaction to it. Tell your date that they look nice. Tell them if you like them. Tell your scene partner if you think they're a crazy person (tell this to your date too, I'm sure it'll work great).

Maybe just listen for a little while.

Talking is overrated, find something your date likes a bunch and just engage with that as much as you can. Hopefully they'll at least be interested enough in you that they'll ask you questions about yourself and sit back and listen too. Either way, go into both a scene and a date with the idea of hearing and caring about everything the other person has to say and it will almost certainly turn out for the better.

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There you have it, I've solved both improv and dating. Now if only I could put my theory to use in either context!

Goals as an Artist and a Human 2016

I got my wisdom teeth taken out this morning and being the stubborn kind of dude that I am, I feel 100% fine. That might just be the Percocet talking, though. If this post turns out to be just a big ol bowl of word salad, I'm choosing to blame it on the painkillers giving me confidence, but not ability.

Back in late January I wrote up some goals for the year but looking back I found that they're not really very quantifiable. Lots of "do better" and "try harder" and things of that nature. While it's nice to have that vague encouragement/scolding guiding me towards being better, results come from concrete goals.

Here is my #1 goal for the year: Don't run out of money and end up homeless.

That probably seems like a joke, but it's an actual thing that I am very afraid of. I've had too many times where a bunch of things exploded at once and my finances melted away. This year I will be cautious and I will pour money into my savings account to shake off my fears.

#2. Write and Film Three Sketches.

I've always wanted to write sketch and I know how to do it now. Let's say that vines count for 1/4 of a sketch. It's a low bar, but I've literally never written and filmed a sketch of my own before.

#3. Spend at least an hour every day off reading, writing, or learning a new skill.

I have a tendency to sit around and not take advantage of the time I have to myself. An hour on an off day is not a huge commitment to ask, but it is a big step in the right direction for me. I also know that productivity begets productivity, so I'm banking on that hour turning into more time pretty regularly.

Some ideas of skills that I'm working on: writing sketch, writing jokes, playing guitar, juggling, dialects, and celebrity impressions.

#4. End the year with 125 total posts on the blog. 

Made the goal I didn't succeed at last year harder. YOLO. Gotta commit harder to writing regularly!

#5. Spend 20 hours a week doing something related to the business of art. Teaching, improv, writing, performing, etc.

I am probably sitting at around 13 hours a week right now, but I need to expand or dive in deeper to something in order to eek those last 7-8 hours in.

#6. Do something nice for somebody every day without expecting to be repaid.

You get out what you put in and I want to make people feel happy when I'm around. I already kind of make it a point to be kind to people when I have the opportunity and ability, but I think it will be helpful if I look at it as a thing I'm setting out to do every single morning. At the very least, it'll keep me from starting the day off being salty to anybody.

#7. Read 15 books in 2016, watch 15 New Movies, watch 5 shows I haven't seen before.

Improv requires that my pop culture knowledge be up to date and living a full and happy life means that I need to be expanding my brain and finding new things to enjoy. Books and movies are most important to me as they are more often referenced than TV shows that I don't already watch, but all three categories are valuable. Video games should probably be included at the same level as TV shows.

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All right, these goals feel better. I'm stickin to them! Do you have any big ideas of things you want to do this year?

Why you owe it to yourself (and your cast) to be kind of a hard-ass

I have been getting caught in leadership positions for the majority of my adult life. I've learned a lot of things about myself through the groups I've been put in charge of. While I believe in kindness as a general basis for all human interactions, I've learned that leaders sometimes have to say and do the difficult and often hurtful things.

In improv it is really very difficult for me to give a note to a teammate. However I am finding myself in a leadership position far more often in improv scenarios lately and I need to grow up and move forward from my position of "I'm improv dumb and I don't know anything that isn't obvious." 

I was looked to as the most experienced performer and therefore the director of a recent improv show and I was too afraid to give notes because I didn't want to mar the positive and fun  atmosphere of the rehearsals. I had several very specific things that I noticed that I never brought up because I hoped we could work them out without communicating about them. I thought that maybe the other folks in the group could figure out the things that weren't working for themselves. I was super wrong and our show didn't magically fix itself.

They needed my help and I was co-signing all the bad habits I was witnessing by not calling them out. Every time someone started a scene with negativity and I didn't make them re-start, I messed up. Every time the words "I have a plan" showed up and I didn't yell "No you don't! You have a feeling!" I goofed. Every walk-on that was unnecessary that I didn't immediately send into exile was a gaffe by yours truly.

Improv should be fun and happy, but rehearsals are also a thing we do to help ourselves improve. Notes are something that help us have fun quicker and more effectively. Your notes shouldn't be mean or personal, but they do need to be direct and as immediate as possible. If something doesn't work, tell that performer and offer an idea of how to make it work. Be honest about the different skill levels in your group, even if that hurts someone's feelings. Help the people who aren't quite there yet if they're hard workers, and cut them loose if they aren't. Don't let being nice drag your shows down and take away from the fun that you could be having.

Start A Resolution!

With just days left in January I am going to put up some things I want to do this year and then do my best to hold myself accountable for them. If I achieve even one of them, it'll be a pretty good year. Like I have told my cast, why even attempt something if succeeding isn't awesome?

3 months expenses in savings

This one is boring but important! I have money saved up, but  I need to keep the ball rolling and get my safety net in gear. It's gonna be tougher with the added expenses I've got this year, but hopefully I will have an increase in income, too. I've got the math done up and boy is it terrifying to me, but I think I can manage to get this one done through diligence and cleverness.

Quit serving, art full time

This one feels the least realistic for the year. I am not even close to the place I'd need to be in to quit my current dayjob (barring something awesome happening). Something arts-adjacent like box office or marketing work would be great too. The way to get there is going to be plugging away at writing and doing as much improv type stuff on my days/shifts off from working.

Hell, I'll be happy if I can pay even one bill with regularity due to improv.

Take an improv class

This one has been altered a bit from last year. I got to thinking about what I wanted out of learning from somewhere like Second City or iO and outside of being able to use that name recognition in my about me section, I just want fundamentals. Instinct, experience, and solo research have gotten me this far but if I had some solid building blocks I'd be in a lot better of a place. The important thing isn't where I learn these things, it's that I learn them at all. I just need to start.

Film 4 sketches

I've made a few sketches with Dillon and I had a good time doing them and think that some of them are still hilarious. I want to write more and film more of them and I'm calling myself out to do it!

Do something that I don't think I can succeed at initially.

Basically this is just me insisting that I keep doing new and scary things. I've got to step out of my box more deliberately this year or else I will be treading water instead of swimming towards the shore.

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That's what I've got for now! Do you guys have any goals for the year? Let's get to work.

What's a 2015 Anyway?

In the middle of January 2015 I laid out seven goals for the year. It is now late January in 2016 and it's high time I examined my progress on these goals. Here is a link to that post to read it for yourself. Originally I was going to include my goals for this year, but this post got looooong. I will include those in another post later.

Expand class-load at the Community School of the Arts

Status: Not kept.

I tried, honest I did. The classes I put up didn't make. You know what did make? My summer camp for Theatre for Children. It made with an agreement that I'd be paid by the class rather than by the hour. Then my class maximum was doubled from 10 to 20 without notice and they packed 18 young people into a room with just me for 15 hours. I want to believe that this was done out of an ignorance of how my class works and not out of a desire to wring more money out of my abilities, but I do know that this is the second year running that I've had to deal with fishy things going on around my summer camp with the CSA. I'm more than a little disillusioned with the company and I'm honestly considering not returning to teach again.

Create a regular improvised performance for families in Clarksville

Status: Not kept. 1/2 credit?

I did have a group of awesome people improvising with me for a few months in Clarksville. My original idea was to do musical narrative show but that quickly fell by the wayside when we had trouble managing the schedules of all the people who would've been willing to accompany us. I got to work with some amazing people and I proved to myself that I was capable of teaching improv. It kind of solidified what my ideals are and made me hyper aware of the building blocks of a good performance and story. Lauren, Maggie, Abby, and Dillon: I want y'all to know I was so proud to see you guys be incredible for a few weeks and I hope we can improvise together again because you're all crazy talented and the best kind of people.

Make, at minimum, 52 posts in this blog.

Status: Hahahahaha, definitely not kept.

33 posts. 19 short, which isn't as much as I'd expected. I fell off hard in 2015. Part of it is how busy I got toward the end of the year, but another piece is how I put so much pressure on myself to write and share and make sure everything I wrote was awesome and insightful. I learned that I tend to crumble in front of the assumption of success, probably cause I'm such a rebel. "Oh you think I'll be great, huh? I'll show you!" Honestly it's a thing I'm pecking away at.

Get my own place.

Status: Success.

Well it's not my own place, but I moved out of Clarksville and back to Nashville. I have a roommate who I like and plenty of space to myself. In August I kind of opted to fail at this resolution but I was offered a job and a place to live in late September and I pounced on the opportunity.

Get $1000 safely in savings and keep it there.

Status: Success

I did a real good job at this. Saved slowly and consistently and eclipsed my goal rather quickly. This year was a good start and I just need to keep it up.

Read 20 new novels. Autobiographies and theory books don't count!

Status: Not kept

I made some progress on this, but I fell off hard towards the middle of the year. Here's what I read:

Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Anansi Boys, Good Omens, Guards Guards, Man in the High Castle

I also read Yes, Please and Improv at the Speed of Life but those didn't count towards my goal due to being an autobiography and a theory book. I read several new chidren's books for my class (it would be cheating to count those, I feel) and about half of Moby Dick. 

When it came down to it, I just had a lot of excuses and distractions from reading. This year I need to go into it with more discipline and structure if I want to succeed.

Study at a big-time improv school!

Status: Not Kept.

I chose not to succeed at this in order to succeed at my savings goal and my moving goal. It stings a little bit that I didn't manage to do this because I really, desperately want to take some time to learn from new people who are improvising for a living. I think some re-orientation is going to be necessary if I want to manage this goal this year.

2.5 out of 7 Resolutions Kept.

I'm tempted to say that's a laughably failing grade, but honestly that's not how real life works. I tried and learned and managed to do a few things that weren't on my list. I taught improv professionally for the first time, I moved back to Nashville, I got my Dungeons and Dragons show running finally.

On a more personal level, I've learned to say yes to opportunities and to be a better friend. I managed to get healthy and be better at being a grown-up in general. I'm going on dates and being a human, it's great!

By the numbers, I did not succeed. But real life isn't always by the numbers and I'm in a way better place than I've ever been. I just need to pick a direction and start marching, 2016 is going to be even more incredible.