This past week was fairly exciting, as it was both Canada Day on Tuesday and America Day on Friday. I celebrated Canada Day by claiming the lunch room at work in the name of Her Majesty, the Queen:
I sent out an e-mail to the company that detailed this conquest and included the long version of O Canada. It was well-received, except was eventually defiled by American revolutionaries. Oh well.
America Day meant a holiday from work, and I spent the afternoon in the company of some very good theatre friends who were having a barbecue. Now one of the grand American traditions of the holiday is to try and detonate some of the land you love, but it just so happens that setting off fireworks in Seattle is illegal. Such laws are a trifle to my one friend whose parents happen to own a fireworks stand, though. At personal risk I helped him unload what I was told was a payload probably in the neighbourhood of $2,000 or so.
Now the friend with the fireworks – let’s call him Vee – and the owner of the house – let’s call her Jay – have a long-standing friendship where they have performed alongside each other (both are two of the most spectacular and hard-working talents I have the privilege of knowing), but Vee is very, well, full of life and often when they get together socially at Vee’s behest the more moderate Jay will wind up with a concussion or some other form of mild trauma. I should now note that Jay is not a fan of fireworks in her home – is rather ruffled by them, in fact – and it took a lot of nudging and guarantees of safety from Vee to convince her it was a sane idea to ignite them in her back yard.
So of course what came to pass was that Vee gave the first firework – a simple smoke grenade – to a twelve-year old boy who broke it and caused it to emit a fiery plume. He dropped it and it sat in the middle of the yard, right next to the shoe of Jay’s three-year-old daughter who burst into tears at the sight of her shoe being roasted. The footwear was recovered but not before it suffered some unsightly burns, and the grenade continued to carve out a patch of soil in the grass next to it for quite some time.
Jay got all tight-lipped as she hugged her wailing child and Vee banged his head in gentle disbelief onto grass next to him. I nearly shed tears myself, I was so moved by the poetry of the spectacle before me.
My friends are fantastic.
I tried to hit up another party that night as well: one of the ensemble members at Unexpected has a houseboat moored at Lake Union, and every America Day he has a party there and people watch the (state-sanctioned) fireworks from some of the best seats in the city. I was unfortunately coming after the fireworks, but what should have been a five-minute drive became thoroughly ridiculous as cops had quarantined off that entire section of the city and made it virtually impossible to get anywhere close. There were barriers that kept me from even getting onto the street that his marina was on, and because all of the main and side streets were closed off it took me over an hour just to get back to the highway… as a result I missed partying with all of my improv friends, and caught some minor hell for it later on.
I did Theatresports last night and it went pretty well. I could have been stronger and I think our team could’ve had slightly better chemistry, but I had a good Shakespeare scene and the audience enjoyed it. After the show some girls came to me and got all excited that I reminded them of Buster from Arrested Development. They seemed to think this was some kind of badge of honour and I should be proud that I resembled whom they thought of as the funniest character on the show. I was a little perturbed that I reminded them of the awkward guy with an Oedipus complex and quite possibly some kind of genetic deficiency. It still feels good when the audience takes a personal interest in me, though, especially as I still think of myself as a somewhat unremarkable improviser.
Being in the UP ensemble is such a fantastic and unique privilege; I never stop being in awe of how incredibly lucky I am to have this weekly venue where I can get on a stage and play games with such talented and wonderful people, as though it were normal for someone of my quality to be able to do this kind of thing. I’ll be driving home usually well past 1 A.M. to my suburban condo and unexceptional life, wondering in a bit of a daze what kind of weird dimensional rift I’m coming from where I can be this celebrity to maybe a hundred people, and to know that the folks that put me in that spot will want me back next week. Not everything in my life is as perfect as I’d like, but truly I am blessed beyond measure when it comes to this.
Today I have the second of three weddings, and I’m supposed to be cleaning my condo but am procrastinating by writing this blog instead. I shanghaied my most fashion-savvy friend into helping me buy a new suit – my first new suit in over a decade (I wore the last one to prom). I wound up getting a charcoal, three-button number from Nordstrom’s… I wasn’t prepared to blow the bank or anything but I wanted to spend enough to get something nice and not merely serviceable. The one I got was on sale for $520, marked down from over $1,000, so it very much satisfied my need to feel like I was getting value on the dollar. I also got a new shirt and tie, as well as a belt and dress shoes. Shoes threatened to be a problem as I didn’t realize how ridiculously expensive they would be, but I was able to get a really nice pair from the Nordstrom “Rack” (ie. Nordstrom’s budget/value sibling store) for $100 less than they would have cost at the one I bought the suit at. At the end of the day I spent around $750 in upgrading my entire line of formal wear, which seems like a solid investment.
I will try to get some pictures of myself in the new getup soon, and then you my loyal readership can judge for yourselves. ;-)
Dan.
