Three's Company

Well this week, while on that trail, I got to meet the people that leave the bowl of water out next to their house for all the dogs to use. Yep. Pretty sweet. It really is nice, though, because I'm not even sure if they have a dog, they just leave water out for everyone else's.

Thurston enjoying his water break

I don't know about you but that's the kind of person I want to be. Truly, just doing something for the greater good. I mean who doesn't love the vegetarian who is cool with going to the burger joint or the friend who's down to go to the gypsy punk band even though they normally listen to Clay Aiken. I aspire to be more like the "may no dog go thirsty on my watch" kind of person and less like the idiot I was say on Wednesday at the video store.

Let me set the scene for you. It's pouring rain. I've found only one job worth applying for in the entire time I've been here. I'm fantasizing about being in business casual providing therapy to all my old clients. I am feeling kind of homesick. I'm envisioning the adorable faces of my niece and nephews and dinner out with people who have known me longer then two months. So I do the best thing I can think of ( I am a professional remember) and take my pajama party on the road to the local video store. It's movie marathon time.

I start to look around, gathering enough movies for an all day party for one, and ask the woman behind the counter if the half off Tuesday deal is good on new releases. She says yes, so I load up on new movies, old movies, and TV series. Adam was going to his first ever Cricket game that night and getting to sit in fancy box seats so I was going to have a lot of time to fill. I get to the counter, excited about what a bargain I am going to get, and the woman says, you do know today is not Tuesday?

No, no I didn't know that. Can't you see I'm unemployed and haven't showered today, I can't be expected to know what day of the week it is. I refrain from saying that and instead start choosing what movies I am going to put back, weighing in when the Gossip Girl Season 3 I've put on hold will be in, and how that might factor in to my movie watching schedule. Amazingly, she says she will give me 3 movies for $7 which is awesome. I have never been offered a deal before at a video store and I love getting a good one.

Usually, I only get that kind of special treatment after something has gone wrong and I have to use my go to customer service line of " I want to be able to say good things about Bob's Big Boy but at this point I can't. What can we do to change that?" Fill in your business of choice. Anyway, I must have been shocked by my good fortune, or the coffee hadn't kicked in yet, because on my way out I muttered an audible, "excuse me" to the sliding doors blocking my way. Needless to say, I refrained from any other human contact that day.

Besides, I had gotten so much of it at my improv class earlier in the week. It was session two and we were continuing with our teamwork theme. The idea being that you have to be able to have a sense of cohesion and trust with the people you are performing on stage with in order to be successful. Improv (and life I should add!) is all about taking risk and you are more likely to take risk when you feel safe and comfortable with someone.

We played a variety of games to facilitate this process, one of which was especially difficult. The task was to perform a sketch with your group and exit the room at the same time and for the same reason but without talking. It's kind of hard to explain but I'll use the one very successful group as an example. Just so you know this group did not involve me but did include an Asian Punky Brewster type with cleavage.

This is how it worked: Three people sit in a row facing the rest of the class. One person, say starts taping their toes and the other two people start taping theirs. It's all about making offerings and your partners accepting or rejecting them, no matter which way it goes, you all have to get in sync. After a while someone starts rubbing their stomach and looking around, then the other two make similar movements until after it builds up and all three of them are doubling over in discomfort, and they all get up and run out.

Remember there was no talking this entire time and no plan in place. They then had to come back and say what they understood to be the reason  that they left. It was clear to the audience that they were all facing a dire bathroom situation or as one of the performers stated "we were busting for the loo." When it was my group's turn we were able to get our body movements in sync but other then that we had no idea what we were building up to or what our reason for leaving would be. Had we actually been on stage we would have done what they call in Hollywood, bombed. Good thing this is just a class.

I will say, though, bombing has never been so fun.