… well maybe not that little.

Clown College this week ended as I theatrically punched a KFC Double Down into a collegue’s face. Apart from that, it has been rather a profound week in which I have taken in three of the key elements I need to remind myself of daily, in order to avoid a downspiraling pit of negativity and self-loathing.  The first is the importance of being present in the moment, on stage as well as in daily life.  This is something I’ve struggled with for some time, without really having known it until my anxiety reached the point of near-unconsciousness every time I rode the bus last year.

The next, is breathing.  It seems funny that somewhere along life’s path, some of us have to re-learn how to breathe, the most basic of human necessities.  Stress can do some pretty crazy stuff to the body and performance anxiety can often be pretty damn stressful, especially if you’re not fully-prepared for your performance or you’re not standing behind it 100% of the way.  Following my mediocre set at Yuk Yuk’s this week, I got one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had!  It can’t be because I’m not used to performing because in one way or another, be it dance, public speaking, barking order or guiding tours, I’ve been performing for the public pretty well all my life.  I guess the stakes are a bit higher now and I occasionally need to remind my lungs and brain of that, lest I die.

Finally, I’m going to need to continually reinforce to myself that I don’t give a shit what anybody but the audience thinks about my performances, especially in development/preparation mode even though everyone’s always got something to contribute.  I just need to go for it and stop being such a chicken shit.

Blah, these publicly-posted self-musings make me feel like a pretentious, narcissistic drama-queen, which can only mean one thing:

I’m on the right track.