I think I’m going to order a tea. I need to figure out if it makes me shit myself or not. Speaking of shitting yourself, I found a name for my potential memoir some day: Between the Poop. A story about the things that happen in between running to the bathroom.
I’m sitting here right now, currently not shitting myself. I almost shit myself last night. I was here, at Mozart’s café. The list for the open mic usually goes out around 8 ‘clock. It was 7:55 and I was about to shit myself. I went into the single stall bathroom. Somebody was in there. I briefly considered going into the girls bathroom but placed my trust in the hands of God. I squirmed for about two minutes until I heard the bathroom door open. I was in the stall before the other guy even finished closing the stall door. I made it. Jesus Christ this girl is yacked. Sorry, some girl just walked up and looked like she could suplex a tiger.
Anyways, I pooped into the toilet at 7:57 last night. I thought I might miss the mad dash to the list, but there was no mad dash. It was already sitting there on the stage. I walked up to sign up. There were 25 slots. Numbers 2-22 were filled. I hate waiting so I decided to go first. Long story short, there’s a reason people don’t go first. The crowd isn’t engaged yet. People are talking and getting settled in and fingering each other’s buttholes. Okay maybe not the last part. But you get the idea. Other things are going on.
It’s even more of a tough ask when it’s a music open mic and you’re the only one not doing music. People already don’t know what to expect at an open mic, but when you just sit there with a book in your hands, people’s brains really start to jumble. Then you proceed to read a sonnet about pooping and any sense of normalcy has quickly dissipated.
Despite the tough spot I still had a good time and did fairly well, all things considered. It was a beautiful night. The moon was full and close to the earth and stuff. The eclipse made me have weird dreams. I was warned this would happen. It happened. I dreamt of my friend’s cat constantly shitting itself. You may see a theme in today’s blog post. If you know what it is, feel free to yell it out loud in public.
What else is new? I’ve found a heightened sense of being in the world, so that’s cool. I feel remarkably at peace. It sounds contradictory, but it takes a lot of work to find peace. It took me a grand solo journey, a commitment to meditation and yoga, and a whole lot of time just sitting with myself and my thoughts. And the journey never ends. This doesn’t just magically make me at peace forever. But at least I know how to get there. Like I was writing about yesterday, I think that’s more than most people.
I’ve realized how fun it is to support other people. It’s a huge shift when you go from showing up to a performance just for yourself, to showing up to a performance to support other people and then you just happen to also get on stage for a little bit. Whoa I just had a transcendental thirty seconds. I’m sitting and writing at my computer. There’s a couple of doors about thirty yards in front of me and I can see myself in the reflection, dead center. There is a group of girls behind me talking and live music playing. It would be the perfect photo. I took a picture in my mind and got lost for thirty seconds.
Anyways, supporting other people. That’s what I was talking about. It’s a very freeing change in perspective. It makes performing so much less stressful when you take all of the focus away from yourself. I’m still working on letting my ego die. The more I’m able to let it die, the happier I find myself. I’m convinced that most of society’s problems are the result of an overly grown ego.
That’s another story. The point is that I’m really enjoying just being around the creative scene and other creative people. I want to see someone go on stage and do well. I want to see someone blow my mind. There’s nothing better than a live performance that just blows the snot straight out of your eyes. I remember a couple of weeks ago a comedian went up a few spots ahead of me and had an absolutely legendary set. I was watching this one guy laughing so hard in the audience that his throat looked like it was going to disengage and fly away. It was just cool to be there and watch it happen. I still have the image of that audience member laughing in my head. It’s a great one to have.
