#comedy routine

A clip of Lily Savage and Bob Downe performing their Ice Ballet routine in 1995 🌹

*Crowd floods in, takes their seats. Lights turn on. Speaker turns on.*

Speaker: Creatives, Nerds, and/or Weirdos, please put your hands together for (insert a somehow lower rank comedian that's opening for me)

LRC: Hey everybody, what's up!

*crowd cheers*

LRC: I said what's up, but y'all are down there. *over exaggerates looking down at the audience*

*audience laughs*

LRC: *also laughs* Finally, a crowd that's shorter than me. *let's say the comedian is either really short or really tall.*

*audience laughs*

LRC: *hyped* Are you guys ready for educational comedy?

*cricket noises*

LRC: *laughs and gives a reassuring expression to the audience* No, I promise it's really funny. Not even that educational, just a lot about mental health, disabilities, culture, and the queer community.

*a decent amount of the crowd cheers*

LRC: Alright now we're talking! Everyone put your hands- or paws, fins, etc. we don't discriminate here- for Lady of the North!

*crowd applauds and woos*

Me: *gets on stage and hugs lower rank comedian that I have never met before*

LRC: Knock em dead *pats me on the back and goes back stage*

Me: *goes centre stage and breathes into the mic for a moment*

Audience: ...

Me: Not literally, I hope.

*small chuckle in audience*

Me: I mean, call me Autistic, *gives knowing look and wink to the audience* but I'd be pretty concerned if that guy actually wanted me to knock you all dead.

*more laughter from the audience*

Me: Good, good, you like morbid humour. Good to know. Not saying my jokes are usually morbid, but, there is one about a house fire, so. *walks around the stage, fidgeting with the microphone wire*

Audience Member: *coughs*

Me: I like to talk to myself.

*small nervous laughter*

Me: *with false sympathy* Aw, did I make you all uncomfortable? *rolls my eyes in an over exaggerated way* Alright, alright, I see how it is. *continues walking around the stage* I'm Autistic, so I'm uncomfortable, like, eighty percent of the time. So.

*hesitant laughter*

Me: *stops waking* Ever been talking to a large group of people, *gestures to the audience*

*some people laugh*

Me: and they're all talking over one another? You can't hear any of them?

*sounds of confirmation from the audience*

Me: So you just scream: PLEASE, I BEG YOU, *falls to my knees in a pleading pose* SPEAK ONE AT A TIME!!!

*crowd laughs*

Me: *slowly gets back up with a knowing grin* You ever get that feeling, Toronto?

(Because of course I'm performing in Toronto)

*audience cheers*

Me: Good, good. See, now we understand each other. *continues pacing around the stage* Because I have that feeling- *stops walking, faces the crowd, big manic grin on my face* All. The. Time.

*nervous laughter*

Me: Oh yeah. *continues pacing and playing with the wire* Let's say I'm in a room, by myself. Or, maybe there's a couple other people there, minding their own business, we're all doing our own thing. Either way, I'm hearing the lights buzz and flicker, the heater or air conditioner run, machines going in another room, electricity in the wires in the walls, and every time Olivia and Marcy- those are the two people there with me- move a muscle or do anything I hear that too.

*Autistic people cheer and applaud*

Me: *knowing grin and stops pacing to face the crowd* Can anyone relate to that?

*Autistic people cheer louder*

Me: Good. Now for once we, the weirdos, are the ones with the power of knowledge! *raises hand up in an empowered pose*

*Autistic people cheer*

Me: And the neurotypicals, yes, they are the ones who must suffer. *evil laughs*

*crowd laughs*

Me: *acting like a normal person* So I'm sitting there, right?

*crowd chuckles*

Me: And I'm trying to get my work done. Let's say I'm writing a book, as one does,

*audience chuckles*

Me: And I come across a plot hole. *dramatic gasps*

*audience laughs*

Me: So I come across the plot hole, and what's a writer to do? *takes a tangle of yarn out of my pocket and tosses it on the floor*

*audience laughs more*

Me: I have to sit with this plot hole, *squats next to the yarn* And work it out. *starts untangling the yarn irritably, then suddenly looks up with an annoyed expression*

*nervous laughter*

Me: Shut up, Olivia. No one cares about your boyfriend not texting you back.

*crowd cheers and laughs*

Me: Can you believe that? Two girls whispering over there, you know, because they have lives and human relationships they can talk about their problems in a healthy way to.

*crowd chuckles*

Me: But not you. No. You have anxiety that makes you bottle up your problems, and then I vent it out to you.

*crowd cheers and laughs*

Me: So, since I know this is a me problem, not an Olivia problem, I don't actually say anything. *continues untangling yarn* I simply continue... untying... the... PLOT HOLE *screams*

*crowd laughs*

Me: *smiles at the crowd and blinks* But that's not all, Toronto. *stands up*

*nervous laughter*

Me: There are other people *points to my head* in here. It ain't just me.

*tense silence*

Me: What? *paces around the stage and acts like a normal person again* Why is that so scary? I simply have more people than just me in my head. Why do horror movies have to dictate that those people must be serial killers?

*a couple of laughs*

Me: I'm serious. I'm an OSDD 1B system. Self diagnosed, but I'm pretty damn sure that applies to me. *stops pacing* Which means that there are multiple people sharing our head, all with our own distinct personalities, but we all share memories. There's no black outs or amnesia barriers. So it's a lot easier to communicate with each other, but a lot harder to figure out who's fronting at the moment.

*silence to let that sink in*

Me: Currently the active alters we know about are: North (myself), Lucy, Lisa, Stacy, Magie, Brianna, Teresa, and Austin. None of them are serial killers, none of them are even that violent- except maybe Lucy but she has a lot of self control. She prefers to be verbally violent anyways.

*silence again*

Me: So, yeah. None of us would harm the body or anyone around us- unless we're having a trauma response, panic attack, melt down, or otherwise, but even then we're pretty good at avoiding it. None of us are serial killers, but damn are we annoying.

*audience laughs*

Me: *continues pacing* Back to the metaphor about the group conversation,

*audience slowly stops laughing to listen*

Me: Imagine that, playing in your head, all the time. Like, Brianna, I know you want to help Olivia with her problem and hopefully become friends. But we have our own problems to solve and- yes Magie that is what Lucy said. I know you think it's boring to work on this but- *marches forward with a stern look* Stacy put the anxiety away.

*audience laughs*

Me: *chuckles and continues pacing* So I have to baby sit my fellow alters all day.

*audience chuckles*

Me: *stops pacing and looks down* That's not true, Lisa babysits us.

*audience laughs*

Me: *looks up with a grin* So, anyways. *continues pacing* I need to get these guys to talk one at a time. *stops next to the yarn and squats down again to pick it up* Or we'll never fix this problem. *continues untangling* Which means, the only way I can filter out everyone's trains of thought so that I can actually problem solve, is to talk to myself out loud. Then only one person can speak at a time.

*a sound of understanding falls over the audience*

Me: *talking to myself* Okay, so Brianna wants to help Olivia with her problem so we can make a friend. Lucy wants to solve this plot hole. Magie wants to do something else. Stacy wants us to go skate boarding, even though that isn't something the body knows how to do.

*quiet laughter*

Me: So, we will fix this plot hole, wrap up the scene we're writing, then talk to Olivia and hopefully make a friend. After that, we'll go to the mall, buy a skate board and a few things Magie wants. Then we can attempt to learn skate boarding. How does that sound? Okay, good. *looks to the audience* The voices on my head agree to my compromise, Olivia leaves by the time we're done, we're burnt out so we go home and collapse and forget this ever happened the next day. *stands up and raises my hand in the air*

*audience laughs*

Me: *bring microphone back to my mouth* But hey. *holds up string* Fixed the plot line.

*audience laughs and cheers*

😂