#la improvisers

JANUARY

• Started the year with Pack people. No kiss at midnight. This was a continuing trend…

• My schedule was all over the place. Tech and Front of House all willy-nilly.

• Started Grad Revue at Second City. I worked with a whole new group of people because that’s how it worked for me. Worked in the office to pay for it.

• Started my second Whole Life Challenge.

• Auditioned for the Universal Studios Tour Guide Program. Got the callback, but failed the improv. This was a continuing trend…

• For fun? Oh! I went roller skating for Sandy’s birthday. I friggin’ love roller skating, y’all!

• Rediscovered the Los Feliz 3. Saw Lady Bird and I, Tonya.

FEBRUARY

• Things got a little more ordered. Grad Revue, Second City office, Very Famous… all my nights were allocated!

• I started working exclusively tech at The Pack and exclusively Fridays. Hunter asked me to host Go Sketch Yourself, so Katie D. and I did it from the booth. My very niche bad tech sketch went over so well with this crowd!

• Went to the Opera for the first time to see Candide. It had Kelsey Grammar in it? Still enjoyable.

• Met some friends at Gracias Madre. I’d been wanting to try it since I moved here. Finally! Expensive and scene-y, but good!

• At the end of the month, I went part-time at the hotel because… well, there were no benefits to being there full-time, and I have shit to do, y’all!

• Got a Conan taping in there.

• Ordered some Samoas from a neighborhood Girl Scout. Someone tried to sabotage me, but I got those cookies and put them in my face! Finally!

• This year had two themes: 1) Forgiveness and, conversely, 2) You are dead to me now. Forgiveness started at the end of this month. It was an awkward first step, but sometimes it’s good to take a first step. I guess it’s just looking at the big picture of whether, as a whole, someone is a positive in your life or a negative.

• I did something terrible. I killed Gary. He was a delightful little aloe (according to Reddit, an aloe aristata). He was in a sugar skull planter from Trader Joe’s. I couldn’t tell that I was overwatering him. I overwatered him to death. I am a terrible plant parent. I still feel awful.

• Another loss. My trusty Herschel backpack finally gave out. So, I got a new one. Not a Herschel. A cheaper one.

MARCH

• Mom and Dad came to visit. They got a nice AirBNB right down the street from me... but the plumbing was shot. So we got to spend a week at The Hollywood Hampty! (Thanks, George!) We went to a Conan taping. We went to Madame Tussaud’s… um… yeah. Did the double decker tour bus that I get for free because I sell them at work. We dropped by Eataly. I need to go back there. We got free breakfast every day!

• I went to a party! I don’t normally do that.

• I got to be in Book Report at The Pack. Buzz Aldrin was seated in the front row I had to do a quick change into an elaborate costume and ran out with my dress tucked into my tights.

• I learned that when you do someone a huge favor, they don’t always reciprocate in kind, so you should bear that in mind when you choose to share.

APRIL

• Took a day trip to Venice and Santa Monica. Walked around the canals. That was neat.

• I doggie-sat for George and Ian with Parker -- a very, very good dog. Their apartment is so serene PLUS they left me gin and tonic and an adorable call sheet with Parker’s day outlined. Nice!

• I interviewed for the page program at Paramount thanks to Sandy’s recommendation. Didn’t get it. Maybe they felt like I was too old. I don’t know. They seemed impressed with my resume, but I still haven’t been called in for an interview for a regular job. This is a continuing trend… At least I got to have some Texas-style margaritas in the build up.

• Started Sketch 3 at The Pack. Old version. Just talking about the history of comedy and other comedy nerd / writer pursuits with Mike Upchurch . This may have been my favorite comedy class ever. Got some insider Mr. Show information. It’s the fandom that keeps giving!

• Saw Scott Thompson’s Buddy Cole Monologues at UCB. Accidentally made eye contact with Bruce McCulloch. It was a very exciting night for me.

• During Very Famous’s April Show, I gave this gift to my family back in Texas.

MAY

• Gallegos visited and did Go Sketch Yourself.

• He and Eloy came to opening night of my Grad Revue — Clickbait & Switch. Oh yeah! My Grad Revue at Second City opened.

• FYC Season, y’all! Netflix had some good stuff! I got to take a picture of Emily with Marty Short which enjoying the open bar and passed tray foods.

• Lindsey came to visit. Lots of Marvel. I probably will not be seeing any more Marvel, though. Unless they hire me for that job I applied for. Then, I would love Marvel! We went to Universal and my favorite Harry Potter ride broke down. Then, we rode it again immediately. And then I had motion sickness that lasted 7 days

• Brent Forrester started a series of Comedy Knowledge Drops at Dynasty Typewriter. They were so good! He is great!

• Put up a sketch at The Pack’s Ladies of Sketch Night with a dream team of actors. Also, go to dance again, but, sadly, I always end up in the back. Too many ladies!

• My calendar simply says “BOB!” I imagine I saw Bob at something… Oh, Dynasty Typewriter! It was fundraiser for one of their employees to renew her visa or something. Took photos of Emily and a very nice BrBa/BCS fan with Bob before we walked through Murder Park to get to the train.

• An actor that I very much had a crush on stayed at our hotel. He’s been on a downhill slide for a while and was obviously pretty high. He was also a jerk to the person who check him in. But he was nice to me… and when he smiled at me while thanking me for calling a cab, I kind of died a little on the inside. I wish I had the video from our security cam, but I’ll just have to remember it in my mind. When I got home from work and turned on the TV, there he was in a terrible movie.

• Went on an easy hike to a waterfall in Altadena.

JUNE

• Went to ATX fest again! Mom & Dad came and stayed a night at the hotel with me. Lindsey and Andrea met up the second day. It wasn’t as fun because I live in this place where I’m constantly surrounded by TV stuff. They did a Better Call Saul thing, so I got to go to that. I had some TexMex. It was A LOT.

• Flew back from Texas earlier than I had planned because our Grad Revue closed that Sunday. We did our final show, then received our diplomas and t-shirts. I am now a Second City Graduate. But not “Alumni.” That’s different… and also not possible in Hollywood. I also resigned from my work-study job with enough hours to take 3 more classes. It was sad, but I needed that time back to make money.

• Took in some Fringe shows. I’m so supportive! But also, the lack of reciprocal support is not exclusive to comedy people. That’s a thing I learned.

• I auditioned for Sketch at Second City. Didn’t get it. This is a continuing trend…

• Went on a little weekend trip to Long Beach. Checked out the aquarium. Did a whale tour. Saw an actual whale tail. Had some decent barbecue. Got a sunburn. I recommend the Hotel Maya near the Queen Mary. All the cookies you can eat! And they have fire pits!

JULY

• This was a light month, but that was fine because…

• I went to Comic Con in San Diego! We got volunteer badges. I ended up catching a ride with my friend, Osiokeh, so I got to spend one night at the hotel connected to the Convention Center. So nice! Well, I spent part of the night because there was a Better Call Saul Panel in Hall H, so I had to camp out waiting for my wristband. Of course, they had issues and that took forever. Then, I slept for 4 hours then went to get back in line. I sat through so much stuff AND that place pretty much emptied out for some boring panels. Not enough for me to upgrade my seating, but I could have just not done that at all.I did not budget enough time to get to my volunteer shift, so I had to scoot as soon as that was over. My volunteer job SUCKED! Gordon was nice enough to come look for me, but they didn’t allow us to have phones, so I missed him. So sad. What a sweetheart, though. :(

• Volunteering at Comic-con… Oof! I just kept getting the wrong shifts. They were torturous! The last day was a complete mess, and I was one of the last volunteers standing… because of course I was. At the end of all this, I was like, “NEVER AGAIN!” I did enjoy finding a hotel to work at and just people watching. I guess the first year is when you learn. I totally missed the badge sale for 2019!

• I finally started Improv 2 at The Pack. Neal Dandade was great! All new people again!

AUGUST

• Did a better convention… CAT CON! Now, this is where I belong. I won a Litter Genie and the cat-weed company gave Penelope a CatIt Flower Fountain. She is obsessed! So, I guess it may have been better than weed. We may never know. I met Cindy from @foster_kittens. She was very nice… but the main event was meeting Felix. He was so soft, but so over being petted by strangers! I signed up to be a foster, but with a chupacabra in our apartment, I decided against it. That’ll change.

• Season 3 of Better Call Saul started. Then I started a class, so I had to miss watching it live. Emily and I watched the first one with… some refreshments. It was so good! I am turning on Jimmy as he turns into Saul though. Like, I super hated him right at the end there. We’ll wait for Gene to roll around. Oh Gene. My heart.

• Went to San Diego for a weekend. Nice to check it out as a tourist. Walked across a swinging bridge. Spent hours at the USS Midway. Went on a paddle boat ride. Checked out a Padres game at Petco Park. Almost died on a Bird scooter.

• Finally started that Late Night Writing class. It finally worked out. I love it. I wrote jokes and people liked them. I guess I can write them after all.

• Took a one-day class on sketch writing from improv with Kevin McDonald from Canada’s Kids in the Hall. It was fun. Lots of nerds. We wrote 2 sketches.

• Went to see David Cross with Emily. Took myself to Umami before hand. We got some Bonus Bob!

• Other shows: So You Do Comedy…? at UCB. Chris had John and Jessie Ennis. That was fun. Kevin McDonald did a variety show at the Lyric Hyperion Theater. First time there. Cute place! We sat so close. Tim Heidecker dropped a guitar stand on me.

SEPTEMBER

• Improv 3 at The Pack Started. Shaun Landry showed us how to be actors. We did prepared monologues for a class that John Conroy subbed. Shaun said he told her he wanted to tape one of them because it was so good. She said Justin. There was no Justin. No one even close except Jessica. So, I’m just gonna assume he meant me. Because I need it for this next thing…

• Submitted a reel to be a performer on my or a TPT Sketch Team. Didn’t get a callback. I’m starting to think maybe I am not a good performer. But giving up isn’t a thing I do, so I’ll keep trucking along. At least I get to feel like I’m SNL-era Bob Odenkirk. And from what I heard from a person who worked with him around this time, we have/had about the same pitching style for this level in our careers. That makes me feel better. But, like, he was at SNL and I’m at a little theater in Hollywood… and also he’s a genius… so maybe not that much the same.

• The good news is that I get to continue as a writer on Very Famous.

• I also got to play a terrible British stereotype in a sketch with friends at Go Sketch Yourself and UCB’s Everybody Get In Here. Multiple people told me how funny they thought I was in it. I accidentally dressed like Oliver Hardy, but thinner and with boobs.

• Dana Gould did Chopping Block at The Pack. That was amazing! They needed extras and, oh, how I wanted to be in something one of my heroes wrote… but also I wanted to watch it. So I chose the latter. I’m good with that.

• At work, a guy from Fox News yelled at me over the phone because of something dumb. I don’t even remember. Cool guy.

• Briefly joined an improv practice group. Quickly realized that I am too poor for that.

• Started another Whole Life Challenge. It had been a while.

• Went to another Conan taping. It turned out to be the last. September 18. 25 years and 5 days after I first watched Conan on late night television. A few weeks after this, the hour-long show would cease to be. A total surprise to me. A half-hour replacement coming in January.

OCTOBER

• Oh yeah! Back in September, Andrew asked if I would like to be in The Ointment at The Pack. Um… OF COURSE! So I got to play a character who murdered her husband… 10 years after she wrote a blog post about how she would do it. I also played an Octopus tentacle. It was so fun!

• Ian asked me to be in some short, blackout videos he was making to remind people to vote. That was fun, too!

• Briana asked me to be in her sketch for Tales from the Laugh Dimension at The Pack. Duh! Of course! I also did a couple of things with her for open mic sketch shows. It was a lot of fun.

• The best thing about all these parts I got was that right around this time, someone who was grasping at straws to make me a bad person declared that I was “angry about all the sketches I didn’t get cast in.” LOL Yeah, about that. So, I guess things do happen for a reason.

• After a couple months of looking for a full-time position, so I could get out of my living situation because of it being a danger to Penelope, I kicked that into overdrive. I wish I could have kept my old place, as I was the only one who really loved it, but also, all the sage in the world wouldn’t be able to vanquish the bad joo-joo. This turned out for the better in the long run.

• But more good things happen! Hunter suggested that I help produce a show at The Pack for Halloween as part of WPCK. We did an exquisite corpse with all-female writers and an all-female cast (but a male director because… I guess… let’s not go overboard?) based on the Bill Joel video for Allentown, the play No Time for Sargents (watch the TV version of this, please) and Ragnar Benson’s series of survival books. I got a pretty big part and memorized the shit out of my lines… only to have my entire intro skipped. So, I had some confusing costuming, but the whole thing was kind of that way… and I guess we can just blame the format anyway. It was still fun. And I got to go eat Doomie’s with some great ladies!

• Finally got to see 1970s-style Hollywood Boulevard thanks to that Tarantino movie. I was only there for the throwback architecture. Walking home after class, I saw Brad Pitt.

• Took myself to the beach again.

NOVEMBER

• November 1. The day I saw Dear Evan Hansen. I was not ready. It was so good! I cried the entire time. I tried to win the ticket lottery every day. I listen to the soundtrack constantly. I may have to wait, like, 3 years to see it again.

• The next day, I picked up my rental. I deserve a break, so I took one in the form of a road trip along the PCH. I ram some errands in Burbank, then drove through Malibu Canyon to start in Malibu. It was beautiful. How have I never been to Malibu before after 2+ years in LA? The first day, I stopped in San Luis Obispo. Oof! At least the Embassy had a good evening reception. I ordered some Santa Maria steak on Postmates and it was so good! Then, I just relaxed. SLO is not that exciting. 

• Day 2, I drove up to Monterey. It took forever. But it was BEAUTIFUL. Just singing Dear Evan Hansen songs and trying to pay attention to the road. In Monterey, I went to some beach locations, like where John Denver crashed his plane. Then I watched the sun set on the beach. The Embassy there did not have a good evening reception.

• On the last day of my road trip, I drove up to San Jose to go to the Winchester Mansion. It was really neat, but not as exciting as I thought it would be. Still enjoyable. Had an expensive burger, went on a disappointing detour trying to find a Peet’s, then drove in the dark on The 5 back to LA. Wow! There is nothing there.

• The last day with the car, I took Penelope to the vet. Got the works. She’s all good. Didn’t even need a teeth cleaning.

• Station Theater’s Can’t Tell Us Nothing won Matt Besser’s Improv for Humans contest. They did a show at UCB, so reunited with some Houston improv folks. And also someone I worked with at the WPCK thing. Worlds collide!

• Saw a screening of Stan & Ollie at IFC Fest. The acting was great!

• There was a book event for Paul Myers’ book about Kids in the Hall at UCB with Dave and Scott. Scott is a force of nature. I love him so much! Also, Paul Myers is Mike’s brother… or Mike Myers pretending to be a guy named Paul who is also his brother.

• When I was in high school and college, there was a stand up / storytelling show in LA called Uncabaret. If I lived in LA, I would have gone. Now that I do, I went to their 25th anniversary show. It was a room full of people from the 90s, still in the 90s. Not a complaint.

• Late one night, I saw that Katie was subletting the apartment she had just moved out of. A studio in Hollywood in my budget, bills included. By the end of the month, I had the keys to that apartment. I should have gone ahead and put my notice in for December 1, but I got nervous. I ended up paying rent on 2 places.

• Started Improv 4 at The Pack. Rich is great! He has the perfect personality of a person I can get along with.

• Thanksgiving at Fogo de Chao is TOO MUCH MEAT!

• Very Famous got into SF Sketchfest! Finally going to San Francisco!

DECEMBER

• Packing! That pretty much sums it up. I rented a car for the small stuff. Asked for help with the big stuff. We did it! Penelope and I are free!

• Ian asked me to be in his directorial debut at Second City — A Fonzie Scheme. We did rehearsals to generate material. It was fun.

• I saw Come From Away. I mean, after Dear Evan Hansen, I thought I would never be able to love a new musical, but this one got me. It was good.

• I got older. For my actual birthday, we went to a Yoga guru’s Winter Solstice Celebration — even though it wasn’t the solstice yet. We did some intention setting and white people dancing and healing breathing and tarot card pulling and labyrinth walking and fireside singing. Then we got ice cream. The following day, I invited some people to bottomless mimosa brunch. It was a great time! A single mimosa, followed by a carafe of mimosa, then another single mimosa is the perfect amount of mimosa. Then, I bought some corn cookies and a slice of crack pie from milk bar.

• Spent the next few days getting the apartment in order, so I could come back home to not a mess after the holidays. I did a lot, so I’m looking forward to getting home to Penelope.

• Capped off a creative year by submitting my very first late night-style writing packet. A warmup for the NBC Late Night Writers Workshop. Guys, I’ve known it my whole life: I friggin’ love late night!

• And just for good measure, my $400 (I got them on sale for $75) sunglasses broke. I was tempted to get some Ray Bans, but opted for some MUCH cheaper Target ones. RIP Jimmy Choo star sunglasses. They were good to me for like 3 years AT LEAST.

• Went back home for the holidays. Spent a lot of quality time with Mom and Dad. Saw Mark and Jacob. Didn’t get nearly enough writing done. Didn’t finish my book. At least I got to mostly relax. Mom let me win at Scrabble a couple times before winning like 12 times after that.

A LOOK AHEAD

Tonight for New Year’s Eve, Emily, Ian and I are going to see Bob and Naomi’s Not Inappropriate Show at UCB. Then later, we are going to the New Years Eve celebration at Dynasty Typewriter. They got a lot going on over there.

I tried to focus on the high points of this past year. The low points were pretty low. I’ve struggled this year, but have done my best to try and stay positive. I lived and I learned.

The word of the year for 2019 is BUDGET. I am going to set myself up with the tools I need to budget my money, budget my time and budget my food. The main focus will be finding a new job. That has been a big issue since I moved to LA. I’m wearing myself out. 

I need to cut myself some slack this year, but also continue to get shit done and be better at that.

I hope the rest of you have a wonderful year. And, if you made it this far, why are we not best friends and going to Salt & Straw every month or laughing and bitching over bottomless mimosas every other weekend? I need more of that!

BONUS

Annual kitty feet, anyone?