Category Archives: Volunteering

In With the New

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Image courtesy of Horia Varlan. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Next weekend, I begin round two of improv classes. I will no doubt continue my fine tradition of walking the thin line of complete mortification at my own failures while also being secretly quite pleased when things work out (improv, my personal life, whatever). I am very much looking forward to it.

The first time I took improv classes, my main takeaway was that even if I sucked–and I was very, very sure that I did–it was okay. I could fail and it would be fine. I could fail badly and it would be fine. Nothing would eat me. And as completely cheeseball as it is, that has stuck with me in the months since.

Since I first took classes, I’ve continued with my volunteering at that improv theatre (I’ve quit writing about it because “this weekend I sold people tickets, drank beer, and hauled trash” is only compelling fodder for so many entries). Most nights that I’m there, I sell tickets to folks. When I started that volunteer position, I was actively, painfully terrible at it. I blushed and stuttered and couldn’t tear the ticket stock right. I was very sweaty. It was mortifying. Continue reading →

Out with the old

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Image courtesy of Micurs. Licensed under CC BY SA 2.0.

“But I do think that 2012 showed me that I can do a hell of a lot in a pretty short span of time, and that no matter what 2013 brings it cannot possibly cover the insane emotional ground of 2012′s travel-dead dog-malaria-cancer-job hunt extravaganza.”

— Me, this time last year. Sucker.

I am very, very ready for 2013 to go crawl off and die in a haze of fireworks. Because this year? Was awful. Thinking about it the other day, I realized that in the last 12 months my mother died, I spent 6 months lost and sad crying in my car just constantly, I spent 5 months working overnight in a shift that kind of made me crazy, and I had one car totalled and another de-bumpered. In the middle, I made a moderate ass of myself on Twitter, and after dropping my honors thesis I  managed (though I did not blog it at the time), to turn in a final paper in a graduate course on completely the wrong topic. Two days ago, my radiator exploded, nearly killing my cat and ruining my things. Continue reading →

Halloween is Upon Us

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Image courtesy of CleverGrrl. Licensed under CC BY SA 2.0.

Little Five Points is Atlanta’s Haight-Ashbury equivalent–it’s the neighborhood where you can, as a teenager, wander unsupervised to buy we-swear-it’s-just-for-tobacco pipes and crystals for magick before making a stop in the natural food co-op and heading out for pizza. As an adult, it’s a place where you can go access several of the city’s theatres and performance spaces, and get drunk (while sadly ignoring the pizza in favor of the natural food co-op). Halloween is, of course, the neighborhood’s favorite time of year.

That’s why there’s a Little Five Halloween parade each year, where the neighborhood’s art organizations, theatrical troupes, and general weirdos gather together to march a mile down the road with floats ranging from hastily-assembled to elaborately-planned (credit goes to this year’s Godzilla entrants, whose paper-mache beast was 30 feet tall). As part of my volunteering with the improv theatre, I found myself marching in the parade this year. Continue reading →