The Ankle Biter @ Quibbling.net

Tom was out of town this weekend on a sort of college choir reunion- I had thought about going along, but we had one of those weird couple divergences of memory where he was SURE he had told me about this trip some months ago, and I was EQUALLY SURE that he hadn’t, but the end result was that the first I remember hearing about it was just a few weeks before it was to happen, so I didn’t make arrangements to take off from work or anything.

So I was on my own for a few days. Now, here’s what happens when Tom’s away. In some ways, I regress to single-girl habits- no, not “tequila shots with strange men,” but “eating like a hobo because I don’t feel like cooking and watching bad TV.”  Also, because I miss having him around and a lot of the things I like to go out and do are things that we go out and do together, I have this tendency to kind of hole up in the house. Which is dumb, because when the husband goes out of town, it’s a perfect opportunity for margaritas with your girlfriends (guilt-free because you’re not leaving your sweetie at home) and seeing movies you know he won’t want to see with you.

So that’s what I did.  The weather was excruciatingly gorgeous on Friday and Saturday, so on Saturday evening, I went to Los Tios with Dawn and Steph, where we sat on the patio to enjoy queso and tasty beverages while discussing how we’d quit our jobs if we won the lottery.  Suffice it to say, I’ve got a nascent comedy bit brewing in my notebook.

Saturday, Steph and I went out again, this time for pho at the best pho place ever, followed by a matinee of The Forbidden Kingdom.

Here’s what you need to know about this movie. It’s not what one would call “good.” In fact, by most objective measures of Western cinema, it’s a terrifically bad movie. In the tradition of The Karate Kid.  But, for those who love kung fu movies for their own sake, this is not just unsurprising but actually expected. Kung fu movies, as Steph points out, are like pr0n. The ridiculous plot and writing are justified by the, er, action sequences.

And as far as action is concerned… people, Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Two of the greatest kung fu stars since Bruce Lee, okay? When you see one of these two in any other movie, the fight scenes generally have to be choreographed around the shortcomings of the costars; in the Rush Hour movies, Chris Tucker has to be able to participate, for example.  But for the scene in which Jet Li and Jackie Chan face off, Yuen Woo Ping only had to choreograph for two incredibly talented and agile performers, and it was really pretty awesome.
But as a movie? Oh, it’s awful. Don’t bother with it unless you’re a kung fu movie fan generally. Steph and I laughed all the way through… especially at the serious parts.   Just Netflix it and fast-forward through all the non-fight stuff. But watch the Chan/Li fight over and over.

Now that it’s more or less ready, I can tell you that I’ve built a whole separate site to promote mah comedys. Please visit Tiffany Bridge Comedy dot com.

Read my semi-regular musings on what it’s like to be a comedian! Watch mah youtubez! Friend me on Facebook! Sign up for my mailing list!

Or, you know, don’t. Because it’s all opt-in, baby.

I did an open mic last night at a bar in Clarendon. I had 10 minutes, so in addition to some of my proven stuff that I’m just trying to polish, I tested out some newer material.

I’ve got a brand new bit on sporting events that is really in the very early stages, but it’s structured enough to tell to an audience.  I got to the part about fans yelling stuff at baseball players, and I got the best, longest, most sustained laugh I’ve ever gotten at any joke I’ve ever told.  It was awesome, but also curious- it started one phrase into the payoff and wouldn’t stop.  The rest of the sentence wasn’t nearly so good.  But the laugh at that one thing was so terrific- I was having to stifle my own laughter because the audience’s was so contagious.

This is why I love this stuff.  I’ve got to rewrite my joke, but that’s okay- the concept is clearly solid.

What’s this? Comedy up on YouTube so soon? Can it be? Yes!
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My weekend was fantastic, but now I need a weekend from my weekend.  When I left work on Friday, I was mentally AND physically exhausted.  With all the goings-on this weekend, I find myself mentally rested, but just as physically in need of a nap as ever.

On Saturday, Tom and I went to the Courthouse Farmer’s Market, figuring we’d get just some tomatoes and mozzarella and whatnot for lunch.  But you see, Tom and I have been talking about trying to eat more locally-grown food, less meat from factory farms, that sort of thing.  Not as a necessarily political statement, but more as an investment in better quality nutrition, better-tasting food, and keeping more of our dollars in our local (or at least regional) communities.  I actually have a lot more to say on this topic, but I’ll save it for another time.

Anyway, the point is, we went in for caprese ingredients, and came out with something like $90 of produce.  It started when someone had a bag of peaches. I LOVE LOVE LOVE farmer’s market peaches.  And then we saw the berry farm’s stand.  And the blackberries were the biggest and most beautiful-looking I’ve ever seen.  And then as we were debating how many tomatoes to get, since there are just the two of us and we’re not home all the time, the farmer said, “These tomatoes will last 10 days.  If they don’t, I will replace them two-fold.”  That’s a strong statement.  We bought the extra tomatoes.  And zucchini.

But then we ended up with this giant sack of fruit, and the peaches were really ripe. We had to eat them over the sink, they were so juicy.  So of course we can’t expect them to last the week, and we had this huge flat of cherries, blueberries, and blackberries so we decided on the only natural course of action…

Sangria party.  But we couldn’t do it the same night because, of course, that was the night of my First Ever Professional Comedy Gig.  I got all dressed and made-up and whatnot, and Tom and I headed out to meet up with Dawn for a little pre-show dinner.  I had to duck out of dinner early because I had to work the door, so I headed into the room, where the guy who runs it suggested that I get up on the stage and get used to the light.  The lights are always directly in your eyes, but this venue is a long, narrow banquet room that doubles as a comedy club, so the stage is at one end, and a really bright spotlight is at the other, and it literally feels like an oncoming train.  So I was glad I acclimated myself to it.

But then, I stepped off the stage and headed toward the back of the room, eyes still adjusting to the darkness, when I noticed a couple of people sitting in the back. “Huh, that woman looks a lot like my mom…” and then the man with her lowered the menu from in front of his face.

My parents came down from Pittsburgh to surprise me and see the show!

Understand that this is a big deal- it’s a long-running joke in my family about how the Baxendell men hate to travel.  My dad in particular is just not into the road trip thing.  So it’s A Thing that he drove four hours to hear me do 7 minutes of comedy.

They hung out with us after the show, and then we took them out for brunch the next morning, which was really nice.  It’s nice to hang out with them in my ‘hood.

Once they were on their way home, Tom and I had to clean up the house for the sangria-consumption. So Tom chopped fruit while I tidied up in the front of the house, and then he cleaned up the kitchen and dining room while I worked on the back room and the bathroom, and by the time we were done, the house was solidly Good Friend Clean- the floors could use a good vacuuming and the shelves could be dusted, but things were put away, and the kitchen and bathroom were both very clean, which are the two key things that might skeeve people out if they aren’t.

Holding a dinner party is always a challenge to our priorities.  We have a lot of friends, and we love to have them over, but we’ve got a small place.  Our table seats 8 when extended, but extending it tends to make the place feel even smaller since it blocks the hallway access to the kitchen and bathroom. It’s not a problem when we’re throwing a big cookout like we did for our anniversary, but when it’s too hot to hang out outside and we want to have a sit-down meal, it’s a real issue. 

So as we’re cleaning the place up, we’re going over who we’ve invited, who we might like to invite, etc.  And we got to a point where the conversation went like this:  “Do we want to invite [so-and-so]?” “Well, we’ve already got 8.” “We do?”  “Yep [rattling off names].”  “Huh.  Well, we’ll have to invite so-and-so next time.”  “Yep.”

But I made lasagna (unfortunately mostly not from the farmer’s market, which is a shame because we get the BEST ricotta there), and we had that, and some shrimp some friends brought, and the zucchini, and salad, and of course the sangria… and then dessert. 

Dessert was grilled peaches with mascarpone cheese, berries with chocolate whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. 

Every time we cook for friends, I think we’ve had the best dinner ever.  I don’t know if it’s short memory or that we just get better every time.  But in any case, it was a good time, and we’re going to have to remember that sangria for the next party.

An important comedy milestone has been reached.  I have my first “professional” gig, where “professional” is defined as, “they asked me to come, and they’re going to pay me.”

And it’s open to the public!  I’ll be at the Laugh Riot at the Hyatt in Bethesda on July 14th at 8 PM.  It’s a block from the Bethesda metro.  The cover is $10, and I’ll be doing a “guest” slot at the show.

V. exciting!

The open mic went really well, by the way.  I have no particular recollection of the audience (which was huge!) laughing at anything specific, however, I know they must have- the night before, I did my whole set in 9:30.  Last night, I had to cut off the Mel Gibson bit from the end and I STILL went probably 11-12 minutes.

It helped that I had a cheering section- despite having done little to publicize the event, Mike and Jessi, Robert and Julianna, Dawn, Erin, and Holly all came out for the funny.  Yay!

I’ve been taking another comedy class- this time it’s “Advanced Joke Writing and Character Development” -and will be doing an Open Mic at Topaz on June 14th.  It starts at 8, and I’ll be doing ten minutes.

It’s been a lot of fun, because we’ve spent a lot of time in class just brainstorming ideas back and forth about each other’s premises, perfecting each other’s punchlines, etc.  One of the important things that we’re doing is developing our jokes to match our personas- sometime the joke you come up with, the way you come up with it, isn’t a joke you can tell.  Sometimes you have to abandon the joke completely or give it to another comedian, but sometimes you can re-work it to make it work for you.

So one of the exercises we’ve done is to write a joke about gas prices, but not a stand-alone joke.  We’d probably all end up writing the same hackneyed joke if we just tried to write a joke about gas prices.  We had to write a joke about gas prices that would fit within a bit we already had.  For example, I do a joke about people who called me at the temp agency to look for work, but then couldn’t write down my email address because they had called while driving.  So my gas prices joke is, “Look, gas is expensive.  When I get in my car, I think I need a new job, too, but that doesn’t mean I start looking RIGHT THAT SECOND.”

It’s not that great of a joke, and I probably won’t keep it, but it flowed well with the bit and fit in neatly with the tone of the jokes surrounding it. 

Last night, we did some really great work on a bit I got the idea for last week when Tom said something funny about the Pottery Barn catalog.  Want to hear the bit?  Come to the open mic.  But I’ve got tons of notes to go through and make a bit out of, and meanwhile the bit about the road trip we took last summer is coming along really well.  I even made a Louisiana Purchase joke in it.  That people LAUGHED AT, mind you.

So it’s going well, and I’m going to try to tape the open mic so I can get it up on YouTube.  In the meantime, I leave you with this bit of amusement from Slate’s Human Nature column:

The Internet is killing the porn industry. For the first time in years, video sales and rentals are down. Old trend: The Web helped the industry by facilitating anonymous purchases and downloads. New trend: It’s drying up demand for paid porn by facilitating uploads of free, cheaply made porn. Old complaint against porn: It’s crudely made trash. New complaints by porn industry: 1) Free porn is crudely made trash, whereas we use sophisticated actors, sets, and lighting. 2) Porn consumers don’t seem to appreciate the difference. 3) When we offer them free samples, they just use us for their pleasure and leave us with nothing. Human Nature’s view: For all you sophisticates in the porn business … it’s called irony.

Not the magnitude of the news, but just the variety of life topics to be covered.  Ready? Let’s go!

- The New Job: It’s going well, thanks.  There’s significantly less comedic potential, I think, because I’m basically playing with websites all day instead of dealing with hapless jobseekers, but I’m having a good time.  I’m still coming to terms with the fact that it won’t be- can’t be, through no fault of its own- as fabulous as the first year and a half at the Major International Staffing Firm was, but it’s as good as I had hoped, maybe even better.  I’m feeling pretty optimistic about it.

- Comedy: I’m taking the next level class at the Improv.  Same fabulous instructor, this time focusing on joke writing and character development.  There won’t be a formal graduation show this time, but there will be an open mic we’ll all be attending at the end.  As for more performances- now that I’ve given myself a month to concentrate on getting myself settled at my job, I’m going to start pursuing more open mic opportunities.  There’s a comedy club in the area that has an open mic competition, so I’d like to try that after I get some more stage time.  Also, the Improv is going to experiment with having a regular variety showcase for comedy school alums, so the evening will include improv, sketch, and standup.  I’ll be out of town for the first one, but watch for more news on that this summer.  I’ll probably also launch a site to promote myself as a comedienne this summer, too.

- Social: Good stuff!  My ability to socialize after work has been somewhat curtailed lately because my parking benefit hasn’t kicked in yet and I’ve been Metro-bound. Buses from the Pentagon to our place get a significantly less reliable after 6:30, so I haven’t wanted to spend a lot of extra time downtown after work.  But I get my parking pass TODAY! (24×7 access!) So my post-workday mobility should increase drastically starting tomorrow.  On weekends, though, we’ve been cooking out and enjoying fruity drinks and doing all that fun stuff.

- Travel: My job change has meant that I have to start accruing leave all over again, so there won’t be a whole lot of that this year.  But we’re making time to go to a couple of weddings in June and will probably try to hold a day free in each city for frolicking.  We’re also planning to get to Pittsburgh this month (got to call you about that tonight, Mom) and perhaps in July as well.

Does that cover it? I think so.  You are now officially caught up on my life.

The video from comedy graduation came! I’ll hide it behind the jump. You might consider not watching this at work, or in front of little kids, okay? Language and themes are appropriate for a comedy club, but not necessarily your boss.
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