Top 15 First Date Interactions Improvisors Have with Non-comedians.

At some point, most improvisors will realize it’s not wise to shit where you eat. No one wants to deal with running into an ex while playing make em ups on stage or walking into an audition only to realize your old significant other is on the other side of the table. So the only alternative is to venture out into the dating app universe to look for civilians. Unfortunately, the muggle world can be just as difficult to traverse…if not harder. Here are my top 15 first date interactions improvisors/sketch comedians have with non-comedy people.

1. They: I bet you get a lot of material from these dates, huh?

Me: 

 

2.  They: *Can’t make eye contact while they’re talking.

Me:

 

3. They: Oh, so do you make up “skits” and stuff?

Me: 

 

4. After I’ve just explained the difference between improv and sketch.

They: Yeah, I really love standup.

Me:

 

5. (To the bartender)

They: I’ll have a Maker’s old fashioned.

Me:

 

6. They: I’m not really funny. You’re probably a lot funnier than I am.

Me:

 

7. They: you must really like Karaoke. What’s your go-to song?

Me: 

 

8. When they can’t seem to stay on topic

Me:

 

9. They: I don’t really follow politics.

Me: 

 

10. They: So, do you know anyone famous?

Me: 

 

11. They: My job is pretty boring, but it pays the bills I guess.

Me: 

 

12. When they get up and go to the bathroom

Me: (to myself) 

 

13. They: Sorry, I don’t really watch movies.

Me: 

 

14. They: Am I gonna see you on SNL one day?

Me: 

 

15. They: I had a really great time.

Me: 

 

But sometimes you find a diamond in the rough…

 

They: Oh my friend does improv. I’ve seen a bunch of his shows.

Me:

Eat Sleep Poop and Feel Safe and Loved

Today I held the new addition to my nanny family for the first time. After having some much needed one on one time with her older brother over the last few days, she and I got to spend some alone time together. For a while I watched her squirm and roll her sleepy newborn eyes around. It had been several years since I held a baby that young in my arms so at first I held her as delicately as a nuclear bomb I was about to cut wires from,  the same way I’ve held every newborn in my arms at first.

After a few minutes I settled in and remembered that she’s not a bomb or a three tiered wedding cake she’s just a human, a very little human. After that moment she looked up and gazed at me with as much focus as a newborn could and I remembered how simple it is. All this little baby needs is to eat, sleep, poop, and feel safe and loved. That’s all. That’s all we ever really need.

Eat, sleep, poop, and feel safe and loved. While there are some extreme exceptions to the rules, that’s all we need in life and it’s no secret. I very vividly remember learning in second grade that all humans need are food water shelter and love. So why do we complicate things? We crowd our lives with so much stuff that it complicates our relationship with ourselves and other people and we forget that at the root of everything this is all any of us need.

If you find yourself not feeling well it’s probably because you’re missing one of these or somewhere along the way didn’t get one of these. And if someone isn’t treating others well or seems out of sorts it’s probably because at some point they haven’t had these needs met either. When my high school friend and I would have an off day we’d ask each other “Have you pooped today?” Cause really sometimes all it takes is a good poop.

So the next time someone does something rude on the train or cuts you off in traffic or doesn’t treat you well remember that they’re not ticking bomb and neither are you. We’re all just little babies that grew into bigger babies. So before we put more negativity out into the world let’s all just give each other hugs, eat some Activia and take a nap and the world might just be a better place. Pretty please?

Seriously though just make sure you pooped today cause that can really throw things off.

Dear 2015

Dear 2015,

I regret to inform you that your services are no longer needed. When we began our time together almost a year ago to date, you seemed so promising and full of hope. That quickly spun into the worst s*** storm of hell fire I have ever encountered. Therefore, kindly pack your things and get the f*** out of here. You have until 11:59pm to vacate the premises before your replacement comes in. She looks to be far more up and coming, competent and favorable than your sorry slacker bull s*** ass ever was. Thank you for your positive contributions, they are noted and appreciated. That being said, do not expect to leave here with a letter of recommendation. Good luck on your new journey and die in a fire.

Respectfully yours,

Kerri

A Year Later

Well, it’s been an interesting year. I started this blog a year ago as a writing project with the hopes of generating material for a show or a pilot or just something that would present itself to me down the line. I gave myself two freebie weeks off and started my little writing project. I planned for my posts to be comedic for the most part and there was no reason for them not to be. Life was great, 2014 had been a stellar year for me and I was excited to start 2015 on the same great note…and then life happened.

First, my best friend moved to another continent, then I went through a very heartbreaking and public breakup then I had a breast biopsy and found out all of the shows I was in were closing. And that was January. I have never felt so out of control of my life. I started getting ocular migraines, more friends moved away and for the first time in my life I was permanently living alone. Medical bills started pouring in and no matter what I did I could not escape the heartache of my breakup. It seemed like I was being punished for something, like I was in some sort of happiness time out, but I pushed forward.

I got back to my old work out routine and diet. Eliminating the figurative weights I was baring in my life seemed to eliminate the physical ones as well. I shred seventeen pounds over four months and started taking back my life. It wasn’t easy. It’s still not easy. I went to therapy and group counseling. I took classes and started bonding with new people and strengthening the great friendships I already had. I started dating again and things were looking up but of course life has its peaks and valleys.

Life doesn’t stop throwing you curve balls just because you’ve paid your dues for the year. I was mugged, I ripped off part of my cornea and more friends moved away. Still, I kept moving. I remembered that with some sad exceptions the world is a good place to live in and people are always here to help.

While all of this was happening around me I kept writing. When I had weeks when my inspiration was best reserved for my own private journal I didn’t write. I always asked myself “Why am I writing this? Do I want to grow? Do I want to help others grow? Is this my story to tell?” A director had once given me the note to stop caring about whether or not my sketches were based on truth about other people in my life. I always tried to retell the story with different characters and relationships with the same point of view and the sketch never quite landed as well as it could of if I just told my own truth. So I took his advice and just told my own story.

This blog never started out as a tool for my healing process, but it has absolutely been a vital tool in getting me where I am now. I am so grateful for everyone who has supported me this year. I have broadened my friend circle to include some really wonderful people and removed a lot of the poisonous people who didn’t make me feel very good about myself. I never imagined that people all across the globe would start reading my blog (even if they were searching for words like boobs). Thank you to everyone who has supported my little writing project. It has meant the world to me. I have one more post left to write for the year. I’m not sure what that will be yet, but that’s been part of the fun this year. I don’t know what to expect all I know is at some point I will write another post and when that happens I will be a little older a little wiser and ready to keep moving on.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all!

 

 

 

Neverending Winter

So, winter is no longer coming…it’s here. When you live in a place as cold and unforgiving as Chicago you know that sinking feeling you get when you remember this Vitamin D deficient abyss will be lingering for the next four or five months. Everything slows down. It takes longer to get ready to leave the house, the sidewalks become more difficult to traverse, even preparing food takes longer. When you’ve had a rough year combined with the upcoming holidays, those winter layers can feel extra heavy.

Lately some days have felt like that scene from The Neverending Story when Atreyu and Artax are walking through the swamps of sadness. If you’re not a millennial/lived under a rock during your childhood here’s the scene: Atreyu and Artax. Sometimes I feel like both Atreyu and Artax rolled into one pulling myself forward and figuring out what the f*** kind of journey I’ve found myself on even though it’s so much easier to just become overcome by how s***y everything feels. It’s exhausting! Some days are a piece of cake and others just feel like stepping in that murky swamp that wants to pull you down with every step you take. I find myself saying get up and going even though wherever it is we’re going is 10,000 miles away and we don’t even know where it is.

I have to remind myself that better times are straight ahead and forward and the swamp isn’t forever unless I allow it to be by staying in it. I won’t let this winter get to me I won’t let the world’s nonsense get to me. I will trudge on through the swamp until once again I get to fly on the back of a luck dragon middle fingers up and ablaze giving zero f***s to this song.

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

When it comes to things which serve more of a functional purpose over aesthetic I’ve always had this motto: “Does it still work? …Yes? Then I don’t want to buy a new one.” Winter boots, cell phones, and trash cans have stayed in my possession until they’ve reached their very last breath. I could buy a new dress every day of the week, but if my TV still works in another 15 years, I could give two s***s about how pixellated whatever HBO series I’m watching at that point is.

So , for the last six years I’ve had the same wallet. Over the last year it started to look pretty sad, I wanted to hold out buying a new one until I found one I really liked. Every day it got worse and I finally said “OK it’s time.”. So, today I bought a new one. It’s from Target, but I think it says Kerri. Obviously I had to transfer everything from the old wallet to the new wallet. Even though I’ve cleaned out my wallet in the last six years, I found myself getting a little emotional letting go of its contents.

I had a floss card I still managed to carry around since I was twelve despite being pick pocketed twice. There were business cards from my inactive sketch group, coupons that never expired that I kept in my wallet just in case, an argo tea gift card a guest gave me when I was a tour guide after they really loved their experience. The gift card only had some change left, but I always forgot to use it whenever I went to Argo. Looking in my wallet was like looking back on the last six years of my life. It was hard to clean away everything. It was only paper and plastic, but it felt like more than that piled up in front of me. Then there was the wallet itself.

Back in March of 2009, I got pick pocketed. They left my purse, but my wallet was stolen. I didn’t see the pick pocket because that night I had been dancing with the man who I would go on to spend five years of my life with. That night he helped me cancel my credit cards and get back home. The next week I got a new license, I bought that wallet in a cute little boutique, and that man who danced to Whitney Houston with me became my boyfriend. I think part of me subconsciously always made a connection to that week with my wallet. It seems fitting that ever since the relationship ended, the wallet started to fall apart. I hadn’t really thought about the connection until I removed everything today. It’s funny how just a little case for your money can carry so much more than dollars and cents.

So goodbye old friend you served me well. On to my new Tar- jeh find. One day when this one goes the way of the dodo I hope I remember that I bought it the same day I dressed up like a fox, bought a new record, treated myself to some Bobtail ice cream and listened to said record in my sweet ass bachelorette pad. Today is a new day.

The Kelly McGillis Scene: A Babysitting Dilema

I was halfway through babysitting when I decided to watch a movie for the remainder of my time there. I browsed through Netflix. A raunchy comedy or a Tarantino film was out. I needed a somewhat family friendly drama. “Ooooh Witness! That’ll be perfect” I thought.

I hadn’t watched Witness in years, but I watched it many times in my youth. My mom had an odd obsession with Pennsylvania Dutch County and that movie was a family favorite growing up.  The memories started pouring back. “Ahhh yes schtumpig. I remember that now”

Then we got to the scene where Samuel finds John Book’s gun ( Gun scene ). “Oh s***, there’s some strong gun and violence POV I totally overlooked” As I contemplated how little we’ve actually progressed on gun control since this movie was made thirty something years ago I started to realize that it was almost  time for me to leave. I also realized we were about to watch the scene where Kelly McGillis sponge baths.

If you’ve never seen the movie before Kelly McGillis goes full-out Thora Birch and let’s Harrison Ford see her naked from the waist up. It’s very tastefully done and it’s a beautiful moment in the movie, but it’s not exactly something you want to be walked in on watching alone; especially when the people walking in on you are people you’ve had a total of twenty minutes of face to face time.

So here was my dilemma: do I turn the movie off now or do I keep watching and fear no judgement. “These are adults. They’ve seen boobs before, we’re all gonna be just fine.” I started to feel an obligation to keep it on. “This would never be an issue for any of our European counterparts. I have to do this because I caught myself feeling mildly uncomfortable when a mother was breastfeeding her two-year old on the el last month. We all just need to get over it! Just keep the damn movie on Kerri!”

We had finally come to the scene and I watched it…with the remote in my hand. I was ready to stand up and let it happen. And it did happen… and they didn’t come home. They didn’t come home for another hour. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to stand my ground, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. I’d like to think that if I see that mother and her toddler on the el I can relax my butthole just a bit and remember that in the end it’s just boobs.

You’re Never Too Old for Halloween

The other day, one of my students told me this was his last Halloween; he said that next year he would be too old to dress up or go trick or treating. I told him that he would never be too old to dress up and that I still celebrated Halloween and dressed up. I might have blown his mind.

I spent so much of my twenties thinking about what awaited me in my thirties. I thought about where society thought I should be by then and where I thought I’d be by then. Little eight year old Kerri thought she’d have a job that required a brief case and a business suit by the time Back to the Future Day rolled around. She was also supposed to have a husband, two kids and all the answers adults seem to have. Life in 2015 couldn’t be further from that idea 1992 Kerri had.

I’ve thought about this a great deal this year. I could easily get upset that my life is way different than I had anticipated. It would be easy for me to feel like a failure based on my childhood crystal ball, but nothing is ever as simple as brief cases and suits. Life can never be that simple and thank God it’s not.

At the end of the day I’m glad my life is different. I’m glad I’m living out my twenties in my thirties. I’m glad the clock in my head has stopped ticking so loudly and I can choose to live life at my own pace and not based on some ovarian expiration date or societal expectation. I live in the present now and all I wish for future me is happiness no matter what life throws my way.

The older I get the more I realize that age is just a number. So, even though I don’t have a brief case I’ll still work hard, live independently and strive to be a better artist every day. I might not have kids or a husband, but I continue to find love and companionship every day from the people I surround myself with. And I might be too old for trick or treating but I’ll be damned if I stop dressing up for Halloween any time soon.

Sleep Paralysis…Just in Time for Halloween

The first time I experienced sleep paralysis was when I was twelve.  I woke up from a nightmare and I was terrified to find I couldn’t move. I wanted to shout out for help but I couldn’t; all I could do was breathe heavily. In the corner of the room was what looked to be a demon. I closed my eyes to make it go away, but I could still feel its presence. Being the young Irish Catholic girl that I was  I began to pray to God to help me.  “Please God  make it go away.” Eventually I could feel my arms move again. My body could move, I could speak, and nothing was there but I was too frightened to go back to sleep.

Throughout my teens I was plagued by this phenomenon. It didn’t happen all the time but enough that bed time terrified. I found it difficult to sleep if my parents were already in bed. I wold go to bed early when the lights were on and I could hear the TV downstairs. Then,  I would fall asleep to the sounds downstairs and hope I wouldn’t wake up until daylight.

As I got older, my  sleep paralysis episodes rarely happened.  Usually I would wake up from a nightmare paralyzed or I’d be in and out of drifting off and napping,  but I stopped seeing visions. The good news was the few times I had sleep paralysis at night in my twenties, I was usually with a significant other. That was always helpful.

Last night at 3 a.m. I woke up from a nightmare. I was paralyzed, but in front of my bed I could see there was a cloaked shadowy figure with two shining eyes piercing in the dark. I began to speak the same words I had as a young girl. “It’s gonna be alright is gonna be alright.” I closed my eyes but I could still feel the shadowy figure’s presence. I could feel it crushing down on my chest and then my arm and pushing up against my back. I had recently read about how some people were lucid during their shadowy figure attacks and had talked to these shadow people. Part of me wanted to converse with this cloaked being but the other part of me didn’t want to coax it. In the end I decided not to speak to it. After about an hour and twenty minutes, I finally managed to fall back asleep.

When I woke up I felt exhausted. Throughout the morning I could still feel that presence behind me; like it had latched its negative energy on to me. As a grown woman I understand the science behind sleep paralysis or at least what little science seems to know about it.  I know that it probably happened last night because I had a very long sleep deprived weekend. Still, there’s something inside me that fears everything that’s unknown about sleep paralysis. Why do people see the same figures like the hat man and the hag? The unanswered questions terrify me. I’m so tired right now I wish I could take a nap but I can’t because I’m scared. I’m scared it’ll happen again and I’ll be all alone.

I consider myself to be a strong independent woman and over this last year I’ve grown to enjoy living alone. Still when I wake up in the night and have to experience something like that, it reminds me that deep down inside when things get scary sometimes I’m still just a little girl.

10 Observations About Male Roommates

I realized this week that since moving out of my parents house I’ve somehow lived with more male roommates than female roommates. Over the years I’ve roomed with two gay friends two straight friends and two significant others. I actually haven’t had a female roommate since the very beginning of 2008. Living by myself for the last eight months I’ve realized there are significant changes in a household when it’s lacking a male presence. Obviously this doesn’t pertain to all men, but for the most part here’s what I’ve learned about living with men over the years.

1. Unless you’re dudemate is a NEAT FREAK or is wealthy enough to hire a professional cleaning service, don’t expect the bathroom to be cleaned by anyone but yourself…ever.
2. Taking out the garbage and doing dishes somehow becomes their chore realm making up for cleaning anything else in the common area.
3. Girls who don’t clean are messy and disgusting but boys who don’t clean tend to be organized but lazy and a little foul/funky. For instance grapefruit sized dust bunnies are invisible, but tangled cords from behind the TV can be spotted a mile away.
4. The fridge could be filled with delicious food made by the finest chefs in the world and they will still find a way to stock the freezer with 99 cent pizza and burritos.
5. Regardless of their cleanliness or ability to grow facial hair, their face pubes will be all over the sink.
6. Don’t worry if you are TVless before moving in with a dudemate, he’s got it covered.
7. When it comes to party planning they will always handle the beer and liquor or possibly make that one recipe their mom/aunt/grandma/family friend emailed them once they graduated college.
8. They will move in equipped with tools they will never use.
9. Expect to see a blanket/comforter from college that’s never seen the inside of a washing machine. You can find it on the couch or given to company when they come over.
10. Their energy is usually calm and quiet and can sometimes just be comforting just sitting there.

I consider myself a strong independent woman. I’ve grown to enjoy living alone and whether it’s a broken drawer or an enormous spider, I’ve got it under control. That being said, whether he’s a friend, boyfriend, husband, brother etc., sometimes it’s just nice to come home to a man.