Someone in my dreams last night told me "you're good at math, and that's good, but maybe you should learn some emotions." And I thought that was a little harsh, dream Tina Fey. We had just gotten ingredients to make pancakes and then I stopped a runaway van. The comment seemed to be from nowhere.
But maybe my dreams have a point. It's nice to be good at math. But learning emotions is important too. Also, I'm not that good at math, so I need emotions to fall back on.
We do emotion drills in improv where you enter a scene with a defined emotion and you stick with it. Recently a fellow player did this drill; he acted like he was on drugs. "Were you playing that you were on Ecstasy?" "Yeah." "You know that's not an emotion, right? It's not like 'Happy, sad, on ecstasy.'" We all had a good laugh. Good take-away--being on drugs is not an emotion.
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Catharsis
Labor Day is a great time for a catharsis. It's also a great time to get pants-shitting drunk. Getting pants-shitting drunk leads to a catharsis. This may or may not be based on a real experience.
I had attempted a physical purge this weekend, and it didn't go great. It's nearly impossible to just throw things away nowadays. This has been an ongoing process, starting back in June: Easier Said Than Done. I've reached the phase of separating things where I think "I'm not using this now, but I will need it later, and it's dumb to replace it just because it takes up space." Things like fans, heaters, blankets, and blenders. So these things stay in my storage unit.
Then comes the really hard part- actually throwing things away. It's not legal. The storage unit doesn't have dumpsters. At first this seems odd, but I've dealt with many storage units before, and it's a thing with them. People take advantage and dump really large things in the dumpsters and it becomes a huge mess. So storage unit facilities just stopped having dumpsters.
You know what the chances are that you'll caught trying to throw away your entire childhood into a stranger's dumpster? One-hundred percent. As incognito as you think you're being, someone is always watching their dumpster and they will make you take your trash out after they watch you dump it in. Especially if you've dumped boxes in, because the boxes are technically recyclable. Digging things out of a dumpster is the opposite of purging.
Covered in garbage and frustration, I made it back to my apartment and took a non-well-deserved nap. The process is clearly getting to me, because I dreamt about the storage unit. In the dream, the storage unit had flooded and someone had gone in to try to save my things. Their process of doing this was to take everything out of the boxes and set it up in a make-shift living room. The storage unit in my dream had more things in it than I have in my real one. Things that I've gotten rid of years ago appeared in this dream storage unit, with no end in sight. I'm now worried that when I go back , things that were thrown away will rematerialize.
I put a pin in the physical purging for the rest of the weekend, and moved on to the emotional purging. That wasn't really my intent, but red wine and birthday cake have magical powers. I catharsised all over my (belated) birthday feast. I got to give a few speeches and quote Hope Floats, though I was told later it was actually from the Bible. Peshaw. Hope Floats is a better reference. "My cup runneth over." I have wonderful friends and family and I don't have any reason to be bitter anymore. Ah, catharsis.
The post-catharsis headache was something else entirely. Luckily I had left over birthday cake to get me through it. Also, in case you're concerned, pants-shitting drunk is just an expression. This time.
I had attempted a physical purge this weekend, and it didn't go great. It's nearly impossible to just throw things away nowadays. This has been an ongoing process, starting back in June: Easier Said Than Done. I've reached the phase of separating things where I think "I'm not using this now, but I will need it later, and it's dumb to replace it just because it takes up space." Things like fans, heaters, blankets, and blenders. So these things stay in my storage unit.
Then comes the really hard part- actually throwing things away. It's not legal. The storage unit doesn't have dumpsters. At first this seems odd, but I've dealt with many storage units before, and it's a thing with them. People take advantage and dump really large things in the dumpsters and it becomes a huge mess. So storage unit facilities just stopped having dumpsters.
You know what the chances are that you'll caught trying to throw away your entire childhood into a stranger's dumpster? One-hundred percent. As incognito as you think you're being, someone is always watching their dumpster and they will make you take your trash out after they watch you dump it in. Especially if you've dumped boxes in, because the boxes are technically recyclable. Digging things out of a dumpster is the opposite of purging.
Covered in garbage and frustration, I made it back to my apartment and took a non-well-deserved nap. The process is clearly getting to me, because I dreamt about the storage unit. In the dream, the storage unit had flooded and someone had gone in to try to save my things. Their process of doing this was to take everything out of the boxes and set it up in a make-shift living room. The storage unit in my dream had more things in it than I have in my real one. Things that I've gotten rid of years ago appeared in this dream storage unit, with no end in sight. I'm now worried that when I go back , things that were thrown away will rematerialize.
I put a pin in the physical purging for the rest of the weekend, and moved on to the emotional purging. That wasn't really my intent, but red wine and birthday cake have magical powers. I catharsised all over my (belated) birthday feast. I got to give a few speeches and quote Hope Floats, though I was told later it was actually from the Bible. Peshaw. Hope Floats is a better reference. "My cup runneth over." I have wonderful friends and family and I don't have any reason to be bitter anymore. Ah, catharsis.
The post-catharsis headache was something else entirely. Luckily I had left over birthday cake to get me through it. Also, in case you're concerned, pants-shitting drunk is just an expression. This time.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
More Committing to the Moment
I've been working on emotional commitment for a few weeks now. It has proven to be more difficult that I thought it would. I spend a lot of time in real life being very meh.
My throat is a little scratchy today and my voice a bit hoarse because yesterday in improv class I spent 5 minutes just screaming at my scene partner. It seemed to make sense- he didn't know how to make the god-damn bed. Who doesn't know how to make the god-damn bed with hospital corners? A fucking child could do it. And don't get me started on vacuuming. The lines need to be straight, like railroad tracks.
The scene ended and people seemed interested in watching it; it felt real to them and the emotional commitment was there. A classmate noted "anger seems to come really easily to you." Anger indeed.
I woke up this morning and thought "wouldn't it be great if improv class were first thing in the morning?" Or if I could even just start the day with an improv exercise. Perhaps that would improve the day, my general outlook on life, and my willingness to commit to the moment. At the end of the day I'm a little bit tired and committing to the moment feels like work. And work elicits anger. Hence, I play a lot of angry characters.
Also, as a side note, there is another Nancy within this specific improv community who is the most overenthusiastic person ever. She enters rooms doing cheers. Kudos for her, I suppose. It was mentioned that my challenge should be to out-enthuse other Nancy. This has no possibility of ever happening. If I even attempted it people would think I had a lobotomy. My general sentiment was that I'm pretty sure she is more enthusiastic about waking up in the morning than I would be about being on the moon. And I think the moon is pretty awesome.
My throat is a little scratchy today and my voice a bit hoarse because yesterday in improv class I spent 5 minutes just screaming at my scene partner. It seemed to make sense- he didn't know how to make the god-damn bed. Who doesn't know how to make the god-damn bed with hospital corners? A fucking child could do it. And don't get me started on vacuuming. The lines need to be straight, like railroad tracks.
The scene ended and people seemed interested in watching it; it felt real to them and the emotional commitment was there. A classmate noted "anger seems to come really easily to you." Anger indeed.
I woke up this morning and thought "wouldn't it be great if improv class were first thing in the morning?" Or if I could even just start the day with an improv exercise. Perhaps that would improve the day, my general outlook on life, and my willingness to commit to the moment. At the end of the day I'm a little bit tired and committing to the moment feels like work. And work elicits anger. Hence, I play a lot of angry characters.
Also, as a side note, there is another Nancy within this specific improv community who is the most overenthusiastic person ever. She enters rooms doing cheers. Kudos for her, I suppose. It was mentioned that my challenge should be to out-enthuse other Nancy. This has no possibility of ever happening. If I even attempted it people would think I had a lobotomy. My general sentiment was that I'm pretty sure she is more enthusiastic about waking up in the morning than I would be about being on the moon. And I think the moon is pretty awesome.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Committing to the Moment
My improv teacher gave me a note yesterday- try to emotionally commit to the moment. I tend to pull back and don't become emotionally invested in the scene. I took his note well, but I was also thinking "ah, sir, this is not exclusive to improv."
Emotions are hard. I don't like them; I don't like having them or dealing with them. I don't know if this is normal or not, but I was brought up with the conceit that what people called emotions were a result of something else, usually hormones. Any display of emotions, and by that I mean a hint of an expression indicating something other than complacency, was met with a swift kick and immediate quarantine to my room. Expressing things was not part of Melchert guidebook for growing up.
Emotionally stunted is one way to look at it, but I don't like to be that harsh when it comes to judging my childhood. We just weren't expressy people. Now, I have approximately two emotions- angry and really pissed. You can't build a scene around those two emotions, and it rarely makes sense to react to every single thing that way. Yesterday, I seemed pissed at everything, until I couldn't be mad anymore so I pulled away.
Improv: it's not just about comedy.
Emotions are hard. I don't like them; I don't like having them or dealing with them. I don't know if this is normal or not, but I was brought up with the conceit that what people called emotions were a result of something else, usually hormones. Any display of emotions, and by that I mean a hint of an expression indicating something other than complacency, was met with a swift kick and immediate quarantine to my room. Expressing things was not part of Melchert guidebook for growing up.
Emotionally stunted is one way to look at it, but I don't like to be that harsh when it comes to judging my childhood. We just weren't expressy people. Now, I have approximately two emotions- angry and really pissed. You can't build a scene around those two emotions, and it rarely makes sense to react to every single thing that way. Yesterday, I seemed pissed at everything, until I couldn't be mad anymore so I pulled away.
Improv: it's not just about comedy.
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