June 30, 2022

 I started a dance class yesterday. It's going to be once a week for five weeks and is run through UCLA's rec center. I've never taken a dance class before. There are only five people in the class, including me, and the instructor was 15 minutes late. It was just a sub this week -- a small woman, probably younger than me, who announced to everyone that she was on the autism spectrum. (I keep getting distracted when I write.) A guy in the class started talking about how he had autism. It felt like a general HIPPA violation, but I guess it can't be if you're just talking about yourself. 

The dancing itself was harder than I expected. It wasn't super taxing athletically, but the choreography was a lot to remember. It was also difficult to control my body in that particular way. The balance and precision of it. But it was fun and felt kind of emotional -- maybe it was all the personal diagnoses talk from the beginning, -- something about moving my body in that particular way, to that particular music, working through emotions like they were in my circulatory system. 

The instructor broke us into two groups and had one group perform the dance while the other watched. The audience group was then told to give a compliment to the other performers. One guy, the one who talked about having autism, said, "There's a lot of bravery in this room." And it should have been cheesy -- I mean, it's honestly a bit much -- but it was meant sincerely and felt kind of true. 

June 29, 2022

I want to start doing these again. Blah blah blogs. I went through my ideas doc the other day and sorted them into categories like screenplay, short story, TV, sketch, other. The sketches category is actually quite big -- maybe a holdover from Second City. Looking at them again I just realized they could all be short films. (Most of them require being on location, I think, as opposed to something you could put up on stage.) Of all the ideas, I think they were my favorite. It could really be fun to write all of them. Maybe use one of them for the SMC application for Film 33. 

I also need to work on Wedding Game. That's coming down the pipe fast (hopefully). 

June 23, 2022

I'm sitting in an Alice Salon right now. On camera but just listening. The people on the call are all folks I recognize, which is nice. Alice just called on me, ha. I didn't get to bring this up, because it didn't fit with the flow, but what I wanted to say I'm struggling with is community. An artists community maybe. 

I've been hanging around with a guy who's very social. He's a clown and there's a strong clown community in LA (apparently). He also juggles, and the jugglers hang out every Wednesday night on the beach. And tons of people have shows to go to, and it's a whole thing. It sounds like a cool stable way to see people, a good way to see lots of art, exchange lots of ideas. 

Okay, I was able to bring up the thing I'm struggling with -- side note, in these salons it's so often something to do with global politics. I like the Bugle and other satirical topical news comedy stuff, but like my personal problems have always way outweighed worrying about something happening on a political level. -- and people were really nice about it. Everybody's been really nice about everything. My question was like, keeping up a bunch of individual relationships, meeting with people one at a time is wonderful but really inefficient. I want a community, what do I do? And everybody's answer was like, Let's meet more often! They're like, That's what you have here! Let's do it more! I'm like, well guys I meant in person. But I guess that wouldn't have to be the case? I do like the people who go to Alice's salons. They're interesting and from all over the world. It would raise my quota of male friends in their 40s-50s for sure. 

I asked two Lyra people about doing more stuff together as a group, and they were extremely on it too. So maybe this is just what it takes. Putting it out there. Getting it started. I feel emotionally raw and on edge. So it all seems hard but so beautiful, you know? 

I watched a live stream (below) with Christina Catherine Martinez, my icon. I asked her about the differences in communities of artists of different disciplines. Her answer was that in her experience it's the same. Everybody's just worried about belonging. I got that feeling for sure in the skating community. There were whole IG blowups over it, people being cliquish, not giving credit, not sharing hangout locations, etc. I've been thinking about it a lot. I had expected her to be like, Well, writers are less fun because they have to do their work alone in their heads, while performers are great fun and always hang out together. Lol. (I'm really liking lol lately.)