I woke at 6:30 having hit the snooze button way too many times.  I did not make it to the gym.

I went to work and worked too hard.  I had anxiety in the morning.  I drank a lot of coffee.  It probably didn’t help.  We had a half day at school so we could catch up on paper work, but I spent my “free time” in a meeting that I didn’t want to go to.  I didn’t catch up on anything.

I picked Silas up from day care.  He made funny faces and stuck both fists in his mouth when he saw me.  Then he growled.  I had to carry him like a football to the car because he did not want to leave.

We went to my psychiatrist’s.  She made a lot of sense out of the world.  She also changed my medication because I’ve been so god-awful depressed.  She commented that she liked my skirt.

When we got home, I did the dishes.  Silas played on the floor at my feet.  He entertained himself with a box of spaghetti.  I was happy.   He seemed like an angel.

My husband came in with a pot of violets and a deli dinner.  We ate at the table on the back deck.  Pesto pasta, cucumber salad, and a roasted turkey breast.  The turkey was dry, but I didn’t have to cook.  Silas wouldn’t eat because he wanted to run around like a wild beast.  We let him.

Silas refused to be put in pajamas.  With two of us, it was still difficult to pin him down.  But, we succeeded.  We climbed into bed for “snuggle time” and read Can you find the Duck?  It was great fun.  Silas only cried for a minute thirty when we put him in his crib.  Then he babbled for an hour more.

I folded laundry and decided to tidy up the “reading room”.  Then I sat at my desk and pulled out “The Writer’s Tool Box”.

“The Writer’s Tool Box” is a handy-dandy writing kit complete with a timer and little colored sticks with different scenarios on them and cards that look like fortune cards with little sensory phrases and wheels of destiny that really spin.  It looks cool, but is pretty cheesy.

Tonight I decided to play the “Sixth Sense Game”.  I selected three cards by touching each one until I felt a tingle.  (I do that with Scrabble tiles and it generally works.)  I selected:  “the voice of the ex-wife”, “the sound of Marcie’s feet”, and “the taste of Woody Allen’s kiss”.  I almost vomited.

I chose to write about the first card and came up with the following 55 word story:

I found the letter among his things.

“John,” it read. “I should never have trusted you.”

The letter did not mention pregnancy specifically.

Still, there was little left to do but confront him.

I padded down the hall, letter in hand, and opened his office door.

“John,” I said. “I never should have trusted you.”

I’m not terribly impressed with myself.  But, it is 55 words exactly.

Now, I’m typing this.  I will write a bit more and get my Cullen fix.

I am so thrilled to have had a normal day.  For once.

As you might guess, with improv sometimes your hot and sometimes you are really, really, really not.Needless to say, I’ve had some less than uplifting performances. Until tonight I thought my worst possible gig was one in which an unexpected acquaintance appeared in the audience and for some reason– maybe it was the scowl of distaste upon her face– I froze like a deer in headlights, and then I froze like a deer in headlights, then I made a crass joke, and oopsy, I froze like a deer in headlights again.

Compared to tonight’s suicidal massacre, however, that was nothing. NOTHING! The only experience that could possibly be more mortifying than tonight’s experience would be if Bear Grylls (yeah, that hot British survival artist from Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel) strolled in while I was attempting to climb the rope in gym class. (You don’t even have to ask. I was one of those pathetic losers who just clasped their arms and legs around the rope and swung and swung and swung until the gym teacher had had enough ego-boosting for one day and let me free fall to the foamy safety mat below. And, yes, I was also the one who held up all the other kids in the safety bus drill because I was afraid to jump out the back of the bus and into the arms of the awaiting fire dept volunteer. Look, I’m not proud. But I do have to tell it like it is.)

So,what you ask, could be worse. Think you can’t imagine anything. Well, think again, my pretty. Because it can get worse.

Oh yes, yes it can.

In the midst of possibly one of the most lethal comedic train wrecks of this century, one in which the already seemingly sedated audience was begging for mercy, in walks, you won’t believe this, Stephen Fucking Colbert!

I am not kidding you. As he casually walked from the back of the shop to a table near the stage I kept thinking “gosh that man looks an awful like Stephen Fucking Colbert”. After staring in the way that your mama has taught you again and again not to ever stare at anyone, I realized that the man sipping his latte and watching, with furrowed brows, the brutal comedic massacre unfolding before him was in fact Colbert. The Colbert! Only one of the most ingenious comedic master minds of our time, sitting right there, in front of me, in his brilliant, lust-provoking flesh.

Just as Colbert (no really, it was Colbert) settled in to enjoy his latte and a little local nightlife, I was called upon to play the undesirable part of “duck woman” in one of our more inventive actor’s twisted psychodramas. Yes. Duck. Woman. Not only did I not have any idea what the scene was about– I was too busy choking on my own drool to pay any real attention– I hate, absolutely hate, playing any sort of quasi-animal character whatsoever. So I did what any too-cool-for-school 15-year-old gang banger might do, I stood as if being in this troupe meant about as much to me as having my legs amputated and I let out an unconvincing, sarcastic “quack” and then tried to sit back down. But that wasn’t enough. Oh no. Duck Woman was called upon again and again and again. So, as I stood scowling and quacking and hitting my fellow actors in the face (really I had no other recourse…), Colbert lifted his still warm to-go cup and walked, ever so silently– without offering me an autograph or a night of mad passionate extramarital lovin’– away. Leaving me with nothing but the faint orange glow of:
Colbert.

Colbert.

Colbert.