Surprise!

Hey guess what? I blew it!

I'll blame sub-par internet service the past couple of days. Oh well.

Know When to Hold 'Em

Lucky for me, McCarran airport in Las Vegas has free WiFi, or else I fear my resolution/experiment would have experienced its first pitfall. I'm at the airport pretty early, so after playing some slots I've decided to save the rest of my money and write instead.

Today we did spots for Banana Pudding Shakes. Yup. Generally, I don't like anything banana-flaovered, though I do like banana and banana bread. And actual banana pudding can be ok, thanks in large part to the vanilla wafers and whipped cream if present. This was probably the first food that I just didn't really like, but fortunately it was also easy not to eat. This isn't to say that the Banana Pudding Shake isn't good; other people on set really enjoyed it. Really. I'm not just saying that. Please try it when it comes out.

So I'm now waiting for my delayed flight home, which will get me into Chicago around midnight. I go back to my shows at Second City tomorrow night for the first time in over a week, and I have to say I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's important to take breaks from the show, not only to rest and enjoy a change of pace for a few days, but also to remember that you love what you do and the people who do the same thing as you. Aw shucks.

I wish I had more to write, because that Kenny Rogers' Gambler slot machine is really calling my name.

Experiment: Day 2

See, I'm serious about this.

Just wrapped up day 1 of the Sonic shoot. We're doing test market spots for hot and iced lattes, so I'm guessing a lot of people won't see them. But it involved essentially no eating or even drinking of the product, so it made for an easy day.

I have what I believe to be tendinitis in my left wrist. Over a week ago I woke up in the middle of the night with it hurting as if I had strained it. Over the past week it has stayed swollen and continue to hurt to varying degrees. A few days ago I noticed that there was a sort of creaking feeling when I flexed my wrist, leading me to diagnose it as tendinitis because the exact same thing happened to my foot in college, and it was diagnosed by the always top-of-the-line nurses or Tufts Health Services. By the way, have you seen my appendectomy scar? Have you seen the accompanying scar from the plastic bulb that had to be inserted to drain the toxic fluid that was released when my appendix ruptured because Health Services sent me home with a bottle of Pepto Bismol when I went to them complaining of intense abdominal pain?

So how did I end up with tendinitis? Or as some have hypothesized, is it carpal tunnel? And if so, how did I get that? I'm not on the computer as much these days. Embarrassingly, the single most painful thing for me to do over the course of any given day is to use the bathroom because of three of the steps involved: pulling down/up my pants, washing my hands, and drying my hands. Maybe that's four steps. Regardless, it makes me wonder if I have carpal tunnel from the repetitive motion of using the bathroom. Imagine.

And why is it spelled tendinitis, as my spell check assures me it is, and not tendonitis? It's a tendon, right? Dummies.

The least I can do

No wait, I'm still here! I'm in Vegas for Sonic once again, which seems to always get me in the mood to write. Maybe because there are fewer distractions...at least in my hotel room. Vegas itself has many more distractions.

I'm about to embark on a resolution, and like any resolution the failure odds are high. Let's call it an experiment instead of a resolution. For the next week, I'm going to write something here every day. It might not be much, but maybe it will help me get back in the habit. Like Whoopi Goldberg.

Last weekend I went to Albany to visit my best friend Heidi, her husband David who is also a friend of mine from college, and their two very young children, ages 8 months (Graham) and almost 3 years (Oliver). Now I happen to know that Heidi has been known to read my blog, so there could possibly be a slight bias to what I'm saying, but it was really great to have a mini-vacation that was so completely different from my usual life back in Chicago. I went to bed and woke up relatively early (though I feel guilty saying I got up early, since Heidi and David were up at 5 or 6 every morning. But I did say relatively). I ate home-cooked meals. We made cookies from scratch. I read stories out loud. We went to a farm and cut down a Christmas tree, or rather the proprietor cut it down while we helped ourselves to cookies, hot chocolate, and cider. I got to witness the first 3 days of Graham's crawling career. Oliver drew me a picture that I now have on my fridge. I made a house out of blocks for a stuffed animal.

However delightful this may have been for me, I can appreciate that I got to come in and live 3 days of that life. I'm truly in awe of the energy and patience it takes to raise one child, let alone 2 under the age of 3. So the next time I get cranky about doing 2 shows on a Saturday night or having to get up at 10 for an audition, well, I'll probably still get cranky, but I'll feel bad about it. I worry that sometimes I've become truly lazy in my current lifestyle. I used to work 9 to 5 and then have 2-3 rehearsals and 2-3 shows every week. And I didn't even have Tivo then.

So I have to keep writing here, or else I am unforgivably lazy. I owe it to the children.