Kimberly Hirsh

I will be presenting the results of my study, Special Education Training for Preservice School Librarians, as a poster session at ALA 2016 in Orlando, FL on Saturday, June 25. You can find me in the exhibit hall from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm. Here’s a preview:

I experienced a rare moment of effortless clarity in improv practice yesterday. I’m on DSI’s hip-hop improv team Versus, and yesterday we were practicing infusing our scenes with emotion.

Our director, Rose Werth, instructed us to get on stage, choose an emotion, play in silence for about 15 seconds, and then speak when we were ready.

I got up on stage with Kit FitzSimons. Our suggestion was stargazing. I sat down. I chose “curious/confused” as my initial emotion. I knew, having played with and watched Kit for almost a year, that in that 15 seconds of silence he was going to commit to some very detailed object work, and I didn’t want to do my own object work that might conflict with what he was doing. So I gazed up at the stars. Looked over at him. Watched him fiddle with knobs on an invisible object. Looked back up at the stars. Looked back at him. Watched as he looked through an invisible eyepiece. Realized he was putting together and testing a telescope. Looked back up at the stars. Looked at him. Stood up. Cocked my head to the left. Took one step toward him. At which point he said,

“I’ve got it.”

And we were off. Over the course of the scene, we revealed that our characters were on a date and he was putting together this telescope as a gift for me, but I was constantly trying to help and provide advice and generally, in as polite and loving and in-a-new-relationship a way as possible, tell him he was doing it all wrong.

At one point, he said, “Well, I’m not a professional astronomer.”

And I paused, then said, “But I am.” And then proceeded to prove that assertion over the course of the rest of the scene.

When we were done, Rose and some of our other teammates said, “That was such a smart choice, for you to be a professional astronomer.” I really didn’t know how to respond, because in that pause before saying, “But I am,” I had thought, “There is only one best way to respond to what Kit just said.” So it hadn’t felt like an especially smart choice to me, but more the only one that made sense. So I just mumbled “Uh-huh” or nodded or something and then shared a look with Kit to sort of check in and see if he was thinking the same thing as me, which he seemed to be, and then practice moved on.

But after practice I continued to think about this moment, and why it had been so impressive from the audience when it felt so obvious on stage. I tried to imagine myself a year ago, in the middle of taking 401, watching more experienced improvisers. If I had seen that scene, would I have been impressed in that moment?

And I decided I would. I decided that the very act of effortlessly making that choice, of listening and recognizing and following what seemed like clearly the best path, doing that was impressive, especially because it was something that in the past I was so proud of doing consciously and with great effort. And I decided that it was a gift to have people outside the scene present to verbalize that I had done it, and it was also a gift to have a scene partner who had intentionally set it up and trusted that I would make that choice.

DSI founder, owner, and three-times-my-teacher Zach Ward often tells students (usually in 301) that to him, improv looks like all of that code from The Matrix. He sees the underlying patterns in scenes, not the details on top. And that often involves automatically recognizing the natural consequences of what has happened earlier in the scene. And, thinking more about that moment in practice, I realized: this was a Matrix moment.

I’ve struggled to create my own metaphor to describe that moment. In that moment I was on stage, all possible choices of how to respond to Kit’s offer were laid out before me like so many possible paths, like trails of light. The one I chose glowed brightly, and all the rest were so dim as to not even be noticed or considered. It was so clear and so obviously right. It was the answer.

I’ve also thought about what kind of ingredients go in to the improv cocktail that makes that moment happen. How can we manufacture effortless clarity?

Well, two years of practice doing improv certainly helps. Thinking about improv academically, reading all you can about it, reflecting on both what you do and what you see, all of that helps. It gets you to a place where you can recognize the underlying patterns that make comedy happen.

But there are other components, and I think the most important, and probably easiest (but also most time-consuming) to manufacture, is the relationship between scene partners. Get on stage with somebody that you’ve played with a lot, preferably in a variety of styles (short form, long form, weird formats); that way each of you trusts the other to knock down anything you set up. Get on stage with somebody you’ve watched a lot; when you’re in a scene with someone, no matter how hard you’re listening, you’re focusing on yourself in a way that you won’t as an audience member. As an audience member watching the same players in a variety of shows, you’ll get to know their personal patterns of play and be able to respond to them on stage. And get on stage with somebody you’ve talked to about improv and how it works, a lot.

Probably you’re not going to become improv BFFs with every potential scene partner. But the closer you can get, the more effortlessly you’ll be able to apply everything you’ve learned about improv in the past.

This winter, I took the Advanced Harold class at DSI Comedy Theater. DSI uses forums for class discussion, but being The Hermione Granger of Improv, I basically turned them into my personal improv blog for 6 weeks. Looking back over my notes, I found some themes being repeated over and over, so I thought I’d consolidate them thematically here. PLEASE NOTE: as thorough as my nerdy notes are, they are no substitute for taking a class with a teacher, practicing with a coach, or getting up on stage in front of an audience. So get out there and DO THOSE THINGS.

Previous posts in this series:

Consequences

—-

I’ve mentioned before, and will again, that I’m the founding producer of the Improvised Whedon Company. We draw our inspiration entirely from pre-existing work, and I love it. I love fan culture, fanworks, and fandom, and this team is one of the things I’m proudest of working on, ever.

In our practices, we spend a lot of time asking ourselves, How reference-heavy should we be? The answer depends on our audience. For an audience at a comedy theater, we strive to be reference-light. If a scene relies on a reference for its humor initially (like this one), it has to have its own game established pretty quickly. In this case, “What other sharp objects can we use to unintentionally threaten the pilot?” stands alone even if you don’t know the origin of the game. For an audience at a fan convention, we can be fairly reference-heavy.

In a Harold or other montage, references can be sprinkled in for fun. The best thing is something that is funny on its own, but extra funny if you catch the reference. I think the easiest way to make this work is to start with a reference but create a whole world around it, and the easiest way to do that is with mapping. So, for example, the DSI House Harold Team Blandly Handsome had a show replete with Star Wars references. It occurred to me that a fun idea to play with is all the normal kinds of stuff that could happen in that world. Something that would have simultaneously been a reference to both Star Wars and Clerks, but still be funny on its own, would be a scene where contractors working on the second Death Star are discussing how they can prevent the vulnerabilities that were present on the first Death Star. Even if you’ve never seen Star Wars or Clerks, the idea of contractors trying to avoid past mistakes is very grounded, creates real stakes, and yet still leaves lots of room for silliness.

THE KEY: A reference-heavy show should be like any other show, founded in good scenework where you establish relationships, explore a world, and heighten the stakes. It should be accessible for audience members who have never seen the source of the reference, and extra fun for audience members who have.

Working with scene partners who live and breathe references

You’re going to encounter this at some point, somebody who just drops references all over the place. (I actually really enjoy this in a scene partner, but not everyone does.) You should only ever not catch a reference once. Get thee to Wikipedia.

But I’m not going to go to Wikipedia in the middle of a show!

Nope, you’re sure not. So you have a few options:

1. Accept the reference as if it were any other new piece of information added to the scene by your scene partner, as though they had invented it on the spot.

2. Pick a strong emotional response to the reference, even if you have no idea what your scene partner is referencing. 

Tools to help you get references:

Wikipedia

Fandango Movie Clips

Blog posts about this:

Know Everything (Will Hines)

Improve Your Knowledge of History (Alex Fernie)

Acknowledgments:

I am indebted to the following improvisers for teaching me or talking me through the ideas in this post: Jonathan Yeomans, Kit FitzSimons, Zach Ward.

I just finished taking the Advanced Harold class at DSI Comedy Theater. DSI uses forums for class discussion, but being The Hermione Granger of Improv, I basically turned them into my personal improv blog for 6 weeks. Looking back over my notes, I found some themes being repeated over and over, so I thought I’d consolidate them thematically here. PLEASE NOTE: as thorough as my nerdy notes are, they are no substitute for taking a class with a teacher, practicing with a coach, or getting up on stage in front of an audience. So get out there and DO THOSE THINGS.

Show me the consequences.

Playing consequences can come into play in one of two ways. It can either be the way we initiate a scene, or it can be used in a spread/tag out/time dash/callback. Regardless of which way you do it, it’s one of the most fun and rewarding things we can do, and a great way to hold an audience’s attention.

Initiate with consequences.

If the scene premise requires that one player demonstrate success or failure, instead initiate the scene about the consequences of that success or failure. The consequences are more interesting than watching the player do the thing anyway.

Leave room for consequences.

If the people in a scene have just had something big happen, don’t necessarily edit on that as a button. Give them a little room to play with the consequences of whatever just happened. Of course you don’t want to let a scene go on too long, but if it looks like the players are going to dig into consequences, give them a little time to do so.

Skip to consequences.

In addition to initiating with consequences or playing them directly within a scene, you can edit and then play with them in a later beat or scene, spread to them, or tag out/double tag out and show them. When you do this, make sure you get right to it: jump into the consequences immediately. My favorite example of this is from “Coach Feratu,” an episode of Rick and Morty. 

This scene sets up that there’s a vampire in the school. And you almost immediately get this follow-up. You never see them fight the gym teacher vampire, because nobody cares about that.

CONSEQUENCES: They’re kind of the most interesting that happens, either on stage or in life.

I’ve only done improv at one place, DSI Comedy Theater (462 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC - come visit!). So please know that, while I think the things I’m about to talk about probably apply in other improv communities, I’ve only experienced this one directly.

Improv at DSI, and as I understand it, lots of other places, does a great job of providing you with formal mentors. You begin by taking classes, where you have teachers who not only tell you things, but sidecoach you while you’re in the thick of it. They’ll go out with you after class and talk more about what you did in class. If you’re cast on a house team, you get a coach; at DSI, if you’re a company member and you’re on an indie team, you can get a coach. So we’ve got teachers and coaches, formal mentors whose job it is to help you work through stuff and improve.

But I think it’s really beneficial to have informal mentors, too. I think there are two types of informal mentors: the kind you talk to, and the kind you watch.

A talky-talk mentor is really great when you’re having improv thoughts, and the non-improv people in your life can’t relate, and a lot of the improv people who came in at the same time as you are maybe having similar problems. A lot of times improv brings up feelings, and a lot of times your more formal mentors or your comedy friends might not be equipped to deal with how many feelings you have, so it’s really nice if you can find a talky-talk mentor to deal with THAT. When you’re excited about a new thing you can share it with them; when you are struggling you can talk to them and find out that, hey, everybody has kind of the same patterns in their feelings about improv and goes through them around the same times in their improv careers. Bianca Casusöl has generously been exactly this person for me, talking me through some really slumpy times. Go find your Bianca. It might actually be Bianca.

A watchy-watch mentor might not even know they’re mentoring you, which is totally okay. This is someone who every time you watch them you feel like you’re learning something new. Sometimes, um, you have a video of a show that you’ve watched over and over and then after 30 viewings you notice a new bit of object work they did. (No? Just me? Okay.) Sometimes you’re even on stage with them and you learn a new thing. Sometimes, you think you’re doing a thing, and then you look across the stage and see that no, you’re not really doing that thing, but they are, and damn is it impressive and don’t you wish you were doing it better and oh hey wait - maybe you should from now on make it a point to do that more the way they’re doing it, since you’re so blown away. And if you know me at all, then you know what I’m about to say: an excellent watchy-watch informal mentor is Kit FitzSimons (to whom I am also grateful for his work as a formal mentor as coach/director for the Improvised Whedon Company, and a bit of talky-talk mentoring about improv thoughts, too).

Last week I was performing in the Family Improv show at DSI with Kit. We were both on the sidelines; neither of us was in the scene that was going on. Historically speaking, I’ve always prided myself on being activated whenever I’m on stage. As a perpetual chorus girl, I’ve had plenty of stage time when I wasn’t the focus, and I like to imagine I do a pretty good job of remaining present. I try to do the same thing with improv when I’m standing on the side, but I have a habit of putting my hands behind my back against the wall and resting my head back and getting super into watching the scene, which means if a walk-on is called for and I’m the right person to do it I kind of have to peel myself off the wall first. I had to do that very thing in an IWC show in September, in fact. 

But at the Family Improv show, I noticed (and why I hadn’t noticed this so pointedly in the shows I’ve seen Kit in or been in with him before I don’t know because I guarantee you he does it every time), he was not just paying close attention to what was going on in the scene, he was basically AT attention: in position - head and shoulders back a little, arms slightly pulled away from his sides, light on his feet - and ready to jump in at any time if needed, but not pulling focus. And I thought, “I’ve got to be more like that; it’ll make it easier to jump in, it’ll lend more energy to the proceedings on stage, it’ll be better for me and my teammates and the audience.” It’s going to look different on me than it does on Kit, but it’s an energy and focus that I can shift to instead of my heretofore not-unpresent wall-sticking (better than sitting down or zoning out, but could be even better).

The great thing about watchy-watch mentors is you can find them anywhere people are doing improv, and you can have an unlimited number of them, and it costs them literally nothing to mentor you, as they were going to perform anyway.

All this to say, as soon as you feel comfortable enough in an improv community to do so, I would strongly recommend finding yourself some informal mentors to supplement your awesome teachers and coaches.

…because you’re not broken. YOU ARE WHOLE AND YOU ARE ENOUGH.

*******

I’ve been having a challenging few weeks. I suffer from clinical depression and social anxiety, and they’re usually in remission, but in times of transition (like, say, leaving a job and starting a doctoral program) they sneak their way back into my life and right around October or November they get their big reveal. So I’ve been feeling weepy and weird, guilty and self-judging. I spent most of the day yesterday working on a statistics midterm, and I had a good cry, and I had a bit more of a cry in the car on the way to improv class mostly just remembering the cry I’d had earlier. I had really been looking forward to class, thinking, “This is going to save my day. I have had a hard, lonely day, and this will fix it, and me.” (You know where this is going, don’t you?)

*******

I got to the theater. I talked to some friends. They also were having rough days. We hugged. I went downstairs. I decided to engage in some generous mischief, the results of which I believe have not come to fruition. I let another friend know about the generous mischief, and she played at (?) being jealous because she herself wasn’t the target of such mischief. I did my best to make it up to her. I had emotionally papier-mached these layers of fun and play over my extremely raw heart.

*******

Class started. We did warm-ups. They were fun. But I was feeling twitchy. And then we got to the meat of class, which involved doing AN EXERCISE.

The thing about exercises is that they are meant to give you specific skills. To achieve this end, they are rigidly structured and intensely focused, and the scenes that come out of them do not and are not designed to resemble what you would want to see on stage, necessarily. So all of the things I’ve been thinking about lately, which are techniques for building strong scenes, actually got in my way here.

Add to that, I got psyched out by the suggestion. The suggestion was “opera singer,” and I was keenly aware of myself as a singer and of the three people in the room who know I’m a singer, of their knowing I’m a singer and making the connection with the suggestion. I got thoroughly stuck in my head, working so hard to THINK through the ramifications of the suggestion with respect to this particular exercise and my own knowledge of opera singers.

My scene partner and I did two scenes. I’m not going to go into detail, but both scenes felt like a struggle. I felt so strongly that I had hung my partner out to dry because of being so up in my head. I felt that, not only had I struggled with the whole point of the exercise, but I had failed to do the two things I think are the foundation of the best scenes: trust and love my partner, even if I didn’t know him that well. 

We got notes. It was hard.

I spent other people’s scenes running through all the things I could have done, what I should have done, and more generally beating myself up over those two scenes. I probably would have learned a lot more by paying attention to other people’s scenes. 

*******

We got up in larger groups to do the exercise again. I ended up with the same scene partner. I told myself this time I was going to go out. I was going to have a strong, positive initiation. I was going to fix the night. (You still know where this is going, don’t you?)

I succeeded at coming out with a strong, positive initiation and maintaining a positive scene. We did a fun scene that met the requirements of the exercise. I got in it with my scene partner. I didn’t abandon him. That scene felt a lot better than the other two had.

*******

We went out after class, and that was fun. I got home. I was still beating myself up over those two tough scenes. That one good scene hadn’t fixed the night. The night hadn’t fixed me. It was more than an hour before I could get to sleep.

*******

This morning, I realized that when I notice myself start to get psyched out, probably it’s time to treat whatever exercise or scene I’m in like a game of Freeze. Get out there, do something, something big and strong and fun, and THEN FIGURE IT OUT. Not stand on the sidelines mulling over everything.

*******

The best thing to come out of this for me is the realization that just because I had a hard time with this exercise this one time, just because I had a bad night, that doesn’t mean that I am a bad person, a bad scene partner, or bad at improv. I had one bad night. Everybody has them. I’ll have a good one soon.

*******

Improv can’t fix me, and I shouldn’t ask it to, and I don’t need it to, because I, myself, am whole and enough. But it can give me tools that expand beyond the theater. Next time I have a bad day, a rough time, a tough conversation, I can remember: having a hard time doesn’t make me bad, and I’ll be having a good time soon.

Modified from a note I published on Facebook…

First, YOUR TASTE GROWS FASTER THAN YOUR SKILL. (There’s a great Ira Glass quote on this here: www.goodreads.com/quotes/30…) So you’re going to know what really good improv looks like, not be able to make it happen yourself, and get frustrated. It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t stop. DON’T STOP. (Unless you need to stop for reasons other than your frustration. It’s always okay to stop if you need to for reasons - but not because you’re starting to doubt yourself.)

Second, IMPROV GROWTH IS A SPIRAL. You’re moving up on the spiral, but you’re also moving around. So you feel like you are in the same place or even behind where you were months and months ago, but you’re actually on your way up. You’re maybe even right at the point where you are moving solidly up to the next level, and in the next week or two something amazing is going to happen. Trust. Trust. Trust yourself. Trust your teammates. Love yourself. Love your teammates. Trust and love. (Don’t forget to love people who aren’t yourself and your teammates, but don’t forget to love yourself and your teammates.)

LASTLY: Get up on stage with people who you think are better than you. Make sure they’re people you trust and love, who trust and love you right back. Fill the audience with people you trust and love, who trust and love you right back and are going to be blown away by what you do no matter what. Get on that stage and have a great time and worry about nothing except saying yes and going big. And then do it again and again and again.

Lately, I’ve been feeling rutty/restless in my improv. I had a run of shows that didn’t feel great, AND they were my last shows for the next few weeks so I had of course wanted them to be amazing. What’s that saying? Expectation goeth before a disappointment?

I had a conversation with Bianca

Casusöl a few weeks ago where she said that when you feel that way, it’s right before you’re about to grow. I knew she was right, so when I started feeling this way about a week and a half ago, I tried to keep that foremost in my mind: this dissatisfaction with my own performance meant that I was about to take a leap, to jump up higher on the improv learning spiral.

I started the jump yesterday, but I hope it’s not done yet.

The Improvised Whedon Company is preparing for a show inspired by the movie The Cabin in the Woods. Last night, we were working a scene where Sean Williams and I were two workers in The Facility. The scene went something like this:

Sean: Uh, I’ve got 300 crates of waste here, where do you want me to dump them?

Me: flipping through pages on imaginary clipboard Hold on a sec… There’s so much paperwork in this job. flip flip flip Uh, looks like those should go to Level 7.

Sean: Level 7? They just sent me down here! It’s always like this. I had to drive through all of these levels, and past all the monsters and the werewolves and through these ghosts just floating around, and I’m really getting tired of it. Well, I guess I’ll go back to Level 7.

Me: Uh, wait - go back a bit. Did you just say there are ghosts just OUT, floating around?

Sean: Yeah, they’re just floating in the hallway.

Me: That isn’t supposed to happen! goes over to pick up imaginary phone and call someone to fix this

Now, let me explain why I’m proud of this.

One of the most basic things we learn is to listen to our scene partner, but it’s also one of the easiest things to forget. Obviously with only a year and a half of experience under my belt I’m still working on it, but I’ve seen it be a struggle for improvisers much more experienced than myself. And the key symptom of not listening is failing to latch on to a thing your partner says in the first few lines that is a gift that can be the foundation of your whole scene. A new improviser will sometimes be so eager to get to the AND, they forget the YES. 

It’s a classic piece of UCB-style play to be grounded in the real world and then latch on to that first weird thing that pops up. It’s not a super-advanced move, but it’s one that requires sharp attention, clarity, and quick thinking to actually do on stage. In the world of Cabin in the Woods (SPOILER ALERT!), monsters belong in boxes. Ghosts should be carefully contained. Ghosts in a box are mundane; ghosts in the hallways are A PROBLEM. I was immensely pleased with myself for accepting Sean’s offer. Was my move to get on the phone with someone the best thing to do next? I’m not sure - but I’m proud as hell that I recognized that offer and grabbed it and didn’t let go.

It feels weird and a little wrong to admit this, but my favorite part of performing isn’t the performance itself.

Now, obviously, that’s key to the experience. And I love doing it.

But my heart flutters most before a show and after a practice or, in the case of improv, show. (In the non-improv theater, you stop getting notes after previews are done. In the improv theater, you may or may not get notes after a show. But I’m always happy when we do.)

I have a problem with presence, i.e., the being in the moment kind. (And now, we can begin a run of presence/present/presents puns! I’ll let you do that. Come back when you’re done.) I’ve got a bit of a Janus complex, always looking back and looking forward (at this very moment, I’m frustrated with myself for not focusing harder in statistics class today, and excited about having my team over for a movie night), and struggling to be in the moment. So, it makes sense that my favorite part of performing isn’t the actual moment when I’m most in it (though I’m proud to say I am present-as-all-get-out on an improv stage, saving analysis for after the show’s over).

I think one of the reasons I like the getting-ready and the getting-notes is because they are small, shared experiences. When you’re on the stage, yo’ure having a big shared experience: you, your fellow performers, and the audience are all in on something together, and it is MAGIC. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. BUT. When you’re in a dressing room or green room or backstage, or when the house is empty and it’s just you and your fellow performers and the director and crew on the stage, that’s it’s very own brand of magic, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world, either.

In my very first community theater production, I would arrive at the theater an hour before call, just to have some extra quiet time in the space. I was 13. It actually ended up causing a problem for the company; they got charged for the extra time I spent in the dressing room. Oops!

At the improv theater now, sometimes I get called down for notes for a show I didn’t even perform in - I’ll have crewed it, or I’ll just be around, or it’ll be a show with a format similar to the shows I’m on even though technically I’m not on the team - and every time - EVERY TIME - I get a warm feeling of contentment. I think it’s because GIVING & GETTING NOTES, as an activity, is targeted toward continuous improvement, and continuous improvement is pretty much my favorite thing. One of the reasons I’m skeptical that I’ll ever “outgrow” doing improv is that there’s no ceiling on it. You can always keep getting better. There’s always the risk of a bad show, and as devastated as I am when I perceive I’ve had a bad show (I’m usually wrong and at worst have had a mediocre show), I find it oddly exhilarating at the same time to know that 20 years from now, I’ll still be having bad shows and still be finding new ways to be better.

Improv is crack for productivity hobbyists, I guess, is what I’m saying.

Sometimes, you get a note in practice that on the surface looks like it applies really specifically to that practice, but after a little while you realize it applies to your whole style of play.

Last night, we had the last Improvised Whedon Company practice before our upcoming show. On at least two occasions, our director/coach Kit FitzSimons (I’ve mentioned him before) paused the scene and said, very pointedly and directly to me, “Don’t run away from it.” At both of these points, I very clearly had something I was ready to articulate in the scene, and I was choosing not to, or stopping short. And I guarantee you that in both cases, Kit knew exactly the thing I wanted to say, could see on my face and in my body that I wanted to say it, and could pinpoint the exact moment when I decided not to.

(This is the point at which I could go off on a tangent about why this might be the case, and whether it’s because Kit is extra smart, really good and experienced at improv, or the secret improv best friend I’ve been waiting for my whole life and just gets me. The first two are definitely true. The third is an intriguing possibility that I probably shouldn’t be exploring in such a public forum. Hey, I said I could go off on a tangent, and now I have!)

Back to the matter at hand: In more than one show recently, I’ve found myself hanging back and running away from an idea. I wonder if it’s an overcorrection, if it comes from trying to curb the impulse to stay so attached to my idea that I fail to listen to my scene partner. I wonder if it is giving me the illusion of that generosity I’ve been pursuing. I guess it doesn’t really matter what the source of it is.

What matters is how to move forward. It helps me to think about what I want from a scene partner. I don’t want a scene partner to get out of my way. I want her* to get in it with me (”it” being wherever the scene is going). I’m not inherently an obstacle on stage; I don’t need to move out of my scene partner’s way to let her shine. I need to get in there with her and we need to move together. We need to co-vary.

And now that I’ve used a concept from statistics to explain improv, my work here is done.

(But my work on stage isn’t, and I will be prioritizing “Don’t run away from it” in shows and practices for the foreseeable future.)

*I default to the feminine pronoun, because it’s mine.

Last week, I had two opportunities to play with improvisers less experienced than myself. (Like most comedians, I have a hybrid inferiority-superiority complex, so it feels really uncomfortable to call anyone “less experienced than myself,” even though I’ve been doing this for more than a year and most of the people I played with had only done it for six weeks.)

Frequently, after a show, I will come off stage and think, “Enh. That was okay.” I’ll be dissatisfied with my performance, but unable to identify why, because I didn’t go in with a goal for the show. I consistently have better shows when I choose a victory condition for myself: just like board games have a certain condition to satisfy, and just like I sometimes like to come up with an alternate so that even if someone else wins I can feel like I won, I have a better time if I pick something different from the obvious victory condition, “Have a good show.”

Last week in both of these shows, my victory condition was to give my scene partner both space and support. As a more experienced improviser (still feels weird to say), especially in a short form scene like I played this week, my inclination is to go out with a strong initiation, name my scene partner’s character, and get some stakes on the table ASAP. These are the things I remember from 101 beyond Yes And and mirroring, and when I find myself faltering, I go back to them. But this week, my goal was to let my scene partner initiate unless they clearly were struggling, and then basically to let them drive the scene. I also wanted to provide gentle nudges toward a stronger scene if I could, a thing I’ve noticed improvisers more experienced than myself doing in scenes with me, and am always grateful for.

Achieving both of these components of the single goal is a balancing act. It’s not a balancing act I’ve had to perform much before, having been the junior improviser in almost everything I’ve done. But I felt like I achieved it. So even though I came off stage thinking, “Enh, I could have been funnier,” or “Gah, I keep failing to make strong or any character choices,” and probably a bunch of other mean thoughts about myself that I can’t remember now, I also came off stage thinking, “Hey, my scene partners had a good time and seemed to feel supported. Yay me!”

Not really related: If you need to remember the wisdom of your 101 self, find a small 101 class and ask to pad out their show. Or just go to a jam and play with a 101 student. Their energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to playing rather than working will rejuvenate you.

I’ve only been doing improv for a little while, but I sure do think about it a lot. And something I’ve been thinking about with respect to improv in the past couple weeks is generosity. 

A friend of mine who has almost no familiarity with improv came to my latest show. Completely unprompted by me, he said he could tell from watching the show that Kit FitzSimons is a generous improviser. (If you’ll recall, I called both Kit and Vinny Valdivia generous improvisers in my post, Beginner’s Mind and Advancing in Improv.) I said, “Yes, exactly!” and the more I think about it, I’m not sure there’s a quality I’d rather have in a scene partner or have someone ascribe to me than generosity.

We learn lots of rules and tips and tricks in improv; we learn the power of YES AND, of unconditionally affirming and building upon our partner’s offers. We learn to accept those offers; we learn to listen. We learn to let go of our planned ideas and follow the consequences of the things our scene partners are saying. We learn a lot more, a lot deeper, a lot broader, but these fundamental principles, I think, are mostly teaching us how to be generous.

We learn early to give gifts: to endow our scene partner’s character with a particular quality, to direct them to do something or avoid something in such a way that it’s clear that in the scene they should do the opposite of whatever we’ve said. If we’re playing a character game that’s been established ahead of time, as the Improvised Whedon Company does, we give them the gift of naming their character and identifying their game at the top of the scene, because it’s hard to do that yourself and it not feel like becoming the improv equivalent of a human pretzel. 

I think when we learn to be generous in improv, we learn to be generous in other parts of our lives, too. In a scene, I can give my partner the gift of establishing our relationship and the stakes of the scene up top. Having done so, I feel more empowered to give people in my life the gift of making it clear how much I value their presence in my life, how much I see their strengths, how much I want to see them succeed.

I’m still learning. I’ll always be learning; one of the things I’m gathering about improv is that after you’ve been doing it for twenty or thirty or forty years, you’re still learning. And one of the things I’m still learning, I hope, is how to be a generous scene partner and a generous person. 

In addition to thinking about generosity, I’ve been thinking about success in improv, and what it means to be to be successful. Success in improv for me doesn’t consist of moving to Chicago, New York, or LA. It doesn’t consist of making it onto the mainstage at Second City or UCB or even onto a DSI house Harold team or Mr. Diplomat or DSI TourCo. Success in improv for me means two things: 1. I get to keep playing, consistently, with fun people I adore. 2.One day, somebody says to someone who has been on stage with me, “Kimberly strikes me as a really generous improviser,” and then my scene partner says, “YES EXACTLY.” 

I’ve been trying to read the UCB Comedy Manual, and fairly successfully reading Will Hines’s improvnonsense Best Of, but I keep getting distracted by my own thoughts so I thought it would be smart to write them down.

By far, my favorite improvnonsense post is the “How do I get out of my head?” post, which should surprise no one.

I’ve had a whirlwind of a time in my brief time at DSI Comedy Theater. I started taking sketch in January 2014, and found my way (nudged by the delightful Paula Pazderka) into improv in May 2014. I took 101, 201, repeated 201, and took 301 basically back-to-back. In February 2015, I auditioned for the company and was placed in the short-form ensemble. This puts me on stage with improvisers vastly more experienced than me. 

In April 2015, I started 401.

So, given all that preamble, some thoughts.

In 101 and 201 (and even, to some extent, 301), I was a bold and confident improviser. My theater background and my delight at showing up carried me a long way. I was immensely flattered to receive comments from classmates like, “I always feel safe when I’m in a scene with you.” Being confident didn’t keep me from being eager to learn; I happily received notes and did my best to internalize them. (I did notice as early as 101 that I’m a lot smarter in class than on stage. I blame the adrenaline boost that bright lights and an audience inspire.) I happily initiated scenes when my scene partners seemed reticent. I fully committed. I mirrored the heck out of scene partners.

Before being cast in the short form ensemble, I had been away from improv entirely for over 12 weeks, due to another theatre commitment. I was shocked to be cast. But I had a blast at practices. Again, I was just so happy to even show up.

But something happened. I’m not sure when or how, but being up on stage with amazing, experienced improvisers - people I’d admired from the audience for months - turned me into the reticent scene partner, lacking confidence in my choices, assuming that everyone at practices was watching my scenes and thinking about all the things I’d done wrong (narcissism is a problem, y’all). I got less bold. I found myself questioning the director’s and coaches’ decision to let me in this ensemble. (I KNOW THIS IS SILLY. They wouldn’t put me on if they didn’t want me there.)

I felt myself making choices and then backing off from them. By late June or early July 2015, I was thinking that, despite the fact that I have the most fun at improv practice, more fun than almost anything else I do, maybe I was wrong to keep going with it.

THE STORY GETS HAPPIER FROM HERE.

I had some weird stuff going on professionally in early July that was maybe affecting how I felt about improv, I’m not sure. But I read that improvnonsense post, especially the email from Zach Woods, and something started to shift in me. I felt like okay, maybe I was right to want to keep doing this, even though I was feeling down and like I wasn’t doing a great job. Maybe I just had to move through it.

On July 11, I played in DSI’s Family Improv show with Kit FitzSimons and Vinny Valdivia, two incredibly gifted, experienced, and generous improvisers. If you ever want to feel safe on stage, get up there with Vinny and Kit. 

In addition to that, the entire audience consisted of my sister, my brother, and my mother-in-law. For that one day, we re-named the Family Improv show “Kimberly’s Family Improv.” That was immensely liberating, because I knew everyone there was going to love and support me and be delighted by basically anything I did.

And on top of being on stage with two great players and having an audience 100% composed of people guaranteed to love me, I had decided that my goal for this show was to GO FOR IT. Whatever choice I made, whatever I did, I was going to commit to it like little Improv 101 Kimberly would. (Figuratively little. I mean, I’m short, but I’ve actually lost weight since Improv 101.)

It was the right call. That show was a ton of fun and I left feeling good. My next show I was a kind of weird and slow scene partner, but that was because it was a show I had proposed and it was just the most magical and craziest thing for it to actually be happening, so I couldn’t really believe the glory of it. (I left that show feeling amazing, too. Just more because of everyone else in the show than because of anything I did.)

And then, because life is how it is, I went on a 3 ½ week hiatus with no practices or shows due to life stuff. But I’m going to get back into it within the next week, and I think I’ll stick with that GO FOR IT mantra.

All of this to say:

I need to remember 101-201-301 Kimberly. I need to trust that if I make a move that isn’t the move it should have been, I will only benefit by having more experienced improvisers on stage with me. They’ll shore me up. I need to remember that this is the most fun and that if I’m making the most fun choices, especially in short form, I’m probably doing it right. And that if I’m doing it wrong, that’s okay, because I’m going to keep doing it and I’m going to get better.

My darling fandom,

I adore you. And I’m not referring to any of your specific aspects, but you, as a whole.

I love your stunning illustrations.

I love your clever and creative fanfiction.

I love your conventions and gatherings.

I love the way you make people feel valued and important. I love the way you inspire people to go on to make their own new things after they’ve played and workshopped and learned from you.

I believe, deeply, that you are, more often than not, a force for good in the world.

And I’m so proud to have been among you for so long - immersed in you for fifteen years, now.

Take care, dear.

Booking Through Thursday: Graduation | lectitans

I wrote up some tips for spoonies here. If you’re eliminating gluten, dairy, corn, and soy, and you have limited energy, check those out.

In the past, I’ve been too scared to try eliminating any particular food for more than a week. The reason was two-fold: one, I have such limited energy and I perceived dietary restrictions as being lots of extra work and two, I really like dietary indulgences. I savor good food. I think having something tasty is a great pleasure in life. And I tend to be a person who is fairly well-behaved (drinking rarely, staying away from drugs that aren’t prescribed to me, OTC, or caffeine, avoiding smoking, almost never going to parties). I think because I have so few indulgences, good food and laziness feel extra special to me. (Having limited energy does not equal being lazy. But sometimes, even when I do have a bit of energy, I give myself a lazy day.)

This time, I knew it would be different, because I’d have my health coach Monica to talk me through the plan, and to check in with me on how it’s going (an extra big deal since she’s going to have a little one any day now! so it’s very nice that she takes the time to email me). I’ve found those ways to deal with the diet that I mentioned in the tips post linked earlier. But I’ve learned some other things, too.

I’ve learned that I can be very happy with a salad, if I put the right things in it. I’ve learned that locally produced meats are amazing. I’ve learned that sometimes you really want butter, not olive oil or coconut oil, and that is a good time to use bacon grease if you happen to have it on hand.

My big takeaway, that I hope will stay with me even after I’m done adding foods back in and seeing what does or doesn’t make me feel bad, is that if I’m willing to do a little work and carefully budget, I can get high quality ingredients and make myself things that are not only just as indulgent as any foods I was eating before this, but tastier. Obviously, I shouldn’t subsist on a diet of Izze and Lara bars, or even home-made almond flour muffins (though anything made with almond flour is going to be much lower in sugar than any other baked good). But I hope that I’ve given myself a good foundation for expanding my diet to include a wider variety of healthier foods, without feeling deprived of the junk food I ate so often in the past. And I’ve learned that I don’t need to be afraid of changing my diet. I won’t starve, eat something that will make me feel bad because I decide it’s worth it, or live off of pistachios and fruit (though that has served as lunch a few times in the past 3 weeks).

Hello, friends! I’m on an elimination diet right now to see if I can identify specific foods as autoimmune triggers.  I’m using a protocol from the book The Immune System Recovery Plan. This is a very basic plan where I cut out gluten, dairy, corn, and soy for 3 weeks, then eat them again and see what my response is.

My hope was that I would be cooking more when I started this diet, but I have very limited energy and a fair number of obligations, so I have found myself choosing meeting those obligations over cooking for myself. (Are my priorities out of whack? Perhaps, but they are what they are.)

I’m trying to be very gentle with myself about this - I’m doing the best I can right now, and I have been pretty successful in avoiding these foods. I thought I would share some of the ways that I’m dealing with this. If you are on a stricter elimination diet (for example, no nuts, eggs, nightshades, caffeine, sugar of any type, etc), these tips probably aren’t for you. But if you’re just avoiding those big 4, this might help.

Tip #1: Mexican food is your friend.

Rice + beans + spices + guac + pico = DELICIOUS. You can order a taco salad and ask for it with no shell or dairy. Add meat if you want. Add guacamole if it doesn’t come with it.

Tip #2: Sandwich places that offer lettuce wraps are your friend.

Be sure to carefully investigate the sandwich fillings, though - a lot of them might have hidden wheat or soy.

Tip #3: Salad bars are your friend.

A lot of big grocery stores have them. I work on a university campus and it has one. This is great - I just get a container and load up on spinach, cucumbers, bell peppers, hard-boiled eggs, and chicken. Be careful about dressings, though. I bought a dressing from the grocery store that is free of all the ingredients I’m avoiding (balsamic vinaigrette is most likely to meet this requirement). I don’t get dressing from the actual salad bar.

Tip #4: LARABAR is your friend.

Check the ingredients on your particular bar to be sure, but these are all gluten free, and all the ones I’ve gotten are dairy free as well. They tend to be sweetened with dates (OM NOM NOM DATES SO GOOD) and brown rice syrup.

Tip #5: Scrambled eggs are your friends.

You can even make them in the microwave if you need to.

Tip #6: Smoothies are your friends.

This one’s easier if you have a high-powered blender, and I haven’t availed myself of it much yet because I’ve been slow in the mornings. But especially on a hot day, this is great. My recipe is 1c liquid (I usually go with water or coconut milk, but sometimes almond milk), 1 frozen banana, ½-1c other fruit, 6 ice cubes. I’m planning to add greens, coconut oil, chia seeds, and nut butter in the near future.

Tip #7: Be kind to yourself.

What you’re doing isn’t holy. It’s not that you are a morally better person if you’re eating whole foods, or that if, like me, you need to take the prepared foods route, you’re a bad person. You’re just trying to figure out what works for your body. If you mess up, it’s not too hard to start over. You’re doing the best you can, with the situation you have. Always.

SPOILERS FOR CITADEL DLC CONTENT BELOW.

I started playing the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3 yesterday. I finished the “Identity Theft” mission and everything that comes with it. (I haven’t hosted my party yet.) A couple things:

1. It was super cool to fight Dark Shep, or Nega Shep, or Evil Shep, whatever you want to call her. I don’t know why, but I majorly dig this kind of story where someone feels they’ve been denied the life that is rightfully theirs. V. badass. This DLC is probably one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game for me.

2. I’m extra enamored of the way Clone!Shep was all, “Friends are a weakness. I’m better than you, because I don’t have friends.” And then all of my totally badass friends gunned down her mercs. All in a line, looking awesome. I told my husband about this part of the game, and he was all, “What, did you wander into a game written by Joss Whedon?” And I was all, “Kinda, yeah.” So good job, Shep. You’ve got that whole found family thing going on, and it’s really working for you. But you should feel free to tell them to go home - they sure seem to like hanging out at your place, and that’s fun, but maybe you need some Introvert!Shep time.

R: Are you doing the bar mitzvah show? B: Yeah… Boys becoming men… Everybody: Men becoming wolves… Me (on the inside): Yes! I have found my people!

I have a LOT of interests, and at various times I have kept up with not only the interest itself, but also the community surrounding the interest. I have too many interests to be an expert in anything. Several years ago I discovered the book The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine. If, like me, you have trouble designing your life around your plethora of interests, it’s definitely worth checking out.

One of Lobenstine’s key suggestions is to limit yourself to pursuing 4 interests at a time. One can be a career interest and the other three can be personal interests, or you can mix it up differently, but career + hobbies should fall into 4 categories, unless you can work more hobbies into your career. You can rotate different things into your sampler of interests whenever you like.

I find, though, that thanks to my chronic illness and the extreme fatigue that comes with it, as well as the higher priority self-care must have in my life, that I can’t just pursue 4 things like work, improv, singing, and crochet. (Which leaves out so many ways I like to spend my time, including gaming, gardening, reading…)

Because of my illness, my sampler needs to look more like this:

1. Work or school

2. Self-care: food prep, exercise, hygiene

3. Home care: laundry, picking up, grocery shopping

4. ONE PERSONAL INTEREST.

This means I can only be intensely focused on one thing at a time, and it bums me right out. So I’m looking for ways to deal with it. One way is to rotate that one thing VERY rapidly - like “Today is an improv day. Tomorrow will be a video game day. The next day will be a crafting day.” And that’s sort of where I’m at right now.

The other is to combine things. For example, reading on my bus commute; crocheting while loading screens are coming up on video games.

I think I need to consciously utilize these two techniques to keep from feeling like I can’t have hobbies/interests.

I have my second session with Monica, my health coach/friend-from-childhood today. I wanted to write up how the past couple of weeks have gone, to help me think through things.

We set two goals: increase my water intake (simultaneously decreasing my intake of soda & coffee drinks) and prepare breakfasts at home.

My water intake has slightly increased - before I was ranging from ½ liter to 1 liter a day, and with the addition of mineral water (so good and better than the sparkling water from my Soda Stream) that’s up now to consistently at about a liter. I was sick with either a cold or allergies for most of the past couple weeks, and that did mean that I found myself inclined to consume Sprite or Ginger Ale when I should have been consuming water. However, I’m back off of those now and sticking with sparkling mineral water or berry-infused sparkling water from the Soda Stream. I did have one Coke last night after my improv class, but I think it’s the only Coke I’ve had in a week and a half. One thing I’ll say for being violently ill with cough and postnasal drip: it provides strong incentive to get off caffeine. I’ve had black tea a couple of times, but in small quantities and with no added sugar (which would tend to be in the form of honey).

I haven’t had breakfast from a restaurant or convenience store in about a week and a half either. The abovementioned-illness kept me from wanting much food at all for a few days, but since I started to feel even the littlest bit better, it’s been all gluten-free toast with nut butter & chia seeds, fruit, or yogurt. I’m finding that the fruit+yogurt combination isn’t very filling (probably because I’m eating less than a cup of yogurt, and the yogurt tends to be fat-free). It is convenient though, and that’s great. I also experimented this weekend with two new ways of cooking eggs - fried and poached. Previously the only way I’ve prepared eggs is scrambled or hard boiled. I don’t prefer fried or poached to scrambled, but it’s nice to have a bigger repertoire. A traditional weekend breakfast for the past several months has been a biscuit with egg, cheese, and sausage + a donut, both from Rise. Weekend before last I was sick, but this past weekend I made the eggs and then added sausage that I found at Target. It was maple chicken sausage, and it didn’t quite hit the spot, so I’m going to experiment with sausage from a couple of local providers over the next few weeks and see how that goes.

So there’s been some success with both of these, but I’ve also discovered new obstacles. I like Leo Babauta’s model of habit sprints, where instead of just plunging forward with goals you reassess them weekly (or in my case, bi-weekly), so it’s good to identify these obstacles and figure out how to solve them. The first obstacle is that I’m having a hard time getting my water intake up above 1L. I think there are two solutions here - only increase my intake by .5L a week, so it feels manageable - and go back to using the Water Your Body app for reminders. I learned how to set the notification volume for the app low without setting all my notifications low, which I think will help, as the biggest obstacle there was that the notification was loud and annoying.

The other obstacle I ran into was that, while I had every intention of making smoothies for breakfast occasionally, I got overwhelmed by the possibility of combinations of ingredients and didn’t make any smoothies this week. Which is too bad because, as a rule, I love smoothies. To help with that, I ordered the book Green Smoothies for Every Season, which will provide me with suggested seasonal flavor combinations but doesn’t prescribe quantities/ratios, so I can experiment to see what I like best.

I’m looking forward to tonight’s session, when I expect we’ll tackle plans for lunch and dinner!

Yesterday I had my first session with Monica Barco of Nourish Health Coaching. Monica and I have known each other for about 25 years. When I heard about her health journey and how similar it was to mine, I knew she would be a great health coach for me.

I am big into research, of course, so I know that whole foods are the best things you can eat, and in the past I’d had a session with a nutritionist where the only advice she gave me that I hadn’t already heard was to buy produce from the salad bar if you only need a small quantity. I have done a lot of reading about nutrition and exercise, and familiarized myself with many possibilities, tried and failed on a variety of restrictive eating plans, and currently practice intuitive eating which, because of the food science that food companies use, lately has led me to eat more and more processed foods. Time for a change!

I recently took Gretchen Rubin’s four Rubin-types quiz, which told me that I’m an Obliger (which I kind of already knew). Based on this, I figured that if all I gained from Monica was a person to check in with me, to make sure I was actually doing the things I know I’m supposed to do - somebody whose job it was and who I wouldn’t get annoyed with for asking (as I might do with family) - then that would be worth our time and her fee right there.

But of course, a health coach isn’t just a person who asks you if you’re doing things, and the most helpful thing Monica did for me in our session yesterday was remind me of stuff I already know and give me some new things to try. And that’s, I think, very high value. Because I forget that there actually ARE black teas that I like. I forget that a person could potentially have nut butter on toast for breakfast with a bit of fruit and it would be fast, easy, tasty, and, if it’s the right toast, healthy. So I need someone like Monica, not only to ask me if I’m doing the things, but to ask me questions and draw out what I’m willing to do, what I’d like to do.

If you at all think that you could benefit from health coaching, you should try it out. I think Monica would be willing to work with you over Skype or similar, if you’re not local. Can’t hurt to ask!

Stay tuned for food photos as I start having a wider variety of healthy breakfasts and drink more tea!

I chronicled my experience primarily through Facebook status updates. Here they are for your entertainment:

So far, not as obsessed with Mass Effect as I am with DA:I, but I’m definitely into it enough after the first hour and a half to keep going.

…

Mass Effect update: definitely more into it now. Going full paragon.

…

Mass Effect update: vehicular combat, not my fave, but I’m getting better at it. I’m also getting better at using cover, but Tali and Kaidan are doing the heavy lifting in combat. Finishing quests is almost as satisfying here as in Dragon Age. The terrain is very crazy. I keep expecting to crash, but the only trouble I’ve had is driving off the edge of the Feros skyway. I’m very over the Mako. I have to remind myself that games are supposed to involve challenge… I find myself getting frustrated if I die in a spot more than twice. Also, even though I don’t like the Mako, I’m getting the hang of zooming in, which does make my cannon fire much more effective.

…

It’s an all girl party for me. Shep, Liara, and Tali. Haven’t settled on a romance yet. Stringing them both along at present. But leaning toward Kaidan for no reason in particular. I just met him first and liked him right away. But Liara is so pretty and smart…

…

Pretty sure I ruined things with Kaidan and accidentally committed myself to Liara. Oops. …But they’re both so broken. I want to love them both! Mass Effect, why won’t you let me choose polyamory?

…

I was like, “Maybe I’ll replay this to be really completist” because I’m not going to finish all the collections. And then I thought “NO BECAUSE THEN I WILL HAVE TO DRIVE AND FIGHT IN THE MAKO MORE.”

I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. It’s an autoimmune disease in which my body attacks my thyroid. The thyroid controls basically, you know, every bodily function. So if it’s under attack and starts to function poorly, your (or, rather, my) whole body becomes a sad mess. This affects both physical and mental stuff. The treatment I use is a combination of two synthetic hormones that supplement the hormones my body either isn’t making or isn’t properly converting into other hormones.

For more than a year, I’ve felt like this condition was getting worse. And the lab tests showed a decline, but were still kind of okay-normal, but suboptimal, and I was just too scared to bring it up with my doctor.

Then in January I got feeling bad enough, and the test results were finally suboptimal enough, that I went to my doctor and checked in about getting an increase in the dosage of these hormones, which after some hand-wringing about how they could actually be hurting me, she eventually agreed to. About a week before that appointment, I started taking a selenium supplement, which has been shown in medical studies to help Hashimoto’s patients.

In early January, I was having a lot of really bad days. I was too sleepy to accomplish much in the first week. I had an eight-day headache. My joints were constantly aching. Sometimes my muscles ached, too. I felt stupid and slow. Exercise sounded like something that would be difficult to get through both because I wouldn’t really be able to breathe afterwards and because it would just aggravate my joints more. Getting up in the morning was very difficult. Many days, I was not confident in my ability to meet my basic adult obligations.

About a week after starting the selenium supplement, I began to feel kind of like a person again. I hadn’t really, not for the first three weeks of this year. I felt like maybe I was capable of dealing with life.

It takes about 4 weeks to notice much of a change from a dosage increase in thyroid meds, and 6-8 weeks for it to show up on a serum test. But today is two weeks since my dose increased, and I can feel a difference in my body and my attitude. Yesterday I went swimming for the first time in more than a month. I got up, took my medicine, braided my hair, kissed my husband goodbye, wished him a happy morning of playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, and was on my way. I swam for I don’t know how long, but I swam until my legs started to say, “Please, no more, thanks.”

This morning, I went for a walk. It was a one-mile walk. A couple of weeks ago, I would do this same walk, and at the end of it, I would need to just sit for ten minutes to catch my breath. This morning, I came in, sat for a minute or two, and started making breakfast. I hard-boiled some eggs. For the past couple of weeks, all I’ve been able to do was mix up an instant breakfast powder with milk.

My mind isn’t as sharp as I’d like yet, but I feel optimistic that it will be in the next month or two. I still get sleepy mid-afternoon, but I get a few hours of good thinking-time in at work before that happens. I can’t convey just what a difference it is to feel like things are getting better, like it’s possible for them to keep getting better.

I need to remember this feeling. I need to remember, next time I start to feel low, that I can take control, I can talk to my doctor, and I can make it better. I have that power. I need to internal-locus-of-control this thing, and I can. I can. That’s the hardest, and most important, part to remember.

“You have horseys on your sweater,” my grown husband said to me. (I don’t have a husband who isn’t grown. I just want to emphasize that he was an adult using the world “horsey” when speaking to another adult.)

“No, I don’t.” I glared at him.

“Sorry. You have unicorns on your sweater,” he corrected himself.

“Yes. Horses are for children. Unicorns are for grown-ups,” I told him.