And for my next trick ...

Yesterday my dad asked me what my next endeavor would be after the show ended. I think he was asking about performing arts endeavors. Truthfully, I'm not sure there will be any more performing arts opportunities that present themselves. I'd like to think I can do stand-up comedy, but I'm not sure I can. It's easy to be funny in writing. People aren't expecting tons of LOL humor in writing, so anything remotely funny is a pleasant surprise.

And in everyday conversation, it's easy to be funny when funny moments come up. Take, for example, the situation where Bill and I saw a fat, red-headed 13(ish)-year-old kid with acne who had ice cream all over his face. We both looked at each other and commented on the quintessential hilarity of a fat, red-headed nerd eating ice cream. And even now, several years later, we can just mention the fat kid in Michigan (BTW it was in Michigan), and we laugh. This is the classic sort of you-had-to-be-there private joke.

But in stand-up comedy, you're starting with a total blank slate, comedically. You're not staring at something funny, and you're not even having a conversation with somebody you can play off of. It's just you, standing there, trying to paint some picture of a funny situation that the audience didn't have to be there for. So, it's not like I can be up there exhausting myself trying to make people laugh about a fat kid in Michigan.

Plus, how many non-seedy opportunities for stand-up comedy present themselves to suburban housewives? And I guess I could try out for more community theater shows, but (a) I'm not so much an actress, and (b) the rest of the cast would be, like, under 12.

So, in the foreseeable future, I don't have any performing gigs coming up. But I do have a new athletic endeavor: the indoor triathlon at my gym!

I'm trying to get into triathlons, because now I can swim and sort of run, so all I need to do is get that biking thing together and I'll have all three. Slight obstacle to becoming a competent biker: I don't own a bike. But with the indoor triathlon, the bike is stationary, and I figure maybe my spin class at the gym will prepare me.

So, here's how the indoor triathlon works: You swim in the pool for 10 minutes, change into dry clothes, ride a stationary bike for 20 minutes, get a 5-minute break if you want to change shoes (I don't), and then run on the treadmill for 15 minutes. Since everybody goes for the same amount of time, participants are ranked according to distance completed.

Anyway, the indoor triathlon is February 26. Katie is going to do it with me. You might recall she's a marathon runner, so she's good at the running part. And I'm a fairly competent swimmer, but suck at the running part.

So, that's the story of my next activity. It's good to have goals.