I wish Amazon would store my sizes and then allow me to tell it to automatically filter clothing items which wouldn't fit me based on the available sizes.

There's a hilarious albeit contrived scene in the movie The Replacements starring Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves. The coach is trying to build his team's trust in one another and he encourages them to share their fears, and Keanu's character is given the deep thought of the conversation:

You're playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can't move... you can't breathe... because you're in over your head. Like quicksand.

I witnessed that today. In my Microeconomics class the professor likes to use a bad Jeopardy knock-off as our main review before the test and today she decided to divide the class by gender (never a good idea.) The girl's team took off to a quick and demanding start leading at one point 2400 to -1200. I know some of the stuff but was constantly going up and never given the initiative to pick the category of my choice, but there was a nice big juicy one up there that I knew I could nail if I was just given the opportunity.

At one point the scores reached 6600 to -1600. The women were rocking along and the guys were struggling just to get out of the hole. Then my time came, we got a question that I was able to answer and so I then picked my category. The poor girl I was facing didn't know what hit her. I answered the entire category, racking up 3000 points for my team but more than that I blew the girl's spirit and they couldn't stop making mistakes at that point.

The winning team of the game is given 6 extra credit points on the Final, and the losing team (so long as they're above zero points) gets 3 extra credit points. So with the momentum swing, even though my team struggled to find a rhythm, we were in high spirits and the women got caught in the quicksand. Their anchor members who knew the most came coming up with the wrong answers and we would come through for the now much easier cleanup on the questions.

Never underestimate the power of psychology and morale in a battle. If you think you've lost, you already have.

One reason it can be difficult to keep me focused is because I'm smart. I mean it. I'm smart enough that if I am trying to solve a puzzle, and I discover the gimmick or trick that it takes to solve it, then I quit. I don't need to solve the puzzle now, I know I could have solved it and that is enough for me.

This translates into life as well for me. If I'm trying to learn something new, if I don't see it as a constant challenge then I lose interest because I've lost the challenge. It's one reason Magic: The Gathering (aka Money: The Spending) keeps me infatuated (even after I've sold off my cards... again.) The game is always changing. There is such randomness to it, and they are providing new cards three or four times a year, so the card pool is always changing.

Currently though I've found two things which continue to provide the necessary challenge for me.

First, self improvement. This has always been something I've worked on. I can always be a better me. For much of my life though, it was centered around mentally bettering myself and only in the last year has it really focused on making myself physically better. In the last few months the physical bettering has really hit home.

Secondly, improv comedy. It's a new challenge and one I haven't conquered yet. It's been a long time fascination for me and the show this week only succeeded in whetting my appetite. Now I'm more driven than ever before.

Just a quick thought about the Microsoft Surface. Imagine it's implications for table top roleplaying. There was a thing a few years ago about using a computer projector for your roleplaying games. The Surface opens that whole thing up to a much bigger idea. The problem is size. Most good roleplaying games take place around a kitchen table, so the small dining room table is going to be hard to work with but it is definitely doable.

Well the show has come and gone and it went well. Very well. Monday was a blur. I took a test in the morning, sat impatiently through class then went to the theatre to do some work. We had had a fairly busy weekend and so I needed to stock concessions for the show. After about an hour the unthinkable happened, I dropped a bottle of Pepsi.

The world slowed to a crawl, I watched the bottle fall, and fall, and fall. It fell perfectly such that the neck slammed into the ledge of the cooler, cracking the plastic cap and it spewed Pepsi all over me. I grabbed it and muffled the spray in my hands, throwing it into the nearest trash can and listened to it hiss as I glowered in the now Pepsi soaked clothes.

Thank God I was aware that the universe would try to mess up the day, and so I literally had worn a completely different outfit than I planned for the show that night. So I had, in my car, a change of shirt, pants, socks, etc...

Once I was changed and toweled off I left the theatre and met my family for a pre-show dinner. We went to TGI Fridays and relaxed for a while, caught up with my Aunt and cousin and just generally laughed.

We all got to the theatre early, the show was at 8pm, I had to be there by 7pm, and my family got there early to guarantee that they got good seats. It was then that I really began to get pumped. The green room was abuzz with the energy and excitement and we were all eager to get the show going.

We warmed up in the theatre and then moved back into the green room, then watched in shock and eagerness as the theatre filled with friends, family, and passerby. We literally filled the theatre with over 200 people. It was to be expected with a cast of 14 players, but still, to see it is amazingly cool.

Finally the time came and the theatre went dark, John did the introductions and my team ran out on stage to thunderous applause. My family and friends had gotten great seats, center stage two and three rows back (my personal favorite seats in the house.) Dad was hooting and hollering as loud as I've ever seen him.

Common sense would say that coming on stage, for the first time, in front of 200 people, would be terrifying or exhilarating or something at least. The fact though is that I fell into my normal routines, sure I had a little more adrenaline, and I knew the audience was there, but I also knew that whether I was funny or not - I would be okay. And therein I found peace.

The show went by extremely fast, almost 2 hours long but for me it was done in a flash. I won't recount the scenes I did, to retell them would only be academic and would lose all the humor in them.

After the show, we went out to the lobby and the people came by. Family and friends told me how great I was. Strangers congratulated and shook my hand. I smiled. I thanked them. But I was a zombie. Simply put, I was high. I stood next to myself, watched as someone shook my hand or hugged me, I watched as I hugged them or shook their hand back. It was an out of body experience. An amazing out of body experience.

After the show, the real wait began. The show is part of our graduation evaluation for the class, and as such our teacher gives us all individual reviews. With fourteen people, it is obviously going to take a while. We began around 10pm, and at first Dr. D was moving along at a good pace, 10 minutes a person, but by about 11:30 we had slowed down a fair bit. I was the last to go, I had to lock up the theatre on my way out. When I finally finished with him, we left the theatre at 1:45am. Almost four hours after the show ended.

By the time I left, my mood had dimmed. Not because of my review, in fact the review lifted my spirits, but because I ended up missing any post show celebration. People had left Fridays (where we were supposed to congregate) around 1am. I don't blame Dr. D, it was unavoidable, I just wish that I had been able to get out and celebrate.

But the fun didn't end there. Since then, I've enjoyed a minor taste of stardom. The next night at a normal show for the theatre I got a few compliments and pats on the back from people who saw the show. And then last night I went to the opening night for the new local show at Universal Studios, the Blue Man Group has opened a permanent venue down here. K had tickets to the show which had a reception/party afterwards and I got a huge boost to my ego because two people at the reception afterwards recognized me and told me how much they enjoyed my show. Wow. Talk about being blown away.

So the show went well. Life is good right now. Now to just keep on making the funny.

Yesterday I was hit with an intense but short lived blast of stage fright. Today I was hit by something I already knew. It was something that has flashed through my head dozens of times, but today it took center stage. The show on Monday is going to miss a very important person in the audience.

Mom.

Yes, I know she'll be there in spirit. But as good as that makes me feel, I still wish I could look into the audience, past the stage lights, and see her there grinning and waving to me. I wish it with all my heart, with all my being.

There was no greater joy than to be on the field playing Football in high school and to look up in the stands and see mom there waving at me. She and I talked about it during my freshman year and that I couldn't wave back to her, the coaches wanted our heads in the game, so I told her that I would grab my face mask and "adjust" it as my way to wave back to her.

And so every game I played, sometime during the first quarter I would look into the stands and find the parents, then mom would see me looking and wave eagerly, and I would grin up behind the face mask, gripping the plastic coated bars and shift them visibly. And there we would share a moment, a bond between us.

God I miss her. She would be so excited about Monday. I can imagine her telling her friends, she'd be eager and excited to see it, to see what I could do. That was her joy, seeing her children accomplish things. Man, this is rough.

The show will go well on Monday, I'll push these thoughts out and I'll perform like I would if she were there, but until that point I'm embracing my memories of her and working through the emotions that come with it.

Stage fright can be mortifying. Some freeze up while others respond by accelerating and trying to finish in as little time as possible. For me, it's exhilarating. It's bottled fear and it's something I chug. -- Wait. That sounds a lot more cocky than I meant for it too. Let me try again.

I face my fears. Whatever they may be. I face them and know I can survive just about anything. I still avoid horror flicks but that's a topic for another time. Fears come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and the one that I got hit with today was stage fright. But not the normal stage fright. Not the public speaking stage fright. It's the "I'm doing a show I've never done before" stage fright. Oh sure I've done it in my head, in front of the mirror or in the car, but that's a little different.

It's my grad show from SAK University and it'll be a theater filled with friends, family, and people who(m) I've never met. Up to today I've been totally fine with the idea, but while I was stocking concessions (about ten minutes ago) I was suddenly gripped by this urge to get up and run away as fast as possible and not perform in the show.

"I must be insane!"

"I'm crazy, this is crazy, I can't do it."

"What the @$!$*@& was I thinking?"

And about three minutes later, after slowing my heart beat and regulating my breathing I calmed down and began facing the fear. The truth is that stage fright is fear of several things.

It's fear of rejection - "What if I'm not funny?"

It's fear of what others will think - "What will they think of my performance?"

It's fear of messing up.

For public speaking I can overcome all three of these with preparation and a deeply embedded faith in my own ability as a public speaker. But for Improv, the preparation is a little different. We hear all the time "How can you practice improv?" It's a lot like practicing a sport, you work with others, hone your skills and find what messes you up. You're not preparing a scripted show, but you're building skills and honing your talents.

What I have to remember is that on stage, I'm free. First off I'm doing something very few of the people coming to the show do or would do. I've overcome the stage fright and I'm on the stage, so that's a win for me. The second part is that while I'm on stage, I can be anyone. On top of that, it isn't going to be just me on stage. There are thirteen other people in my class, three of which who will be on my team, and I can rely on them to help me if I get into trouble. So I have to remind myself that I'm not alone up there.

Trust, that's a big part of improv. I'm almost ashamed that I had to remind myself about it, but I did. The fact though is that I have the trust in my teammates.

I've prepared for this for years, dreamt of it even. I won't say I'm as ready as I possibly can be, because there is always something more to learn in Improv - but I feel pretty confidant that I can avoid being a horrible flop.

The butterflies are still there, but they're no longer scary, now they're exhilarating for me and they're a reminder that I'm only a few days away from taking a big step for myself. A Big step. BIG. But then, I'm a big guy, so I should be fine.