Regardless of whether I close my eyes, the world continues spinning. As much as some technological things are such that I have almost no desire at all to join, if people continue using a service it might be time to at least consider it.  If people are still hooked in despite all of the controversy in the past year, there must be some reason as to why people keep coming back.

Oh, Facebook.

Over the years I put up a strong fight.  Thing is, in doing so I’m now starting to feel like I’ve been left behind.  It’s not so much that it’s the it thing that everyone needs to have.  It’s more that there’s a lot going on within this realm such that it becomes easy to fall behind on news on other people.  So, today, I have caved.  I’m not treating this as a failure, but more of a necessary evil.  I have yet to see whether this will have a positive or negative impact on me, but I’m determined not to end up as one of those case studies on doing it wrong.

So, this morning’s run was our second and final time covering 32K. I ran with someone who tends to run more my speed. She’s training for a different than I am, but she insisted that she run with me because I have a tendency to keep a very steady pace. The whole run went well; we were in good spirits the whole way. The weather was totally cooperating; it was overcast, cool, and breezy. I wasn’t sweating buckets. Past the 21K mark, I started paying more attention to any aches and pains I had. In the past I started feeling killer fatigue at specific distances, and I wanted to see if I could push through. Well, the distances came and went and I was still feeling fine. Sure, my muscles were tired and why wouldn’t they be? However, it was the kind of fatigue that could be worked through. There was still enough in the tank to keep going. Even in the last kilometre, I suggested that we dial up the speed a little bit. We dropped our pace by a minute per kilometres and pushed our way to the end. Imagine: even after 32K we still had enough energy to sprint. Crazy! We both realized that if we felt that good, 42 certainly isn’t that scary a distance anymore. I needed that confidence boost and I got it. I’m ready! Conditions on race day might not be as great, but just the idea that things are in the realm of possibility brings me comfort.

This is all leading me to reflect on what I bring to the table and whether or not that’s worked for me so far. From my point of view, I believe that I am capable of bringing a high level of energy into a scene. I enjoy dipping into that hidden personal reservoir of vigour and just letting it all out. If the scene calls for it, I will be the loudest person on the stage. I will be the noisemaker and can shamelessly make guttural noises for everyone’s consumption. I have trouble controlling it, but my face is very expressive. I’m very capable of sending strong messages and offers with just my eyes. When someone starts a scene and makes an initial offer, I’m good at responding and adding necessary detail.

Overall, it would seem like these traits and skills are entirely useful, but that’s not always the case. If the people I’m in a scene with are easily intimidated, they tend to back down far too easily. If the the people that start a scene aren’t making offers that can help push the things forward, instead of making a suggestion myself I often end up waiting on them to do something. That can lead to paralysis all around. If I choose to play the loud person, sometimes I might end up yelling over someone and running over their suggestions.

All in all, I do my best to adapt to whatever group I’m with. Some nights things just don’t click. When everything works though, the results are magical. This past Thursday I was invited to take part in a classmate’s show which was taking place in a bar downtown. Small venue, but it was a perfect chance to work on my skills further. I’ve seen the show before, so I had some idea of how everyone played. Still, I felt hesitant because I didn’t just want to trample all over everyone. By the time the second half of the show rolled around and we were warmed up, everything just worked. There was no ego. Instead of just trying to advance scenes for personal profit, we were all working on finding what would make the scene work, which makes everyone look great. Usually I feel a sense of regret after shows just because I tend to look back wishing that I had done X or Y instead of Z. After this show though, yes, there were some things that fell flat, but I didn’t over-analyze myself. How rare! In this case, if I had given myself a report card I would have written “plays well with others.” Things won’t always be this way, but the fact that having a good show like this is even a possibility makes me feel like I’m on the right track, and that makes me happy.

It’s late!  I’m tired!  I’m bruised!

Tonight I played in a friend’s improv show, and it went better than I ever imagined it would.  All the same, I’m tired and hurting so I’ll have to save the tale spinning for another time.  Side effect though: there’s a small small small possibility that I might end up in the weekend edition of the Globe and Mail.  We’ll have to see.

Whaaaaa?

I’ve seen this talk given before by a few people.  It’s a fairly straightforward topic.  There are a lot of basic ideas to convey.  For my speech, since I was somewhat comfortable talking about my journey, I decided to talk about goal setting as seen through my experiences.  I brought in a few of my medals to help carry the ideas along.  I actually spent some time jotting down points that I should cover.  Each talking point had a story attached.  In my head, the talk was going to go over wonderfully.  Truthfully, I should have practiced, but there was just no time.  I figured that if I talked from the heart that I’d be able to wing it.

Well…

I’m sure if I asked people that I knew that saw the speech, they’d probably tell me that it was just fine.  I got that much from one of the staff that knows me.  Personally, I kind of feel like I was rambling and scatter-brained.  I’m not sure anyone came out with a better idea of how to set goals.  Perhaps I’m being far too hard on myself (as usual).  I’m sure there have been worse speakers out there.  I’m sure there have been better ones.  I wonder how many of the better ones are actual speakers though.

I think this is just another example of just how I need to lighten up and not apply so much pressure to myself to perform perfectly every single time.  I didn’t kill anyone, and I didn’t make a horrible fool of myself.  I did what I could do.  Time to move on.

As it is, I’m currently being a little hard on myself.  Maybe I could have been stronger in X or in Y.  Maybe I jumped in too much.  Maybe my characters lacked variety.  I don’t know.  There was one game in particular that I was a part of that was pretty much a train wreck, but we committed to the game and played through to the end.  That’s probably the only thing that saved that game.  In the end, I can’t let that shadow the fact that I played hard tonight and left nothing in the tank.  I was exhausted by the end, sweating like a mad man.  The audience should be able to at least appreciate that much.

For snacks prior to dinner, I set out three things.  The first was just chips and salsa.  I put out two types of chips with salsa to give a bit of interest.  I liked the square angle dishes I used for it with the contrasting colours.  The second was toasted pita chip triangles with hummus.  I toasted them myself with olive oil and salt and pepper.  To be honest, I don’t think this one was all that great.  The pitas I used were sort of thick and didn’t lend themselves well to this application.  I was hoping to serve this one freshly toasted, but I prepared it a bit too early.  I ended up putting it in the warming drawer while waiting.  I think that made them a bit tougher instead of crispy.  Next time I can improve that one for sure.  The third thing is the fruit platter.  I figured that I needed something fresher to go with the starchy things.

In terms of main courses, there were two items.  The first was a vegetable lasagna.  I don’t think it was that bad, but it could have been a lot greater if I timed it better such that it came out of the oven closer to meal time.  Plus, I think I could have put more cheese on top.  The second item was prime rib pot roast.  Now, this turned out better than I thought.  I braised the meat in broth, onion soup mix, red wine, and some frozen Mediterranean veggie mix.  I let it stew for about 3 hours.  The resulting roast was really soft.  I was totally pleased with the result.  I really need to do this again on Saturday.  It’s too bad that the only picture I got of it was blurry.

For dessert, I used a caramel crème brûlée recipe.  Really, this is the type of thing that should be prepared the night before.  Unfortunately, I only got it started at noon.  It didn’t provide enough time for the custard to really cool down significantly.  Also, without a blowtorch I had to use my oven’s broiler to get the caramelized top.  That probably contributed to the custard being warmer than I wanted.  Next time, I need to get this dessert started early, and I need to acquire a torch.  In terms of taste, I thought it was great.  Just needs some tweaks to kick this thing up to the next level.

All in all, I did a passable job.  Combining all of this with salad, garlic bread, cookies, and 1.5 bottles of red wine (for me) and I ended up really stuffed.  And that’s why I didn’t run this morning.  Yes, I’m comfortable with that decision.  Anyway, next time I’ll work even harder.  Got to hone the skills!