A. I have never been hit on or smiled at as much as I have the past couple days. It's like because I performed in front of them, people feel that they and I have this established intimacy. I'm not used to so much smiling, and I generally just assume I have mustard on my face. B. I dove during one of the longforms. It was a fantastic dive--really a large jump upward with a horizontal landing--and the whole audience went "ooooooh" when I crashed to the stage. It didn't hurt so much at the time, and it got a great laugh so it was worth it, but now I can't sleep on my right side. I generally can't fall asleep unless I'm lying on my right side. This contradiction amuses me greatly. C. Because I was done performing, I sat in the audience during the performance of one of the sketches I'd written. Actually, it was a sketch based upon this post. Anyway, it was a live piece with two doctors absurdly bouncing off one another, attempting to convince the worried, straight-man patient that he was the cause of prostate cancer. I chose my seat randomly in-between two girls in the second row. The girl to my right kept repeating, "Oh my god, that's so sad!" D. During the show, the fire alarm went off. Twice. The first time everyone watched us suspiciously, expecting that it was part of the show. Accordingly, I was so pissed off that I hadn't thought of integrating a fake fire alarm into the show. We evacuated the room, and stood out in the cold singing "Bohemian Rhapsody." The second time it went off, we didn't even evacuate the room. Instead, we turned on dance music through the house speakers, and transformed a loud safety warning into a dance party. We've been told that for our lack of responsibility, we're never allowed to use the room again. E. Five people now have accused me of scripting the improvs, which is the best compliment we could ever get. But it's not like we were that amazing, we made dozens of mistakes. But then again, maybe they were insulting our ability to script dialogue. Which is not the best compliment we could ever get.
Check out Brendan's review (3/25 post) for a completely unbiased look at our show. Completely.
3.14.2003 I ate the first half of dinner with a friend, and the second half of dinner by myself. As I left the dining hall, I looked up to an absolutely amazing, gorgeous sunset. I've never seen a more perfect sunset in New York. Because I'd been filiming all day, I had my video camera in my bag--so I took it out and began to shoot the horizon. I filmed for maybe a minute or so before the skin of my throat became too cold to warrant standing around. As I put the camera away, I turned to two girls who had stopped on the path and said, "Sometimes there's just so much beauty in the world that I can't take it." Neither of them recognized that I was quoting a popular movie, nor did they seem to know how to respond. We all stood awkwardly for a moment, exchanging cheap smiles before continuing in our separate directions.
3.10.2003 As you may have known, I've been keeping myself busy. For example, I started a prank war with Raizin. Or, rather, I think he started it. Well, either way, I'm winning. I'm not particularly sure how the war began, but the root of our feud is a simple disagreement: I think that "Ben rules!" while Raizin mistakenly argues that "Ben sucks." His argument is documented in a picture below.
A few days ago, I was doing something or other on my computer (I can't remember what exactly, so we'll just assume I was downloading hardcore pornography), when a bird struck my window. Except, upon closer examination, it turned out that the bird hadn't been a bird at all, but had rather been a rock, thrown by the aforementioned freshman. I opened my window to give him a chance to apologize, but much to my dismay he used the opportunity to shout loud, offensive statements. I will not tarnish the sanctity of the internet by repeating them.
So I changed his answering machine message. That way, when people called him, instead of getting his dull, ordinary message, they got a recording of me talking about what an asshole Raizin is. (If you would like to change his message, and I recommend you do, dial 845-752-4555, and wait for his message to play. When you hear his message, press the '#' symbol, then the '8' key, then listen for directions.)
So in retaliation he threw another rock, and had a horde of his dormmates call and tell me that I suck. I went to the bathroom, and returned with eight scathing messages.
So then I made a gigantic rope noose, attached a sign that read "YOU," and threw it off a railing on his roof in such a way that the entirety crashed against his window. That shut him up for a few days.
Today, in the newest installment of our war, and completely with provocation, Dave and I completely removed Raizin's bed from his room. Which, I might add, was no easy task considering he has a bunk bed. We moved the bed, mattress and all, to a landing on the staircase a floor above, and then went above moving other things out of his room and assembling them there.
Oddly enough, upon returning home, Raizin decided that he liked the change in scenery, and went about removing the rest of the furniture from his room--a dresser and drawers, clothing and an alarm clock--assembling an entire room for himself on the staircase.
