A frquent reader of this blog, who shall go unnamed, said that lately it’s been all geekery and teeth. This is still about teeth. Sorta.
I wrote a story about it and performed it last night at Uncommon Ground. The stars all aligned for this. There was no Titanic show last night, so I was free to go. I got there and found a close spot. Although as I got out, I noticed that my tire was half on the sidewalk. So I got in to reposition and this suburban thought I was coming out. Had to wave it on and then wiggle my car a bit to make it fit.
As I walked to Uncommon Ground, the suburban was parked even closer. I recognized the ladies in the car as two frequenters of storytelling night, Susan O’Halloran and Beth Horner. They remembered me from my betrothal story. I helped Beth bring in some stuff as she was the featured teller. Then we went on in.
I signed up as #6 on the open mic list. This was pretty iffy. Each person gets 8 minutes and there’s about an hour of open mic time but with all the in between stuff and the starter story by the featured teller, I didn’t think I was going to get to go, which meant I would have to wait who knows how long (since the Titanic Tuesday show would keep me away for a bit). But the first stories were quick. I squeaked in under the wire.
I told the story, which I’d written the day before, which is funny because the story is about how I had naturally good teeth and my lack of braces caused me to be pretty lazy in school. People liked it. They all said the same thing to me about having the story wrap where it started, but for some reason I don’t like that ending (I’d thought about it). In the story, I get my comeuppance, but really, the congrats I got were just fueling another ego drive - “I can tell stories naturally well!”
If I keep this up, maybe they’ll send me to the storytelling festival this summer.
The only thing was, I wanted to talk to Syd Lieberman afterwards. This guy is a famous storyteller who has books, appearances, etc. I was excited to tell in front of him. But he was nowhere to be found after the show. Sigh.
Beth’s program was really fun. She sang a lot more than other featured tellers. She accompained herself on an autoharp, which is strummed with these metal fingertips she had on her right hand. I kept getting distracted with mental images of her fighting thugs with them on, like Wolverine.
Then I ran back up to Evanston for a Spring Break planning meeting where I got a lot more comfortable with the whole idea of going and then got tipsy and played TS2 with Rick. See, it’s not really about teeth at all.