10/17/2001:

I ask many people for advice. Actually, if you're a friend of mine IRL who's reading this, I've probably asked you for advice. I ask everyone for advice. Strangers. Pets. Stuffed mooses. (meese?)

It's not that I want people to blame when problems occur. It's just that I find when I listen to other people's problems, it's easier to see a clear course of action than when I attempt to detangle my own life.

This strip comes along at an interesting time of the year: auditions. The improv group just filled its cast list for the upcoming season. Once again, it was nice to be on the director's side of the table. But it was hard, oh so very hard this year. We piggybacked our audtions with the other improv group's set, so we got to see twice as many people as last year. Making decisions exponentially more challenging.

At the end of the weekend, we had our crew. They're amazingly talented. I feel honored to be the one who's going to coach them and make them into a cohesive team <fingers crossed>. But I still have lingering doubts if we (the other directors and I) made all the right decisions. This group changed my college experience and by extension changed my life. I got into it because I didn't get into the other group my freshman year. Competition was too heavy. If it hadn't existed, I would have just been a boring engineer. As it is, I'm an engineer who thinks he's funny from time to time. Anyway, performing let me know how to show emotions onstage and off more clearly. It showed me better ways to communicate. And I feel terribly for the people I saw this year who are at the same point I was at when I was a freshman... who we didn't take, because we didn't have room. I want everyone to have a chance at improv and it kills me that I wasn't able to offer it to everyone who wanted to be a part of the team. If I could clone myself... we'd have another group. Then my clone and I'd fight as to the best division between them and who got to coach which. Heh. Clones.

So tucked into the madcap weekend of auditions was a trip home for my brother in law's birthday luncheon. I finished the second night of auditions on Sat night around 10. Then I drove home in 1.5 hour staring session. Did laundry. Slept. Woke up, had the lunch, then drove back for audition callbacks. Wow. I felt like such a commuter.

BTW, the art for this strip was graciously provided by Arathagorn as a series of sprites for my editing and composite pleasure. You can check out his site for his comic or email him. Sprites rule. I feel like we're in Bob and George. Working with the sprites reminded me of using MacDraw on my Dad's Macintosh SE as a kid. I loved the FatBits tool. I think really anal people like the FatBits tool. I was an anal kid.

BTBTW, I finally watched Scrubs. It was much better than it had any right to be.

-kip