The Best Holiday Show!

Dear people of Chicago and people who will visit Chicago this holiday season,

Please do yourself a favor and go see It's A Wonderful Santa Land Miracle Nut-Cracking Christmas Story... Jews Welcome at Stage 773. It is the most fun you will have watching a holiday themed show!

I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more. I sang along, I ate fresh baked cookies, and drank cold eggnog. I might be biased because I am friends with two of the talented actors/performers in the show, but I think regardless of my bias it is a great show.

Let's start at the beginning. When was the last time you walked into a live theatre show and they handed you fresh baked christmas cookies covered in powdered sugar? If your answer isn't this weekend, then you are doing something wrong!

Making fresh cookies right on stage as you walk in! 

The whole show was full of singing, dancing, instruments, hula hoops, puppets, christmas lights, christmas trees, and an all around good time. 

 I can't even put into words how wonderful this show was. It really was a full experience from the moment you walk in to the moment you leave, brimming with holiday spirit, joy, and fun! 

If you don't go see this show then you will be missing out on the best holiday experience this season! Of course, that could just be my biased opinion. 

Thankful Thanksgiving

Phew! I don't know why the past week was so exhausting, but I feel like I can finally sit down and get some "fun" stuff done. I have been writing like crazy, unfortunately not for my blog,  and I feel like I have been running around Chicago with my head cut off. So I finally had a chance to sit down and read some blogs on the blogosphere and write.


Nancy from Sincerely and Sarcastically tagged me in her Thankful Thursday post and now that it is two days past Thanksgiving and not even a Thursday I think I will finally write on it. Plus, now I can tell you guys about my wonderful Thanksgiving.

PS This is the turkey that Travis made, isn't it beautiful!! 

1. My family- Of course!

2. Megan- I love her so much!

3. My friends- in all their crazy wonderfulness!

4. The Chicago Improv Community- so many opportunities and awesome people

5. My Job- It's the best day job for a burgeoning comedian!

6. That I don't have to pay for heat in my Chicago apartment- warm winter months ahead.

7. Left over Thanksgiving food in my fridge- so I don't have to buy groceries for a couple days,

8. The heat lamps on the train platforms- for heating only the top of my head.



My Thanksgiving Extravaganza!

This year, like last year, I was staying in Chicago for Thanksgiving and as such would have to make my own Thanksgiving fun. With my group of friends we continued out tradition of a big pot luck Friendsgiving on Friday night.
On  Thursday Megan, Courtney (her sister), and I went and saw Birdman (sidenote: it was pretty amazing!). After the movie we spent all day cleaning my apartment making it presentable for guests. We ended our night with a delicious Thanksgiving feast of Buffalo Wings and Mexican Train Dominos!

On Black Friday we got our shopping on but not in the way your thinking. We headed down to The Village Discount Thrift Store to find another table and some chairs for our Friendsgiving dinner. Everything at the store was 50% off so we bought a pretty nice outdoor patio table for $4 and a kitchen bench for $3, plus a Pictionary game for $1.50. 

After the thrift store we went to the dollar tree and got some decorations for the party. Some of them I already had from Target and CVS.

We spent the rest of the day cooking and prepping things and of course I forgot to take any pictures of all the delicious food that we made and that people brought. We had an overabundance of dessert, most of which was left at my house so I will be feasting on pie, cheesecake cupcakes, and chocolate peanut butter desserts. 

Anyway the whole event was a huge success and I got to spend this wonderful food centered holiday with some wonderful friends, new and old. 

The Peak of my Career

I will never be as funny in my life as I am to this child right now.

I have reached my comedy peak. Every single thing I say and every face I make sends this Drool Monster into adorable fits of infant giggles. No audience will ever smile with such genuine enthusiasm and deep appreciation for the subtle art of silly sounds. No audience will have to hold their side from the sheer comedic genius of a truly goofy face.

I don't think any comedian has ever been greeted with high-pitched laughter and shrieks of enthusiasm upon exiting the bathroom, quite like I have. Not to mention, the content of my jokes are completely irrelevant, its all in the delivery. How many comedians are lucky enough to not have to write a single joke? Not many I can tell you that.

Just for me every seat in the house is filled... A sold out audience every day, and thats the dream. With stuffed animals, little plastic people, a couple of fabric blocks, and of course my #1 fan, The Baby, waiting patiently for todays set, I knock 'me out of the park.

So write this down in the history books of my life as the day my comedy career reached an all time high!

Spinning Fiasco

These people have clearly not yet started the class.

3 years ago I went to a spin class for the first time and I vowed I would never go back. So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself  sitting on a tiny bicycle seat, unable to feel my legs, wishing for death to take me quickly. 

I don't know what sort of demon possessed me to make me enter that room yesterday but it left me alone and helpless about 10 minutes into a 60 minute class of sweaty, painful Hell. 

The instructor, Steve, started out nice enough. He welcomed me into the class. Helped me adjust my bike and told me that if I felt dizzy, or fatigued I could take a rest before rejoining them. But that nice, gentle Steve was replaced with boot camp, drill Sargent Steve. Every time he yelled "keep moving" or "all the way to the finish line" or "don't give up on me now" I imagined myself rebuffing his commands with a long series of hate filled expletives.

I especially loathed when he told us that in our next set our "rest" would be standing up on the bike (still pedaling, mind you). But really, is that even a rest? To me, a rest would be getting off your bike and taking a 5 minute nap on the floor. You might be thinking, gross, Emily you wouldn't want to take a nap on the floor of the spin room! But nay, I tell you, I would have. Right around minute 40 I would have gladly abandoned my bike for a nice sweaty, bacteria infested nap on the floor. 

By the time we got to minute 60 I was sure that when I dismounted my bike my legs would just cease to work completely. I imagined I would be like a baby deer just entering the world collapsing with every feeble, wobbly step.  I pictured Steve scraping my remains off the floor of the classroom and adding me to a pile of similar sad saps who didn't survive their first spin class. 

But, I mean, I'll probably go back next week. 

Sketchfest or Bust!

I am so excited to announce that On Hiatus will be performing in The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival in January!!

Check out a preview of our show from Midnight Melt

We are a pretty talented group of weirdos, or so we think. But I didn't know if the rest of the world would appreciate our finely crafted fart jokes and eccentric off the wall characters. Alas, they do! Thanks to our incredibly talented director Tiffani Swalley who has been able to gently tease some wonderful sketches out of our chaotic mass of ideas.

We are so thrilled to be taking this next step as a group of comedians and super excited to see what the final version of our show will look like for Sketchfest. We are hard at work writing and fine-tuning to optimize the laughs per minute!

Golly I am so thrilled I just can't stop smiling! If you're in Chicago, you should definitely come check us out!!

Terribly at Proofreading

It has recently came too my attenshin that I am really terribly at proofreading my posts. What a sham! I think of myself as well readed indiviual. I have written many many assays in collage and passed with flying collars! I even graduation with honors... how could someone so smart strudel with proofreading her own blog posts?

May be I get two egg cited about how smart I am too rereread carefully. May be  i get distributed by how funny I am. Maybe I know I brilliant and don't need two proffread. Cause righting isnt really that hoard, is it?

I am a artist. Why should I charge what I do, if its werking for me, I car less if its werking for you. Because why squelch the my creatively and alloy the systematic rules of languid to stop me from wrighting what I want. Storys and poetrys are a writhers bush and canvas... would you tell a pointer that her paintwork was grammaticaly incorrupt?

We can argue the merlots and demerits of proofreading all day lounge. Irregardless, when it cames down to it I guess it sorta maters if I spell things correctionally and if i us the corrective gamer.

I guess its oblivious now, that in really my streem of conscientiousness isn't so smart after all.

How I feel about proofreading!

PS While writing this I remembered the poetry done by Taylor Mali. I think all of his work is brilliant, but especially given my issues with proofreading here is one of my favorite poems by him.

Weekend Update

I had a wonderful action-packed but, thankfully, it was also relaxing weekend!

Megan and Courtney had a childhood friend, Rachel, in town visiting so we went out and did a lot of fun stuff! Friday night we went to the iO Theatre to see Improvised Shakespeare. I hadn't yet seen a show in the new iO building so it was really great to see the new space and laugh my butt off in a fabulous show!!

Before the show! 

Before the show we went The Burger Bar, which was a very cool little bar and restaurant with a huge delicious looking list of gourmet burgers. Unfortunately I had already eaten so I got a "boozy" vanilla malt milk shake with Bailey's in it.

And it was so delicious!

Saturday was a nice lazy morning and afternoon followed by a delicious home cooked meal by Rachel. And after that I got together with some of my friends from my class, we drank margaritas, played board games and ate left over halloween candy! I even won trivial pursuit... and I never win any games especially Trivial Pursuit!

Nick making margaritas!

Sunday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. I have been wanting to go since I moved here to Chicago and finally we went. I had so much fun and took so many pictures I can't post them all here. But here are some of my favorite parts!

The building is the last remaining building from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893

The Chick Hatchery... I got caught up here for a while watching these little buggers enter the world! 

The exhibit about the German U-Boats was pretty fantastic including an actual U-Boat! 

Megan enjoyed the Farming exhibit, as you can see! 

I think the best exhibit of all though was the one all about Walt Disney. It talked all bout Walt Disney and his rise as an animator in Hollywood, his animation process as well as his animation studio, the imagineering of Disneyland, and they even had an area where you could learn to draw the characters! 

The original book used for the beginning of Snow White!! 

Guys, I drew Mickey!! 

After the Museum, since we were on the south side and I have heard that all the good southern style comfort food is on the south side we headed over to Chicago's Home of Chicken and Waffles and ate ourselves sick with fried chicken, candied yams, collard greens, corn bread, etc... I wont have to eat for days after that meal. And unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures, but boy was it amazing!!

Last night we played Mexican Train before Rachel has to leave today to go back to California. And in true Emily fashion I lost gloriously by over 200 points, because when I lose; I lose with style!!

I finally got to do a bunch of things I have been wanting to do in Chicago this weekend and I got to do it with so many great people!

The Writing Process

What is my writing process? Well, that is a question that I am actually trying to figure out everyday. BeckyBoop tagged me in her Writing Process post and I thought I would answer those questions and see if we can all discover the hidden secrets to my writing process, together! 

What am I working on? 

You have probably  heard me talk about this all the time, I am working on two sketch shows currently. One is through the Second City Training Center and the Conservatory program. We will be putting our show up in February and March. In addition, My old improv group On Hiatus has transformed into a sketch group and we are hoping to get into sketchfest (We find out next week... keep your fingers crossed!) in January and then open a show this spring. So I am currently working really hard on sketch writing, song writing (yes, you read that correctly Mom, I am working on writing a song), and putting a whole show together. 

How does my work differ from other of its genre? 

In regards to my blog I am working on finding my unique voice and I want it to be comedic yet honest and true to who I am. I want it to be a lifestyle blog that shows who I am, what I am doing, and also a little bit of my sense of humor. 

In regards to my comedy and sketch writing, it is so hard to stand out in this city. There are so many incredibly talented writers, improvisers, and performers that are doing some incredible things! I just want to make a statement with all my work, challenge people's ideas of the world, break stereotypes, and maybe even make a little bit of a difference.... who knows! 

Why do I write? 

 I used to hate writing... This is a true fact. I started writing the blog so that I could keep track of my adventures in Chicago. I kept the blog because it became a good release and creative outlet. I now have aspirations to be a writer because I have realized that I really enjoy it and I have so much to say! 

How does my writing process work? 

Hahaha... This question assumes I actually have a process. 

I have started just opening up blogger on my phone or computer the second the thought "I should blog about that...." crosses my mind. I think I do my best writing when I recognize that I have had that thought and then immediately let my thoughts tumble out! 

For sketches if I think of an idea I like to jot it down in one of my 3-4 notebooks that I always carry around with me. And then go back and look at it and try to iron out the details. If I need inspiration coming with ideas for sketches I sit down and read Google news and click through looking for interesting headlines. 

Wow! That was a lot of information. To be honest I don't think my writing process can actually be written about in a manageable size blog. It seems that it is never the same process twice, because it is never the same inspiration twice. But I am constantly growing and learning to take advantage of inspiration as soon as it comes! 

I am tagging some bloggers that I really admire and would love to hear a little bit about their writing process! 

The Daily Tay

Mary-Keith

Sincerely and Sarcastically

The Importance of Bus Seats

Imagine this if you will... Every morning you get on the same bus, with the same people, and the same bus driver. And every morning you head for the same seat, the one right past the exit doors up a couple of steps with a good view if the street and the sign ticking off the stops. The seat that is right in front of the young mom who always looks super sharp on her way to work. Kitty-corner from the man who works in the walgreens pharmacy or clinic, but either way is always in his Walgreens blue scrubs with his Dunkin Donuts coffee and breakfast.

Yep, that's the one! The magic seat

Now imagine that on this day you are getting on the bus behind a woman about your age who you have never seen before. She is going to the same bus as you. At first you don't think anything of it, other people are allowed to ride the bus too. But then you start to realize she is walking right towards your seat. Beethoven's 5th symphony begins playing in your head as you watch her sit in your bus seat. Then you begin having flash backs of college classrooms in which you attended class every single day and you had found the perfect seat with a good view of all your classmates as well as an unobstructed view of the teacher and the board. Then comes the day of the final exam and some kid who hasn't been in class in weeks, and therefore has not witnessed the possessiveness with which you proudly claim your desk, is smugly sitting on your throne of learning. You stand there stunned momentarily paralyzed with the realization that for the most important day if class you will not get to sit in your highly coveted, optimal learning seat. 

Thats about right... maybe a couple seats back!

And so I stood there on the bus at precisely 7:26am momentarily stunned as my morning routine came crashing down around me. "You are sitting in my seat! Don't you know that seat is MINE?!?" After a couple of long panic filled seconds I begrudgingly sat across the aisle silently judging her for completely ruining my morning routine. 

October Wrap Up

Guys, I did it!! I actually wrote every single day of October!! Not only did I write a blog post every day, but I also wrote probably a dozen different scenes for my various sketch groups!! I didn't think it was possible but it was!!

I think my favorite blogtober post to write was A Letter to My Younger Self, I had a lot of fun time writing this. The whole blogtober experience was wonderful, I met a lot of bloggers in this big scary blogging world and it has made it a whole lot less scary!!! I learned new recipes and new apps for editing photos for instagram and blogger. It was particularly exciting to read what everyone else had to say about these topics, I learned so much! Plus I added a bunch of wonderful new recipes to my cook book!!

This weekend was loco crazy for me!! After working a 55 hour week, I rushed home to throw on my Rosie the Riveter costume to go out with some friends for Halloween!

On friday we went out to a couple bars and stopped at The Burrito House in between!

A lot of trench coats in this picture!!  

And they had this perfect yellow wall for Rosie the Riveter, so I just had to take a picture

Saturday I spent the morning running errands and the afternoon/evening cleaning my house and carving pumpkins for my Halloween party! 

Megan's Pumpkin!  

My sad drunk pumpkin! 

The party was a blast we had some friends over, we ate snacks, played some party games, drank, and had a merry old time!! 

Megan as Starchild from KISS and me as Rosie the Riveter

 A successful weekend full of friends, costumes, candy, and of course alcohol!! I couldn't has asked for a better weekend!