This episode of Your Daily Lex is brought to you by my crippling need to be loved for my witticisms, insights, and voice.

And also Squarespace.

Theme song.

That’s how I used to do it every time.

Some dumb intro and then also Squarespace.

Remember Squarespace when they were big podcasts?

Where are they now?

I mean, they still exist, but now they focus on the Super Bowl and not podcasts.

But this is the Super Bowl of podcasts.

I’m being told that, in fact, this is not the Super Bowl of podcasts.

I regret the error.

Yesterday, the Elf rehearsal was choreography.

And I knew that intellectually, but I hadn’t really put into my head that it was choreography.

And we did.

It was fun because when we started, the very first song we were doing was a song in which I am prominently featured.

And as soon as we were about to start choreographing it, which is, of course, stressful for me as a person who has no control over his body, they were like, Lex, you need to go see the costumer now.

So I had to leave while they were choreographing it.

And because I had a couple different costumes to try on and things to recognize weren’t fitting whatever, that took about a half an hour.

And so then when I go back, they’re like, okay, we’ve now all learned it and we’re going to plug Lex in.

And I’m like, oh my God.

Now, fortunately, much of my choreography in that particular song is following other people around.

And if those people ever miss rehearsal, I’ll have no idea what to do because I have to follow them around.

And then a couple of times, I am the leader.

And for my part, it’s just walking.

People behind me are really dancing.

But in that song, it happens that I’m huffing around the place as the grumpy boss.

But yeah, so I mostly learned it.

But you’re trying to scribble down notes really quickly in your script, and then now you’re doing the song and trying to do the things that you just wrote down, but you can’t read the stuff you wrote that quickly because you’re in the middle of the song and you’re also looking around and not crashing into people.

So I would give myself a B minus on my performance of that dance yesterday, having just learned it while everybody else had already learned it and I missed it.

Fine.

Tolerable.

Not great, but tolerable.

Then we got to the finale where, you know, as a principal person in the cast, I’m in the front row of the finale where we’ve got the whole cast on stage and there I am dancing my heart out, except I’m not dancing my heart out.

I’m dancing my legs out or all of my internal organs out because I’m not dancing.

I’m flailing.

Like, I cannot…

Again, the dance core of the show already learned the dance, so now they were teaching the principals, hey, they all know the dance, so now you guys are going to be doing the dance in the front row and now we’ll teach you.

I understand why they did it that way, but it meant that you feel immediately behind because you are.

So then they’re showing us the dance, but they already know the dance, so they’re doing the dance really smoothly and efficiently, and I had a problem with a perception class in college where you had to…

One of the things we would have to do on an exam is draw this 3D picture that would show a certain perceptual flaw of human sight, I guess, and I knew the drawing, I knew the topic, I knew the concept, but I didn’t know how to make the drawing, and luckily Lauren had already taken the same class and she taught me how to make the drawing, which was very kind and helped me pass the class, but I had to learn how to draw that thing because I could not just do it.

She had to break it down into its component parts.

First, you’re going to do this straight line, then this one, then you’ll do these curves here, whatever.

Yeah, it was helpful.

I can’t even understand the component parts of some of these dance moves.

Now, I don’t want anybody to worry.

If you’re going to go see Elf or if you’re not, I’m going to learn the dance.

It’s going to take so much time.

It’s going to take more time than I maybe was anticipating.

I was going to say behind the scenes.

I just stuttered.

Behind the scenes time, not meaning behind the scenes at the theater, but I’m going to have to do homework of really learning that dance, and it’s got some really complicated steps that I cannot figure out on my own, and I’m going to have to go meet with a choreographer especially and be like, hey, can you show me how this works because I do not understand what is happening to make your bodies look like that.

Listen, the ball changes I can kind of handle.

That’s a dance move.

Get your minds out of the gutter, but there are some moves that, man oh man, oh my goodness.

They’re like, oh, and in this part, you just do a Charleston, and I’m like, literally, am I being punked, or is that actually supposed to mean something to me because I do not know what it means that I’m going to be doing the Charleston, and man oh man.

And then remembering what foot you’re going to start things on, I can handle, but having the weight of my body distributed properly so that I can start on that foot, much more challenging.

So anyway, that was rehearsal.

High stress for me.

Then, of course, my rehearsal ended, but Lauren’s did not.

She had to learn two more dances that I’m not in, which is wonderful for me, except for the part where I just had to sit around for a while.

It’s okay.

I have a phone.

It’s fine.

It’s connected to all the world’s information.

I watch Yellow Jackets on my phone, but today, a friend who is not affiliated with that show, but who is a great music teacher and musical director I’ve worked with on other projects, she’s coming by the house to give me a voice lesson, particularly in yelling, because my character does have to yell quite a bit, and I want to not blow out my voice while I do it.

So that’ll be fun.

And then hopefully, if Ciara gets home from an appointment soon enough, Ciara can have a regular voice lesson.

I don’t need a voice lesson because my singing is already perfect, which you’ll hear right now.