As you know, I’m in a production of Elf right now.

We’re deep in rehearsals.

The show is actually pretty soon, just maybe three weeks away, and we’ve got a little break for Thanksgiving.

So we have an epically long rehearsal coming up, not this Sunday, but next, like all day, 10 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

or something like that.

But despite being a show right now, I also auditioned for a show yesterday.

I auditioned for a play of Misery in that James Conn roll, and I had to keep going back and forth between rehearsal and the callbacks for this audition.

And it was pretty funny to go from like dancing with a candy cane, and then, that is, dancing while holding a candy cane.

There wasn’t a candy cane who was my dance partner.

But dancing with a candy cane and then going back and having my feet cut off, spoiler alert for Misery.

So that was quite a head trip.

I don’t think I’m going to get Misery.

I think I’m just too big, because in theory, Annie Wilkes has to have been able to carry and drag Paul Sheldon around back to her home.

And I might just be a little bit too large for that to really pay off, but we’ll see.

Anyway, theme song.

Your Daily Lex.

Obviously I enjoy doing theater stuff.

That’s why I do it.

And people who like doing theater, it’s like, why do they like it?

And some of it is, you know, just the joy of performing and the fun of doing that kind of thing.

And then there’s also just the whole aspect of, you get to have that applause and have that interaction with an audience.

For me, I also like the friendship with the cast members, because they can become good friends and all that.

So that’s fun too.

But there’s also all the parts of it that are stressful, right?

Like right now, Elf is very much in that stressful place where I’ve got a couple of dances that I have to learn, one of which I feel good at, and one of which I am not anywhere close to capable of.

There’s really three dances.

The third one is somewhere in between.

I’m capable of it, but I can’t do it yet.

This one dance, it’s going to be a disaster.

I got to learn.

I have not learned, and I must learn.

But there’s that stress.

And then there’s the other real stress of learning lines, man oh man, memorizing lines.

I feel like that was easier when I was younger, I guess when my brain was more plastic.

Or let’s say when my brain had fewer things to remember, right?

Now I have so much stuff to remember.

I’ve spent so much time learning things, and now learning lines is like, oh yeah, yeah.

I can always do it, but there’s nothing like learning lines to make me remember why I like improv so much.

I don’t have to learn any lines, as I’ve talked about.

You go on stage to an improv show, you have no idea what’s going to happen, because you can’t.

You go on stage to do a musical or a play, you should know what’s going to happen, because it is scripted.

But man, learning lines, and then you’re counting on everybody to have their lines memorized and it’s the whole thing.

It’s a lot.

It’s intense.

So I’ve got that happening.

I’ve been memorizing lines both with recordings I made of myself where I’ll do my cue line in this really quiet voice, and then I’ll do my line in a bigger, sterner voice, and then I do another cue line.

And then I also am whispering my stage directions to myself.

So anyway, I’ve been listening to those, like, now I cross right, I enter really angrily, whatever.

And it’s just kind of funny to me that I have these recordings to listen to that are insane.

And then sometimes it’s also just good to look at the script so you can have that visual thing too.

Some people say they’re audio learners, some people say they’re visual learners.

I’m an audio-visual learner.

I like both things.

So I go back and forth, but I’m getting there.

I would say that I am, let’s say, 52% off book, slightly more than half off book, which is good because Monday, we’re running Act 1 off book, and Tuesday, we’re running Act 2 off book.

So it’s just about that time.

Monday is quite soon, as I record these words.

On Sunday, we have a longer stumble-through rehearsal.

That’s where we’re going to go through, but we know it’s going to go really poorly, and we’re going to stop over and over again.

So boy, oh boy, it is the intense time for Elf, I got to tell you, because like I said, it’s soon.

It’s soon especially when they’re giving you several days off for the Thanksgiving holiday.

My biggest concern with Elf right now is that everybody’s going to go celebrate Thanksgiving with their families and then come back and bring COVID to the cast, and then the whole cast will be decimated for the show.

So that’ll be fun.

Maybe that won’t happen.

I did hear a rumor about a company I know where they had an off-site, and 75 employees ended up with COVID.

That’s not good.

So stay healthy out there this Thanksgiving, and if I haven’t mentioned yet, my birthday happens to be on Giving Tuesday this year, Giving Tuesday the day after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, specifically the day after Cyber Monday.

That’s how calendars work.

And they’re like, now that you’ve given all your money to businesses, now give your money to nonprofits.

Or in this case, since it’s my birthday, just give your money to me.

That’s my advice.

You don’t have to do that.

Only other note I have to share today is I was called for two different kinds of jury duty on the same day.

I received both notices in the mail the same day, one for federal and one for state.

Federal let me out because I run my own single-person LLC, and state was like, nope, it’s not enough of a financial hardship for you, so you still have to do jury duty.

So that’ll be fun.

Can’t work.

The company shuts down on jury duty days.

Oh well.

Anyway, happy Friday, and have a wonderful weekend.