Tonight is my encore comedy performance, which I have titled Oops…I’m Doing It Again. When I did my first stand-up show in December, it was the culmination of a 10-week class, and I said I was good on stand-up and had no plans to do another show. I had only taken the class because I am a huge nerd. A friend of a friend took the class and her class showcase was so funny. Everyone was funny. Everyone. And I had just come off a disastrous visit to The Comedy Store where maybe three people were funny, so I was duly impressed.

(The Comedy Store show was SO BAD. It didn’t help that it was full of a bunch of white male comics who felt entitled to laughter. One of them even said to the crowd he was bombing to “Fuck you, I’m funny.” No, sir, you are not because if you were, we would be laughing. Anyway.)

Right, so, everyone was funny, which told me there had to be a formula to it. And since I’m a big nerd, I wanted to know what the formula is. Then, when I was looking for creative outlets after I tweaked my knee, I figured it was the perfect time to take the class.

The thing about the class is that it was fun, but it was a LOT of work. We met for three hours on Monday, then had to do one-hour study groups throughout the week. We were also encouraged to watch stand-up performances. Then, when it got closer to the showcase, we had to attend 2-3 open mics a week to practice.

Oh, and of course the showcase was the last day of finals. Granted, that’s kind of on me because I didn’t want to take the class while I was on vacation because I didn’t want to be beholden to a class during my break, but still.

The people in the class were very nice, and I had a blast performing, but never again, I vowed!

Except.

Several people who missed the first show asked me to tell them about my next show. And I stuck to saying, no, no I have no plans to do it again. But then I got invited to participate in a show, so I thought, okay, I’ll do this one so the people who missed it can see me.

Then my dad died and my biological father popped out of nowhere, and I said, “You know what? I have plenty for new material. Maybe I should keep doing it.”

But then I was like, “Nah. I can just blog about it, but the absurdity of life is worth laughing about so maybe I’ll try to write some jokes.”

Then, my friends and I decided to do a staycation in LA for our annual trip this year because we want to do a big cruise next year. They were sad they missed my stand-up performance being on the East Coast and all, so I told them we could do an open mic when they get here in Sept./Oct. so they can see me in person.

Then, a few other friends who missed the last one said they can’t make this one and please tell them about my next show.

But, y’all. Stand-up is a LOT of work. A LOT. You have to write jokes. You have to workshop them. Then, you have to test them at open mics.

Slice of Life is a writing challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers.

And my one friend said, “Yeah, but the work and the joy overlap. And you looked joyful on that stage.”

Which is true. I had a blast! But that performance was like doing a recital, the culmination of all the hard work for the season.

Anyway, I wrote all of that before I went to work and now it’s 11:12 p.m., and I just got home and settled after doing my show tonight. Again, it was a lot of fun, and I met some really nice people and had a good time. The promoter’s friend (? assistant? co-promoter? I don’t know, but he was in charge tonight and MC-ed the event, and the promoter wasn’t there. Anyway.) found me after to tell me I did a good job and when I went to thank him for all his hard work for the night*, he said that the promoter would probably invite me to do my set at a different venue. Obviously, that made me feel good, and it’s a huge ego boost. So. We’ll see.

*Oh my gosh, there was one hiccup after another at the venue. First of all, the show was originally scheduled for Tuesday but got changed at almost the last minute. One of the women performing was upset by that because it was also her second show, and she said a bunch of her friends who planned to go on Tuesday couldn’t come tonight. Then, because it wasn’t the regular night, neither the light guy nor sound guy was there, so there was NO sound and NO lights. But the show must go on, so they tried to fix it but also told us we might have to do it a capella. Oh, and last time that happened, they went into the bar to do the show except we couldn’t do that this time because the regular bartender wasn’t on duty, and the guy filling in for him didn’t know how to do the bar setup. Thankfully, everything got fixed, but the show was delayed by a half hour, so, yeah, I would have thanked the MC anyway, but I definitely had to make sure I thanked him after all of that.