Class number five…shit, we’re halfway done!    And I’m still having a blast.  It’s nice to be looking forward to hump day for reasons BESIDES new comic books, ya know?

So I hauled my sore bones out to the OSSD, schmoozed a bit with Boss Karp about the HAMLET (solo) show we both saw last week (so very awesome), then shuffled in to the room.  We were back where we started this week in the Nathalie Stern studio, which is fine enough…a room’s a room, no?   A couple of the lads were still missing this week, here’s hoping all is well.   We did the usual warm-ups, then dug right in with a little mirror-gaming.  I paired up with Erik for that one, and it was fairly neat.  I noticed after a little while aping each other I couldn’t tell at times which of us was ‘leading’…it just felt like we were getting it a little.  Also, whatEVER we were doing, the girls couldn’t stop laughing at us.  And I, of course, live to entertain.

Did a quick bit where we had to try and ‘feel’ a sudden change in temperature…I kept closing my eyes, which was a no-no, but I think I at least got what he was saying.  I’ll just have to practice, like, LOTS to make it work.  Then we had a very fun bit trying to have a conversation with someone, each only using the same single word. We started of with ‘yes’, then switched to different ones as Barry commanded.  Me and Catherine (hiya Annie!) had a very pleasant conversation, I’m happy to say.

After a brief, often hilariously inept attempt to join together and create creatures with x number of feet and hands in rapid succession, we broke for some storytime.  Barry told us an ancient native tale using a cool homemade storybox, then sat us around in a tight little circle to share nursery rhymes.  The gimmick being, we had to first tell one person, then keep on repeating the story for a larger and larger audience.  I quite enjoyed my turn with ‘Jack and Jill’, and honestly have no idea when I ever got comfortable with the idea of talking in front of people.  It’s a little weird.  But I had a lotta fun.

We ended up with some smaller groups, first telling one another a story from our family’s past…I rambled off a half-imagined story about my Grampa working lumber back in the 30’s…then inventing a story as a group, one person to the next.  I started our group off with robots landing on the moon ten thousand years ago, and think we went quite admirably from there.

That was it for class, and the first half of this course, even. Left in my usual high, and Catherine gave me a lift to the Carleton for my journalizing and quarts of 50.  A good day, a good class…here’s to the second half!  Peace and soul,

The Visitor (and Winston)