Record high

Went to this birthday party last night: it was fun.  I left early-ish (after 10), but it took over an hour-and-a-half to get home, so I kinda' wish I'd stayed longer.  When I left people had started to either to do a trick, a roast of the birthday lady, or both, and it sounds like a lot more people finally got up.  Initially, people were holding back.  And it was cold waiting for the bus(es), it had been almost 70 degrees in the morning, but had gotten considerably windier and colder by 11 pm.  The first bus, I barely missed and ended up waiting 25 minutes for the next one, which was late and so I missed the second connection and had to wait another 30 minutes for that one.  Went into the all-night grocery store to see if they had coffee or something warm, had to settle for a deep-fried burrito sitting under a heat lamp, for $1, but it killed time.  It's an interesting scene, I haven't hung out in a grocery store late at night in a long time.  Years ago, I kept applying for Denny's waitressing jobs because I wanted to work the graveyard shifts there, because I was interested in the life that happens when everyone else is asleep.  Now, I like sleeping too much.

Anyway...the invitation had asked people to dress up in costume, and normally I have a really hard time with that (coming up with something.)  But I did come up with an idea, and when I thought about it, and also when I was putting it together at home, there was a definite personality to it: a way of speaking, moving, acting.  And while I didn't end up putting the whole thing on at the party, nor pulling off the personality, it did dawn on me how much those choices matter for character.  Also that part of my confusion with my clown is the clothes.  I need more inspiring clothes.  The ones I have don't do anything for me.  They inform nothing.  I just like them, but that's milquetoast.  This is why rehearsal clothes matter, and suddenly I understand that.

Also, someone I was dancing with mentioned that years ago when he had studied clown, they'd "ranked" them, and that had helped with figuring out personality as well.  We didn't do that.  And I tend to run at a lower energy level emotionally, but the character I found last night was probably a five or a six.  (Out of a scale 0-7.)

Enlightening.  Funny what triggers understanding.