I feel a million miles away, I don't feel anything at all

the Nerd Parade begins ::

It is that time of year again - when suddenly the end of summer is in sight, everyone panics a little bit and runs outside to enjoy the last weeks of warm weather and the Renaissance Festival begins - meaning for the next 7 weeks I will be working during the days, performing several nights and then getting up astoundingly early to drag my nerdy ass out to Shakopee to act like a complete idiot until I almost die.

I am excited, as Festival is always one of the most fun times of the year - I love what I get to do in the streets as a clown and love even more the complete and total stupidity I get to be part of on stage twice a day. It's fun as hell and it is HARD. It is entertaining-as-grueling-endurance-challenge and that always makes for some really unexpected brilliant moments.

I know for a fact I have said this before but I love that place as a performer - and I fully admit that it's a nerdy thing to do and isn't exactly something that actors put on their resume but the audience at that place L-O-V-E-S that show like no other audience loves anything. They drive across states to come to it, they slog through mud and rain to come see it, they plan their weddings and the most important parts of their lives around it.

As a performer that gets to work face to face with the audience (and most of my work is one-on-one, which is insane to think about) that is something amazing to be able to do and I can't think of any other performing experience like it. That's the part that gets me excited about the approaching season, and I really cannot wait for it.

This year has been a strange one, stranger than most years past, since HUGE has kept me busy and out of pre-Fest conversations and preparations and anything that feels like the run-up to Festival, so this season I feel more unprepared than most. That's saying something since I can never even remember or describe what it is I do until I get the costume on and I'm standing behind the front gate listening to the audience get excited to come in - and then it just clicks.

Instead of feeling like I need to figure out what the hell I usually do, this year just feels like a blank slate - I've got the costume and the character and now I just go fucking nuts. And I plan to. See me in a couple weeks when my body is falling apart and I am a broken shell of a human being and I will laugh and say it was still a great idea.

But for now, I'm just looking forward to Saturday morning.
I will listen to "Swing Low", pretend that stretching out will do me any good and then hit that crowd like a bomb wearing clown makeup. Watch out.