I’m getting more comfortable on stage; I still feel nervous as hell before I go on but now when I’m out there I don’t even think about it. I think the routine and the material this week were a lot closer to what typical stand-up is, because I covered a lot of different stuff, and I was pretty pleased with my transitions from one thing to the next. I think the biggest thing is that I knew my material better this week than I had before, which doesn’t make sense since I just wrote it all this week like I had the rest of the weeks, but whatever, I’m not knocking it. Also, the past few weeks I’d had what I was going to do printed out and I’d taken that on stage and when I felt stuck I tried to look at all that and find my way back. This week, I still had the whole thing printed out, to help my preparation before I was on stage, but I also had an outline with highlights to remind myself of the jokes and I looked at that when I got lost and it worked a million times better.

So, being comfortable and knowing the material went a long way to doing better, and I was rewarded at the end of the night by being named the crowd favorite. Of course, a huge portion of the crowd was made up of folks who were there because of me, but whatever, I was still funny. So I have to thank my folks who came out, Elizabeth, DeWayne, Kristina, B-Done, Michael, Katya, and, of course, the best bartender ever, Stephanie. She had a Diet Coke waiting for me when I got off stage!

Like I’ve said, I don’t know how long I’ll do the stand-up thing, but it’s nice to feel like I’m getting better at it, and like I’m understanding better what works and what doesn’t.