Slogging Along

Yeah, it still sucks, but not as badly.

Tuning new material sucks when the audiences aren't expressive. That is a fact that won't change. Not all of the audiences are quiet and merely polite, but it'd help to be able to count on a small degree of consistency. It's hard to tell if it's you and the material or if it's the audience. I tend not to immediately blame things on the audience, but then I also wind up beating myself up because I'm not better and then because I'm not patient enough.

Then there's also some personal stuff that keeps popping its head up. That doesn't make focus any easier. I feel like Kelly spends a lot of time and energy being encouraging. That said, she's quite happy with the fact that I'm over here and that we're working together. She digs having conversations in the alley, seeing as how there's also the benefit of my being the sort of person who thinks a lot and tends to be wordy.

Working material is essential and unavoidable. The fact that it takes time is unavoidable. Audience and show conditions like these are pretty unique and definitely not optimal. What we risk is the boss and agent seeing the new material and gauging its merits based on audience response. I have to hope that they're more insightful than that, but we won't know until it happens. It'd be nice to know that there's support from the other performers and that they're patient for you if you're not. Over here, I've been getting a sense that we're something that's just tolerated. I haven't been anything other than diligent, pleasant and polite and apparently just because I'm me I'm a thorn in other people sides, passively worsening an already crap disposition by the virtue of my existence in their sphere.

Sometimes circus lifers can be a pain. Sure, they're living and working on a circus, but they can also be no different than people who hate working in a cube farm.

There are great moments that happen. Seeing a row of older women giggling their brains out, hearing an uncontrolled laugh after other noise has died down – these are little things that rock hard.