Comic-in-Residence: Days one, two and three

Day one, Friday, January 2:
Upon my taking the stage, a lady heckled me with a shouted, "Easthampton!" as I was greeting the audience.

I replied, "Do we know each other?"

She said, "I saw you in Easthampton!"

My material went over great. I got lots of laughs and left feeling basically like a king.

Day two, Saturday, January 3:
This was the day of the funeral and I was feeling pretty glum. I tried my Grandpa No-legs jokes and included that he had just died and that I had given the eulogy for him that morning. I built up the tension so much that the room was totally quiet. When I gave the punchline, the crowd went completely bonkers. Even so, in the middle, I thought I might cry a little bit. It took all my power not to cry. The rest of my set went really well.

After the show, I was surrounded by people who wanted to talk to me. I was surrounded by one group who wanted their photo with me, and I was game. I posed with my posing smile face (you know the one). They went on and on about how great I am and how funny they thought I was, and right in the middle of it, one of the young men took my hand and said, "I'm so sorry about your grandfather." And I nearly lost it.

Another couple wanted to talk to me. They waited for the larger group to be done. When they came up to tell me how funny I am, the man in the couple said, "My father is a comedian and I see a lot of comedians and I don't usually think that women are funny, but I think you're hilarious!" What a weird compliment. I said thank you, of course, but I didn't even know what to make of it.

Even so, I left feeling like HBO should reserve a spot for my special.

Day three, Sunday, January 4:
We took a wrong exit and ended up driving around in circles for more than an hour, so by the time we got to the Studio, I was ready for bed. Scott and I bickered in the car needlessly due to us both being totally frazzled from being lost. We were at one intersection where I said, "Which way am I supposed to turn." He replied, "East. Go east!" But I didn't know where we were and there were no signs indicating direction, so I replied, "I am trying to drive a car!" That might not sound that bad, but if you had been in the car and heard the tension, you might just open the door and roll out into traffic to get away from it.

I tried a bunch of new material and I apparently wasn't doing it with confidence because the audience totally didn't come with me. After, Rick Jenkins told me that I have to fake confidence when I don't have it and I can't rely on such crutches as, "Well, this isn't going over." to make the audience laugh and try to win them back over. And he's right. But I left feeling pretty crappy about everything and ready to fall instantly asleep. Unfortunatly, I can't really fall asleep in cars, so I didn't get to sleep until we were back home.

Here's to this week. When I get my DVD from last week's show, I'll try to post Friday and Saturday's sets for your perusal if I can figure out the YouTube.