Day 431: Questionable Teeth (from Friday)

I'm going to play tonight at the Montreal Improv group. I'm a little bit nervous, partly because I haven't played in a while and partly because it's a bunch of new people. Realistically, though, it's not the new ones that scare me, it's the ones I know already.

Not scare me as in 'don't hit me!' scared - Marc and Brent are lovely, playful, fabulous people. It's that I know them and for that, I impose on myself an expectation of being 'good'. Also, I'll be teaching a mask workshop under their auspices in May... I feel the need to prove myself and to somehow be 'good enough'. There's no such thing. Good is subjective. Enough is immeasurable. Perhaps if I gave myself a task of getting it as wrong as possible, that might help. Immediately, I think 'I can do that' and I relax. 

I remember deciding not to work with Keith Johnstone two years ago. It's pointless, I thought. I know myself. All that will happen is that I'll get my unworthy impostor head on and I'll freeze up in front of him all the time (in front if Keith Johnstone, of all people, whose life's work focuses on creating the opposite of this for everyone he meets). Why pay £400 to get a fright on? And then Will Reay emailed and asked if I could look after the workshop, and Keith, while he was off at his good friend's wedding.* That, I can do. Give me a role and I'm in there. I'm the same person. It's the same situation, only this time, I don't have to prove I'm worthy of being there... I'm there for a reason. I have a job to do. I'd better get on and do it then. 

That's how I want to approach tonight. Every time that impostor rears up, I need to send it back to its hotel room with a good book and possibly a massage voucher, and remember that my job is to give everyone I come across a good time by making them look and feel great. I know I can do that if I'm running a workshop. I just get my workshop  head on and get the fuck on with it. 

In the meantime, there's my teeth. I have a new set. I have them in right now, as I sit in the back of a Tim Horton's seating area in the Gare Centrale de Montréal. They make me flirt, these teeth. It's lucky (or is it?) that there's nobody nearby. I shall entertain myself walking along Sherbrooke with them in. Let's see what happens. These babies change my state like nobody's business. Bring it on!

* Best bit? I was supposed to be doing yoga teacher training course the month that Keith was there, but it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, so I ended up bumping it to the Christmas TTC instead. Among other wonderful people, one surprising Nicolò Bernardi was doing the course at the same time. He's living in Montreal and at the moment, so am I. That's good, isn't it?