Tag: Fiction

Clown School Break Day 21: The Egg Game

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In which Our Hero encounters an eggregious machine.

Walking through the casino today, I saw a brilliant game.
A perfectly engineered one.
A real bad egg.

It’s a slot machine called something like The Egg.

You put in your money. You slap the button.
Standard procedure.
Nothing shell-shocking.

But instead of reels to spin, there’s just an egg on the screen.

Every time you slap, the egg cracks a little more.

And when the egg is fully broken –
crack –
you win a jackpot.

The jackpots (at the $1 play level) range from about $3 to just over $10,000.
All of them are progressive.
They grow the longer you play. 

The egg takes a variable number of slaps to break.

It’s a well-made game.
Eggsactly balanced.

Here’s why.

1. It redefines winning.
You will win.
The only question is when.
Just keep putting money in until the egg hatches.

Winning doesn’t feel like if.
Winning feels like eventually.

2. You feel progress.
Every slap cracks the egg a little more.
You’re getting closer.
A chip here, a fracture there.

Are you actually closer?
Who knows.
But it looks like you are, and that’s all your nervous system needs.

3. Everything is a jackpot.
I watched a man spend $70 chasing one $10 jackpot and two $3 jackpots.

He won three times.
He lost $54.

But emotionally, during the process?
Sunny side up.

After he left?
Fried. 

4. It’s intelligible.
Most modern slot machines are incomprehensible.
You don’t even know what the rules for winning are until you’ve played for a while.

That confusion creates a false sense of mastery:
“I’m learning the game.”

You are—but learning doesn’t help.

The Egg is different.
Egg → crack → jackpot.
No shell game.
No mystery meat.

Immediate understanding.
Immediate hook.
Egg-ceptionally approachable.

A game egg-zactly positioned to attract newbies. 

5. It creates tension – and guarantees release.
The egg will break.
That’s the promise.

When that suspense releases, however,
the yolk (“joke”) will already have been on you. 

6. Your action feels causal.
Slap the button.
The egg jiggles.
A crack instantly appears.

Your body doesn’t care about RNGs or payout tables.
Your body says: I did that.

7. You can mash.
On a normal slot machine there’s a pause between spins.
The Egg?
You can mash the button 30 times in 30 seconds.
(I saw a guy mash 70 times in under 3 minutes.) 

So if you spend $40 and win $20, you feel frustrated.
And to relieve that frustration:
Have you considered mashing the button?

The feedback loop is tight.
The illusion of control is strong.
The design is…
let’s be honest…
eggstraordinary.

That’s it.

I’ve cracked it.

And now I’m walking away, before I get completely scrambled. 🥚

(Author’s note: I did not actually play the game. I am not a fan of slot machines. I did, however, admire it from afar. Here’s a video of someone playing it.) 

Clown School Break Day 20: The Dealer Doesn’t Care

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In which Our Hero recalls, yet again, that feelings are weather, not climate.

Poker.

I don’t like poker.
It fucking sucks.

The intensity, the swings, the way it presses you between two stones: your own decisions and the randomness of the universe. As one poker TV show once put it, “It’s a hard way to make an easy living.”

There was a time I stopped playing altogether because I believed poker was net-negative for the world. You take money from people who can’t afford it. Addicts. The lonely. The poor.

And what do you give in return?

Entertainment?
A distraction?
A slow-motion morality play about risk and consequence?

These were my thoughts after losing two big pots tonight.
One I played fine. Just ran into the top of someone’s range.
The other I played poorly preflop in a $50 splash pot and donated my stack like a confused philanthropist. (“Splash pot” = the casino added $50 to it for free.)

Woof.

So I asked myself, as one does after being spiritually hit by a train:

Why do I do this?
Why are we attracted to what we’re attracted to?
Is it genetics? Happenstance? Praise when we were eight and wanted to feel special?

Clown school has taught me one brutal, luminous thing:
You will be pummeled on your chosen path.
Mocked, rejected, flattened, ignored.
And that’s just by the teachers! 

Your path should therefore be the thing you continue doing despite the punishment.
What’s the thing you’ll walk through hell for?

I’m deeply dissatisfied with poker tonight. But here’s the truth:
Poker is a game of millions of hands.
Variance is a dragon that only bows after thousands upon thousands of repetitions.
This hand doesn’t matter.
This session doesn’t matter.

Clowning, on the other hand, is both slower and faster.
Yes, the craft takes years, maybe a lifetime – but the feedback is instantaneous.
You step out, you try something, and either the audience lights up now, or it doesn’t.

Steve Martin once asked himself:
“What happens if I never release the tension?”
Instead of setup → punchline → laugh from tension relief, he just stacked more and more absurdity.
If someone left the show emotionless and burst out laughing in the car ride home, he considered that a victory.
(His memoir is worth a read.) 

Here’s the thing about Cards.
And the thing about Clowning.

The C’s don’t care about your feelings.
The dealer doesn’t pause because you’re tilted.
The audience doesn’t laugh because you’re sad.

The next hand came.
My body was buzzing with frustration.
But I played fine.
And that was what mattered.

Ugh.

—

It’s now an hour later.
The frustration is gone.

How astonishing, how liberating, how funny it is to remember how fleeting feelings are.

And how little they matter to the game.
Any game.
When the next hand is already being dealt.

Unless you let them play instead of you.
And they are both bad cardplayers and bad clowns. 

—

We’re now an hour after that.
I quit the live game because it wasn’t profitable enough.
I wasn’t having fun.
I asked myself the question “If I lost my stack in the next hand, would I rebuy and keep plying?”
The answer was no. 

So now I’m at the deli, eating dinner with my father…
While we play online poker with a different group. 

🤡

Clown School Break Day 16: Cooperative Games

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In which Our Hero remembers the audience and the performer are on the same team.

Today I didn’t buy a painting.

I could have.
There are worlds in which I walk out of that studio holding a canvas, or at least a print. I like his work. It’s good enough that I’d happily see it on my wall. I also, frankly, think this guy could be very successful. And while I don’t know anything about investing in art, I do know that he does good work. 

Instead of buying, I did something arguably more valuable: I gave him one mental shift that might change the way he sells forever (hard-won after nine years of being a creative freelancer myself). 

The shift was this:

  • You and the buyer are on the same team, trying to get to the sale together.

Most artists don’t think that way. They imagine selling as hoodwinking, convincing, persuading. Commerce as a low-grade con.

But when I exchange $20 for a meal, two true things are happening at once:

  • I am saying, “I’d rather have this meal than this $20.”
  • The seller is saying, “I’d rather have this $20 than this meal.”

We both win. That’s the point.

If someone wanders into your studio already 50% likely to buy your painting, wouldn’t you both be better off if a sale happens?

That’s what my friend was missing. He felt like he was pushing against the customer, trying to “get them” to buy, and he hated it. Instead, he should walk next to them, shoulder to shoulder, helping the buyer cross the line they already half-want to cross.

Sales, at least for an honest artist, is a cooperative game.

Clowning is the same game

This is also the part that many performing artists (including clowns) forget: the audience wants you to succeed.

When we audience members sit down for standup, for a play, for a clown show, we’re not secretly hoping it’s terrible so we can be right about humanity’s decline. We might predict it will be bad, but given the choice between:

  • “I knew it would suck,” and
    “It blew my expectations out of the water,”

almost everyone would rather be wrong and delighted.

Even the pessimists would rather go home saying, “Honestly, it was great.”

So performance is also a cooperative game:

  • As the clown, you are the leader.
  • The audience is your team.
  • The “sale” you’re closing together is shared pleasure.

You’re not dragging them, hostage-style, toward your weird art. You’re inviting them into something – pleasure – they already came to find.

This, unfortunately, is not my default setting.

Competitive games vs cooperative games

I am more experienced with competitive games than cooperative ones. Poker, for instance, is the opposite:

  • There, the goal is to hide.
  • To show nothing.
  • To give away as little information as possible while extracting as much value as possible.

Clowning is about the inverse:

  • Openness instead of secrecy.
  • Generosity instead of extraction.
  • “Let’s enjoy this together” instead of “Let me get the best of you.”

One of the purposes of clown school (for me) is to re-train this reflex. To make cooperation feel as natural as competition.

Right now, the questions I’m wrestling with include:

  1. How do I lead the team gently?
    Guide the audience without shoving, nudge without bullying, care for each teammate without over-focusing on any one.
  2. How do I actually lead, instead of hiding behind stronger personalities?
    Be the tip of the spear, not the person comfortably in the second row.
  3. When I’m with a partner on stage, how do I treat them as a collaborator instead of a combatant?
    Remember that “winning” is making the scene sing, and that often occurs when you’re playing harmoniously. 
  4. How do I remain open when uncomfortable?
    Oftentimes, I’m shutting down. And that… is not… helpful. 😦 

These are not just stage problems. They’re life problems. Which brings us to the cocktail party.

When I forgot we were on the same team

At a cocktail party today, I met a few people I genuinely liked. Smart, funny, curious. The kind of people I’d happily see again.

They asked about my relationship status. I told them a technically-true (and engaging), but far-more-boring version.

Here’s what I told them: 

In college, I was interested in a girl who was dating a woman. A friend told me she only dated women, so I filed that away as “ah well, not for me.”

Ten years later, we reconnected. It turned out my friend had been wrong:

  • She does not, in fact, only date women.

And here’s the part I didn’t share – not because it’s shameful, but because it’s intimate, and intimacy is precisely what I tend to withhold when I get scared: 

  • At the time of meeting her, I was taking exogenous estrogen. I had grown breasts. My emotional life was much closer to that of a woman than a man. 

So even if she had only dated women, I still might have qualified.

That’s the good bit. The twist ending. The painting on the wall I could have offered.

Instead, I hid it. I offered the flat version. And therefore, the next bit that I added – when I later tried to connect – didn’t land. I’d already collapsed into myself, ending the cooperative game. 

I protected information, staying “safe”.
But they weren’t my opponents. They were potential teammates. We were building something delightful together. And that collapse — the retreat instead of the play — is exactly the reflex I’m trying to rewire.

(To be clear, the issue wasn’t that I “should have” told strangers something deeply personal. It’s that I noticed myself collapsing inward even though both they and I wanted to play, to connect, to stay in the cooperative game.)

The update

So: today I didn’t buy a painting.
I also didn’t honestly sell myself.

In both cases, the correction is the same:

  • Be in situations where we’re on the same side. 
  • Remember we’re on the same side.
  • Act like the game is cooperative.
  • Offer the real story, not the safe one.

When I become excellent at those in daily life, I’ll be a better clown.
And when I become a better clown, maybe I’ll finally remember, in the moment, that we all walked into the room wanting the same thing:To leave having created shared pleasure.
And in that pleasure, created Value.

Clown School Break Day 15: The Lightness Advantage

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In which Our Hero learns that ease is its own form of status.

The skills of upper-class social engagement and the skills of clowning: shockingly similar.

Can you keep it light—even when the topic isn’t?
Can you remember the game? That this is a game. That life is a game. And the more you remember it’s a game, the less you’ll feel poked. The less you feel poked, the less likely you’ll commit a faux pas.

When meeting someone new:
Can you stay present? Open? Emotionally available? Can you find pleasure in what they’re saying, find pleasure in yourself, and entertain yourself while entertaining them?
Do you make eye contact instead of studying the floor or the ceiling?

Can you jump to the new game quickly?
Roll with the punches without letting irritation leak? Or if you do get irritated, can you metabolize it quietly so others don’t feel it?

In short: are you easy?

Even shorter: be social soy sauce: enhancing whatever flavor is already present.
Do not be social tofu (merely a warm body), nor wasabi (adding too much kick), and certainly not ginger (an entirely unrelated taste altogether).

Some people don’t need to be easy. They have structural reasons to be included—money, skills, status, connections. Their mere existence provides value.

If you have those advantages, you can afford a little heaviness.

But if you lack them, ease becomes an important asset.

—

I met someone today who was surprised to learn a fairly large fact about her husband.

I get that.
It’s also foreign to me.

When one (A) has enough happening that there’s no need to narrate every detail, and (B) is so deeply present with others when actually together, the result is fewer facts shared and more connection felt. This is an instance of putting the text on the game.

Perhaps these people live such driven, full lives that they don’t need to lean on each other for conversational ballast. They’re satisfied by the things they’re doing. Their overlaps shrink. Their presence expands.

—

Maybe this is why the skills of social ease and clowning feel so linked for me. I had to learn lightness. I had to learn the game. I had to learn to entertain myself, then others, and to orient toward warmth and pleasantness.

Other people don’t always need those skills. They build companies, hire teams, command rooms, confer opportunities. What do I confer? Stories. Emotional resonance. Connection.

I’ve lived as a writer for the last decade. I’ve flown around the world, lived in a van, written books, attended clown school, played competitive pickleball, lived as an œstrogen-powered life form. These things made me interesting, but they did not give me structural advantages to hand out.

What I offer is not leverage. It’s wisdom. Presence. Delight.

So it sure as hell helps if I’m light.

Airy.
Gentle.
Easy.
Fun.
Funny.
Generous.
Kind.

This makes it possible to add me to your car, to your dinner, to your team. It makes me someone who lightens your load, even when you carry me on your shoulders.

But when I’m heavy?

Well.

🎈

Clown School Break Day 12: Poker vs Clown

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In which Our Hero manages his emotions (and plays poker because, with a broken foot, what else are you going to do?)

If clowning is about managing your emotions in service of giving pleasure, then poker might actually train part of that muscle. The emotional management is enormous.

Earlier today I lost three spots in a row.
One I misplayed slightly.
Two were just unlucky.

I assumed my strategy wasn’t working.

But it was.

I do this in clowning, too: I try a thing, it doesn’t land, and I immediately abandon it. But that’s rarely the answer. Sometimes you need to push the thing farther. Sometimes you pivot to a different game. But the one thing you don’t need to do is collapse inward and quit. You don’t just give up and take your ball and go home.

Instead, check your fundamentals.

In poker: Is this still a good game? Am I playing well?
In clowning: Have I found the game? Am I playing it?

Yet the two arts couldn’t be more opposite.

Poker is about hiding.
Showing nothing.
No emotion, no tells, no generosity.

Clowning is the opposite: openness, earnestness, authenticity, giving.

Poker is selfishness.
Clowning is generosity.

At one point today I was down $650. I kept playing because I was playing well—and because, in theory, I’d been winning the whole time.

That’s another key difference: poker has theory.
Clowning has only practice.

Poker’s truth reveals itself over hundreds of thousands of hands.
Clowning’s truth reveals itself instantly.

If everyone’s laughing at you at the poker table, you’re the fish.
If everyone’s laughing with you on stage, you’re the clown.

—

I was also especially open with my family today. That was nice 🙂
Time and place, boys. Time and place 😎

Clown School Break Day 11: Poker?

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In which Our Hero hardly knows her. 

I played poker profitably today.

Once my comfort and confidence arrived in, everything clicked. First I made a $10 mistake. Then a $50 mistake. Then I found an edge and optimized the hell out of it. And I ultimately walked away $445 richer.

A poker pro friend, after reviewing one of my hands, put it perfectly:

“This hand is not GTO-approved at all haha, but sounds like you found a spot to hammer.” (“GTO” = game theory optimal)

I like to hammer. It’s fun.

Was this more fun than clowning?

Maybe.

Probably?

When I think back to the times I’ve “succeeded” at clowning — the moments of actually opening myself to the audience — I enjoyed those less than I enjoyed today.

However.

I’m not at clown school for myself. Not really. I’m there to learn (1) to be open, and (2) to play well with others. These are skills I want to develop for other people, not just for me.

And when you zoom out, which is the kinder pursuit: clowning and contributing to others, or playing poker to funnel money into your own pocket?

Clowning, clearly (at least to me). Poker is generally net-negative in pleasure: studies show that in most people the pain of losing outweighs the joy of winning.

But right now? I don’t care.

And that’s… telling.

Maybe it suggests my calling is less likely clowning than a poker-adjacent path. 

—

When I chose clown school, I was emotionally compelled. Drawn. Obsessed.

I’m still very interested — especially in bouffon next term — but I’m also open to this new signal.

Maybe my sister was right when I first told her I was “choosing between a one-month clown course and the full year.”

She said: “When have you ever committed to a year of anything? But if you did, it would be clown school.”

It would be very funny if I only did part of the year.

I’m such.
A.
Clown.

Clown School Break Day 10: The Arbiter of Fun

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In which Our Hero demonstrates he visited a casino today.

“The person on your left determines how much fun you have.”

A friend said this about playing poker at a casino.

In poker, the player on your left acts after you. So in marginal spots—hands that could go either way—they get to decide how much intensity to apply. They can re-raise you (the aggressive choice) or fold (the friendly one). Since the spot is marginal, it doesn’t meaningfully affect their win rate; it just affects your experience.

Improv works the same way. Your job is to give gifts to your partner. “Pimping them out” (putting them in a tough or absurd situation) is the aggressive choice. Establishing clear relationships, objects, or stakes is the friendly one.

Does clowning have a similar dynamic?

Maybe the parallel is playing at versus playing with. Playing at your partner is fun for you, but it’s not oriented toward maximizing their pleasure.

And in clowning, the audience is a partner, too. That’s one of the big surprises of clown school: realizing that you play with the audience just as much as you play with the other performers.

In clown, maybe the major determines how much fun everyone gets to have. Can the major establish a clear, joyful game? That’s their job. The minor can always destroy the game, of course, but it’s hard for a minor to create a bigger game than the major has already laid down, at least not without stepping on the major’s toes.

So in clowning, just like in poker, the person on your left might still determine how much fun you have. The difference is that in clown school, you might actually enjoy being the sucker getting hosed for everyone else’s amusement.

Clown School Break Day 9: The Missing Signposts

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In which Our Hero chuckles that no one is coming to explain anything.

Clown school gives no guideposts.
No emotional map.
No “You’ll feel terrible during Neutral Mask, but it gets better during Melodrama.”
Not even a simple “We beat you down because it makes you better.”

Instead, they teach.
And we endure.

I’m not the first person to go through this course. This version of the school has existed for 25 years; Gaulier has been teaching for 50+. There must be a method behind the madness. So here are my hunches:

1. Presence as pedagogy

Clowning is about now, not before or after.
Emotional signposts would implicitly validate the idea that your current feeling matters, or that suffering is part of some arc.
But in clowning, only the present matters.
You aren’t promised redemption later; you just have to deal with what is.
“I don’t care what else is going on. Find pleasure and share it.”

2. Stress inoculation

Clowning demands emotional manipulation—of yourself and the audience—under pressure.
If you can’t do that while confused, scared, or humiliated, how will you manage when there are thousands (or millions) watching?
Not knowing why you’re doing something is part of the training:
you have to stay open and playful even when you’re lost.
“You’re lost and confused? Time to clown!”

3. A filter, not a cushion

It’s a weeder course.
If you’re not meant for this world, or if the suffering feels unjustifiable, you’ll remove yourself.
Not with an official expulsion—but with exhaustion, frustration, or indifference.
The lack of emotional guidance is part of the sieve.
“I don’t like how intense school is.” “And you think professional theater is for the faint of heart?”

4. An accidental design flaw (or feature)

The teachers are clowns, not pedagogy nerds.
They’re masters at teaching clowning, but not necessarily at building meta-frameworks or emotional scaffolding.
Signposting requires stepping outside the art to label its structure—
which is the opposite of presence.
So maybe the absence of guideposts is deliberate.
Or maybe it’s just what happens when clowns teach.
“🤡”

5. A disrespect for logic

One of the teachers has told me to stop analyzing.
They said it’s not doing me any favors.
That analysis will not lead me to better clowning.
If that’s true… whoops.
<Cue the banana peel>

For what it’s worth, the course is structured brilliantly: Le Jeu → Neutral Mask; Simon Says for weeks; harsh critique without directions.
Are the missing signposts a bug or a feature?
I suspect it doesn’t matter.
Not-knowing is part of the training.

But it’s also part of the suffering.

And maybe that’s the whole point.

Or maybe it’s not.

We’ll probably never know.

Clown School Break Day 8: Selfishness

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In which Our Hero… is selfish?

A friend says my attending clown school is selfish.

A second friend concurs.

The second friend, at least, says it without judgment. They think it’s a selfish act, but not necessarily a bad one. (I didn’t ask the first whether “selfish” = “bad,” so I can’t report on their view.)

The second friend is a professional poker player. I asked if studying poker is selfish. They said no. I asked why. They gave reasons like: “it keeps my mind sharp,” “it teaches me skills I use in other areas.” I pointed out that clowning does the same. Just swap “understanding randomness and variance” for “learning to connect with others and bring them pleasure.”

I’m surprised people find clown school selfish. I don’t find it more selfish than acting school, sales training, or learning accounting. Maybe slightly more selfish than learning to be a plumber. Definitely less selfish than being a momentum trader or a poker player.

I get that performers are self-involved. Sometimes self-obsessed. But selfish?

The job of a clown is to bring people pleasure. Joy. Happiness. Are the best in the profession—Jim Carrey, Sacha Baron Cohen, Robin Williams—selfish? That seems unfair.

So what do people actually mean when they say “clown school is selfish”?

They might mean something like:

  1. “Clowning doesn’t contribute much to other people.”
  2. “Julian will get more personal joy out of clown school than he’ll generate for others.”
  3. “Clown school isn’t contributory (either because clowning isn’t, or because clown school won’t lead to clowning).”
  4. “Clown school interferes with more contributory things you could be doing.”

Here’s how these land:

1. “Clowning doesn’t contribute much.”

I’m dismissing this outright as a misunderstanding of what this school teaches. This school teaches how to find pleasure in order to share it. You can believe pleasure is unimportant, but if you believe it matters, clowning is clearly contributory.

2. “You’ll get more out of this than others will.”

This becomes a comment about skill.
If I will always be a bad clown, then yes: clown school would be more self-pleasure than other-pleasure. But that assumes failure as destiny. I’m earnestly trying to learn these skills. I want to be good at play, connection, and generosity. Multiple people—people with no incentive to flatter me—have said clowning seems like a particularly great fit for me. I think so too.

3. “Clown school won’t lead to clowning.”

This is the critique I take most seriously.

My goal isn’t to become a professional clown per se: it’s to become a better performer, a better player, a better connector. I want to learn charisma. I want to learn to bring joy not just onstage but in everyday life. I want to learn to play for the sake of fun rather than optimization. I want to play well with my nephew. I want to play well with future kids of my own.

If I’m truly seeking personal enrichment more than professional clowning, then yes, one could call that “selfish.” But personal enrichment that increases one’s capacity to love, play, and be present seems… not exactly a moral failing.

4. “Is clown school the best use of your time?”

Honestly? I don’t know. A year is long. (Well, seven months of actual school.) But I’m not locked in. Students drop in and out. There’s one course in March I’m particularly excited about. For the rest, I’m open: if more-contributory opportunities appear, I’ll take them. If someone offered me a full-time job tomorrow, I’d consider it. (And, notably, I applied to one recently.)

At the moment, my time is quite unoccupied. I’m writing for one company, and that leaves plenty of space. So: clown school.

I want a family someday. I want kids. Cultivating lightness and play feels deeply aligned with the values I want to bring into a home. And I’m at a turning point: many friends are settling down. If not now, then when would I ever have the time to go to clown school? When else would learning to stay light during stress be so valuable?

I was bumming around the U.S. in a van.
I was working half-time, sometimes quarter-time, vaguely searching for more.
Given that reality, filling the time with something joyful and growth-oriented seems… pretty reasonable.

But if someone wants to hire me for something more productive, I’m here for it!

(Finally: when pressed, the poker friend admitted he couldn’t clearly articulate what he meant by “selfish.” He guessed it was closest to number 3, but also said his inability to articulate the position probably means it’s weakly held. That’s reassuring. I thought this assessment was more associational than well-considered. Still, it’s good to check.)

[P.s. I’ll share this write-up with the first friend, too. They might have a whole different analysis of how the selfishness works, in which case I’ll jot up a part 2 🤓]

Clown School Break Day 3: Asked to Leave Clown School (Kind Of)

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In which Our Hero exits and rizz returns. 

Clown School

I was asked to leave clown school.
While true, that’s… misleading.

The teachers said, “Given your foot injury and inability to walk, we recommend you get a refund and do the course later. But it’s your choice.” Then I chose to step away.

Still: it’s funny to have been asked to leave clown school.

What’s also funny is how much easier it is to connect with people now than it was 48 hours ago.

Rizz has returned. The joy is back.

Being playful with your average person—my former orthodontist, the woman at the deli counter—is somehow much easier than being playful on that stage. Why?

  • Because it’s an American cultural context I actually understand?
  • Because the stakes are lower? (No audience, no judges, no clowns.)
  • Because the people I meet day-to-day have normal expectations instead of self-selected charisma-sniper standards?
  • Because in the real world I’m not comparing myself to self-obsessed entertainment-optimizers? 

Either way, I have more rizz. And I enjoy it more. #RizzOut

Orthopedics, Act II

Second orthopedist today. Foot is still fractured. Maybe I could clown. But not with vigor.

No running or jumping for at least six weeks.

Still, relief.

The X-ray technician asked how I hurt it. I said “clown school.”
I said Borat went there.
He likes Borat.
He therefore understood what I mean by “clown”.

The nurse practitioner confirmed: full fracture. No impact activities for weeks. Healing should happen. I can return to clowning soon-ish.

Until then, I seek rest and rejuvenation. And a healed metatarsal. 

However much grow-y that school was… it wasn’t comfortable.

Somehow, a broken foot feels like less pain. 

Performers and Introverts

How many clowns are introverts? How many performers?
People who love to be loved, but aren’t naturally social otherwise.

Eddie Murphy comes to mind. I watched his new Netflix documentary yesterday. He’s a performer; an analyzer of entertainment; but not exactly a social butterfly. Offstage, subdued. Self-contained. Kate McKinnon as well. 

It’s surprising how many wildly successful performers are like that. As if they (we?) get the social nutrition required for survival from adulation, not connection. And then tend to ourselves in private. 

An interesting observation. What would I do with it?
Embrace my inner introvert?
On stage, perform? Off-stage, do bits as protection to avoid the normal boringness of average interaction? 

If that’s my fun, why not follow?