FYI...I'm going to be interviewed by Nancy Alexander from Fox 13 news this week. I'll post the time it will air here in the Tampa Bay area when I find out! She'll be interviewing me on women in comedy. How awesome if that! Check back after Tuesday.

It's interesting to me the different circumstances people find themselves in. Whether it be something that was planned or just a situation one stumbles into. I was at a friend's house tonight. I was invited to stay for dinner and I usually always accept an offer for home-cooked food. I rarely cook myself. In any case, I stood there watching these 3 roommates interact. It was intriguing to me to watch how their relationship meshed so well. It made me a little jealous because I live alone...by choice...but cooking was something they shared. Each has their individual lives, jobs, diffferent backgrounds and seperate living quarters in the house. However, the kitchen was the common area and they have a rather unique pattern for which they share the "kitchen" responsibilities. They will take turns cooking or cleaning the dishes. Not necessarily every Tuesday and Thursday one cooks...more like whoever feels like cooking...cooks. They share the clean up and that's it. I guess after that they will go their seperate ways to their seperate living quarters. All are single, ages vary, just trying to make it day by day. But what I observed was not 3 single people, what I observed was a brotherhood, an urban tribe. People who are not family, related by blood, but nevertheless a family. However, they impose no demands on one another...this is a family entered into by choice. It was comfortable. The table conversation, the home made food. Something not often experienced living alone. This will not make me change my living situation. I'm not the type to really consider a room mate. Eventually I hope to just find a "mate". For now the dog is my companion and I truly enjoy and love her. But there is something to be said for what I witnessed tonight. I may have wanted to linger in that "family" a while longer, but the food was gone, the dishes cleaned, the 3 had retreated to their seperate rooms, and my ever so loyal dog was waiting for me at my home. I was an outsider looking in on this non-traditional family, this "urban tribe" and I was grateful to be included, even if only for an hour.

Hey everybody, I had my guest set at the Ybor Improv last Friday night and it went well. I still need to work on my new stuff but I'll have a chance to do that this Wednesday night, the 23rd as I'll be there again for open mic night.

Thanks for my wonderful friends for coming out to support me on Friday night. We had fun....some might have had too much fun. But a good night. We need to do that more often. I love getting together with my friends and just hanging out. I have such great friends. OK, so this is a boring entry. I'm not feeling creative tonight.
Therefore, I'll end it here. Not much to say.
Peace.

I guess I'm in the market for a new home. Well, either to rent or maybe to buy. Not sure yet. I don't want to feel pressured. I hate rushing into anything. But my humble abode, actually the leasing office of my humble abode, has decided to increase my rent much more than expected this year and I'm not going to tolerate it! That's right, DAMMIT! I'm not going to take it! So now I'm faced with being homeless in a couple of short months. I've got to admit, I'm not good at being without. So I'm scrambling to find a new nest. Although I'm not looking forward to moving since it will be the middle of summer and I do live in Florida. It will be the height of humid season here. Just standing outside alone will make my thighs stick together for an eternity. But that's another topic...I'll just stay with the moving bit. Anyway, it is rather exciting to look for something that I don't already have. Like a place with a washer and dryer in the house! That would be a dream. I hate going to the laundry facility on site. That's always an experience in and of itself. Plus I'm looking for a place with a larger than average bath tub. Ahhh the luxery of a tub. Most people don't even take advantage of a good soak. So I'm looking. I may rent or I may buy. The whole purpose is to find something that is not as expensive as my current bungalow and that is a little bit nicer or at least has some charm.
So off I go on my journey for a new home. I checked out some really cute places in an area close to where a friend of mine lives. Really sweet apartments with lots of character but a little small for my taste. Plus the one I really liked, although too small, doesn't accept pets. I have a very adorable mixed breed dog named Roxie and even though I sometimes wonder why I tolerate her accidents in the house and the chewing of my wonderful black, strappy sandals, I can't imagine life without her. You have to either be an animal lover or just a dog lover to understand that but that's just the way it is. 'BD' doesn't understand this and probably never will. He's not an animal lover, I guess. His simple suggestion was to get rid of the dog. I was SHOCKED that he would even fathom such a thing.
But like I said, it's something he doesn't understand and never will. That's OK. So back to my dilema of house/apartment hunting. As we were heading back to his house we passed an adorable little yellow house that was for rent. The fellows that owned it live up in Chicago and plan on renting it out until they decide to relocate permanently to Florida. I fell in love with this quaint, little house. It was perfect for one person or a couple. Only problem is I can't afford the rent they are asking for it. Too bad, great location and just as sweet as anything. So my quest continues for that perfect 'Kat house' that I will call home for the next couple of years or so. I'm hoping that something will just present itself. That I'll stumble onto something that really tickles my fancy. I need a washer and dryer. And I really need a great tub. Not to mention it must accept pets. So those are the things that I really can't compromise on. I miss not having the big tub to soak in. I begged 'BD' to let me soak in his huge jaccuzzi tub the other night. He needed to study and didn't want to be distracted or bothered but after much hesitation and deliberation on his part he finally agreed. What he didn't understand was that I didn't want to
be bothered either. Once I get into "bath" mode...leave me alone. I purchased a mindless magazine, I had some bath gel. 'BD' even brought in a candle and I turned on some music and the jets to really get the suds going...and WOW! Absolute heaven. I must have soaked in that tub for almost 2 hours! My fingers were total prunes. But I was so happy and relaxed. It was truly wonderful. So you see, I must have a bath in my new place. I can't imagine 'BD' letting me take a bath at his place every time I get a whim to bathe.

Anyway, Bath or no bath....definitely showered, I will be going up on stage for the next Centro Ybor Improv open mic night on April 23rd at 8pm. Same rules apply, say my name at the window and you get in for free. I'm working on some additional material so there may actually be a new joke or two. Hope to see you there. If not, then you'd better have a good excuse why you weren't there.

Side note: Great movie to rent...Kissing Jessica Stein...get it and enjoy it. Worth the time.

Well, my birthday has come and gone. Another year older and still not a national celebration. I'm still working on that. Still, a fun time was had by all. Since my birthday falls the day before my best friend's birthday, we make every effort to celebrate together and this year was no exception. This year we would meet in Vegas, baby.
So off I went to Sin City to meet up with 'S'. Of course I wasn't alone in my journey. 'J' also came along...that's
my friend and 'S's sister-in-law. But our motto was "we are soooo going to par-teh". Well, let me just say that in theory it sounds good. Saying it makes you feel good. But the actual "par-teh-ing"...wears the shit out of you. I can't believe that I am still trying to recover from a very enjoyable, yet long weekend. Plus the time change thing really killed me! I mean we got home Sunday morning at 4am only to realize that it's actually 5am! And the whole thing about stopping off at some fast food place to pick up some food to scarf down when you get home from a late night out...that may have been ok in college but MAN, I can barely tolerate it now. I mean I had to take Pepto Bismol 2 hours after I went to bed just so I didn't throw up from eating so late/early in the morning. And ....get this....remember the 80's band 'Ratt' ("Round and Round")? Well, they were the band that was playing at the House of Blues before the 70's band started and we ended up hanging out with the lead singer and his brother for a portion of the night. The lead singer, Jimmy(I think), he didn't look any different. Just his hair wasn't as big as I remember it to be in the 80's. Talk about a blast from the past. And then there were these guys 'J' and I met. One was from New Zealand and the other lives in HotLanta but originally from India. They insisted on buying me shots of Skyy vodka for my birthday which one shot is really quite enough. Not the smoothest vodka nor the best. Not that I'm a critic or anything. But since it was my birthday weekend celebration I figured what the hell and totally splurged. For S's birthday we ate at the Vodoo Cafe 50 floors up at the Rio. Great view! J and I got a psychic reading. This round faced, round bellied woman with a jeweled head piece told me about my "ora" and basically named all the colors in the rainbow. But I'm supposedly in good health. She told me I have very profound psychic abilities myself but I need to tap into them more and pay closer attention to them. Huh, interesting. She told me about relationships that I will be having or something like that but basically I'm to enjoy myself. That's not advice I need to be paying for. I already knew that. Maybe I should throw on a golden head piece and tell people the same thing and get paid for it. But it was all for fun and we certainly had fun.
I received many calls from my friends wishing me a happy birthday. I really appreciated that. Makes you feel good when so many people remember. And that's really what I wanted most for my birthday...to spend it with family and friends and that's exactly what I did. I got to have a beer with my dad. That was very important to me and I know it was to him, although it may have been just the beer but I think I sweetened the pot a bit. Plus I spent my day with my wonderful and caring friends who mean so much to me. And I left my 32nd year and came into my 33rd year with a very nice gift from someone who knew exactly what I personally wanted for my birthday, thanks 'BD'...yes, you know who you are ;) Although hard to recouperate from such a fabulous Vegas weekend, I wouldn't have changed it for the world.

FYI
My next open mic at the Ybor Improv will be Wednesday, April 23rd at 8:00pm. As always, say my name at the ticket window and you get in for free. Maybe someday I'll advance to more than just open mic, then again...maybe not.

My Birthday is fast approaching. I hate the fact that when a birthday comes around I start to think about my life and where it's going.
I'm not getting any younger, but, thankfully, no one else is either. I'm not quite sure where I want to be in my life, but I also like to think I'm where I should be at this point. One thing is for sure, I am able to look at things with far greater insight than I was 10 or even 5 years ago. Ahhhh, birthdays....how they make us re-examine our lives. At least it makes me re-examine mine.

I can look back on my younger years and recall some dysfunctional relationships that I tried so hard to maintain. Now that I'm older, I still have those dysfunctional relationships but at least I can see that they are dysfunctional. I just tend to put the "fun" in dysfunction. See how much I've grown emotionally?
I'm also not as co-dependent as I once was. I figure that if what's wrong with someone else hasn't been able to be fixed by now, then it's not going to be fixed and certainly not by me. I hate to sound cynical, I'd rather it be taken as more of a calmness that I hadn't experienced before. Not that I look at life through rose colored glasses. Seriously, why worry about the little things. Shit happens but so do the good things. Life is what you make it. My dad always says, "there's no utopia" and he's right.
Regardless of my impending birthday, each day I get better and more knowledgable. Each day there is an opportunity to make things better or worse. It only depends on me and no one else. I have the choice to sit on the side and watch the dance or I can dance....and, frankly, I choose to dance. Happy Birthday to me!