Josh Johnson’s Comedy Band Camp. Last Saturday night, Luis and I went to Immigrant Food for dinner and saw Josh Johnson in D.C.! His show, Josh Johnson’s Comedy Band Camp, is so cool because it has comedians, musicians, dancers, and a fun ’70s camp vibe. It was a variety show, which I sort of expected because of the name of the tour. I don’t think Josh even came on stage until like 10pm (it was an 8:30pm show.)
Like on The Daily Show, he talked a lot about politics and current events. He has a funny Elizabeth Holmes impression, which I did not anticipate. He was talking about White House things that SNL also talked about at almost the same time. That was amusing to find out later when we got home. It was funnier coming from him. His opening comedian, Tevin ‘Mandal’ Williams, said he went to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture and only saw the second floor, so he doesn’t get why everyone says it’s so sad. All the fun pop culture and music stuff is on the second floor. The basement is where the main exhibit is, and it’s both enormous and enormously sad.
I love that museum. I love when visitors acknowledge our awesome museums. God, I hope they’re allowed to stay awesome.
I’m glad we saw this show, and I hope we can see Josh Johnson again next time he visits D.C.
Housewarming & zombies. On Sunday, we went to our friends Emily and Ashley’s housewarming party. It was really nice to see them again and not just be talking about taking care of our cats. We saw their cats, and we talked about Nerdfighter things. I told them a little about Hollywood, Ending but didn’t say anything spoilery because I hope they’ll read it.
Then we went to the movies and saw Resident Evil. It’s so good! It feels very much like you’re inside the game, which is cool and scary because it’s got a lot of zombies. One thing I especially like is that the movie itself is split into ‘levels.’ It feels like each beat of the plot is the next level where more horrors await and new goals for the protagonist present themselves. Austin Abrams is great in it. He feels like a normal, real guy. I call him Ben because he was Ben in Paper Towns and it reminds Luis where he knows him from. 😆
Pre-vacation jitters. I’m so excited to go to Disney (and Universal) with Luis again! He booked everything so long ago, it feels unreal that it’s finally happening in two days. I’ve been feeling the pre-vacation jitters of “did we forget about something?” or “do we know how to do xyz?” I wrote before about how I watched videos of people walking to and riding the Skyliner from our hotel to the parks, to get an idea of how it all works. I’ve been antsy for a refresher of things like that. But, like I also said, too much planning can make me feel crazy, too.
I told Luis I was feeling anxious about our packing situation, because our airline is sort of strict about sizing and weights of bags, and he suggested we pack a week ahead of time so we can be sure we’re good to go. I love that we’re in sync when it comes to planning trips. He even wrote down, hour by hour, what we’ll do during our “resort day” at the Contemporary. Sure, things might change because of timing, but it’s nice to have a general idea of what we can do while we’re there. This sort of goes along with my being a “plantser” when it comes to writing. Hmm.
We’re going to stay in three wonderful resorts while we’re there, and I’m going to try to focus more on relaxing this time. The plan is to rope-drop every day, so we’re going to hopefully have calmer evenings and not be trying to cram things up until the parks close each day. We’ll see how that goes. I’m glad we’re not the type of people who are trying to ride everything. We’ve got a list of the rides we want to ride, and then we’ve also programmed lunch breaks and some of the attractions that are shows for some breaks. I’m planning to write specifically about our dining experiences in my next update, a week after next, so stay tuned for that!
My outline is my real MVP. I will be roughly four and a half chapters from the end of my draft when we go on our vacation. I’m not sure if having a stronger outline is why things have felt easier this time, or if it’s just being more relaxed about things. My outline means I go into each chapter with a plan instead of a lot of things being stream-of-consciousness, making-it-up-as-I-go-along. It’s funny because, with my last story, I also had an outline but I still felt like I was making up a lot of things as I went along. Maybe it helps to write a good outline and let things germinate for a minute before writing. There are a few little areas here and there that I know need revision, but I feel like the overall story is much stronger.
Wouldn’t it be funny if the secret was writing on less caffeine? That’s one big change I’ve made in my daily routine, and I’m sure it’s affected my thoughts. But I think it’s really the strong outline and the fact that I’ve had these story ideas for a while now.
I’ve started to really contemplate my next story idea. I mentioned it last week, a little. The thing about shorter flights is that I’ll have basically two hours to think about novel plots while I’m on the way to and from Orlando. There may be hope for my Nerdfighter story yet! But don’t quote me on that.
I’ll be back the week after next, unless I’m kidnapped by the Hitchhiking Ghosts! 😉
