I have been an introverted person all my life, and I like it that way. I have become more extroverted as I've gotten into improvisation and the theater but I would not want to become fully extroverted. I think extroverted people take chances and sometimes jump into things without thinking things out. Down the line they might really be hurt by someone or a self-destructive friend they should have known better to get involved with will bring them down too. But I can see the other side of it too. Life is full of risks and you have to make some otherwise you risk not really living. It's just that it's hard for me to take risks. An example: I check the temperature of the water before I get into pools. That example pretty much sums it up.

I also like being the quiet observer. Sometimes that comes out when I just feel the need to be alone and observe people. At parties, when I'm not in the mood to talk to people, I pick up a magazine and read it or find something interesting to play with rather than continue talking about idle things. At one party, all I did the whole time I was there was play with a Rubic's Cube that was lying around. However, these are all parties where I knew at least someone very well, I have never gone to a party where I barely knew anybody there. (Okay, there are some exceptions but that's only because I thought a woman I liked was going to be there.)

Going to public places is sort of the same thing. There are places where it is okay to be at alone and there are other places society has made it awkward to be at alone. For instance, I can go to the grocery store alone with no problem but going to a movie alone is weird, definitely depending on the movie. If it's a big budget motion picture with lots of action and exploding things, then I don't feel weird seeing them alone. However, if I want to see a romantic comedy, then I really feel weird seeing them since most people who see these movies are couples. A girl I knew said she never went to the movies alone. And, except for romantic comedies, I feel fine going to see a movie alone. (I'm a sucker for romantic comedies, I don't know why, I just am) What I like about seeing a movie alone is that I don't have any distractions. I can totally focus on the movie and not miss anything because someone wanted to say a joke about something that just happened. This makes watching tapes with friends hard because I become the Sush Nazi, constantly asking people to shut up so I can hear what is being said. I would be the worst date ever if it was at the movies; I would ignore her or I would be talking to her and miss parts of the movie. I would resent her for distracting me, I would have to rent the movie later on to catch the part of the movie I missed, and if I rented the movie with friends then I would become the Sush Nazi and piss off my friends�it's a viscous circle. Another place it feels weird being alone is at coffee houses. I get my cup of hot cocoa (I don't particularly like that taste of coffee) and sit down and feel weird being by myself unless I had something to distract me, like a lap top, or a newspaper, or a book; which I never think to bring.

I go to improv shows alone too. When I first moved to Chicago, I went by myself to IO shows all the time. I would hardly see anyone I knew and felt a little odd about this. However, I was studying improv so the benefits out weighed the awkward feelings. Now when I go to improv shows, I can expect to find at least one person I've seen before since I've been here a year now. I've gone to shows at Donny's Skybox and at the ETC theater by myself and somehow every time I go I am able to meet someone I know there and sit next to them.

Sometimes I crave being alone to the nth degree and end up doing odd things. Take my odd journey I took last Thursday, September 20th, after one of my rehearsals.

I like to sit in the seats that face the direction of travel but this time I didn't. It seemed to fit this journey I was on, backwards to logic and practicality. Maybe I would find myself on the trip. Maybe I would find my soul mate. Maybe I would find out my purpose in life. Naw, I was just being silly, this wasn't a journey to test my character, but a trip of just curiosity; to find out if reality is anything like my imagination. And you know what? It's not.

I got off the red line at Lake and exited to the streets, and the rains greeted me. I guess I left my common sense back at the Addison stop because I knew it was pouring out but I was determined to walk around downtown at night and so I did. I still tried to keep as dry as possible, by quickly running from awning to awning and hugging the walls of buildings to avoid as much rain as possible. I had an interview on Monday at 1 N. Franklin Street so I decided to find out just where that was. I took Randolph west because I had a feeling that Franklin Street was that way, good thing for me it was. By the time I got there, I was pretty wet. My shoes were wet, my pants soaked, my hair drenched, and the only things dry at that point were my socks, shirt, underwear, and sweater. I was wearing a jacket that kept my torso pretty dry.

I decided I needed a moment of sitting to relax and rest my feet so I hid out under this porch-like part of a building by the corner of Franklin and Lake and I sat down and watched the cars go by. I sat there for about ten minutes, reflecting on how dumb and wet I was. There's a parking garage across the street where I sat and I decide to explore it. I ran over to the elevators' entrance of the garage and rode one to the top. The floors are marked by musical instruments: cello, violin, saxophone, drums, etc. I get to the thirteenth floor and find that it has no ceiling so I go down one floor so I don't have to get any more drenched. The upper floors of the parking garage are pretty much empty. I walk over to the south wall and take in the view it offers. The whole numbers of the floors are on the north side so the south side of the garage could accurately be called half floors. So, I was standing on the 11th and a half floor and the view was something like I've seen on the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios in Florida. The building across the alley from the garage has two water towers on top of it and way into the distance is the top of the Sears Tower, peaking above some of the other rather tall buildings. Here are the thoughts that went through my mind:

I could jump off and land on the top of this four story part of the next building and be killed. The thing though is that I wonder how long it would be before my body was found. The roof of this part is a valley if you consider the buildings like landscape. There were no windows looking out to that roof and the south end of the parking garage doesn't have any parking spots so anyone parking their car in the morning wouldn't smell my rotting body. Morbid I know but I think about these things. The noise of a garbage truck brings me back to reality and I start to think about that particular trash man's life.

Here it is around 11pm on a Thursday night, it's pouring and he has to get out of the truck to put trash into it. He wasn't using the fork lift feature of the truck for some reason and from my view I can see that none of the bags he is grabbing to throw into the truck are tied closed so trash is spilling out of them. I thank God I am not a garbage man. I look at all the offices being lit up in the buildings around me.

I wonder why the lights are left on. That's a lot of electricity being wasted and with it a lot of natural resources being burned unnecessarily. The lights also add to the light pollution of the city. The misty night and the low-lying clouds that dance around the skyscrapers that night are lit up with a violet and orange glow. It's probably been a long time since starlight has reached the Chicago streets.

Twenty minutes are spent just looking at the view. I then walk down the rest of the garage and use the elevators at the second floor so I don't have to walk past the parking attendant booths. The second floor is the saxophone floor and they have Charlie Parker playing. I walk east on Lake and make my way to the Lake station of the blue line; my mind is elsewhere and I step in a lot of puddles on the way and my socks are now soaked. I take the blue line to the Washington stop and walk over to the red line. I use the pedway and sit on a bench at the Lake station. My old roommate George got off of work at midnight and he joins me and we talk; my solitude being interrupted but I don't mind, I'm done with being by myself at this point. I get home at 1 in the morning and I can't help but smile at the oddness that is me. I didn't find myself, a soulmate, or my purpose in life, but it did make for an interesting journal entry.

This journey I took is mine and mine alone (the memories I mean, the story I share with you) and part of the reason I enjoyed it so much is because I was by myself. I don't know if I would have had as much fun if someone else joined me. They probably would have decided to go back to the trains once we found out that it was still pouring downtown. I don't like party poopers. Still, if I was with someone who was like "lets walk in the rain and get soaked," I would have liked that journey just as much I think.

At the same time, I hate being alone. I really do believe that humans are a social species and that at times we need human contact as much as we need air to breathe.

Example: Saturday night. I saw Dig (good show, very funny, Jim Woods was great) and wanted to hang with people but everyone I was with had other plans. So I went home and watched TV and I moped around the apartment. That evening I wanted human contact. I could have stayed around IO, I see that now, but the people I wanted to talk to weren't there, or if they were there they were too busy working behind the bar to talk to.

I believe I have talked enough on the subject of physical isolation and now on to how liking and disliking relates to relationships. Ugh, I have much apprehension in writing this since I don't like to talk about my own relationships, or lack thereof. I am currently single and there are times when I like being single and times when I wish I was in a relationship.

I am really involved in improv right now. I am in two improv groups and am taking classes at two training centers, IO and Second City. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons are taken up with all this stuff and I also usually spend my Monday nights at Armando (a show at IO with all the best improvisers in the city playing around in this form called the Mosaic.) That only leaves Fridays and Sundays free and I usually attend some improv shows on those days too. I like to say "I don't have time for a relationship" but truth is if you are starting to get into a relationship, you make room for it.

When I'm longing for a relationship, it's usually because I'm thinking about all the good things about them. The companionship, the way you feel when she walks into the room, the knowledge that someone likes you back. You forget all about the small fights about nothing, the feelings of jealousy when she's talking to some guy who you think is better looking than you, all the little things about her that bother you, all the things you do that bother her. So, I want to be in a relationship since I haven't been in one in a long time but I know that being single isn't that bad.

In fact, it's great. I love being single, I truly do. I can go out at night and not have to worry about coming home because someone is waiting for me there. I can flirt with any woman I want without fear of being put in the doghouse (of course, whom you flirt with must be done with care unless you want to be smacked). It is freeing and fun and you really feel independent. I would think everyone would like to be single if it weren't for one teeny tiny fact that I've come to: that life is much richer with someone else to share it with. Doing improv is an extension of it. You need others to improvise with and you need people in the audience to watch you. The funny moments on stage are only that much more funny because you are sharing the funny moment with lots of people. And the rewards to getting into that one perfect relationship must be really great, why else would we all go through the dating process with its awkwardness of hooking up and the many troubled times? For the good stories out of it? Maybe, but in the meantime I'm going to enjoy how green the grass is on my side.