Wait For It… a blog by Andy Ross

Summer Break

Dear Readers,

First off, a warning that this post is a little sincere. Please skip ahead to the videos if you don't go for that sort of thing.

You may have noticed that I suddenly stopped blogging for the past two months. It's odd, because I had written every day for the year and a half prior. It's not that I was sick or needed a break; I'm always slightly sick, and my Midwestern guilt doesn't allow me to take breaks. Either of those things, and I would have stopped writing the blog after week two.

Instead, I've been swamped with live shows, specifically my show REAL CHARACTERS at McNally Jackson Books. When I moved it to the new space, I ask my friend Ann Marie to serve as producer, and together we've been booking and promoting the hell out of it.

That meant reaching out to publications and booking the best writers and performers I could find. Which, in turn, meant emailing strangers, which is horrifying to me. The last two months have been me in a constant state of panic over the following:

Should I re-edit this outgoing email?
Do I seem properly casual and off-the-cuff?
Was it rude that I got this person's email address from a mutual friend?
Why hasn't this person emailed me back?
How long do I wait before I offer the slot to someone else?
Did I sound too grateful that they said yes?
Do I sound too disappointed they said no?
Did I use the wrong homophone?
OH NO! I used the wrong homophone!

That said, it's all worked out great, and we've had three amazing shows, and I couldn't be prouder of them. If you haven't come to the live show, please do. You'll love it. I'm going to get back to writing new blog posts every day starting sometime this week. But, until then, enjoy this small sampling of some of the many terrific performances at REAL CHARACTERS: