Well, once again I’ve chosen a theme for the show that in my personal life I’ve been trying very hard to avoid. Why do I keep doing this? My therapist, who reads all these invitations, is probably writing something down right now that she will casually bring up in next week’s session.

I hate starting over. I’d rather quit forever than start over. My motto is, “If at first you don’t succeed then you’ve probably already reached your potential.” Instead of thinking of it as another chance to get something right I always think of it as a failure to get it right the first time. I realize this is not the healthiest way to go through life. It’s probably why strangers come up to me on the street and ask if I’m ok. (true) Or why well-meaning co-workers walk into my cube and say, “What are you doing here?” (Only half-true. Yesterday one of them called instead of coming over to tell me that he felt I was “grossly underutilized” and that I should find a way to “monetize my skill set.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I have no idea what my skill set is.)

Anyway, what I’m saying is that I’m awfully hard on myself. A few months ago my friend Chris said one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. She said, “If I had gone though all the stuff you did I’d be messed up too.” You might think that was an insult but to me it was like an unexpected kiss from the prettiest girl in school. She wasn’t saying that I was a complete screwup. She was letting me know that she understood where all my fears and misguided beliefs came from and that anyone else would have ended up the same way. It felt so good to hear that!

Thanks to people like Chris, Barb, John, Michael, Emily, Diane and Michaela I am going to try something different this year. Really different. I’m going to try to treat myself the way I treat others. I have no idea how I’m going to do this. It’s scary and completely foreign. This is somersaults-on-a-slackline-over-the-Grand-Canyon-while-texting kind of stuff for me. It’s emotional Parkour and Relentless Compassion Therapy. (Should I trademark that? Can I monetize it?)

Luckily, I’ve already figured out how to begin this new therapy. I’m going to start writing with pens again. Two years ago I stopped writing with pens and started using pencils. I had no idea why at the time but I just couldn’t bear to write anything down in ink. I didn’t think much about it at the time I just knew I had this strong, sudden aversion to pens. Now it seems perfectly rational. I had lost all confidence that anything I wrote was worth keeping. Every time I picked up a pen I felt like a phony, a con man. So I switched to soft pencils that smeared and smudged and made every note, joke, story and thought seem temporary and barely worth a second look. I know now it wasn’t just the writing I didn’t believe in. It was me. It was the idea that I mattered.

But now I’m back on the ink. I’ve only been using the old pens for a few days now but it feels good. I found my old Bic Velocity with the 1.6mm tip and Easy-Glide ink flow system that’s working pretty well but I have my eye on the Sanford uni-ball Jetstream that’s been sitting on my nightstand since 2012. I sold pens and pencils for eight years and let me tell you, you won’t find a pen with better action then the old Jetstream.

Every time a new storyteller comes up to me before the show and whispers that they’re not sure anyone wants to hear their story I tell them that I want to hear it and if it’s important to them it’s important to me. If I can say that to a stranger than I can say that to myself. It’s going to be weird for a while, telling myself that I belong not scribbled in pencil in the margins of people’s lives but in the center, underlined in ball point pen.

Starting Over is the theme for this month’s show. Bring a story about how you had to start over or somehow reinvent yourself. Did you move to another town? Change your look or your beliefs? If it’s true then it’s worth sharing ‘cos we’re all probably starting over or wishing we could in some way.

The next show is Thursday, January 28 at 7pm at Roy Street Coffee and Tea. The rules for stories are below but you know the kind we’re looking for: true stories that happened to you personally that still mean something to you days, months or years later.

Remember to keep it clean and under 8 minutes. And unlike this invitation, your story should have a beginning, middle and an end.

Rules & Guidelines: https://freshgroundstories.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/storytelling-rules-and-guidelines/

I hope to see you there.

Paul
freshgroundstories@gmail.com

I’m so happy I got permission to post this! I love this story from the first line to the last. She said it took her months to work on this story and then find the courage to get up and tell it. The time she spent on it really shows. Terra, you better tell this one at The Moth next month.

Since we have a little extra time between shows I’m going to post some videos of my favorite storytellers. Here’s an interview with Kevin Kling. He’s just about my favorite everything and if you get a chance to see him live you should break whatever traffic laws you need to in order to get that ticket.

Thank you everyone for making last Thursday’s show so much fun. I was worried that the flooding and holidays would keep people away but the place was packed and we had a night of great stories.

Thank you also for letting me take some time and work on a story of my own one final time before putting it to rest. It takes me a long time to write my own stories and it was nice to finally close the book on that particular one. I hope everyone who showed up enjoyed our special guest Launa who closed the show. Her story was just as captivating live as it was on the radio. I hope to have more special guests in the future. I’ll put a link to Launa’s story on our Facebook page in a few days.

Special thinks to our first-timers Scott and Miz James. If you ever have a chance to work for Scott do it! He is the world’s kindest boss. Miz James’ story had a number of themes in it but the one I’m still smiling about three days later is the power that certain Bollywood film stars have over the rest of us mortals. When I was a kid I wanted to be Spiderman. Now I want to be Shah Rukh Khan.

Obie told a beautiful story about the freedoms some of us have and some of us don’t. It’s something we’re all thinking about a lot these days but they way Obie’s story played out was unique to him. All I can say is that every time I see a political bumper sticker I will think of that story.

Terra Lea is one of our newer storytellers who I hope will become a regular. She had one of the best opening lines ever and I am going to do everything I can to convince her to let me put the audio online. It’s a sweet story about facing the difficult things in life and how sometimes the best way to do that is by taking your pants off.

Special thanks to everyone who told a story that night: Ginger, Barb, Bailey, David, Jonathan, Miz James, Obie, Scott, Terra Lea, Launa.

Once again I feel bad that I had to bump a bunch of people because we ran out of time. I’m trying to think of the best way to get as many people onstage as possible and it basically comes down to a two things. One is that all of us need to stay under the 8 minute time limit. I know it’s hard to cut stuff but for FGS we really need it to keep it tight.

The other is that I’ll probably start keeping a list of who tells a story on which nights so if it comes down to choosing someone who told a story last month and someone we haven’t seen in a while I’ll choose the person we haven’t seen for a while. We have a lot of regulars who tell great stories but some folks take months to work up the courage to get onstage and I want to make sure they get a chance to share their story.

One thing that I know will be helpful to everyone is a new story workshop that Bill Bernat is starting up. He’s going to hold one workshop a couple weeks before each new FGS so if you’re working on a story and you want some help on it this is a great place to go. It’s free and run by one of the best storytellers I know.

Basically it will be a bunch of people sitting around a table in a coffee shop sharing stories and asking for feedback. If you join you’ll get the monthly workshop announcements but don’t RSVP unless you have a story you want to work on. You can find the rest of the details at the link below:

http://www.meetup.com/Fresh-Ground-Stories-Storytelling-Workshop/

The recording from last week’s show came out fine so I can give each of the storytellers a copy of their performance if they want it. I only give them to the people who told a story and it’s only the audio of their own story. Most performers don’t want their personal stories online so that’s why I only give copies to the people who told them.

Next month we’ll be going to back to our regular non-holiday schedule which is the 4th Thursday of every month. That means our next show is January 28. The theme is “Starting Over.” I’ll write up the official invite next week and get that out to you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Have a great holiday season! Come back with some stories 🙂

Paul

freshgroundstories@gmail.com

“I hate to tell you this.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that phrase but I think I could go the rest of my life without hearing it again and not feel like I’ve lost out on anything.

As hard as it is to hear I have to admit that it’s rarely been a surprise. By the time I go to the doctor I’m already bracing myself for the worst. Whenever I hear it in a relationship I’m usually aware that I’ve been on borrowed time for a while. You know how excited you get when you wake up and smell bacon cooking? Sometimes I wake up and smell the Bacon of Breakup. I’m not kidding. I can smell a breakup that’s about to happen. I don’t know exactly what it smells like but it’s not bacon. The other day I saw a guy try to high five his girlfriend and she walked right past him. That’s what breakup smells like.

Anyway, the most awkward moments for me are not when I’m being dumped, it’s when I’m trying to tell a woman how I feel about her. It’s the “I love you” moment. Or the “So, you know I have a crush on you” moment. I think I have a special talent for choosing the wrong person to fall for.

Once I was sitting on a bench with a lady I had a crush on and as we were looking across the water I said, “You know I’m kinda sweet on you.” Without even looking at me she said, “Why don’t those condos have windows on the side facing the bay? Who wants to look out over an ugly parking lot?” I don’t think she was purposely comparing me to a parking lot but it did sort of create that impression.

Another time a woman I was head over heels for wrote to ask if I’d like to get a house and be roommates with her. I couldn’t say no fast enough. I said, “Look, if we were roommates I would spend every waking moment trying to charm the pants off you. I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. I mean literally charm the pants off you.” In my head, this was the best way to say I had a huge crush on her. To her credit, she matched my glancing heartfelt confession with an admission of platonic misdirection. She sent back emoticons of three baby chickens and a puppy gif.

You can never tell how these hard talks are going to be received. Honesty is scary. And it’s not always rewarded in the way you want. I was going to write this month’s story about the time a doctor told me my mom had cancer but I don’t have the emotional energy to dig that one up. Then I thought I’d talk about the time I had to call my dad and tell him I got someone pregnant. There’s a big difference between calling your dad to tell me he’s going to be grandparent and calling your dad to tell him you got a girl pregnant. It was a hard call but it was met on my dad’s end with surprising grace. I don’t have the energy to tell that story either, though.

Tonight I want to go to bed thinking about the times I put my heart on the line and told someone how much I cared about them. Every time I’ve done that it’s paid off. Not always in the way I wanted but it was always good in the end. The lady on the bench who got nervous when I said I liked her? A few years ago, in the depths of the worst depression in my life, she and my buddy Mark came over and gave me the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. The woman who sent me three chickens and puppy gif? I saw her the other day. She’s as beautiful as ever and we still get together as often as we can. She didn’t run from being my friend and I never treated her any different because that’s all she wanted to be.

I’m grateful to all the people who let me start an awkward conversation and to all the people who had to start one with me. It means a lot that you trusted me enough to say what you had to say even if you knew I wasn’t going to take it well at the time.

And that’s the kind of story we’re hoping you bring to the next FGS, Thursday, December 10 at 7pm at Roy Street Coffee and Tea.

The rules for stories are below but you know the kind we’re looking for: true stories that happened to you that still mean something to you days, months or years later.

Remember to keep it clean and under 8 minutes.

Rules & Guidelines: https://freshgroundstories.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/storytelling-rules-and-guidelines/

I hope to see you there.

Paul

freshgroundstories@gmail.com