And now an urgent news-break

Forgive me if this entry is a little incoherent. My mind is buzzing enough to generate its own heat and my hands are shaking enough to make one wicked cocktail.

Come with me, would you, on a little flashback (earlier this afternoon to be precise, 2.18pm if we're being pedantic.)

I pull into our driveway, ready to unload my mammoth grocery shop, when my eye catches an envelope sticking out of the letterbox. Or more specifically, catches the logo on the envelope: Brisbane City Council.

I sigh. I know what this is. I applied for this grant, you see, A Lord Mayor’s Emerging Performing Artists’ Fellowship and have been expecting to hear the results any day. I glance at the envelope again. It’s thin.

Bummer.

I pull myself out of the car, undo the boot and start taking my stuff upstairs, leaving the envelope of disappointment alone in the letterbox. On my next trip down, I decide that as if unpacking groceries doesn’t suck enough, I’m damned if I’m going to torture myself with the impending doom at the same time.

I rip open the envelope and don’t even bother unfolding the piece of paper. I flip it over and read:

“It is with great pleasure that I advise you of the success of your application to the 2006 Lord Mayor’s Young and Emerging Artists Fellowships.”

“You have been awarded $15,500.00 to travel to the USA to undertake three weeks of intensive improvisation training.”

HOLY. HECK.

BATMAN.

I stand dead still with my hand clasped over my mouth for a full three and a half minutes. I then commence giggling like a complete idiot (a state which I continue to burst into sporadically throughout the rest of the afternoon) and ring people to share my amazing news in between ramblings of disbelief and panic at the thought of how much I have to organize.

SO….the bottom line is that at the end of July, people, JULY! I shall be taking on New York, Boston and Las Vegas for three weeks of comedy and improv training with Second City and Daena Giardella, the best that the jolly good old US of A has to offer. I still cannot believe it, even as I type it. But here I am blogging it, so it must be real.

Oh and before you ask, the answer is yes: I’ll be blogging the entire thing.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!