guest post #1: walking on stilts

so, i recently had a first. and i am not, in fact, emily—by the way. i am chad. emily and jeff’s neighbor, and a part of the acting program with jeff. 

so, let me give you a bit of background. i decide to use my mfa in acting training by puppetering (my favorite term for it) a pre-recorded, 15 minute long puppet show on the beachfront. that’s enough background.

well, i was scheduled to work on monday, so off i went. i pull into the parking lot and find out we’re on hold due to weather. so, what do entertainers do when they’re told to hold? entertain themselves. in between the monsoons, we would hang out and talk, then as it would start raining again, we’d all scurry to our cars. 

well, during one such hang-out session, i noticed that the entrance to the parking lot had flooded. and i cracked a dad joke—emily will tell you that this is a normal occurrence. i don’t remember exactly what i said, but it was something about how only the stilt-walkers would be able to ford the river to get out—yeah, i know. and the conversation kept going and next thing i know, there are stilts and—well, let me show you:

so yeah! i walked on stilts! ...and yes, those are TOMS, thank you for asking. i don’t know how they do it. the funniest thing that happened was when the stilts were being put on my feet, i saw a group of street entertainers watching and they started running over. i hear the german juggler shout, “oh, this is going to be good.” it was very inspiring... anyway, i get up on the stilts and, well, it is a miracle from God that i didn’t fall. i nervously explained to the surrounding entertainers that i had never done this before to which they reply: “we can see.” again, inspiring. even further, they debated for a while whether they were on correctly...so much more inspiring. well, i stayed up there for about five minutes just, you know, hanging out...on stilts...during a lightning storm...like you do. then i got a little over-zealous and took a step, where i lost my balance and luckily was caught by one of the professionals. another guy (who was not a stilt-walker—actually, i have no idea what he does...) shouted, “you have to lift your leg and walk heel-to-toe.” his advice was manna from heaven. ...i could only get so far as the end of the tailgate...and then i freaked out about turning around...but i did and continued walking a bit. i then wanted to get down. but i had a lot of fun!

in conclusion, i hope for more rainy days to learn stilt-walking. it was...awesome. but not fazawesome. back to you, emily.