listen to your mother--woot!

I have some pretty coolio news: I've been selected to participate in Listen To Your Mother DC (LTYM) this spring! 

LTYM honors Mother's Day each year by giving moms all across the country a microphone through which to speak their various mom-type experiences.  I attended our local show last year and found myself on a 90-minute roller-coaster extravaganza of gut-wrenchingness (yes, it warranted an invented word), inspiration, and hilarity.  I had to go have a drink afterward just to absorb and rehash it all.  I also walked away feeling like: I want to do that! 

Over time, however, I admit that I forgot to watch for more information about it.  Then, out of thousands of other tweets in my twitter stream, I happened to see an announcement regarding auditions for this year's show. See, I KNEW something good could come from that twitter haze I descend into every night!

So I signed up.

Then I realized the audition would take place in a hotel room.  Sounds a little creepy doesn't it?  It just so happens I listened to my mother, and I'm pretty sure she warned me to steer clear of strangers who promise me fame and riches in exchange for a brief interlude at the local Motel 6. 

Besides, I have been down this meet-me-in-a-hotel-room road before.  It's true.  Academic job interviews, if you can believe it, take place in hotel rooms.  In that professional context, the venue is quite horrifying.  Imagine trying to don your most professional pose as you vie for the job of a life-time with your well-suited butt cheeks perched precariously on the edge of a slab of body-hugging posturepedic memory foam!  I tell you, I considered curling up for a quick nap just to relieve the stress of it all. 

It didn't go so well for me the first time (perhaps is was my bedroom etiquette?) so I couldn't help but wonder if that would be an omen for LTYM.  But the audition was way more fun and friendly than a job interview, and they even let me sit in a chair! (OK fine - I got a chair the first time as well--but I had been warned not to expect one, so all my interview disaster fantasies centered around an austere search committee, me, and a set of queen-sized velour comforters).

Regardless, I guess I've gotten much better at showing off my stuff to strangers in hotel rooms because I made the cast!  (what would my mother say!?).

So...if you're local to the DC area, you should come on out and see the show!  And if you're not local, check out the LTYM main page and click on the "Local Shows" tab to see if there's a LTYM event near you.