I wasn't necessarily maybe the oldest person there , which is a good thing . Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast . I'm your host , racy Wallace . Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life , that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues ? So did I . You don't have to be an only child to feel this way . In my podcast , we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting , while doing so with humor and light . Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast podcast .

Today I'm going to talk about Halloween yes , it's this week but I'm also going to talk about improv . Now , what should I start with ? Well , let me start with the improv . This week I found an old improv group that had resurfaced that actually I started with before I did stand-up . Now , I probably would never have have thought about doing improv again when I had Dallas , our horse . He took up most of my evenings and there's only so much of me to go around , right . But this week I saw a friend on Facebook a friend that I had actually met through the improv group talking about this improv group , this improv company that had long since disbanded , probably . I mean , I'm guessing it was 10 years ago , I mean , I'm guessing it was 10 years ago and I had participated in these classes . They're free classes , so they're not terribly competitive . I mean they're somewhat competitive , right , but they were free classes that started up and they really took a life all their own . They were part of a church group here in Los Angeles . Now I'm not a churchy type of person that's another story for another day but the improv group was not necessarily religious . We didn't sit around and do improv sessions based on the Bible or anything like that , but it was a way for me to get used to performing in front of people . That was really my mindset behind it , my motivation , and ultimately what I found out was that , well , first of all , improv is something where you're a lot more successful if you know the people that you are doing improv with . You have some sort of a connection or a bond or you just know each other .

And so the improv classes that I used to go to and so the improv classes that I used to go to often afterwards the people in the class would go out to get something to eat , and that just wasn't really possible for me because I had other commitments . I had my husband who was maybe waiting on dinner , or I had my horse and he was , you know , bill . My husband was expecting me to go and help him with the horse , so I had to rush off and it really limited the opportunities to further connect with the other people in class class . I also found out that often when you're in an improv class and you participate in the different improv exercises , well , you can be upstaged a lot . Right , you have to share the time and you have to work together , but what I found was that I often had a joke in mind or some sort of a line , but I got upstaged , which was frustrating . Okay , the other thing that I noticed was that , by a large percentage , the women were outnumbered by the men , so it was more of a male dominated activity . It was more of a male dominated activity , which is fine . I didn't understand why there weren't more women in the class , but that's the way of the world .

Anyway , I found this group again . It started up and it's pretty small right now , and my friend who I met actually she was a teacher before has been going and so she was going to go and I felt a little bit better about knowing somebody that was going to be there and I went last night and when I first told my husband earlier in the week that I was going to go , he was all for it . And then last night he was like , oh , you're going now . Yes , I'm going tonight . Yes , you will be alone . But I mean , this is good because , you know , not having Dallas has been an adjustment for both of us . Dallas has been an adjustment for both of us . He was used to having time on his own to practice his guitar and I was used to having time alone as well , or time to do my own things or have my own thoughts . So it's a good thing , but anyway it's a different thing and it's only one night a week , on Sunday . So I went .

I was a little bit , I won't say nervous , apprehensive that's the word . Well , maybe not even apprehensive , but anyway I went . I saw the gal that I know . It was a small group , maybe about a dozen people , and everybody was very nice . I wasn't necessarily maybe the oldest person there , which is a good thing . There was also an older gentleman there , maybe he's not quite as old as I , not a , he's not a kid either . Um , and it wasn't necessarily a competitive group .

I'll say this when I first started going to these classes . Um , before they had classes in different locations . They had classes in different locations , and I went to the one that was by our house in North Hollywood at the time no-transcript , competitive , and you instantly feel like you're behind the mark . Well , this was that . Everyone in that neighborhood was trying to get into the industry . So they were thinner , very thin . They were young and I wasn't heavy . I had lost a lot of weight at that point , but it's definitely older , anyway . So last night I started up with improv again and it was a lot of fun , and the teacher came up to me afterwards and thanked me for coming which was very kind of him and said that I . What did he say ? He said that I made some bold choices , which I think was a compliment , and I told him that he had a very nice persona on stage . So it was fun and I'll do it again Definitely . It feels like a safe thing to do and it feels like a good way to just get back into doing something for myself . And the fact that I don't have Dallas , well , still makes me sad , of course , but it gives me opportunities now to do other things , and so that's good .

Halloween is this week and I've gone pretty far with the decorations in our front yard . This year I don't see as many houses decorated in our canyon as I've seen in the past . The reason for that might be twofold . It's been an incredibly hot October . October and also the rates from our power company went up dramatically , and I think that those two factors have probably played into people not wanting to put inflatables up and lights . I don't really blame them , but I have gotten tremendous joy from decorating the house . The people that I've seen and talked to , that have stopped or driven by and stopped taking pictures , videos , whatever , have been very complimentary and I've had great conversations with them and it makes you feel really good that you've done something that have made people happy . That's a good feeling .

That being said , I've put so many things up that it has been a tremendous amount of work , and taking everything down is going to also be a tremendous amount of work . Storing it away in the back of the garage and bringing the Christmas stuff up to the front Get to do it all over again and I don't know if this is a good thing or not , but I did go and buy . I saw a few new things and I did go and buy a few new pieces already for Christmas , because it's going to be here before we know it and it takes my mind off my impending root canal and my impending cataract surgery , which hopefully can still be next year . I mean , I can still see the inflatables , but I can't necessarily read the boxes as well anymore . Those are the highlights for this week .

I hope , whatever you do for Halloween , you have a lot of fun and you stay safe and hopefully you're decorating . Love to see everybody's decorations on Facebook so much fun . Love to see everybody's decorations on Facebook so much fun . And next week , well , we'll tackle another topic together . I hope you'll join me . If you like this episode , please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review . It helps others to find us . Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well . Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast . Thanks for listening . I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries .