You will be designing a 13th look...

I just met with one of the guys in charge of "Laugh Till It Hurts," which is the show I'm doing stand-up comedy in on Sunday. I had to drop off their portion of my ticket money, and take care of some legal stuff, like signing a waver just in case they film any part of it. That's fine with me, I'm hoping one of my friends will record my set with my camera so I can put it up on my YouTube page.

He also took me through the order of the performers and I've found out that I'm going third, out of a group of five comedians. Which I guess I'm okay with, since I'm a little unsure of how successful I'm going to be. I'm pretty sure the other four comics in the show actually have experience with stand-up comedy, so it stands to reason they'd want to stick me in the middle, since this is my first time.

And then I looked a little closer at the paper, to where it said, "Michele McNally, 7:45-8:05"

That's twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Not seven to ten.

Which is what I prepared.

That's TWICE as much.

So now, Project Runway style, just when you thought you'd have the second day of the challenge to hem your skirt and fix your closures, Tim Gunn tells you you have to design a second look using only the scraps of fabric you have left over.

I'm working tonight and a double tomorrow, so basically I have a brief amount of time tonight and Sunday morning to find ten more minutes of material.

Something funny had better happen to me tonight.

Basically, I think this just means I have to revamp my approach. Twenty minutes is a very long time. I think what I have to do, (and this is also advice from the great Cate Fricke, who I called immediately, freaking out) is incorporate more of a performance. Something that's not necessarily the traditional, "Hey, who's from Long Island?" stand-up. Like the kind of stuff I used to do for Midnight Theatre in college. The problem is, I'm a little out of practice.

Thankfully, I've stacked the audience with my friends who will hopefully be drunk. So I guess it will be more like college than I'd originally thought.

Make it work.