Another Night at the Office

I did 3 sets last night. The first was an open-mic in midtown Manhattan.  The second was on “Short Bus,” a nice booked show at The Creek and the Cave.  And the third was back in Manhattan - a late-night, 2-minutes-each mic at a mostly-improv venue called The Pit.

To get from the first to the second, I took the 7-train, which heads east from Grand Central Station, underwater, and into Queens.  Walking there, I looked up, and saw this:

And something about the view, and the moment, just kind of hit me.  So I resisted the urge to be the New Yorker that’s “too cool to give a shit,” and I stopped, and I took that picture.

I too often forget how cool my life is.  I mean, I definitely get stressed out.  I definitely worry about what I’m doing with my life.  But at the end of the day, my life is pretty damn cool.
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I got an e-mail last week from one of my college roommates (I had a different one every year, because I was a nightmare to live with back then.  I never learned how to do my own laundry growing up, so my freshman year, when my gym socks got too disgusting to wear, I hid them in a drawer in my dorm room, like they were a dead body or something.  They stayed there for weeks, maybe months, and they called to me, like a smellier, gamier version of The Tell-Tale Heart.  God, I was a monster back then).

Anyway, me and this dude were good buddies in college, except for the year we lived together.  But he moved to Russia after we graduated, and we hadn’t caught up for years.

He didn’t mean to, but by asking for an update, he forced me to zoom out and look at the big picture of my life.

And honestly, my adult life is pretty much exactly what I’d hoped it would be.  I’m living in New York City, pursuing stand-up, and trying to meet cool people and connect with them.

Sometimes I forget to soak my life in.  I fall into the same traps that I think most people do:  I worry too much about how my week is going, not how my life is going.  I worry too much about how other people feel about me, and not how I actually feel.  I worry about whether or not I’m “making it,” or whether or not I’m “succeeding,” instead of thinking about what those words even mean.

So to my old roommate Todd - and to anyone else who is curious:  don’t be too worried about the daily highs and lows of my blog posts.  Yes, my life is filled with good days and bad days, just like everyone else.

But if you want to know how my life is going, look at the picture above.  For me - and my life right now - that’s just another night at the office.

I put on a shirt for this photo, Todd. You’re welcome.