Get Busy Living

I have no excuses for not keeping my own website updated. I’ve treated my baby like an unwanted stepchild, or more accurately like a forgotten Myspace page. Let me jump right into it and tell you the happenings. Last year, I took a 3 month leave of absence from my job in Syracuse and traveled around the country to perform and just live, except for the Confederate states (too scary) and the West coast (too far and I think there’s a weight limit). I did it with very little money and I survived off the kindness of friends and strangers. Then I foolishly thought I could just go back to work and my regular life, but something in me had changed forever. There was no going back to the old me, even if I wanted to.

I don’t want to put all the blame on comedy. I had been working overnights almost my entire adult life and I literally saw the light at the end of the graveyard shift. I was finally amongst the day walkers and it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it’d be. Living like an out-of-shape vampire for more than a decade made me look and feel like an extra on The Walking Dead (not a main character, or special guest, or even a speaking role). So, after my leave of absence I decided I was going to leave my job permanently within the next year. I was leaning towards the Midwest because LA is too pretty and NYC is too dirty. You can take that to mean whatever you want it to mean; it’s not fact-based at all. Really, Chicago seemed like an affordable and reasonable compromise. All I knew was that Syracuse was beginning to feel like a small pond. So, this past summer, I worked my last day at a job in Syracuse with a decent income, consistent booked comedy gigs, and low cost of living (a 3 bedroom for $700/month. Say What!?), and took the leap. No more small pond for me. Now I’m a guppy in a contaminated sea.

Maybe I should have waited, did more research, saved more money, etc. but it’s too late now to go back. I traveled again this summer and fall and spent some time in the Midwest and East coast. My favorite time was spent in Chicago for a month. The people were nicer than I imagined they would be. Granted, half the comedians I knew had moved to the East or West coasts. One of my best friends lives in a fancy condo in downtown Chicago but she was in Europe the whole time while I “Talented Mr. Ripley’d” her life. (“I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody, than a real nobody.”)

Then I came back to Baltimore. I’m not exactly sure why. I know the reason I told people. Personal and family stuff. But those issues could have resolved themselves without me moving back.  No one begged me to save them. I think, especially before I visited Chicago-my intended destination, I wanted someone to need me. I had given up so much in Syracuse and I was afraid of failing in a city I barely knew anyone. In all honesty, Baltimore is my ground zero.  The reason I left Baltimore and didn’t return to live here for several years is the same reason I don’t date light-skinned dudes; it reminds me of oppression. Not you, Jesse Williams. You. Can. Get. It.

A lot of traumatic events happened to me here and I’m supposed to focus on writing jokes? The cherry on top is although I may be slowly disintegrating into a pile of insanity, the rest of the country seems to be losing its mind too. And you know, misery LOVES company. So, I guess, we’re in this… together? My favorite quote of all time, which I use far too often, is from Assata Shakur’s autobiography: “The strong go crazy. The weak just go along.” 

That means I am Hercules. Hercules! Hercules! HERCULES! 

Fabulous. 

The Whole World Laughs at Me

I want to live before I die. It's been said before, I know. Not trying to be clever or poetic or anything particularly special. I had plans to have a great summer. Things sort of took an unexpected turn. My vacation was ridiculous. Between losing the rental car keys after falling over in the grass with my pants down while taking a piss in the club's parking lot in Pittsburgh (and finally finding said keys in the apparent black hole that is my breast-esses) and getting caught in a mini-tsunami on Coney Island then having to squeeze the ocean out of my shirt while being dragged around Brooklyn suffering accusations of "party pooper," it was quite the voyage. I admit to being a bit uptight but catching pneumonia is never going to be my idea of a good time. I'm just not the "good time girl" I guess. I did have a good time with mi mejor amiga in the Bronx. It's not like I had a bad time anywhere else I went, I just had a time. Going from the day-to-day humdrum life of work, rinse and repeat to getting home at 7am after "partying" all night was a bit much to handle. But I think the hangover ended about 3 months later so it's not so bad. I finally had a drink again in September. And when I say a drink, I mean more like 48. My father died in September which led to a Henessey-filled week of mourning, but I'll talk about that in another post coming soon.

Anyway, after my action-packed vacay and my neice dying and visiting my father after learning he was ill and my Uncle Joe passing away and my younger brother getting shot 5 times like he needed a record deal, I have to say I forgot about all those silly plans I made. The classes, the gym, the diet, the drop of bad habits, the commencement of writing... it all just slipped my mind.

But after last September something started to grow inside of me. Ever since I was a young girl I was convinced I would die in my 30's, specifically from cancer. Sadly my poor health habits are/were becoming part of a self-fulfilling prophesy. I just sort of accepted it as fact, something that had to happen. Now I want to change my perspective. Not into a philosophy of immortality or anything delusional. No more predictions of gloom or assumptions of failure and inability. I don't care if I make a damn fool of myself or the whole world laughs at me. Corny or not, cliche and all, I want to live before I die. Period.

So let me paint the picture for you and wrap this up. I stopped going to classes I had enrolled in last fall and starting work multiple jobs. Too busy to think about my surroundings. And then near the end of the year I resigned from my job at the university. Well, at least I tried to. Wrote the letter and everything. Or shall I call it the manifesto. Told them I was leaving on principle, failing economy and all. Then I waited. And waited. And then I waited some more. My "bosses" wanted to talk it over. Being that I was actually leaving on principle, nothing they said could convince me to stay. So what if I resign or get fired. I'll just be forced to live out my dreams. Then a lightbulb went off. If I leave now, I'll lose a month of paid vacation time. A whole month. What if I used that month to help facilitate whatever dreams I have? So I go to this meeting and I smile and I nod, and I throw in a little acting. "I don't know if I can compromise my morals and ethics," blah, blah. Yeah, sure, you convinced me to stay. All in the name of taking my vacation time in Summer 2009 to think of what I want to do with my life. Perhaps I should try stand up comedy. It seems like it would be fun. I would really have to prepare myself though. So I'm taking classes again (and actually going), working multiple jobs, and working on my routine like it's my dissertation. This time, if the world laughs at me, I'll welcome it with open arms.

Spaceship

"I've been workin' this grave shift and I ain't made shit. I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky..." (Spaceship, from the College Dropout Album)


I am finally leaving the graveyard shift. Starting Monday I will be working during the day when normal people are awake. So it will only last for a month, but I'll take what I can get. Nights and weekends off, it's like I'm going to be a cellphone! I hope I can manage to stay out of trouble. Who am I kidding? This is the Cuse. Staying out of trouble should be no problem. There's nothing to do and practically no one (on my level) to do it with. I am going to be working out and eating healthier and saving money. I might even take a class and get a part-time job. I have already started to look for places to move to in the fall. Time to downgrade and cut my expenses. Oh yeah and I am a horrendous pool player so I plan to work on that a bit as well. So much to do, so little time. This will be a productive summer, I promise myself that.

Making a List, Checking it Twice...

I have a bit of OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Self-diagnosed, but undeniably present. It's not as bad as As Good As It Gets, so no worries. I don't forsee any major avoidance of sidewalk cracks in my future.

My number one indicator is the list-making. I make lists everyday about what I'm going to do that day, that week, month, year, about what to eat, when to exercise (or when to start exercising), what to buy, what order to clean the house, what items to take to work, who to call, who to write a letter or email to, and even as specific as when to take a shower and brush my teeth. If that's not obsessive I don't know what is. The compulsive part comes from how many lists I end up making in a day because of the fact that I do things out of the intended order or simply don't do them at all. It can get pretty stressful, let me tell ya.

Much of the stress comes from never fully completing tasks I set out to do on these lists. Perhaps they (the lists) are too ambitious. Yeah, I'd like to think that but when most of my lists include things like brushing my teeth, taking a shower and buying more toilet paper, there's really no good excuse. Still, I feel like these lists are all I have now. Them and the coffee and the ciggarettes. Part of my daily routine. Sadly the bulk of my current existence consists of trivial rituals. Wait, "ritual" sounds too meaningful. Addiction is probably more accurate.

I can't give up the lists; they give my life some semblance of productivity. Like this new blog of mine. Never mind the countless other blogs that have come and gone. I can pretend to not have writer's block and then maybe one day I'll wake up and I won't have to pretend anymore. That is the plan for now anyway. That reminds me of this low-rate prison movie I saw once where the dude says "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."

Anyway I gotta go cross off "write blog post"from today's list.
Deuces!

the first day of the rest of my life...again

I always start these things and never finish. Maybe this time will be different. And maybe this time I will travel with this blog. Like out of the country/continent/world. So it begins. First goal: overcome writer's block. Good luck me. Gotta go to work.