Living a Dream

Sometimes I think all day about something I want to write when I get home. It might be something funny that I saw/heard/read/took in by using one of my senses. It doesn't have to be funny...it could elicit any emotion, really. Or it might be something that I just kinda thought up during the day and wanted to elaborate on. What invariably happens is that I think about it during the day, lose some steam on what I wanted to really get into, talk for about 20 minutes with someone about that thing, and don't bother writing it. So where does that leave me? It leaves me with a good conversation and nothing to write about. It's a blessing and a curse. Curse because I like writing and generally want to write about these things I think up. And blessing because I'm not so painfully alone that I have no one to talk to and am forced to write it out instead. (Not that I'm suggesting that all writers are the lonely/reclusive type...but have you seen most of these jokers?) Here...

As I sit here on my couch and watch the end of the Monday Night Football game (it's been a good one, fyi), I find myself struggling to successfully wrap myself in my blanket. I'm cold, but I need to figure out how to keep myself free to type while keeping the rest of myself warm. And now I realize something. THE SNUGGIE IS EFFING INCREDIBLE. Go ahead and make fun of it. Goodness knows that I have. I've made fun of my mom a bunch of times for having one. I even got one of my own when they gave them out at Cavs games last year and made fun of myself for having it. Occasionally I used it...and if the time was just right, and I really needed it...my god. That was a great invention. That's really my whole thought. I guess I'll move on and say that I actually got a job. It's part-time, but I may have gotten a 2nd one also. After routinely getting rejected from all kinds of jobs in all kinds of ways, I was walking past a shoe store near my house with a "help wante...

Dear Couple Sitting in Front of Me on the Train, Let me start by saying that I believe that love, in all its forms, is an inherently beautiful thing. I believe that it is an important thing in a human's life to find someone who understands their neurosis, but beyond that, someone who actually enjoys it. It's wonderful to think there are people out there who want nothing more than to make you happy. But that's not what this is about. This is about your cutesy/lovey/nuzzling games that you played for 13 stops - aka 24 minutes. First of all, yes, I said it's great to have someone who understands you, but that someone should also understand that you both look like complete and utter assholes. I'm fine with having your arm around someone, but you (girl, who I'm now naming Megan) actually took the initiative to sit up straight, turn toward guy (who I'm naming Kyle), and properly give him a legitimate hug on an extremely crowded 1:30 A.M. train. My initia...

Baby, don't hurt me . Sorry about that. This entry should really fall under the "makes you wonder" category and thus the other blog, but it's something that I've been thinking about since moving to Chicago, so it stays here - as this is the Chicago/entertainment world/whatever it is blog. I was on the bus home from the first time I've ever done improv on a stage in front of people who weren't my classmates (went alright, more nerve wracking than I expected) and I got to thinking. Over the last month or so I've had to say goodbye to an awful lot of people. Not permanent goodbyes, thankfully, as I think I've done a pretty good job keeping up with most of them. These people are my closest friends and family and they mean the world to me. So when I tell these people that I love them, it comes as no surprise. They say it back in most cases, and we go on our way. But we never stop and try to articulate it. There were at least two people who I had planne...

I'm not trying to be manly, but I don't consider myself as the type who is afraid of a lot of things. I'm not afraid of heights, spiders, truck drivers, or even Germans. So I'm not going to write a post titled "fear" and tell you all about any kind of standard fear (like my fear of dirty dish-water and how when I touch it, it triggers my gag-reflex). Nor will I pretend I'm great because I went skydiving on Sunday. Yes, it was completely insane. And no, I'll not soon forget it. And yes, I get sick on roller coasters but still thought this was a good idea. That's not the kind of fear I'm talking about. I do have one or two very real fears, though. I want to try to dig into one of them. We'll see how this goes. I have a paralyzing fear of being like everyone else. Anyone reading this, whether you know me well, have only met me in passing, or only know who I am because you stumbled upon this and have never met me in a face-to-face environment, ...

I had another one of those moments today. It reaffirmed that I'm making the right choice by wanting to go to Second City and go after the ultimate goal of making people laugh all the time. That's actually one of the nice things about caddying, is that it makes me realize that I don't want to be caddying and would rather be out doing something I enjoy. Now that I'm thinking about it, there were actually two moments, and I'll explain them. Starting now-ish. I was forecaddying for a group of four really nice guys. Being nice guys, they asked me what I wanted to do and what I was doing and all those standards, so I told them I was saving up some money from caddying and was gonna head to Chicago in the fall to go after the dream of Second City and either Improv or Comedy Writing. As we talked about it, the one guy said something like this: "Well, you're looking at three CPAs and a business owner. They're good jobs, it's a great way to make a living...but...

Disclaimer: this post has nothing to do with me wanting to be famous or anything like that. It is exclusively about how I feel about the country in which I live. I've been told that the easiest way to write is to write about something you love, or at least about something you know. If you get lucky, those two are the same. I'm feeling lucky. The current world climate is full of moments that make you think "boy, maybe I am really lucky, I shouldn't take so many things for granted," but how often do you really take that to heart? Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, market crashes, bailouts, unemployment...these things happen - some of them are worse than others. But through the good and the bad, one thing rings true to me. There is nothing I love as much as I love my country. I wanted to write this on Memorial Day when I got home from work, but what happened instead only affirmed my love for all things American. Someone I know called me because their basement had flood...

There's a commonly used expression that says you should do something every day that scares you. I'm not so sure that this is a safe practice because I don't have the money to do a lot of scary things like parachuting, alligator wrestling, heli -skiing, or asking someone to marry me (easily the scariest on the list). That leaves me with less expensive fear options like driving on the wrong side of the road, walking into the Crip neighborhood with Blood colors on, or what I did today; stand on the top of a really shaky ladder and paint a barn on a very windy day. I realize that painting a barn isn't gonna get me the street cred that Coolio has, but I'll be damned if I didn't feel a gust of wind, wobble a little bit, feel my heart skip a beat, and then laugh about how awesome it was. My point is this: How great is that feeling? How cool is it to know that something could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn't? Does anything make you feel more alive than that...

I planned on writing a poem to a complete stranger who happened to be my 100th follower. Instead, I'm now going to write a poem to Mike Eppich ( @Mike_Eppich on Twitter). Mike came in as my 100th follower. On the one hand, that's fun...on the other hand, he was my 40th (ish) follower who then decided to unfollow me in hopes of becoming my 100th follower and recipient of said poem. The shame is that it actually worked. The reason I have such a 'tude toward this character is because I played baseball with him for a couple years and have kept in very close touch with him ever since. He specifically requested that I do not write a haiku for him. So here's a haiku for him. Mike just quit his job He probably sucked at it 'Cause Mike Eppich sucks. So that's a start. But I feel like that's a total cop-out. Check out @Mike_Eppich and you can read his little bio, It's where he uses ellipses to fake some James Bond style. It falsely claims he works and sells unifor...

You've probably read it, heard it, or seen it tattooed on someone, but there's a saying that starts with "dance like no one's watching..." It's supposed to be a way of saying "be yourself," or something along those lines. There's more to it, but the point is that you should be yourself and not be afraid of what other people think about your questionable dancing ability. I have two emphatic words for that expression. Screw. That. What fun is it to dance when nobody's watching? Where's the thrill? Where's the adrenaline? Where's the motivation to try something crazy? I'm not just talking about dancing anymore, this is bigger. Don't do things like they don't matter, do things like they're the most important thing in your life. Make everything count, right? Give me one good reason not to. Let's say you're writing a blog post. It doesn't matter if only three people are going to read it, you should write it ...

Someone asked me today: if my life were made into a movie, would I watch it? HELL YES, I WOULD. Upon answering so emphatically, she called me out for being cocky. Here is my extended answer, including teasers, cliff-hangers, and the possible title. I justify my arrogance by saying that if I don't believe in my product, who in the world is going to see it? The movie about me would be executive produced by me, obviously. I have the final say in what goes and what doesn't. If my life were made into a movie, only the most important parts would make it...it would be like a 23 year highlight reel crammed into 2 hours and 12 minutes (any longer and I'm risking a major walk-out-to-pee-and-miss-the-important-stuff crowd reaction). For the meaty part, think about all the great things this movie would have! It would feature sports, love, friendships, hardships, heartbreaks, family bonds, and most importantly...frontal male nudity. Name one thing from that list that doesn't appear ...

Well, I got a job. Far from perfect, but I'm employed. I'm working in the Cavs team shop at the Q...which is cool. It's majorly part time, so I'm still looking into other things whenever I can. The story here lies in my first day. I found out I got the job on Friday and was starting Monday...in the team shop...on the day of a home game. That is to say that I was being tossed into the proverbial fire despite zero retail experience whatsoever (but at least I didn't lie about that in the interview, so I got that going for me). Not as intimidating as I'm making it out to be, but one could understand that it was a slightly tense drive downtown. Anyway, I got to the shop a little before 5:00 and was a little confused with the way things were going, but I got ushered through it all and made sense of what was going on. I was to be the guy in the Witness section; basically I'd just help people get stuff in that section and that was it. Well, the store doesn't op...

I have these flashes where I want to write something that changes the world. I want to write things like "I don't care if you're gay, you're still human" but then I ruin it by adding things like "and as a human, you're likely an idiot." It could be cynicism (or as cynics call it, realism), but I keep wanting to say important things and then realize that it's just not my style. I can have a serious conversation with you if you'd like, but I will undoubtedly interject silly quips and whatnot. The problem is that I like serious conversations...I just like making snide comments just as much. So far, over the last week, this blog has been mostly on par with that - the real-life issues I'm having and the not-so-effective but ultimately therapeutic ways I deal with it (which is by writing...I think that's clear). So maybe I should try. I never thought of myself as a particularly tolerant person, but I also didn't think of myself as being...

Here I sit. It's 1:00 a.m. and I have no reason to be awake. I'm house-sitting, so the dog will probably wake me up around 7, but I'm not even really trying to go to sleep. Why would anyone do something so stupid? It's not like I'm watching something interesting or helping someone through a crisis. I'm not really doing anything. I'm just dilly-dallying on the internet. For instance, right now I have tabs opened to Twitter (holla! @kevinpnye !), facebook, livejournal (so I can read Coke's blog), and google analytics (which can be attributed to Lauren). Before I go to bed I will invariably check my email (guaranteed to be nothing new), refresh Twitter, probably breeze through espn.com (even though I could turn on the channel instead), may find something good on youtube, and then I'll end up watching a movie on netflix.com. The question really becomes "what in the hell did I do before the internet??" . I like to think that I've blocked out...

It's pretty obvious that I like to write; if I didn't, you would be reading something else because I wouldn't have anything for you. (if you wanna take a minute to think about how you wouldn't know that I didn't write because you just never would have experienced it, and then let your mind wander down that road, I don't blame you - that's what I'm doing.) But whenever I tell people that I like to write, they invariably ask what I mean, what I want to write, and it always leads to the same thing. It's foolproof, someone will always say "write a book." Maybe I'm just a bundle of hate, but that always sort of bothers me. Perhaps it's because I've thought about writing books and partially realized just how much goes into it. Or maybe it's because I don't say things to engineers like "Hey, build me something." The point is that, in order to write a book, you have to somehow come up with over 100,000 words based on o...

Alright, enough beating around the bush. Maybe this is me starting to finally get back into writing in a big way. Maybe it's not. But screw it, it's a start. Some of these posts that will be coming semi rapid-fire over the next few days are inspired by people and conversations that I'm having as I type this, so I'm going to try not to delve into what exactly is happening/leave the people involved out of it. If you've read the older posts you may know that I feel an insatiable desire to be seen/heard. I can't really explain it (which you also know if you've read the older posts...I ramble). But there's even a little more to it than that; I just want to be important in some bizarre way. I know that's amazingly selfish and I'll explain why it isn't in a moment, but it's selfish...and isn't that how we are? Aren't we all just living, breathing, egos? Don't we all perform better, feel better, act nicer if someone has made us feel g...

Sometimes I go through major Andy Kaufman syndrome - I have an extremely difficult time being serious. Furthermore, this is a problem because people who know me know not to take me seriously...but at the same time, I'm very serious. I'm serious about important things, and I know that sounds really lame, or like the setup to a bad joke (if you want a bad joke, see the end of the previous post), but it's not. There are a lot of things that I'm serious about, but only a handful of people pay any attention to these things. I think too much: I spend tons of time thinking about inconsequential, weird things. I wonder about things beyond my control, knowing that they'll never be within my control. I try to explain bizarre thoughts to a lot of people who don't really have any interest in hearing them (there are a few who hear me out, which is nice, but not the point). I don't know. Maybe none of this is important right now. I think I'm on the verge of an epiphan...

It's become a funny existence. I wake up, I sit around, I catch up on Ninja Warrior, I eat, play video games, work out, watch the Cavs, and repeat. In between I apply for jobs, don't hear back, sulk, laugh, make others laugh, read things, write things, listen to music and occasionally sell things on eBay for my grandmother. But what am I doing? There are few things that I know are certain, and one of them is that my parents are displeased that I don't have a job - particularly my dad. I can't say that I blame him, but the real problem is that he acts like I'm thrilled about not having a job. I've got a big job fair that the Cavaliers are hosting on the horizon, it's later this month, and I really am starting to put the majority of my proverbial eggs in that basket...problem is, though, that the basket has slippery handles. I'm sick of not doing anything, but there's nothing to do. I can't keep asking people if they want to hire me when I know tha...

So it's been a while since my last post, and the reason, again, is because nothing really has happened. Or, I should say, nothing happened until a few weeks ago. It's no secret that I've been thinking about chasing fame and whatnot - with the possibility of a trip to New York City to see how that'd go. I started thinking about that around Thanksgiving but never really got around to it for various reasons. However, my good friend Lou was moving to the city in the first week of January, so I jumped at the opportunity to go to New York and try my hand at spur-of-the-moment auditions/casting calls. Here's the shortened story of my eight days in NYC...in some order, for part of the time. I'll digress into rambling. We got in on Friday night and carried Lou's things up five flights of stairs while the car was double-parked. This was exhausting. We went out Saturday night to a few bars in the lower west side of Manhattan; it was ridiculously cold outside and ridic...