Living a Dream

I've been looking at this photo a lot lately. I put it on Instagram with the caption "sometimes you just gotta jump" because I think that's a lesson that could be taken away from it, but I admit it's also because I like to pretend I'm a photographer on Instagram and that's what a photographer might say.  I've been looking at a lot though, and I guess there could be several reasons.  Maybe I look because I think it's a cool photo of me. Maybe I look because I wonder exactly how high that jump was. Maybe I look because I remember how cold the water was.  Maybe I look because jumping off of something is freedom. Maybe I look because that moment of anticipation before hitting the cold water is the clearest moment of thought that a human can experience. Maybe I look because Oregon, and specifically Crater Lake, is beautiful. Maybe I look because I used to be more comfortable with heights than I am now, and I remember how I was mor...

It's hard to deal with things. That's OK, but it's hard to deal with things.  There's a lot of stuff going on in the world, and a lot of people are saying a lot of things (most of them are kinda stupid and rash, but that's another issue). These things make me think things, and blogs are a good place to express thoughts, but I don't think I want to do that. I'm not interested in ruffling your feathers, changing your opinion of me/a situation that you don't want to be influenced on.  As a result, I've been staring at a blank post for quite a while, trying to figure out what to say. If I don't talk about what's going on in the world - in Paris, in Beirut, in Maryland (student with gun on campus today, Monday), in Syria, and in about a thousand other places in the world, then I may be ignoring the problems and bottling up my emotions. If I do talk about what's going on in all of these places, then I'm putting my stupid opinion out ...

So yes, the plan was to just travel as much as we could before we knew our schedules. During the first couple of weeks there was a lot of emailing, interviewing, and finding out what we might be doing for work. It came slowly, and the stress of not knowing where we could work and what exactly we would be doing motivated us to take short breaks in the form of weekend trips. A quick Google-Flight search showed us round-trip airfare to Brussels for about 40 euros per person. Again, that's round-trip. So that's how we settled on Brussels, and we knew next to nothing about the city.. The first course of action was to peruse wikitravel, which told us some things to see and do. Second course was to ask a friend of mine who lived in Brussels for quite some time, and he gave us a suggestion of a place or two to eat. Some time around noon on September 14th, we flew over the Alps and discovered that this was going to be a whole year of unbelievable new things. Our flight lande...

When we first arrived in Italy, lots of people had questions about what was different. How are the people? How is the food? How is the language barrier? How is public transportation? How do you get around? Is it expensive? What's the best part? What's the worst part? And so on and so on (although most of you ask about the food and then everything else). All of those have probably been answered in previous posts, and if they haven't, sorry. Ask me again and maybe I'll answer. I experienced a very different sort of culture shock last week, and I want to talk about it. One of the more upsetting news stories of the new year was the Charlie Hedbo attack, which I won't heavily detail here. In short, they do satire, pissed off some extremists, and those extremists murdered a dozen people in the magazine's office. I believe this happened last Wednesday. The reason it stands out as Wednesday is this. I had a lesson Wednesday night with a couple of kids, aged 7 an...

I like it here in Italy. I've written thousands of words into a pseudo-journal about what life here is actually like, not to mention the thousands and thousands of words about the traveling we've been doing on weekends (which is currently at 10 countries and 13 trips in 13 weekends, ho-hum). There are, however, some things that I cannot figure out, and I will tell you about one particular thing that happened to me today. I teach a class at a school in the suburbs. My commute includes two metro trains (like the el in Chicago), a regional train, and then a bus to the school. Three weeks ago, on a rainy day, I was waiting for the return bus to take me back to the train station in this suburb - called Monza, for what it's worth - so I could arrive at my next lesson that evening. As my bus pulled toward the stop where I waited, I stepped toward the curb in anticipation of, you know, getting on the bus. You can imagine my surprise when the driver looked at me and opted not to...

Have you guys ever read The Odyssey? You probably have. It's long, Greek, and there are about 75000 names used in it over the course of seemingly a thousand pages. You might also remember it for things like Calypso, a whirlpool, Polyphemus the cyclops, Sirens, and various people being murdered for various things, not to mention the tail-end of the Trojan War being recounted within its pages. The reason it might sound familiar but not-that-familiar is that most people seem to be reading this book between the ages of about 12 and 16. This is one of the most loaded books in the history of ever, and it's complicated enough just to follow the plot (Homer, the author, invented the concept of in medias res , where the story begins in the middle and jumps around a bit through flashbacks and such, a style now known as "The Tarantino" or as "the way that one guy makes those weird movies with lots of violence"), let alone follow all the names involved, the historical...

As a warning, I would've written this same thing before starting to teach, but it popped into my head today after a quick lesson with a youngster. Bear in mind that these lessons with kids are not as simple as they would be if we both spoke the same language, so the Italian-to-English hurdle surely gives rise to some less-than-ideal conditions for the kids, which makes them more apt to act out. I have parenting advice. I mean, I have for a while, and I have lots of pieces, and I know that I won't be the perfect parent (although I'll be a hell of a lot better than some of the monsters I've come across in my life), and I'm not pretending to have all of the answers. I'm shooting for one big one right now. Teach your effing kid to play fairly. If for no other reason than it preventing his or her English tutor from getting real pissy and writing a blog post immediately after a lesson. This little kid is actually really adorable. The first fifteen minutes was as...

I'm 25 years old, which means that I was about six weeks old when Licensed to Ill came out in mid-November, 1986. My brothers listened to the Beastie Boys when I was growing up, which basically meant that I listened to them. It wasn't their favorite music, but they were definitely fans. I didn't really know much, but I know that by the time I was 10 or so, I really loved screaming to "fight for your right" and watching the insane video for "sabotage." I knew that there was something inherently fun about whatever songs they were singing because there were three of them singing over each other, yet somehow alongside each other. Suffice it to say, I was aware of them. And then Hello Nasty came out in '98. It blew my mind. I don't know if it was because I'd caught up with them a little in age and was now verging on 12 (by this I mean that it had been four years since their previous album which I was far too young to feel any real grasp of what ...

I'm mired in a peculiar state of mind this week. The cause of it is clear to me, and I don't feel right about the whole situation. I feel very sad about the death of Amy Winehouse. I feel sadder about her death, on a personal level, than I do about the Norwegian man who killed 85 people at a youth camp. He flat-out killed 85 people in one fell swoop. That's disturbing in a way that I struggle to comprehend. It's disgusting. It's inhuman. It's beyond horrible. Of course, a lot of those people do things for the attention, so I'm not going to give him the time of day because I can't wrap my mind around it. What I can wrap my mind around is someone whose music managed to make me feel something. I've been reading some articles about Amy Winehouse's death; some have been tales of her incredible/unique talent, some have been very personal accounts from friends, and some have been simple newsy articles reporting the facts and mentioning her losi...

For realzies, guys. We just had our Improv level D show tonight...and it was friggin fantastic. Sure, there was a little mishap with the timing and we didn't get our allotted 25 minutes and they actually just cut the lights before we were done, but it was still awesome. I've got great news that sprung from this: My suspicions were true...this is my drug. After our level C show a couple of months ago, I didn't feel good about myself. The show went fine but I didn't like how I performed...I didn't feel like I was focusing on the right aspects of the scenes - I wasn't creating anything interesting, I was just kinda sitting back and letting it happen around me. I was passive, and it felt stupid. But tonight, getting off stage after that show...it was totally different. I felt like I performed well and was completely in tune with my scene partners and wasn't worried about what was going on in the crowd. It just felt amazing. I was on a huge emotional high for a f...

I don't have a lot of tangible fears. I'm not trying to be a tough guy, but I don't have legitimate phobias or anything like that. In fact, I'm not a tough guy, I just don't think I have a lot of tangible fears. But now and then one will come to mind - and it just did about eight seconds ago - for no good reason I am terrified that all my dreams will come true and I will feel more isolated than ever. If you know me really well, you might know that I dabble in depression-related thoughts now and then - you could say "light depression," not unlike "light treason." Sometimes it's actually depressing, sometimes it's looking at depressing things when I feel fine to see how I might remedy them if I'm actually down in the dumps. Point is, for myriad reasons, I have moments where I feel totally isolated, as I imagine most anyone does. But I was watching Parks and Rec a few minutes ago and thinking about how much I'd love to be on a show l...

Nobody. You're all losers. Including me, so I guess we're all losers...because there's strength in numbers. If you didn't see, I decided to let Facebook comments decide what this post would be about, which was totally idiotic because of the people I choose to associate with (love ya, friends). As such, I have a nice little reservoir of things that I could pick from. What's weird is that the one that compelled me the most was Coe (that's @number1 coe on twitter, b/c I'm going cross-platform here) saying "u cant write." I'm a sucker for a challenge, or at least a really introspective writing sesh , but I do enough of that boring crap the rest of the time, so this one'll be different. To address the other suggestions; Ryan suggesting I write about my niece was a good thought, I love her to a crazy extent, but it'd just be mushy and uninteresting (to some...I'll probably do it soon though). Hamsterdance .com played an integral part ...

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 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...