For my next trick, I will make you understand me.

I read a lot.

If I’m reading, I’m not thinking myself into an anxious tizzy. The  world of “How long has it been since you washed your hands?” is replaced with a completely new universe as described by someone else. Pretty cool.

My reading strategy is straightforward. I use Evernote all the time. What better app to maintain a list of quotes, books to read later, words to look up, and the like? The other great thing is that having an iPhone nearby means I have quick access to my extensive catalog of games that I can play in order to avoid reading.

Another trick: my television faces the wall. I turned it around in an effort to end an especially troublesome stretch of non-productivity. It worked until I turned it right back around, panicked that I might have an original thought.

Look at this gorgeous dog. Look at her! This is Quinn, ebullient mutt from the animal shelter in Harrisonburg, VA who ventured west with my sister and her husband to Oregon.

I’ve been putting in some serious face-time with her. Long walks. Lengthy petting sessions. She even slept in my bed last night. Obviously this kind of intimacy breeds a number of nicknames. Here are some that I’ve been calling her this week (both in my head and out loud as well).

We are at a brew pub downtown. Everyone’s throwing local beers down their throats and the mood is through the roof. A man and woman ride by on bicycles, each of them dragging PBR cans on string behind them.

Mom, the ever-vigilant photographer, snaps a picture of them as they pull in to the parking lot, not even 20 feet from us. It’s a gorgeous photo, perfect lighting, the whole deal. Mom’s a pro.

“Why the cans? Were you two just married?” I ask.

“Yep, this morning.”

“You should get my mom to send you the picture she just took of you guys. It’s a good one.”

The newlyweds approach Mom, who is more than happy to email the picture to them. But the groom is staring at my mom’s foot. Her open-toed shoes reveal a scab on her toe, still in the middle of healing.

“How’d you get that?” he asks, pointing. “Masturbation accident?”

***

We have just finished a bicycle tour of five or six local breweries. We’re walking a lap or two around a lake to sober up. Given that some of us are laying facedown on the grass, it’s probably a good idea.

An older guy with matted hair and stained clothes, clearly homeless, approaches us.

“Anyone got a quarter? I’m trying to get a little closer to a beer.”

Dad’s ears perk up. He’s a beer enthusiast in every sense, with strong opinions on things like hops and alcohol gravity. The only bad beer is the one that circumstances prevent you from consuming. Also Budweiser.

“Tell you what, my friend,” Dad says. “Here’s a five. Go get yourself a freakin’ IPA on me.”

This stranger’s eyes are instantly alight. He tosses his head back to face the sky.

“Fuckin’ A, man!

***

We are crammed into my brother-in-law Ernie’s dinky little Subaru sedan. I’m comfortable in the front passenger seat, but it’s a completely different scene behind me. Elbows meet ears as Mom, Dad, and Hannah pretzel themselves together, eager to get back home and eat dinner.

Ernie looks away from the road to whisper to me.

“Give me a three-count and I’ll scare your mom.”

I’m intrigued and all too happy to oblige.

“Okay, in three, two, one…”

Ernie stomps on the brakes like he’s angry at them. I feel my dad’s body press into the back of the passenger’s seat. My mom lets a small shriek escape her throat. Hannah, who is married to this bastard, has seen it all before and is unfazed.

I’m holed up at my sister’s house in semi-rural Oregon. She and my mom are taking a Land Cruiser’s worth of tree trimmings to the dump. My dad and brother-in-law are toiling away in the garage with a powersaw, doing who-knows-what. Quinn, the ever-faithful and always-friendly dog, is asleep at my feet.

With a clear mind and a good night’s rest, this seems as good a time as any to reassess where I stand with regard to standup comedy.

I chased the standup dream aggressively when I landed in New York in 2009. I killed, I bombed, I did okay. I performed in dingy dive bars, far-dingier comedy clubs, people’s apartments, black box theaters, and a gay nightclub in the Upper East Side. I’ve been heckled by sharply-dressed businessmen, transvestites, and a homeless guy that one time. I made great comedian friends as heady as I am. And I did all this while still holding down a pretty cool but demanding job.

It was tremendous fun, but to condense it all to a single easily-digested phrase: I burned out. In the effort to climb some sort of imaginary comedy mountain and get the most laughter out of the most strangers, I kinda stopped taking care of myself. I was out late most nights of the week. I shunned all activities that weren’t comedy. If I wasn’t behind a microphone, I was retreating to the inner recesses of my mind like a cerebral monster.

While I was busy ignoring the bad juju that I was bathing in nightly, it was silently taking some sort of psychic toll. I wasn’t as successful as I wanted to be, so I blamed myself and everyone. I didn’t feel especially fulfilled or happy, so I blamed myself and everyone. I didn’t think I had the reputation I deserved, so (you guessed it!) I blamed myself and everyone.

Hardly a sustainable lifestyle.

I made the conscious decision to aggressively take a bunch of time off last year to screw my head back on straight, do other things, cultivate other interests. For the first several months, this meant Netflix marathons and existential fist-shaking. Then it meant consciously working on being grateful for the things I’ve been blessed with. I am the very picture of upper-middle-class white privilege, but I can effortlessly forget how easy I have it.

I read that the word “swami” has Sanskrit roots meaning “to own oneself.” It’s an idea that I’m increasingly taken with. I am quick to anger. I’m impatient. I’m cynical towards society yet desperately want to feel like I belong. I’m the goddamn archetype of my generation, so it was high time to start owning myself.

You gotta live if you want to have something to talk about. With a few exceptions, the guys doing two and three open mics every night of the week are leading very insular lives. I know because I was one – night after night you are treated to a judgmental crowd and an even more judgmental inner monologue.

I still write jokes all the time. I’ve cut back to one open mic a week. I’m no longer concerned with all the “who got booked at Caroline’s?” and “who just sold a pilot to Comedy Central?” gossip.

As obvious as it may seem, the realization that I can still be a funny guy without being a “standup comedian” is one of the most liberating I’ve had.