Where I’m Calling From

I have this problem in which I write about half of an informative and interesting blog post and then get sidetracked by work, the growing number of people and cats that live in my house, and the opening chapters of the books I have purchased this summer, but not yet read.

For example, I wrote this last weekend:

On July 28th, I hosted my first Rant-O-Wheel show at PHIT. It went over far better than I’d expected.

I should probably back up right here – I’m doing a show with the Philly Improv Theater. The show, for the rest of this year, at least, since that’s as far as we’ve planned, will follow Luke Giordano’s Bully Pulpit show, at 9:30 PM on the first Wednesday of PHIT’s monthly tenure at The Shubin Theater.

Two weeks before the show, Greg Maughn and I got together to discuss the prospect of my hosting a monthly show. About halfway through the meeting he said, “The first show would be July 28th. Do you think you could get something together by then?”

I enlisted Alejandro Morales as my co-host, packed up the old Rant-O-Wheel, and set about my business. A good portion of Luke’s audience stuck around for my show (thanks, guys!), as did most of Secret Pants, the Rob half of Meg and Rob, and no less than two Brendan Kennedys. Fun was had, songs from The Little Mermaid were sang, and

Then I forgot to finish it.

I’m sure it was going to say a lot about how weird it is that, after a lifetime of being summarily rejected on the basis of my personality, two of my three shows exist partially upon the idea that people are willing to sit and watch me talk. And then maybe there would have been something about how overwhelming it is that I am hosting THREE SHOWS, two of which are monthly, and require the participation of others, because especially in the summer when everyone is twice as busy, I often feel as though the scope of people I know who are willing to jump into something is ever-narrowing. And then, there would probably be a passive aggressive note about how frustrating it is not to get responses to emails, and how if I were the email boss, things would be different. Which would lead to me trying to define the job of “Email Boss,” and degenerate into nonsense.

I have been very busy lately with my second job, which, unlike my barista job, sounds somewhat professional. When distant relatives ask me about what I do for a living, I list it first, because it makes me sound more like I have a real job, even though what I actually have is a part-time service job, and seasonal contract work. This suits my lifestyle perfectly, except when everything is happening at once. Then, I become a weird hermit that only goes out in public to perform or buy discount produce, and I spent most of my time sitting in my bedroom in front of the air conditioner tapping away at the computer and thinking about how much Ice-T has enriched the landscape of Law and Order: SVU over the years.

How’s your summer going?

Tags: Ice-T, Philly Improv Theater, Rant-O-Wheel

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