I think I am simultaneously completely heartless and hard on myself, unforgiving in all quarters, self-critical to the nth+1 degree and just all around negative about the likelihood of my ever succeeding at my heart’s desire, while also willing to cut myself a giant swathe of slack.

I wanted to go to a comedy thing tonight that was partially a roast for someone leaving town who has been pretty cool to me. In theory, great fucking idea. Get a little networking in maybe, or maybe just catch a bit of community spirit for a comedy community into which I haven’t pushed myself too hard to assimilate.

Great fucking idea in theory and, I was thinking, a great step in taking charge and getting something done to act a tad less lacksidasiacal and stalled.

Buuut, I have a friend coming into town tomorrow and the boss has asked me to write shit and I like writing and SF is a bit of a drive and gas is expensive and if I go out tonight, it will be hard waking up in the morning and the boss said I could leave early but I promised to work on the writing project and what about M. does he want to go and is the house ready for company and won’t I go out every night while she’s here and I have to RSVP to my aunt and I wanted to work on that Photoshop thing and then there’s the video I’ve been editing and it’s really just an open mike and do I really want to hang out with comics. BLAH FUCKING BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Bottom line, I’m pissed at myself for not working a bit harder on comedy. But, I am also totally all-forgiving of myself, because I have stepped into a whole different world and scene.

I’ve been pretty high on performing and proud of the room reaction the last few or more times out. So, yay comedy, rah rah.

On the other hand, I don’t lust, hound, pine and obsess about stage time like before. I can take it or leave it. Open mikes, feh. Among other things the endless showcasing for someone else to line their pockets has lost its allure, so I need something tangible (like maybe something folding into my wallet) to leave the house.

Or maybe it’s just the complacency of a happy little suburban existence.

Or maybe this job is different. But, maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m deluding myself into relevance the same way I did with my last job and the job before that and they are all just fucking endless excuses for not writing and not pursuing (thereby guaranteeing failure) a writerly path.

Here are a few things I know — I’m a greater than passable writer compared to the mass of folks; I enjoy myself when I’m writing in a mindless seamless way when you are doing something where you feel a comfortable level of mastery; I’m beginning to feel the same way performing, I am fucking unbelievably lazy, a wicked procrastinator and lack self-discipline; I don’t want to die having never tried and, finally, I don’t really fucking know what I want (which makes it damn tough to get).

By the way, when I’m in the kind of see-saw mood of flagellation and forgiveness, I like to focus on the success of friends and imagine my life is stalled, buried in inertia and they all see me as the one left behind. More than one comedy buddy has thrown together a successful night or more of comedy in Boston or started shows, a few others were in Edinburgh, including one producing the overseas version of the Naked Comedy Show, something conceptually I had been in close to the ground floor, as it were, and another is doing well in the Bay Area. I, on the other hand, went to Target tonight.

Realistically, I haven’t sat as still as that perception would suggest (else the breeze outside my door wouldn’t palpitate San Jose August). Also, many of the friends I have made in comedy were light years ahead (or at least a few earth years) of me in the way of the comic path. (It might even be to my credit that relative veterans were friendly to my neophyte self.) So, logically, they are beginning to peak sooner. (The bitch of comedy is that, I think, more than anything else people might mention, it takes time to learn how to do it well. Just time.)

In conclusion, either I suck. Or, I don’t.