Tag: lateness

Trying to be Smooth

I was late again this morning. I got out of bed at 8 15, which is something that I wanted to avoid. It is a full hour over when I should be getting up, which resulted in a late start at work, something that I still need to figure out how to get out of.

I feel like I am slipping when this happens. I was able Tuesday to get out the gate here at work, and start working as soon as I got it. It was a good feeling, even if I had nothing to really do. I see the difference with how I work when I have a clean palate in the morning, and I tend to be distracted when I don’t.

No rest for the weary. I have to keep up with this, and do it everyday. If I can make it for a month, Ill be able to latch onto it. I am quite happy with a clear slate for a month. If I can do that, who knows what I will be able to think up and get accomplished. Just have to execute.

With that said, I was a little tired when I woke up. My sleep times have been creeping towards 1, with no practical reason to be up that late. I would like to train myself to sleep at 1 and wake up at 7 due to me maybe being on late night, but for now, there is no reason to be up that late. I may not even get it. So, I will be monitoring my sleep times, and pushing them back to a healthier 12 and maybe 11 some nights to make sure I am well rested for the upcoming day.

I am currently redrawing my lines for the workplace. I find that while I am good with a clean room, and I see it spreading to a clean house, my office space is still a mess. I want to be able to come to work in a clean area, and I am not doing it.

Clean area, clean mind. It is where I want to be in all aspects of my life, so I have to start getting it in all areas of my life.

Why be good in one area and not good in another. I have to establish some office habits to improve my work habits. The rest of this week will be devoted to researching what I actually do. I want this to be smooth sailing just like my mornings and evenings are becoming.

I will be breaking this down into morning office and night office routines. I will be bringing my coffee and pills over and try to make it a habit of getting things together here in the office. Making a smooth transition from beginning and ending an office day.

I want to make this work…

Therapy last night was very good. I got to discuss some of the things that have been bothering me at work. Not being able to work from home has been a bit of a hamper on my work schedule. I would also like to know when or if I am getting the raise I was due.

I have to make waves in getting some of this stuff done. I realized some of this is my fault, but I need to get that part under control. From there I can get a smoother office experience.

The other half, and maybe the whole session really, was based in my fear of speaking to people. I can do it fine when I am drunk, or oddly enough, I can do it great when I am in person next to people. What I am not good at is calling and re-connection. It is keeping the stove warm in relationships that eludes me. I have this internal fear that people don’t want to speak to me, and I rationalize it when I don’t call.

Adding automation to this I think, is imperative for me to be better at it. If I am forced in the conversations, I will be better at talking, even if it is something simple as a text. I have to talk to people. I have to make connections.

If I can sync this up, ill be stronger in everything else I try to accomplish. Discipline.

Its hot today, and I guess summer is here. I also guess that my electricity bill will be quite high in the coming months. I want to compensate as much as possible with the roommate situation. A little more money will help me a bit in getting this other stuff under control.

I probably will be running my air conditioner all summer long with no breaks in between. I know that it will be a tad more expensive, but peace of mind is worth the price. I remember the summer I moved to the city, and it was quite hot. I just had a box fan, and for the most part, my apartment was miserable. I hated being home, and I hated my apartment until late September.

I have a lot more people living in my apartment now, so I better keep it cool.

Comedy at Bar None today, and I want to work and get back into the rotation there. I need to get the habit of being in places every Thursday, and Zito’s show and the Pear once a month isn’t cutting it. I need to add maybe two more shows every Thursday.

I want to build another skill, and I think I am adding Vine to my list of things. Even if I stink, I would like to have a body of work for people to look at. I might as well get on the ground floor because I have an iPhone.

If no one cares now I can scrap it in the future. What is the worst that can happen.

Tags comedy, Habit, late, lateness, Routine, therapy

Blog Post

Wake up Comedy

I woke up a little late this morning. It was odd, because I woke up without an alarm clock at 6:30 AM.I felt somewhat refreshed, but, as my lizard brain will sometimes do, see it wasn’t time to get up yet and went back to sleep.

I ended up getting up at 7:45. Pretty much 45 minutes after my alarm went off. I was not that much more refreshed, but another hour was subtracted from my day, and I was no better for it.

Even so this late was acceptable. Earlier this could have been 8:45 and I would be where I am now an hour later, explaining to my boss what happened, instead of getting here at 10 on the dot, with some morning stuff accomplished. I got a chance to get my video to start to upload on youtube, connected my zune to my PC, and got a driver app downloading so maybe i can fix my laptop.

Even with the lateness, I am starting to see how valuable my mornings can be, if I just build off of them. In the future, I hope to build off this. I would like to train my ind to think of the morning as something that is a bit more conductive to creative work, as opposed to time to just get ready for work and wallow in it.

I appreciate the forward motion this morning gave me. Even when I faced some setbacks, like my eye rejecting my contact. I am starting to get the feeling that there is another contact. Simply, I am becoming less afraid to throw something away when there is an alternative.

I like this mindset. It is me being a bit more mindful of what I am doing, and realizing that some of this stuff should be thrown away. I don’t see it as waste when abandoning something will give me time to do something more productive.

I like forward motion. I feel like I am establishing some serious habits that will translate themselves into something late rin life. I plan on working alone, and having the creative time to make things happen is a big part of that making me not have to go back to the 9-5 world, when it is that time to go.

Establishing connection is interesting and scary. Yesterday I talked to two people I haven’t spoken to before over facebook, for no other reason than to establish connection. I really hate the pit of the stomach feeling I get when I do this though.

It is there becuase I think no one wants to speak to me. I don’t know when this developed, but I do know that it has hampered my life. I automatically assume the worst in every conversation, and when I do talk, I always assume that i am going to say something that puts the other person ill at ease, and ruin friendships with my words.

It sounds completely rediculous, because it is. It always strikes me when people do want to speak to me. Phil says I am a good conversationalist and I can network really well, and I see it completely the opposite. I feel like I am not built to sit there and do small talk. When I look at him do it, he seems to really be able to just discuss things with candor to the next person.

He may do it to just random people on the street, but he is good at it. Me, I am scared to even talk to people at meetups and cocktail parties unless I had a few to “loosen me up”.

It s why I reached out to someone on FB, a comic I met around here from Boston, just to open a bridge of communication. I want to talk to someone I haven’t talked to in forever, at least on e person a day, to build some relationships with the people I have on Facebook. I am hoping from there I can do it in the real world too.

I need to be able to pitch, talk, and discuss a lot more efficiently if I want to make myself a brand.

I got my comedy tape from Caroline’s back last night. It was from the second set of my Friday night there in January. It felt pretty bad when I did it, and I expected to see the results of it when I got a look at it. What I saw really wasn’t half bad.

I stood and took the punches. One of the things that Phil used to tell me, along with Zo, was that I bail on things. When I looked at the tape there, I stuck on to everything I had. Regardless if anything landed or not, I went right to the next joke.

I looked more like a professional, and even if the jokes weren’t hitting as hard as they should,I looked like I belonged up there. I didn’t appear to be an impostor, but an actual comedian. Body language means a lot, and I had the body language of a confident man, even if I felt like I wasn’t doing so great.

A few things I got from that video though.Jokes need tightening up. I lingered a lot in my jokes. There is some air there that needs to be cleaned up. MY stuff lately has been good at removing that air, and dropping laughs in rather quickly. Ill see when I do a set this weekend and tape.

I think I am one good set away from having something that is worth submitting to any festival. I just need it to be at a comedy club and I will be golden. There is growth there.

Frankie is coming back in a week or so. It will be good to see him. Haven’t been around him in a few years. It is good to see he has graduated and it is good to see him employed. Good to have an old friend back.

do: wrap up, push ups, 3 things, CPAP
don’t: Thank You, 16/8, water, vegetable juice, meditation, to-do

Tags Carolines, comedy, late, lateness, wake up

Blog Post

Mental Clarity

I cherish my mind.

Some times I take it for granted, I hate it. I don’t exercise it enough. I let it languish. I drink. I eat bad food. After all of that, I then always rely on it to bail me out of situations when it suits me.

It isn’t a great relationship.

Even so, every once in a while, I get reminded that the greatest thing anyone could ever ask for is clarity. The ability to take a look at the world and make rational decisions should not be taken for granted.

I saw a man without that clarity on the train. He was between cars, shaking, bouncing on the platform that connected the two cars together. I couldn’t quite call what he was doing, what was the point, and how it made his day better, but he looked like he had the time of his life doing it.

Ignorance is bliss I suppose. He seemed to love his life at the time, and he was making inroads to his enjoyment. Even so, I take a look at myself and think, maybe selfishly, that he cannot make much positive change in anyone’s life. I can. And that gift should not be ignored.

With that said…

It makes my stomach hurt saying this, but it points out another thought.

The other thing I was hoping for was for him not to fall down and ruin my day. That is the other side of the coin. We are still selfish. I didn’t want to give him help, I just wanted to make sure he didn’t effect my life. There is something barbaric about that, but also oddly human.

We all hate seeing ourselves in a selfish light, at least I know I do. With that said however, I feel like I should be more honest about it. So here I am.

I woke up on time today, or should I say, close to it. I was able to get most of my morning routines ready to go. I had time to do my push-ups, read all the things in my Feedly, and get most of this written, well, I hope all of it written.

My next goal is to push this maybe 15 minutes back,and go further in the mornings to increase the time of my workout, maybe read a little bit more, and add more things into a morning routine.

I must say though, it is a very good thing to be able to get up and see I am getting things done, and I won’t be late for work. It is also nice that this desk is turning more into a workshop and less into a huge paper weight. I don’t know how this will translate into my work, but I must say I feel more effective.

I hope I can keep this up.

In the meantime, I am trying to get Phil into the swing of things with habit. It seems he lives a very chaotic life. He doesn’t want to anymore, and I hope helping him build habits could make him more productive.

He seems earnest, and I would like to help make him better at what he does. Its one thing I can feel like I am doing right.

Making my way to the Comic Strip and The Laughing Devil next month. I am happy about finally putting this comedian stuff to the test. I have been building up my jokes for a few years, tightening them up, mining them for laughs. I am fairly confident I have been building something good in the meantime. Now it is time to put it to the test.

I want to be able to work as a comedian more in the city, and this will give me something I can hang my hat on. If I get in at bother of these clubs, I can then make the move to conquer more, once I get solidified. If I can knock out those tow, I would love to take on Stand Up NY and The Stand next.

Every thing in this game seems to be about building on passed success. I am passed at Carolines, but I have pretty much stopped sending in avails at this point (something I shouldn’t do, but it is shattering to sit through the process).I need to be in places that are more relevant to me, and getting some of the respect that comes with being a NYC club comic.

I have to stop taking the shots that are given to me and start forcing a few up. I got to see just how good I am. If I don’t, who knows how ill end up. I feel like it would mot likely be improving, but even so, most likely, I would be chasing my own tail.

I plan on doing this for a long time, so even if I fail, at least I will be on the radar for next time. I feel my act is ready for the limelight, so I might as well go and get some things for me.

I may be a non profit board member for the literacy program in Harlem. I got asked yesterday, and I would love to do it. I want to increase my service to the community, throw something on the resume that makes me look good for other companies,and make me a lot easier to sell at work.

The needs may be a bit selfish on this one, but I also would love to help the kids around Harlem read.Literacy is something that people seem to think is not important.

With the internet, twitter and Facebook, I think being able to sit down and decipher anything with the deep focus a good book requires is the linchpin skill that will separate the wheat from the chaff. It will increase critical thinking skills, it will make them more worldly, increase the insight into language and improve the imagination.

Sounds like a win win to me.

Do: CPAP /Pushups /3 Things/ Wrap Up
Don’t: 16/8 water/vegetable juice/thank you/ to do / meditation

Tags comedy, Comic Strip, Habits, lateness, Mind, Non Profit