Established 1985

On the eve of my 23^rd birthday, I am surprisingly numb to the event. “It’ll happen”, claimed my father in his very all-knowing, all-seeing, almost always wrong tone of voice, “you’ll wake up one day and it’s your fortieth birthday, but you just don’t care.” Today, father, you are correct. And he was also right on calling my cards out for becoming like him: more and more I just find myself turning into Carl. Which is neither a good, nor a bad thing. My father is a fantastic human being, one of the pillars of my life, and all around great dad—just these days he’s tending to forget many entrees that used to be common eats on his memory plate, even, in fact, that it was my birthday.

If it sounds like I’m being harsh on my old man then I apologize. I really don’t mean to be. I simply think that his predictions for me turning out a lot like him are going to come true one of these birthdays (undoubtedly, the one I care least about. Pick a number) and will find myself a bald, slightly overweight, college play-by-play announcer, who’s trying to raise a Jewish family in conservative (re: Mormon) Utah. And, frankly, that’s just not what I want in life.

“You’re doing it better than I ever could,” my dad told me early this year. “You eat better. You live better. You keep yourself in control.” At this moment, my mom and I were scared to death about his heart that had miserably failed a recent stress test and put my father in the hospital to get some minor surgery done (another Carl witticism: “minor surgery is surgery done on someone else.”) And to this, I do agree, but only partially. Neither my dad nor I smoke anything. He’s a rare drinker and I’m a casual one, though I have been known to go into the heavyweight division, namely during my 21^st two years ago. We both swim, both sight our sights high in what we want to do in life, and both have a good head on our shoulders. Huh, now that I lay it all out it doesn’t sound too bad. And if Carl thinks that I’m version 2.0 of him then it can’t all be bad.

Still, I can’t shake my current state of mind right now. I’m excited with the prospect of having a play I wrote (okay, my college thesis play. There. I said it.) getting some attention at a legitimate regional theater. Right now I’m on a kick of getting my work out to as many people, theaters, and literary organizations that I can. Getting out of college and jumping into the real world scared me half to death. Now that I’m there, I want back in to the cushy student-yeah-I’m-a-serious-writer lifestyle I had only four months ago. Carl would be proud: he always told me those were the best years of my life. Damn, another point goes to the parental unit. But back to the point at hand: I was contacted earlier this week by a director who has ties with the Berkeley Reparatory Theater and the Magic Theater, both in Northern California. (Funny side note: I applied to both of these theaters for employment after school. Though I never heard back from Berkeley Rep, I was promptly rejected for the position of artistic director of the Magic. I still really wish I could have gotten the job—one day…) I was so excited that a) she had actually lived up to her promise to read my work b) she liked it and c) she was interested in helping me get it on it’s feet. We have yet to discuss c) in greater detail, but I have a good feeling about this, something that my dad likes to dash whenever he gets it to keep his expectations down. But not me; no, I like to put it all out there and get hurt numerous times, which is part of the reason I’ve stopped attending clubs.

It always seems to happen like this: I write something. I take my sweet-ass time to re-write it into something half way decent. Then I take a hell of a lot more time researching contests and theaters that are “very excited to produce new work” and “always looking for fresh voices”. More time passes as I print off copies, write the obligatory letter, and schlep the heap of words off to the post office. The ones I hope to get and track with fervor usually fail. It’s the stuff I send out and forget about that usually prove to be fruitful. Here’s me crossing my fingers.

So that’s the primary school of thought going into my 23^rd year on this planet: please, God, give me a cushy life where work and money are no object. Yep, I certainly am a rarity, let me tell you. In all seriousness, I feel more than ever that I’m on the right path in life. I want to be a writer and the world is starting to barely-sorta-maybe pay attention to that. Today was my day off and spent it very scribe like: sitting around in my newsman hat and boxers, watching Netflix with a sandwich from the bakery downstairs, before going to the park to finish a book (who is this Ned Vizzini guy? I kinda really like his books) and outline the second act of my Bronx centered play that’s been keeping me up at night with a beginning, an ending, and nothing in between.

Hey, it’s one step closer.