UNPROOFED TO LOCK IN FLAVOR.
It has come to my attention that I will be without children this coming week, which means that I will have a few evenings free for my third attempt at open mic.
My first attempt was brutal and I bombed.
My second attempt was significantly better, despite me choosing to write on one of the most controversial subjects of our time: abortion.
My third attempt will be ADHD jokes. I started writing them tonight. Then Monday I will go to a local bar that has a small open mic. And Tuesday, I’ll go to The Funny Bone.
I’m nervous because the first time I had some help from Geraint Evans, who gave me editing tips and a few jokes1. This time, I’m all on my own.
Part of me sees this as a challenge. Because I bombed so bad the first time, I can’t help but feel like that’s why I wasn’t picked for the next five open mics I went to.
So my first challenge was to return with a solid set on the hardest subject I could think of. My second challenge is that each time I return for open mic, I will have a completely new set that is also received well.
There’s not a lot I can do about people not liking me for whatever reason. I’ve lived with that my whole life and I’ve come to accept that in a room full of people, I’ll probably be standing alone.
But you don’t have to have friends to be funny. You can just be funny and not give a shit what the others think or say.
This is part of me learning to relent less in the face of rejection. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it sucks. But it’s not the end of who you are or what you want out of life.
Maybe we are born with thinner skin. That’s unfortunate. But we can learn to armor ourselves indifference to the opinions of those we don’t respect.
And I don’t know about you, but my respect is earned, not given.
The jizz socks was his, for example. There was another one, which I can’t remember at the moment. And then another, which I completely forgot to say, but I loved, about how the Great Flood was about as late term an abortion as you can get.