You Can Take the Teacher Out of the Classroom But...

My collection of weird teenagers during our final Comedy Club meeting.

Ah, damn it.

Are you serious? I thought we were done with this teacher shit.

Didn’t you like set your classroom on fire and run away to New York or something?

Nah, brah.

They’re back.

And I don’t mean the students I just sent to the Dean’s office for the millionth time.

I mean the feels.

They’re back with a vengeance and a lot of tear-stained tissues.

We are quickly approaching my one-year quit-iversary of being a high school teacher and boy it’s been a crazy 365ish days! Do you smell something burning? Oh, it’s my pants? My pants are on fire because that’s just a perfect metaphor for my insane lifestyle right now?

Great. Glad we’re all on the same page.

On this particular (and currently post-work and pantsless) evening, I am having trouble focusing. I spent the afternoon nannying with the world’s goofiest boys as always. But when I returned home I had only one thing on my mind: writing.

I.Must.Write.Or.I.Will.Die.

But what shall I write tonight? Will it be what’s behind door number 1, an episode of my new podcast that I need to finish by next week or I will look like a fool in front of my very first guest?

Will it be door number 2, a few hundred words of my 3rd memoir that I believe will be the key to unearthing myself from my seasonal depression?

How about door number 3, an article I decided to write yesterday for McSweeney’s on my inability to hold down jobs as a barista?

Or maybe even door number 4, a few minutes of stand up comedy related to the incidents leading to door number 3?

Just as I begin to open door number 1, I decide I really should clip my fingernails…

But then there was the matter of a second dinner and engaging in a glass of wine session with my roommate proved to be of utmost necessity.

And then I had to check my email.

And then I had to Google a few things really quick for no apparent reason other than to convince a private investigator in the future that I am a complete sociopath.

And then I absolutely needed to check my Instagram.

Now before I lose you, this is where shit gets interesting.

See, because there was a tiny little notification in the corner of my Insta informing me that somebody had left me a message. How exciting! Maybe it’s one of those cute guys I’ve been not-so-secretly cyber-stalking for the past few months…

UhhhhhhNOPE it’s a former student.

Now, this former student is a very special former student to me. A student who I spent many after schools with, typing away into a miniature Chromebook as she talked at top speeds, trying desperately to capture her genius. This was how we wrote her papers. Me at the keyboard and her getting her thoughts into the air as quickly as possible before they left us both in the dust.

I fucking love this student.

Of all the students to hear from at this hour, I am NOT mad about this one popping into my little inbox.

Not only was she always in that front row ready to listen to whatever ridiculous thing that came out of my mouth every single day, but she actually heard me. She heard me and she understood me.

And when I learned that she was struggling with a neurological disorder I was all over that shit. I was on the phone with Mom consistently, pestering her other teachers about letting her take her tests orally instead of on a scantron, I mean I'm pretty convinced I'd hide a body for this young lady, okay. 

About a year ago I revealed my social media accounts to her and some of my favorite students in the wake of the news that I was quitting. I’m not entirely sure why I did it, other than wanting to be that weird teacher who keeps tabs on their kids from time to time to make sure they’re not drinking from red solo cups or dating shitty people. Maybe I really did just want the followers, who the hell knows.

I’m young and hip and annoying so it makes sense.

Every few months I get an email, Facebook message, or Snapchat from a kiddo. The majority of them are innocent and not weird. Aside from a kiddo that called me cute (after seeing a picture of 16-year-old me LOL) and a few daily Snapchat bombardments with just the word “STREAKS” on them which seemed excessive and strange, we’re all good with this whole former student-teacher social media game.

I won’t run into any of them at the grocery store or the gym anytime soon and I’m sure if I end up settling back down in Colorado someday they’ll have long forgotten about lil’ old me and the windowless classroom we once shared all those years ago.

So here she is, my sweet, sweet girl.

And what does she have to say this evening? It’s not a text, or a random picture of her dog (although that is encouraged) but rather two pictures of a handwritten letter from a notebook.

“Hey I just found this and I never gave it to you because I never finished it and I’m sorry for the handwriting…lol”

Hold on to yer butts, folks, cuz you bout to shed some serious tears…

The letter reads:

September 27, 2016

I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I understand that can be really hard and I’m really sorry you went through all of that. I’m sorry the response you got wasn’t respectful or caring. I have so much respect for you and what you’ve gone through I wish the vibe and open-mindedness was here in the class more. I see how much you care and wanna help these kids. You have such a big heart and I can see that! The way you are about us is unbelievable. You deserve so much from life and I hope you get that. It’s not fair that your emotions aren’t being reacted to or are taken into thought. I want you to know I hear everything you’re saying! I’m so happy to say I have a teacher that I connect so much with and you didn’t even know it. We have the same passion and visions for the school and just life in general. You can see the beauty of life as I do. I aspire to be like you and keep hope for change. Lately with everything going on it’s been really hard to keep that but your words have started a spark a light back inside me and I just wanna tell you that you are making a change and with everything you’ve been going and still trying to get pieces of you back. I have so so so much respect for you. Thank you for your letter! It really meant a lot to see that someone cared when I had nothing from anyone and was losing hope and strength. You reminded me that I’ve always been a fighter and whatever is going on won’t impact me the way it has been. I want my life back and I will get it back. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do but I won’t let it get a hold of me and change who I am. You’ve been helping me in so many ways without even trying. You are so important to a lot of people and I appreciate you. I love the way [you] meditate, your style, the little things you like ̶  *

Now if you can’t see your screen properly because the tears are flowing so heavily it’s practically Niagra Falls in this shit…YES, SHE REALLY SAID THESE WORDS AND YES, THE WALLS OF MY UTERUS ARE SHEDDING MAKING IT 20 BILLION TIMES WORSE.

She wrote them actually. Which is a big deal considering all those modifications we made to her History papers. She wrote the words on a piece of paper during what I can only tell you was one of the most terrifying and life-changing weeks of my life (alright second only to brain surgery).

It was actually the very week I first had the thought to move to New York City.

Now is that some cosmic shit or what?

I never saw the letter then, you see because that wouldn’t have been nearly as cool (although I still would have bawled my eyes out like I did just now).

Instead she’s sending me this NOW, days after losing a job, feeling a little bit sorry for myself, and around the same time frame that I remember last year was filled with summer anticipation, fear, and a fuck-ton of phone calls to parents telling them that their child was failing and needed to get their shit together like three semesters ago.

This unbelievably sweet letter comes at a time when I’ve started to settle into a certain lifestyle here in New York that I enjoy, but I’m also mourning the loss of the one I left behind. And most of all, mourning the loss of all the kids those two years who made me feel like I was a person who mattered.

Not some face in a crowded subway to be squeezed past or just another name on the lineup at a comedy show to be quickly crossed out at the end of my set, but a person who fucking counts.

It’s a feeling we so rarely talk about when we talk about work or success or joy or happiness.

It’s a feeling I want to replicate for the rest of my god damn life.

But I was suffocating.

My classroom had no windows. I was literally gasping for oxygen every single day for two whole years.

In that amount of time, I’d had more panic-induced mental breakdowns in the teacher’s lounge and in front of 5th period than I cared to remember. And that was just it, I didn’t want to remember.

The day she wrote that letter I don’t think I’d showered in days and my eyes were probably still puffy from crying over my recent tough break up. I was at my lowest low when this KID decided to open her notebook and tell me that I was real and that I mattered to her and to many others.

What had I said that day to deserve this little love letter? What ‘story’ was she talking about?

You know what, I honestly have no clue.

I can’t remember.

My guess is something brain-related. A story about maneuvering a wheelchair or learning how to do 3rd-grade math problems in rehab perhaps? Or something less recent? A story about being scared I’d lose my dad when he got into a car accident behind our house when I was in high school? Maybe I’d really fallen off the wagon and told the entire class that I’d just ended the best relationship I’d ever had in the most heartbreaking way possible…

What in the fuck came out of my mouth that day and how did it have the power to possess her to write such touching and honest words?

I’ll never know.

And I don’t have to.

What I do know is that I’m still a teacher.

Try as I might to lock that part of myself in my parent’s storage unit back in Colorado, I am still here.

Teaching and sharing and encouraging like I always have.

Making stupid jokes and telling people not to give up even when every fiber of their being is telling them to abandon all hope.

That’s my job.

And a year ago I thought I’d hung up the hall pass for good. I thought I was running away. I emptied the entire contents of my classroom into my car and then into that storage unit and shut the door tightly behind me, hoping to never look back for fear of confronting my deepest and darkest insecurities.

The little voice in my head that whispered, “You couldn’t hack it as a teacher. You weren’t tough enough.”

The opposite is actually the truth. Not only was I tough enough, but I was SO tough that I had to quit so that I could give everyone a god damn breather from how intense I was.

I’m like fucking Rocky Balboa before he’s all old and shit.

So what am I doing now you ask?

I’m actually still teaching.

Yes, I literally teach comedy writing classes on the Upper West Side on Monday nights, but I actually teach every day of the year.

I teach when I get on a stage and share a story.

I teach when I write my books.

I teach when I encourage a new friend to keep doing comedy even though it’s really fucking hard.

I teach when I tell people about my life.

I teach when I blog.

I teach when I podcast.

I teach the 4-year-old to ask more questions and the 2-year-old to tell me when he shits his diaper instead of just letting it sit there and making me look like the World’s Worst Nanny at the play place.

Just because I’m not suffocating in a public school classroom 80 hours a week, 10 months out of the year on slave wages doesn’t make me any less of a teacher.

I’m actually an even better teacher now that I’ve left that environment. The proof is in the handwritten letters. This is not an outlier. There are at least 200 letters much like this one tucked away just waiting for my blubbery eyes to discover; some back in the storage unit and about 50 stacked up on my nightstand right now.

And on my worst New York days, I turn to these letters and I remember who I am.

I am a teacher. And I matter.

Now pull out your damn headphones and let’s get to work.

My notorious 5th Period cheesin' during our Civil Rights Museum project day...

*Student gave permission to publish this letter.

30 Things You Should Do Instead of Building an IKEA Storage Bed (Brain Injury Awareness Edition)

Oh, I'm "set" am I? The only thing that's set over here is this nail that's gone clean through my middle finger, YOU CHEAP-EXCUSE-FOR-FURNITURE MOTHER FU-

Oh hiiii friends! Almost didn’t see you there from under this pile of shelves and assorted tools that I don’t know how to use!

If you didn’t know, I have the soul of a 75-year old retiree named Marge who just loves to craft. And build. And tell everyone at the E.R. that the power drill was “really being finicky today” as they stitch up my little old lady hands for the millionth time.

I’ve been haphazardly trying to build things since I was a kid; cutting up old doll dresses and trying to sew them back together in new ways, hot-gluing marbles on wine bottles, and even hauling a broken dresser into my apartment and refinishing it.

It’s like I think I’m a carpenter or some shit.

Which I guess I technically am since I come from a carpenter-turned-architect father and a mother who used to make me every complex Halloween costume I demanded with not even a smidge of bitterness or resentment.

I can’t explain it. But there’s something that happens in my brain when I see a piece of wood, some Mason jars, and a handful of mismatched buttons. It’s like a switch goes on and I see it.

A project. A fucking cool project.

Since my first hot-glue gun purchase back in high school, I’ve been slowly getting more and more ambitious with my crafting endeavors.

I started with small things; those bejeweled wine bottles, painting old wood I found on the street and transforming it into coat racks and cutesy accessory shelves.

But this time. This time I did it. I really did it.

I screwed the pooch on this one.

Okay, alright. I hate that saying. But you get it. I really did myself in with this last project, okay you guys.

Before I get knee deep into telling you all the things you should do INSTEAD of this crafting project, let me just tell you that IKEA is a joke, mmkay?

Always has been. You know this already.

And I get to say this because I spent a summer in college behind the register at the Denver location getting my shit rocked by angry moms and impatient people who’d just spent the last 5 hours in a wormhole and blamed me for the very concept of the store.

Assemble yourself? Tools sold separately? You think I came up with this idea?

Okay, so maybe my previous monologue about my childhood as an amateur craftsman would lead you to believe that this was all my doing, but I don’t make the rules, okay lady?

Anyway. I found this guide on the IKEA website called the Square Footage Challenge.

And let me just say. This 10-step, happy-go-lucky, look-how-easy-this-all-is guide is buuuuulllshiiiiit.

Fool me once, well, shit, now I'm just bleeding and covered in cheap wood shavings. 

I won’t derail my mission too much here, but suffice it to say that this guide is not legitimate if you live in the United States. Or specifically, if you live in New York. Or if you’re a human being. And especially not if you’re a human being living in New York, U.S.A.

But seeing as I’m Marge, the adorable old lady in your local hood who likes to buy fresh flowers for my table that nobody sees but me cuz' my husband is dead and my grandkids all have microchips in their heads and are too busy anyway, I just had to indulge in my creative calling.

It’s a storage bed. Made of, wait for it…kitchen cabinets!

So much storage! What a great idea for my tiny New York room with no closet cuz who needs a closet when you’re LIVING YOUR DREAMS (lol, me actually it turns out)?!

So anyway there I was, standing in a line at 9:59 AM waiting for a you-take-your-job-way-too-seriously security guard to open up the caution-taped gates into IKEA, land of broken furniture dreams and divorces waiting to happen, and I think I’m gonna be smart and avoid the maze and just cut straight to the customer service reps. Surely if I show them a picture of my dream bed they’ll kindly press a few buttons on their magic computer and summon all the parts and tools I need to bring this fairytale furniture project to life.

Oh, yeah. THAT totally happened.

Instead, I was ordered to go up to the Kitchen’s department, through the maze I was trying to avoid, and take up my request with them.

Cue a 30-minute interlude of shots of me running around in circles, coming across the same rug every time shouting, “DAMN YOU IKEA. DAMN YOU MARGE. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL” intermixed with light war cries and intermittent sobbing.

At this point, you’d think I’d have had the sense to quit the project altogether.

But Marge never says die (and I already had the Uhaul for another 12 hours…), so I found the Kitchen’s department and committed myself to dropping several hundred dollars on cabinets that I had no idea would work out or not.

If you’re at all curious, the cabinets in the guide are not available in the United States. Just one more piece of evidence that should have alerted me that this project was just too damn extra and I really should have quit while I was ahead.

But no matter, Marge can compromise! We’ll take the other cabinets! They are white just like the ones in the picture that inspired this madness and surely they’ll do the trick.

Oh, Marge. You naïve and adorable little bastard, you.

Purchase made! I regret nothing and also everything and I’m not even worried about this whole cabinet building excursion because ̶

Wait…you guys? How am I supposed to get all this heavy shit (including 3 large MDF boards that I had chopped down to size at the Home Depot after about an hour of trying to defend my honor against at 19-year-old in the Lumber department who didn’t get why I was doing all this when I could just do…I don’t know, literally ANYTHING else) up to my apartment? Or into the truck for that matter? Also, how am I going to park this thing in front of the apartment?

These tiny but important steps were not in my 10-step guide, of course. The next 2 hours proceeded in a very hazardous manner; including but not limited to:

• Scraping my hands on the wood when trying to wrestle them out of the Uhaul

• Parking the Uhaul around the corner and sweating heavily making trips back and hoping for a kind stranger to ask, “Do you need help?” which never happened

• Pulling a back muscle because I can’t lift 50-pound cabinets correctly

• Dragging the boards into the apartment lobby and damaging them

• Saying fuck it and leaving the cabinets and boards in the lobby with sticky notes that read: “Please don’t steal, I’m not strong enough to get these up the stairs” until my roommate came home to help me airlift the heavy fucks into the apartment (shoutout to my main squeeze, Simone, you the real MVP!)

• More intermittent screaming and crying

You really should have been there. It was quite captivating.

No seriously. You should have been there. That would have been a huge help. 

Me: (Googles 'damn you gif' finds gif of her actual friend Tiffany)

And that was just getting the materials, people.

Needless to say, the building part took me an entire day. Mistakes were made. Tears were shed. And a tiny chunk of skin came off my middle finger during a particularly rough tussle with a screwdriver.

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I don’t know about y’all, but Marge is starting to sound like a damn psychopath.

But at the end of all the errors and corrections, I’d done it. I’d built the damn thing.

It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and I had to take a break with the doors and shelves because at that point I feared for my own safety if I continued my course being that tired and bloodied.

But I did it. I built a bed.  

If you think this is cool and want to build your own bed just take a moment to slap your own hand across your face. Don’t do it, okay? DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT SPEND $500 DOLLARS.

Instead, here’s a nifty list of 30 things you can do INSTEAD of building an IKEA storage bed:

1. Order a simple boxspring from Amazon or even some cool bed raisers and slide your luggage, shoes, and various shit underneath the bed.

2. Pay IKEA $75 to assemble your furniture.

3. Pay some rando on Craigslist $15 to assemble your furniture.

4. Never go to Pinterest, IKEA.com, or any crafting website to avoid exposure to unrealistic projects.

5. Leave your bed on the floor as a statement of how cool and bohemian you are.

6. Read a nice book instead.

7. Consult your friends and loved ones if you get the urge to build your own bed lasting longer than 4 hours.

8. Call up that nice therapist you had that one time, I’m sure she’s into helping you out with this whole thing.

9. Take up gardening. But only if by gardening you mean succulents. Those are small and manageable and hardly ever die even if you don’t water them for years at a time.

10. Go hang out at the Dog Park and make some new friends.

11. Start a nice blog for your mom and cousins in Alabama to read.

12. Research if you actually have cousins in Alabama.

13. Make your blog about finding your long-lost cousins in Alabama.

14. Book a trip to Alabama and enjoy the local culture while you search for your cousins.

15. Check your bank account on your mobile. Did you know you can do that now?

16. Reflect on all the outrageous purchases you made on your vacation in Alabama.

17. Enroll in a 401K, get an IUD, or join the KGB.

18. Watch a good Bruce Willis film.

19. Watch any Bruce Willis film.

20. Listen to Taylor Swift’s newest album.

21. Pick a fun recipe that only uses 3 ingredients.

22. Research new healthcare plans to enroll in once yours expires in a few days.

23. Go to a Bubble Tea place when they’re having a 2 for 1 sale and then shit your pants from all the sugar in those damn things.

24. Go to a coffee shop and eavesdrop into a very serious conversation in which a young Indian man asks an elderly white man for advice on "how to get more pussy."

25. Get on a bus and get off at a random stop.

26. Make an online dating profile.

27. Delete your online dating profile.

28. Use the money you would have spent on an IKEA storage bed an invest it in Apple. Or even better, something that actually fucking matters. Like cancer research. Or getting all the whales out of Sea World.

29. Take a class on Finance.

30. Sell a kidney.

As we wrap up March, which is Brain Injury Awareness month and my favorite month of the year, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on this experience and how it relates to my overall journey and ultimately, my fucking unshakable stubbornness. 

Losing your independence changes a person.

And in 2014 pretty much everything was taken away from me when my head exploded. It was infuriating. I couldn’t walk, I was exhausted and dizzy all the time, I had to relearn 3rd-grade math problems.

So when I got it all back, I was adamant about doing things on my own, pretty much to a fault. 

I didn’t want help reaching things or getting to the bathroom. I wanted to do shit on my own. Because I was an adult. And I wanted to feel like it.

Recovering from my brain injury made me even more stubborn about doing things on my own than I already was. If that’s even fucking possible.

When I try to do something now ̶ lifting a box, reaching for a high shelf, assembling my own furniture ̶ and if that thing is hard for me? Of forget it, I’m for sure doing that thing no matter how many fingers I lose in the process.

I do that thing like my life depends on it.

And if you think about it, it kind of does.

The act of proving to myself every day that I can do something is like my own mini Olympics. And every Gold medal will be the pride and joy of Braintown for decades to come.

I will never be building an IKEA storage bed again.

And honestly thinking about moving in a year or two gives me mild PTSD just thinking about how I’m going to dismantle and probably dispose of this thing.

But I did it. I built an IKEA storage bed. AND YOU CA̶

Hahahahah just kidding. Don’t do it. Whatever you do, don’t build an IKEA storage bed. If you have any damn brain cells left after this blog post please, for the love in all that is holy, step awaaaaay from the table saw.

But if you do, Marge will be here with a power drill and some band-aids if you ever need them!

50 (More) Things You Learn Your First 6 Months In New York City

Just moments after taking this picture I lost my metrocard...

Oh hey again.

It’s me.

The clueless curly-headed buffoon jolly-romping around New York City and getting on all the wrong trains (still).

Because I only operate on a shit-show level of 57 and obviously need more things to fill my schedule right now, I thought I’d go back to my first posting back in July and see what I’ve learned now that I’m officially a New Yorker (just kidding Mom don’t disown me it was a JOKE).

Here are a few (more) things I’ve learned after roughly six months in The Big Apple…

1. All the friends you thought you’d see and hang out with every day like an episode of Broad City…you still haven’t hung out with. Because we live in NYC. And they, like you, have approximately a 20-minute window of time to offer on any given day, or month, maybe year for spontaneous social gatherings.

2. Renting an apartment in New York is exactly like Broad City told you it was though. Down to the creepy-ass apartment in a basement crawling with roaches that looked amazing in the photographs, quirky character realtors, and a sinking reality that you live in the most expensive city in the world, maybe even the universe.

Me: I need to make how much to live here?

Realtor: 100K

Me: *starts laughing*

Realtor: What’s so funny?

Me: Oh, for a second there I thought you said $100,000-

Realtor: That’s correct

Me: If you’ll excuse me I’m just gonna- (approaches fire escape and attempts to leap off of it)

3. But when you do find a place in your price range (yes, it’s possible) you are expected to promptly hand over every tax return you never knew you had, letters from employers explaining how great of a person you are, and might as well be asked to do a backflip in the kitchen right then and there to get the apartment. Oh, and did we mention how much money you’re expected to hand over on the spot? Yeah, this is going to run you and your roommates (because you need those) roughly $8,000. Mmmmm feels so gooooood.

4. Just because Google Maps tells you that your destination is less than 3 miles away it doesn’t mean you’re actually going to get there quickly. Actually, I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t. The MTA has made damn sure of that.

5. While we’re on the MTA, it’s pretty much a known fact that it might take you five different subway lines to get to your destination because the one that would be the most convenient isn’t running today. Or it just isn’t running for your stop. Therefore, you should be fully prepared to take several different subways, walk to a bus station, get stranded in some random neighborhood, and just say fuck it and get a Lyft which is just included in your budget now and you’d be out of your mind to attempt any other means of transportation short of walking your ass all the way to the Upper West Side.

6. You have actually walked your ass up to the Upper West Side and it actually made your ass feel quite fancy.

7. Not every part of New York is like it’s portrayed in the movies. Sure, you get a thrill everytime you see the Empire State Building light up all cool-like. And maybe you think nearly getting hit by a taxicab is kind of nostalgic and Hollywood. But nothing can prepare you for the smell of trash day in NYC. Which pretty much every day in NYC. And no amount of romantic comedy watching can take away from the fact that there are gigantic, smelly trash-castles lining the streets of New York making you seriously question your life decisions and hold your nose all the way through Midtown.

Mmmmmmmmmmm, smells so yummy!

8. Just because you’re from Colorado doesn’t mean you understand Winter. It turns out you know very little about Winter and will be smacked so hard into reality by “The Bomb Cyclone” that you start crying in the middle of the street because you thought this was your heavy jacket.

9. After the shock of humidity and windchill, you’re going to spend an hour and a half in a hot shower and immediately order an Arctic-level jacket, long underwear, and heated socks from Amazon using your Christmas money.

10.  Real New Yorkers are going to take pride in making fun of said Arctic-level jacket and laugh at you constantly because it truly resembles a sleeping bag but you don’t give a fuck because at least you’re warm now. Until the weather shifts radically to the other end and you’re caught wearing Big Blue and are now sweating through it, leaving tiny drips of sweat behind you as you walk.

Gage (age 2) modeling "Big Blue" before a trip to the corner store for stickers.

11. A “Do Not Walk” sign is a challenge to a New Yorker. And you don’t generally think of yourself as a risk-taker, but you sometimes find yourself following a brave soul out into the middle of a street because hey, you’ve got somewhere to be, right?

12. Food delivery services like Blue Apron are great for single people living in New York who don’t want to spend $1,000 on eating out.

13. Just kidding, you can’t do Blue Apron because some asshat on your block has figured out when you get yours delivered and is stealing them off your front porch while you’re at work. ENJOY THE FILET MIGNON ASSHOLEEEEEEE.

14. New Yorkers aren’t lying when they say it’s all about who you know. It seriously is. And even if you’re an introvert and don’t like talking to other humans, there’s this great thing I’ve discovered called Facebook Groups that allow you to network with complete strangers in New York who are somehow totally down to hook you up with all kinds of cool shit like jobs, gigs, apartments, and more! I’m not exaggerating on this one. Pretty much every cool thing I’ve found in New York (and most of my jobs I now have) came through hitting somebody up on a Facebook Group. You’re welcome.

15. Speaking of who you know, did you know that it’s entirely possible to get a book deal from meeting some random guy at an improv show who happens to know a publisher? I mean at least that’s how it happened for me. Which is pretty cool considering my method of cold-emailing agents and hating myself wasn’t really working out too well for me.

16. It’s entirely possible to end up living out the New York 20 roommates stereotype for a few months. And joke to all your friends that you live in a commune. Which you kind of do, let’s be honest. But this co-living lifestyle allows you to slowly start writing stories about the weirdos you live with which you plan on keeping to yourself until you move out in a month or so. And then there’s really no holding you back. You’ve got an hour-length comedy special about the weird shit that went down in that commune.

17. Sometimes you’re going to feel alarmed when a stranger smiles at you. Yeah, really alarmed. That shit’s weird. Where are we? In the twilight zone? Don’t you see I have my fuck-off earphones and resting bitch face on?

18. Homesickness will come and go at random times. In one moment you’re crying by yourself on a subway because you saw someone refuse to give up their seat to an old lady and the next you’re feeling like Jack in that scene from Titanic where he’s all like “I’M THE KING OF THE WORLD.” These two emotions will probably occur on the same day, if not simultaneously.

19. You’re going to try to get smart and use a different airport every time you fly home just to research which is the easiest one to fly in and out of. Which the answer is none of them. Especially since you don’t have a car anymore and will convince yourself that the public transportation to LaGuardia can’t be that bad.

20. You’re never going to get anywhere in under an hour. I don’t care who you are or where you think you’re going. It’s not going to happen for you.

21. Dating in New York is a joke.

22. Dating in New York is a joke.

23. Dating in New York is a joke.

24. It’s a joke because New York has this beautiful shiny glow to it that convinces everyone that there’s always something, or someone, better out there so no need to go past a first date really because who gives a fuuuuuuck.

25. For this reason you will spend a lot of time explaining to the 4-year-old you nanny why you don’t have a husband or children for him to go on playdates with.

26. It’s entirely possible to get away with not paying for a gym membership. All you have to do is sign up for a “free day” at every gym in every borough. You don’t even have to use a fake name. There are that many different kinds of gyms to try.

27. You eventually might want to get real and get a gym membership because all this 99¢ pizza has really gone directly to your hips and that’s just not okay.

28. You’re going to get sick virtually all the time. But at least you can try to convince yourself that you’re building up your immunity for the day when the next deadly monkey germ hits the East Coast.

29. Swallowing your sketchy bag of vitamins on the subway is a great way to get people not to sit next to you, but at least you know you’re getting your daily dose of Vitamin I Don’t Give a Fuck.

30. When you look back on your first days in New York, you laugh because you were SOOOO worried about getting a job. And then you have to stop laughing because you now have five jobs. All of which require a different part of your brain, separate skills, and will create quite the interesting story on your tax forms next year.

31. You were worried about running out of money and having to head home like a failure. And now you’re like “how many minutes do I have to cram this sandwich in my face in between my barista gig and my nanny gig?” and “can I make it to Queens for this comedy show after teaching my writing class?” and “should I take this $20 freelance gig and write a 400-word piece about how to winterize your pipes?”

32. The answer to these questions are “approximately five,” “yes,” and “hell yes.”

33. You always used to think about the word “hustle” in terms of drugs, as in, someone smuggling them across a border. Now when you think about the word, it’s just a gigantic picture of your tired-ass face plastered in a dictionary. Your parents might refer to you as “deranged,” but they’re also real impressed that you found a way to live rent-free in New York City for about six months (you managed the commune, like an adult RA, that’s how).

34. Time works differently in New York. Even though you want things to happen magically and overnight like they do in the movies, it doesn’t work that way. But patience is key. And your hard work will pay off down the line if you wait for it. I think this is why some people come here in the first place; they want an immediate change from the lives they’re living. They want that New York magic. And believe me, this place is fucking magical. But sometimes you have to wait a little longer for some stars (shit, half a star) to align. And when that happens there is no better feeling in the damn world.

35. If you don’t believe me, ask the guy that was sitting on the park bench near Prospect Park when I got the email that I was going to be published. I don’t know his name or where he lives or really anything about him. But he saw something amazing happen that day. And a lot of screaming intermixed with tears and more screaming followed by more tears.

36. You’re going to show up more on people’s radars now that you’ve moved to New York in pursuit of your dreams. Ex-boyfriends, old colleagues, some random person you met on a plane once. They’re all going to start dropping you a line and caring about your Snapchats all of a sudden. You’re fine with that. Except for the ex’s. You’d rather they shut the hell up and deal with the fact that you’re awesome (which you always were by the way).

37. Despite people finally realizing how cool you are, people are still going to flake out on you last minute. Because in New York, if I’m asking you to come to my comedy show, you’re definitely going to say you’re coming. But at the same time you can easily talk yourself out of it if you’ve had a long day at work. Or if you have a slight cough. Or if there’s something better to do within a closer proximity to you. It’s usually nothing personal. It’s just hard to convince a friend to come see you crush on a Tuesday at 11PM in Midtown. Ah, New York.

38. I’ll still be friends with you, by the way. But I’m just saying if Jimmy Fallon ever does call, I’ll be the first to forget to invite you if you’ve flaked out on me 5-7 times already.

39. Speaking of flakes…SNOWFLAKES. Ah, they’re so pretty in New York, aren’t they?

40. I apologize for that last one because I just decided maybe I’m running out of sage New York wisdom to tell all of you…

41. WAIT. Quit putting your MetroCard in your pocket! It’s going to get bent and then every day it works will feel like a god damn miracle! Get a nice plastic cover thing, or a necklace or something really nerdy but actually necessary.

42. You will trek back the to the bar in Williamsburg to find your MetroCard in a bathroom because it flew out of said pocket when you were taking care of business (#1 calm down, people!) and you will be so so thankful to be living on this amazing planet, I mean really that was a close call.

43. Even though I just said New York isn’t what Hollywood cracks it up to be, being a comedian in New York is pretty much just like that movie Don’t Think Twice and you’re pretty convinced you can be on SNL if you just dump thousands of dollars into the right improv theater or a big producer will just happen to be in the front row of your show and in dire need of a curly-headed white lady with a few hot takes on dating and yoga classes.

44. Speaking of which, you’re going to have to come up with some pretty creative responses to your grandparents at Christmas when they ask you why you aren’t on SNL yet.  

45. Some days, you’re going to look at your life and not even recognize it anymore. Which is equal parts cool and terrifying. It’s cool because your “old life” or your “pre-New York life” seems like a lifetime ago and your “new New York life” is just so fucking awesome you can’t believe you didn’t think about doing this before. It’s also terrifying because you wonder if people know how unhappy and scared of life you were back there, and you wonder if others are experiencing what you did, and are struggling to break into something new. You hope they get their acts together and move to New York, or Start teaching English in Japan, or Whatever it is they're dreaming of doing someday.

46. Life can be pretty damn lifey. No matter where you are. And for me, New York has brought out the coolest and most awful experiences of my life and somehow smooshed them into a few quick months. When I think about all the lifey shit I’ve been through since making the jump, it’s absolutely amazing that I’m still alive. Really. I’m pretty sure half of you expected me to be taken out a taxicab by now.

47. While you’re off galLIvanting in New York doing your comedy thing, your friends’ lives back home are going to change too. They’re going to call you up and invite you to their weddings and tell you about the homes they’re buying and the babies they’re having on purpose. It’s going to feel a little weird at first. You’re going to second-guess your choices for about five milliseconds. And then you’re going to snap out of it, be happy for them, and continue sending them funny Snapchats of you drunk on the subway after a great set where you shared a stage with someone who was on Conan.

48. Being on Conan is actually a lot more common than you once thought. Which makes you feel kind of not as bad about yourself when you explain to your mother that there was only one person in the audience last night at your show. His name was Steve. He was really nice. 

49. Your mother is not going to care about this detail because she’s so god damn proud of you. Yes, it stresses her and your dad out more than you will EVER understand (because you yourself don’t have kids that have run away from you to the Big Bad Apple), but the real truth is that they’re both up to their little ears in pride about what you’re doing with your life, even if they lightly shame you every once in a while or say “I told you so” every time your shit gets stolen off your front porch.

50. New York is going to be your best friend on your best days, and your worst enemy on your worst. It’s going to fill you up with sparkly magic and simultaneously kick the shit out of you on the curb in front of your cool new friends. It’s going to make you work for it. Because if you don’t, there’s just going to be a few billion other people who will. You’re going to get lost all the time and find yourself in ways you didn’t think were possible. New York is going to push your fucking buttons. But at the end of the day, you are still here. And you’re going to keep showing this city that you mean business because that’s what you were born to do.

Photo by: Jajuan Burton 

Editor’s Note: This post was actually written in Denver, Colorado. Because as the universe would have it, I’ve been invited to audition with 79 other people for a speaker position at tedxmilehigh from 14,000 applicants. Updates to come if I made it in, but honestly who gives a shit when you look at those numbers? I am crushing ittttt.  

How I Moved To New York With a Plan and Found Magic Instead

If you squint real hard you can see my best-laid plans going to shit but finding better things instead. 

It’s a Tuesday night at 9 PM and I’m transcending.

I’m holding a beer standing in the back room of a bar I’ve never heard of. Big winter jacket and heavy backpack still on and weighing me down.

But right now I am light as a feather.

Because a stranger is standing on a tiny stage before me surrounded by twinkly lights playing what I can only comprehend as pure magic. He’s playing wine glasses filled with water and singing a song he wrote at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis.

It occurs to me that there are only about 15 other people in this tiny room experiencing this right now with me. I wonder if they too understand. I wonder if they know just how privileged we are to be in this room surrounded by this sound. 

My heart is so full I think I might burst into a pile of confetti on the floor.

It was a Thursday night and I saw my first improv show since moving to New York. The lights came up on the stage and I remembered the first time I fell in love with comedy; sitting on the floor in front of the TV with my sister well past our bedtimes watching reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway? until we both fell asleep.

It’s a Monday night and I’m coming home from my day job as a nanny. I saunter through the downtown streets of DUMBO, Brooklyn and have to stop myself because the light is hitting the city across the river in such a breathtaking way that I take the long way to the subway.

The really long way.

In fact, I forgo several stops and almost walk myself all the way home.

It was another Thursday night when I followed a crowd of improvisers I didn’t know to a bar I’d never heard of and had the most important conversation of my life.

A conversation not unlike any other introductory walkthrough about who I was and why I was there in New York City.

“I’m a writer,” I announced a little unsure. “I mean my book isn’t published yet or anything, but I’m working on it.”

I guess I hadn’t realized that the words “my” and “book” might generate some interest to a complete stranger.

And some follow-up questions.

As fate, or coincidence, or even magic would have it, this particular stranger (Hey Aaron! You’re THE MAN) knew a publisher who just months later would take a chance on me and my little book, changing life as I knew it forever.

I used to be afraid of magical moments such as these.

I would watch moments of pure joy and wonder come into my life and brush them off as mere happenstance; anomalies in my overall “predictable” life.

Like that time I sat on a rooftop drinking wine in Toledo, Spain with my best friend staring up at a billion stars and a 3,000-year old cathedral thinkin' "dayum, life is good."

Oh, you know, just sitting on a roof with the most amazing view fine how are you.

Or when my best friend and I single-handedly curated two amazing art shows in Denver with 13 artists in a gallery that we couldn't really afford with an audience of 300 people and we felt all fancy and shit. 

Here I am using fake confidence to tell an artist that I've kind of screwed something up in his exhibit. He's taking the news really well.

Or that time I went to New York City for the first time a few years ago to take an improv class just weeks before starting my short-lived career as a high school teacher.

It was there that I’d get my first real taste of the magic.

“This isn’t real life,” I’d spit back to the universe as I performed on one of the most notable improv stages in the world at the end of the week-long intensive.

“I can’t actually do comedy in New York. That’s not a life I get to live. That’s just ridiculous.”

For whatever reason -fear, doubt, perceived adult responsibility- I didn’t believe in magic back then.

The idea that I could find and even create wonder in my day-to-day life terrified me. Magical moments were spontaneous, and my meticulous and planning-obsessed brain didn’t like spontaneous.

In fact, my brain fucking hated spontaneous.

It was hard enough trying to conquer the grocery store without sucker-punching someone back then, much less try to organize my life in a way that allowed for disorderly magical shit.

I returned from my week-long improv adventure in New York a bit shook up, traumatized even. For I’d seen a taste of something I didn’t think was possible or realistic for me.

“I had a lot of fun,” I told my mother (true). “But I don’t think I could ever live there.” (False).

To this day my mother recounts this very conversation as evidence enough for me to come home right this very minute you hear me. And at that time I truly didn’t think I could live in a place as magical as New York.

The night before I packed my two suitcases and took a one-way to the Holy Land, I had an epic meltdown in my parent’s kitchen while finishing a bowl of mac and cheese. 

“I’m so fucking scared,” I said, discarding my cheesy carbs and looking up from my detailed and color-coded check-list titled “New York Attack Plan.” Items included hilarious things like “Week 1- Get a job” and “Week 2- Sign a lease.”

“What are you scared of?” My dad said from the sink as he scrubbed a pot.

“Dad,” I gulped. “I’m scared I’m going to fail-” The word “fail” was promptly interrupted by a cascading waterfall of ugly tears.

“Oh, sweetie,” he said softly and rushed to my side. “You are not going to fail.” My tears were globbing down my pink face now and making a mess of my lovely (and supremely unrealistic) to-do list.

“First of all, you’re too stubborn to fail. You get that from me,” he chuckled. “And second, as bad as I want you to stay, I know in my heart that you’re going to get out there and do something amazing.”

My scared tears quickly turned into “why is my dad so adorable” tears and it took a bag of chocolate chips and half a box of tissues to get me down off the ugly crying ledge.

There would be a lot more ugly crying once I arrived in New York City.

There would be job rejection after job rejection. My dad would get some cancer* and I’d have over $1,000 stolen from me by a student loan scam. I’d have a heartbreak and I’d spend a lot of time on subways contemplating the meaning of life but also just staring out into no-mans-land and missing my stops.

The fear of an unknown place with a billion people zooming around my head sometimes made me question if I was going to figure my shit out without completely draining my savings account or if I was going to have to stick my thumb out and bum my way back to Colorado like a total failure.

But hey, guess what.

That didn’t happen. Because I’m still here.

Dad was right.

I’m sitting in a kid’s play studio watching the boys I nanny parkour off of gym equipment and kick soccer balls with ridiculous accuracy at my head. I’m submitting 400-word pieces to clients like banks and plumbing companies and podcasts for $15 a piece. I’m managing a 20-person co-living space that I tell everyone is a commune. I fill my days with performing plays about talking Brocolli to 4-year-olds and fill my nights with telling jokes to drunk strangers about performing plays about talking Brocolli to 4-year-olds.

And maybe this is all a little magical too.

I propelled myself into a magical life by letting magic exist in the first place. It hasn’t been easy or anything like my carefully-crafted “Attack Plan” would have predicted.

But I’m staring out of the boy’s bedroom now, tucking them in** and telling them they can’t have another popsicle. And out of the window, I can see it. The most magical of all New York structures.

The Empire Fucking State Building.

Up close and personal with Mr. Empire in 2015 probably about to get hit by a taxi while taking this. 

If that’s not magic I don’t know what is.

*I am happy to report that Dad is now cancer-free and as awesome as ever.

**This has been the most arduous, horrendous, and emotionally traumatizing of bedtimes for these lil ’ monsters including the 2-year old chucking a baseball directly at my eyeball during storytime, lots of tears (from them and possibly me), and a kitchen tantrum/Mexican standoff involving a popsicle stick and a ham and cheese bagel. I’m just lucky to be alive right now let me tell you.

P.S. If you want to make this fun for me, comment below with your #magicmoments! 

Today Is A Day That Will Live In Infamy

“Today is a day that will live in infamy.” -FDR

On this* day in 1941, Japanese kamikaze planes filled the sky over the U.S. Navy base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, dropping bombs all over the damn place and officially bringing the United States into World War II.

On this day in 2016, I might have been teaching on this very subject to a room full of rowdy, adorable, and you’re-really-testing-my-damn-patience 16-year-olds.

My memory alludes me, so I can’t remember my pacing guide exactly (and honestly looking back at my lesson plans tends to bring back a tiny surge of PTSD…Post-Teacher Stress Disorder), but I’m pretty sure I’d be on WWII by now.

Today, as I sit in my laundry-ridden room in my coliving house in Brooklyn (aka NOT a commune) sipping on tea and spilling cereal on my lap, I’m planning out the day in my head:

Finish this blog post, go to the coffee shop for my interview for the coffee shop, stay at coffee shop and write out my set for tonight, quietly practice set to myself and try not to speak too loudly or draw attention to the fact that I look like I’m talking to myself, write a few hundred words of one of my incomplete manuscripts, maybe the novel but probably just another to-do list, go to comedy show, slay comedy show, hopefully book another show by the end of the night because I slayed, come home, post this blog*, fall asleep while swiping left on Tinder because I’m bored and tired and maybe there’s a guy cool enough for me out there but probably not.

Oh, well. I’m too busy being awesome anyway to make room for a boyfran. #iaintneednoman

The truth is, today really will live in infamy. Because today is the day I start calling myself an author.

Okay, okay, okay. Let’s back up a second.

An author? Capital A-U-T-H-O-R, Author? Wow, that word sounds weird when you spell it out and say it a bunch of times, try it: authorauthorauthorauthorauthor.

Yes, the secret’s out, everybody. It’s true. Mimi Hayes is an author now.

I know you’re like, “pfff whatever, you’ve only been writing for a few years and you get some book deal and now you’re an author?! AS IF.”

Actually, I know you’re not saying that because that’s a really rude trash-human thing to say.

Actually, you’re probably being really nice to me. Because you supported me this whole time and didn’t laugh me out of the coffee shop the first time I told you I was writing a book and trying to become an author.

But let’s back up again. I never had any intent or desire to become an author.

That’s actually the very LAST profession I ever considered. And like I said, I never considered it.

Up until today, I've done a variety of jobs: barista, camp counselor, nanny, teacher, college football team videographer and equipment manager, barista again, improv instructor, watering the neighbor’s plants when they were away, that one time I worked at a Bubble Tea place for 3 days.

And I really wasn’t any of these things. Not truly.

Teaching, well that’s kind of in my bloodstream. It’s like some family gene, we’re all teachers and we all put on our special teacher voices at parties when people can’t settle the fuck down. That doesn’t really count.

I’m talking about who I am.

On online dating profiles, to strangers on airplanes, and at the bottom of my email signature, I tell people who I am.

I am an author.

Getting a book published helped (validate me), but it did not make me an author.

I became an author the minute my best friend Shannon told me on a very sad walk around the block that I had a story inside of me that others might benefit to hear. I didn’t really believe it, but I went home that night anyway, opened a blank word document, and began typing:

“Writing this sentence took five minutes. Or is it 5 minutes? I’m not a writer, how am I supposed to know? I’m not entirely sure if you are supposed to single or double space after every sentence. Geaz, I hope I don’t have to go back and double space all this when I’m done. Google is my go-to source for grammar tips. Is anyone still reading this? It will get better…I promise? But in all seriousness, typing this paragraph is a Christmas miracle in more ways than one. In two ways, actually.”

Those were legitimately the very first words I wrote in my first memoir. It really did take me five minutes because my head was bleeding and my fingers typed slow AF. Isn’t that adorable? This is awful! So awful, you guys. I mean like cute, but like when a kid is practicing an instrument for the first time, like awwwww this is painful!

I even denied my own existence: “I’m not a writer…”

My, my, my, how the tables have turned.

It’s almost like I was trying to talk myself OUT of being an author. Like I knew I was getting into something that had the capacity to change my whole life, I just wasn’t sure if I was really ready for it.

I wasn’t by the way.

I’m still not.

Somewhere in the first few months of writing this book my dear friend Kristen Jorden (hay gurl) told me she was writing a book too, and that she’d been looking for publication like since I was born, which made me extremely jealous of her but also love her as my friend and mentor even more.

We decided to play a game.

When someone got a rejection letter from a publisher or an agent (or in person from a certain meanie pants author who shall remain nameless *COUGH COUGH RHYMES WITH SHBLEEVE SHMALMOND*), we’d owe that person one dollar in a piggy bank. Once one of us got published, the other would buy us dinner using the rejection piggy bank. 

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K-Dawg was definitely in the lead, sending out her work with confidence and getting rejections back like it was no big deal. I think I owe her about a thousand dollars right now. That's like five really nice steak dinners (here we are above at my publication dinner, which was fancy french fondue) 

“This agent said they didn’t like the beginning, this publisher only takes science fiction it turns out, this one…” it went on and on. She was (and is) a rock star.

And I was pretty lame.

Now don’t worry, I’m about to get less lame in a second here. But I was pretty lame back then.

“Back then” when I was trashing myself on a blank word document and simultaneously allowing 16-year-olds to make me cry in the teacher’s lounge after school. I was a teacher. Authoring was just something I did at random increments of stolen creativity and time spent sitting with Kristen in coffee shops wondering if I could muster enough energy to write a lesson plan much less a book that people would buy if they saw it on a shelf.  

People always used to tell me that being a teacher was a noble profession. But people used to also talk to me like I had cancer.

"Wow, the bravery."

"Oh, I could never be a teacher."

"Bless your heart."

"I had no idea, oh, I am so sorry."

"Let me pour you some more wine."

Noble? Fuck that, I don’t want to be noble. You know who’s noble? Spartan war generals. And I’m pretty sure they’re like all dead right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I really loved teaching.

And more importantly, I love my kids. Notice how that’s not past tense. I can still love them even if I’m not locked in a windowless classroom with them anymore. I can still impact their lives as an author, probably even more so.

Hey there past students of mine reading this, y’all want some required reading?! Don’t worry, this will be on the test. The YOU’RE AWESOME AT LIFE test.

What you call yourself is really important, whether you realize it or not.

It’s taken me several years to own up to being an author, an artist, and a comedian.

What do I do during the daytime, you ask? I take care of small children.

Not mine, obviously.

I push strollers and make popsicle stick crafts and try not to laugh every time the two-year-old calls animal crackers “animal fuckers.” It’s putting some money in my pocket for the time being, as do other small jobs I do like freelance write about how to winterize plumbing and being a house mom for the big house I live in that is not a commune.

But what am I?

I am an author.

I write words on pages not because I chose this life for myself, but because my damn brain won’t shut off until I do. I write about what I know and what I think I know and then I come to the conclusion that I know absolutely nothing.

When I tell people what I am now, they don’t treat me like I have cancer.

They actually treat me like I’m a fancy celebrity.

More guys want to go on dates with me now because they hear I have a book coming out and they “want a chance before I get big” (their words, not mine).

I don’t really know how to feel about this quasi-attention right now, other than it’s nicer than when people treat you like they can see the knives sticking out of your heart from all the dreams you’ve let die by being a high school teacher instead of the author you really are.

Being an author is not easy, people.

Like any profession or state of being, it comes with its ultimate highs and crashing lows. It’s a lot of years of bleeding on a page, asking yourself the hard questions, and restraining yourself from setting the whole book on fire when you get stuck or discouraged but likely both.

Writing a book is like running a marathon that you haven't trained for, that you may have not even wanted to do in the first place because your friends signed you up for it, and you're in a heavy spacesuit, and you can't even tell where the finish line is because it doesn't really exist and did I mention you have a spacesuit on like what the fuck is that about that's heavy as fuck like are you okay in there can you breathe, would you like some water-OH, SORRY. Your book has been rejected by an agent for the millionth time because you don't have enough Twitter followers so NO WATER FOR YOU, SPACEPERSON.

Writing a book that is a memoir is like pointing a high-definition mirror at yourself and being like, "oh shit, is that really me in there? Oh, God, that's DISGUSTING. Nope. I'm not doing this. Don't like this mirror, put it away. I can't put it away because this is my life? Break the mirror. BREAK THIS FUCKING MIRROR THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA WHO EVEN AM I ANYMORE." 

Don’t even get me started on how much money and time I’ve poured into this whole being an author business. Not to mention the gallons of coffee I’ve consumed in the process.

But alas, I have no choice. This is who I am now.

I am an author. And I fucking love it.

*Editor's note: This post was originally drafted on December 7th, for all you History nerds that think I messed up the date of Pearl Harbor. Nah, I just got home at 3 a.m. last night from my comedy show and didn't post this until today.