Booty Rockin' Everywhere

It's hot. Not unbearably hot. Just uncomfortably hot. Like wearing a tweed suit when it's sunny and there's a slight breeze in Bentonville, Arkansas.

I'm in my PJs and an Adventure Time t-shirt. I can just feel the sweat drops slowly trickling from my armpit down my torso. Drip. Drip. Drip. Like my pits are leaky faucets that I can't turn off because, you know, it's hot.

Delma's walking around in her booty shorts. That's how I know summer is here. Her bed wear goes from this

to this

.

Vicki won't sleep on the bed with us anymore. I woke up this morning and found her lying down on the tile floor in front of the toilet. It's cooler there, apparently.

Hot hot hot hot hot. Hot. Well, warm. Actually, it's nice outside. It's only like 70 degrees or so. But I've been in Chicago so long that I forgot what actual heat feels like. 70 degrees would be winter in Houston.

Also, our heaters are still on. The building doesn't shut them off until the end of the month and I don't know how to turn them off and I'm too lazy to google it. It's the heat. The heat makes me lazy. Heat waves making me heat lazes. Ugggghhhh.

It wasn't so hot (re: warm) last weekend. It was nice and chilly. Nippy, even. Nipples.

Delma and I went shopping. I needed some sweet new duds because I'm starting my first, real job this Monday (well, internship). I'm becoming a man, y'all.

That's why we went shopping. You can't be a man if you're wearing ripped jeans and an Adventure Time t-shirt. I picked up the latest issue of GQ (the one with Robert Downey Jr. on the cover) and immersed myself in the world of men's fashion. I learned lots. Like:

Did you know it's acceptable to wear boat shoes without socks?
Did you know that pocket squares aren't meant for blowing your nose?
Did you know that Sketchers shoes are a fashion faux pas?

Things of that sort.

Armed with that knowledge, I braved Plato's Closet, Crossroads and Buffalo Exchange. All in one day. I tore through racks and racks of dress shirts and button-up shirts and polo shirts and all sorts of other shirts. I tried on skinny jeans, colorful jeans, khaki jeans (AND khaki not-jeans). I even tried on different hats.

This is a chance to reinvent myself, you know? It's like going to college. A new start. A new chance to be the man I want to be. Strong, confident, with just a hint of sass.

I ended up buying a new pair of Levis jeans and two new plaid shirts. One of those plaid shirts nearly identical to one I already have.

A zebra can't change its stripes. An Alf can't change his plaid.

Despite the problems that my personality causes in a professional setting (re: people not taking me seriously because I'm too jokey), I like how I am. And I feel that I'm someone who is pretty easy to work with (at least I hope I am). Also, my Adventure Time shirt is hecka comfy, y'all. Plus, it helps me deal with the heat. Well, warmth. Whatever.

Alf is a Big Ol' Bitch

I just finished up my first real "working" week. Almost. Kinda. Well, not really. I mean, it was more like 35 hours, not 40. And I didn't do much, per se. I was freelancing at an agency out in the suburbs of Chicago. I am getting paid though. So there's that.

I did have to deal with an actual "working" commute. And that was not pleasant. Very not pleasant. You could even say it was unpleasant. Very unpleasant.

Since Delma was out of town for the week, I decided to take her tiny, trusty 2003 Toyota Matrix to get there. Otherwise I'd have to spend forty-five minutes on the el and then forty-five minutes on the Metra train. Here's a quick recap:

Monday - Left for work at 6:40. The approximately twenty-mile drive took nearly an hour and a half. Left for home at 5:07. The approximately twenty-mile drive back took two hours and five minutes.
Tuesday - Left for work at 6:23. I figured the earlier I leave, the less traffic I encounter. It took me an hour to get to work. Left for home at 5:04. Arrived at 6:34. An hour and a half. Better than two hours, I guess.
Wednesday - Left for work at 6:05. Arrived at 6:58. Still nearly an hour to go twenty miles. Left for home at 3:45. Got home at 5:17. More than an hour and a half.
Thursday - Left for work at 5:50. Yes, 5:50AM. I woke up that morning at 4:30. In the morning. FORTY minutes to go twenty miles. Better, but still. What the flaming fuck, Chicago traffic? Left for home at 3:15. Made it at 5PM. An hour and forty-five minutes.
Friday - Said "screw it" and decided to take the Metra. I biked to Ogilvy Transportation Center (an easy, 35-minute bike ride) and sat peacefully as the Metra took me to work in forty minutes. I should have done this from the beginning, I thought.
The ride back? Got out of work at 4:10. Didn't get home till 7:30.

The ride back on Friday was fun. Just kidding. I'm being facetious. I got out at 4:10 and had to haul ass to the Metra station because the train left at 4:13. Thankfully, I made it to the station in time, but for some reason, the train was coming from the opposite side it usually did. It stopped at the platform and I mused things over for a second.

The train was on the wrong side, but it was facing the right direction. It was definitely going to Chicago. There was another train coming on the right side (the side I was on), but going in the wrong direction. I made the (rash, impulsive, stupid) decision to cross the tracks.

The oncoming train was still a ways away. Still, you're not supposed to cross the tracks when a train is coming. Safety reasons, you know? But the next train wasn't coming for another hour and I was hungry and tired and I just wanted to get the hell out of that town and go home. I darted across the tracks, the oncoming train blared its incredibly loud horn and I tried to hop on board.

The conductor saw me, held up his hand and said "Whoa, did you just cross the tracks when a train was approaching?"
Out of breath, I nodded and said "Yeah, sorry, it's just that the train usually comes from the other-"
"You could have gotten killed." he said, cutting me off.
"I know, but I don't normally take the tra-"
"I don't care. You're not boarding this train." he said, interrupting me again.
My stomach dropped. I didn't want to wait another hour.
"But I don't usually-"
"You can wait for the next one," he said as he jumped on the train and slammed the door shut.

As the train departed, I stood there, mouth agape, wondering what the hell just happened. I've been thinking about it since last evening. It's been nagging at me, slowly chewing on my brain.

It's not a big deal. It isn't. It's just another hour to wait (although it ended up being more because the 5:13 turned into the 5:27 and then for some reason it went slower than normal so I didn't get into the city until well past 6PM). And he was right. I could have gotten myself killed. Maybe he was letting me off lightly. Or maybe he was just being a dick and going on a power trip. Whatever. That's not the point.

What's bothering me is how I handled the situation. That's how you're supposed to handle, it right? "Yes, sir," nod your head and just accept it. But I wish I could have explained my situation or gotten him to understand or at least told him to go fuck himself. Something, you know?

I'm a passive person. Very passive. I don't like being confrontational. And it's a problem. I go out of my way to avoid conflict even if the other party is at fault. I've mentioned before how I wish I was more assertive, but I hadn't really realized just how passive I was until yesterday. I'm not passive-aggressive. I'm passive-passive, like a submissive puppy peeing and then rolling over, trying to please the bigger dog.

Honestly, I didn't even try to argue or change his mind. I just stood there and let it happen. And maybe he was in the right, so I'll give you another example of my passiveness.

In 9th grade, I went to Las Vegas with my family. I couldn't really gamble, being fourteen and all, so after I got bored with the arcade at Circus Circus, my cousin and I decided to walk around. We went into a store, didn't see anything of interest, and then walked out. At that point, a cop came up to us and told us to empty our pockets.

"Why?" my cousin asked, as I began to reach into my pockets.
"I just saw you go into the store and you walked out without buying anything," he said with a smirk.
"But that doesn't mea-"
"Just empty your pockets." I whispered to my cousin. As they say in movies, I didn't want any trouble.
He shook his head and sighed. We showed that we had nothing in our pockets.
"Good boys." the cop said and walked away.

Later that evening, we were waiting for our parents to finish gambling so we could go to dinner. We sat down on the floor with our backs against the wall. The same cop strolled by again.

"Sit on the benches." he instructed us.
"What? Why?" my cousin asked.
"The benches are for sitting. Not the floor."
Immediately I got up and plopped my overweight adolescent butt on the bench.
"You can't make us do that. We're not breaking any rules." my cousin told him.
"Sit on the bench unless you want to get into trouble, kid."
My cousin shook his head again and looked at me for backup.
I sat on the bench and looked straight ahead, avoiding eye contact.

The cop was obviously being a dick. For no real reason. And yet rather than stand up to him, I took it like the little bitch I am. Like I said, I'm very passive. If we're being brutally honest here, we could just say that I'm a huge pussy.

That's what's bothering me about all of this. I have no spine, no backbone, no cojones. And I wish I did. Maybe the train conductor was right. But I wish I had at least managed to say "That's fucked up." And I wish I could have told the cop no, like my cousin.

I'm not very good at dealing with the authorities.

This is long, I know. I'm just rambling and venting, at this point. It feels like I'm in high school writing in my LiveJournal. "Dear diary, my life SUCKS." And, honestly, my life doesn't suck. My life is pretty good, at the moment.

I just don't want to be passive-passive anymore. I also don't want to be aggressive-aggressive either, but I don't have to be. I just have to stand up for myself.

Maybe I'll join a fight club or something to toughen up. I don't want to be a peeing puppy. I want to be Captain America. Or Batman. Or at least Mighty Mouse.

My Foot is Peeling

My foot is peeling. Like, the skin is falling off. It's like I dipped my foot in Elmer's glue and let it bake in the sun for seven hours. A new foot is emerging from the chrysalis that was my old foot. From dead skin cells rises the phoenix foot, ready to take on any soccer balls thrown its way.

My foot is peeling. I was stung by a jellyfish off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula a few weeks ago. Or at least I think it was a jellyfish. It might have been fire coral or some mean ass barnacles. I was snorkeling and I got real close to a dock and there was some sea life growing on it and I touched it with my hand and felt this burning sensation, but then a wave pushed me towards the dock and I had to push off with my right foot and so I got stung super bad by whatever it was.

My foot is peeling. It's peeling now, but it was super swollen a couple weeks ago. The day after I got stung, it doubled in size and wouldn't fit in my New Balance shoe. Also, it hurt to walk anywhere. The last day of vacation I was hobbling around like a… Hobbit. That doesn't make sense, but the words are similar so SHUT IT.

My foot is peeling. I don't know why I'm starting every paragraph with that sentence. I think partly it's because I'm amazed that my foot is peeling. But also because I thought it'd be a cool exercise. I think it's more annoying than anything else at this point though, so I'll stop.

I first noticed it last week when I was on the Metra. I was changing socks on the train (yes, I'm that guy) because I had biked to the Metra stop and was going to an interview and needed to change when I saw that my skin was kinda just… Falling off. It's always fascinating cus your body's like "That skin don't work no mo'? I'LL JUST MAKE MORE."

The interview went well, thanks for asking! You're so sweet. Actually, I don't know how well it went since I haven't heard back yet. I have another interview next week and I'm kinda freakin' because interviews are always intimidating. Hell, the whole job search process is intimidating. It's like trying to woo a beautiful girl and so you text her something like "Hey, there's this cool movie showing this weekend," putting the ball in her court and she just responds with "HEY!!!! Thanks!!!!" six hours later and so you don't know what to respond so you just send a smiley face emoticon and then she takes another six hours to respond, but she just responds with that emoticon with its tongue sticking out. Give me a definite answer! Don't leave me hanging, man.

I actually don't know if this interview is for a job or an internship. Actually, it might not even be an interview! They just asked if I could come in to the office. I don't even know what time I'm supposed to go in, but I'm scared of emailing and asking because a) it's the weekend and they probably won't respond and b) I don't want to come off as a creep.

That's the thing about job searching and girl dating. You want to show interest, but you don't want to come off as a creeper. Though you know I be totally creeping, checkin' out their LinkedIn/Facebook pages and shiiiiiiiii. Y'all know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Everything's coming up Millhouse, guys. I need to keep moving forward and striving and hustling. Not get too cocky or complacent. I'm a perpetual motion machine. Reaching for multiple goals (getting paid to be funny still being one of the main ones).

It's a beautiful Sunday morning so I'm going to take my dog for a nice, long walk. It'll help keep my mind off this whole stressful job hunt thing. And my peeling foot. Peace out, playas.

Just Like That Ludacris Song

I tried standup for the first time last night (well, technically second). I think I did alright, but that's not really fair because I performed in front of a bunch of my friends and classmates. People who knew me and my sense of humor and wanted to see me succeed, you know?

That said, it was a lot of fun. And terrifying. I couldn't stop shaking during the performance and I didn't stop until 20 minutes and two IPAs later.

It really was fun though. And I think I had some good stuff.

Afterwards, someone told me that I should consider getting involved with the Chicago comedy scene. "Chicago has a huge standup and improv scene," he said "and they have the Second City center here. It's where a bunch of famous comedians got started." I told him I would consider it. I didn't tell him that that's the reason I moved to Chicago three years ago and that I failed miserably to "make it" in the Chicago comedy scene.

But standup was exhilarating. It really was. It's such an adrenaline rush and afterwards everyone was congratulating me and thanking me. I kept getting more and more embarrassed.

Not to sound ungrateful or anything. Everyone's compliments were very much appreciated, but "You were so funny!" kinda loses its meaning after a while. Like when you say a word over and over and over until it sounds like you're speaking another language.

I think I might want to continue with standup. It was fun and it'll help with my presentation skills and... I like being funny. It feels like validation. Redemption, even.

Not that one good standup set will make up for the dozens of failed improv auditions I've endured over the years, but... Any success feels good at this point.

I'll stop rambling though. Here. Judge for yourselves.

Sorry for the quality of the video. I know you can't really see me, but you can hear me and that's what matters, right?

A Romantic Love Letter to Delma Jennifer Flores on Account of the Fact that I Bought Her Nothing For Valentine’s Day

Dear Jennifer,

Let me begin this letter by apologizing. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not buying you a Valentine’s Day gift. I’m sorry for not taking you out to an Argentinian steakhouse and for not getting you a heart-shaped box filled with assorted chocolates and for not buying you a giant teddy bear holding a dozen roses. I know you don’t care about that, but still, I'm sorry.

It’s your fault though. I didn’t buy you anything because I love you. I hate you. Exactly.

The feelings have been there for a while, brewing in my stomach, churning with the gastric acids and half-digested slice of pepperoni pizza I had for lunch, swimming around in there like a concussed puffer fish. Inflating, deflating, inflating, deflating. I tried to shrug it off as gas early on in the relationship, but we both know we wouldn’t have made it this far if there wasn’t something at least resembling love between us.

I am trapped, sinking further and further into the molasses of love, the sinking quicksand pit of romance pulling me down, down, down into love-blivion.

The fact that you don’t care about Valentine’s day makes me love you more, which in turn, makes me hate you even more because I don’t want to love you, but it’s too late.

I’ve reached the point of no return. Our relationship is like a game of paddle ball. No matter how hard you hit me, I’ll always come back. That’s not an invitation to partake in domestic abuse, but like I said, at this point, if you decide to smack me around, there’s not much I can do to stop it. I’m not going anywhere.

I used to be independent. If a girlfriend became upset because I was late for dinner, I’d say “I’M MY OWN MAN” and storm off.

I can’t do that anymore.

Partly because, yes, the whole love thing.

But also partly because you hold the code to my self-destruct sequence.

07-14-28-11.

You know what to say to turn me into a giddy little piglet, squealing in delight at the fact that you enjoyed the story I wrote.

You also know what to say to turn me into a pile of raw bacon, your words slicing into my flesh, cutting off my appendages and ripping out my lower intestine only so you can tie it into an overhand knot and hastily stuff it back into my torso.

You hold that power.

And there’s nothing I can do about it.

I push you away. I forget to wash the dishes. I say I’m never in the mood for Thai. I stay out till 2AM, getting drunk off whiskey and IPAs.

Yet no matter how upset I make you, you’re still here. And I’m still here. You haven’t activated my self-destruct sequence.

I’m hoping it’s because I hold the code to yours too.

11-02-04-05.

Whatever the reason, thank you.

Let's form a truce. A peace treaty to end this cold war of the heart.

I won't obliterate your psyche if you won't demolish my fragile ego.

Because that's what it's all about, right? It's not about red wine or sonnets or holding hands while eating cotton candy and walking through the park at dusk.

It's about trust.

I trust that you love me.

I do.

Because there's not much I can do if you don't.

Onion Feet

The apartment smells like onions. A big old nasty-ass red onion stanking up the joint. Smells like a big old nasty-ass foot. A foot that just went on a ten-mile run without wearing any socks and so now the shoe smells too. Gross, foot. Get out of here. Why does it smell like onion foot? Because I'm making slow-cooker barbacoa with a little help from my friend Rick Bayless.

I put the onions into the slow cooker first, which might have been my mistake. The slow cooker is slowly cooking the onions and their pungent odor is filling up the apartment and my eyes are crying and Vicki is looking all confused like "What the hell is that?"

Actually, now I'm slightly worried. Dogs can't eat onions because it destroys their red blood cells which could lead to Haemolytic Anaemia. But does that extend to smelling onions? Smell is connected to taste, right? So, ergo, if dogs smell onions, they're kinda tasting them. Right? Is that how it works? If that is how it works, that's hecka nasty cus dogs be smelling each other's butts and shiiiiiiii.

This Rick Bayless recipe is supposed to serve 6 people which means that, normally, Delma and I would have to eat this for 3 meals. Check my math, y'all. It checks out. Today is an abnormal day, though, because…

My sister is here! Kimberly is in my living room sleeping on my air mattress. Vicki is sitting next to her, keeping watch. Such a vigilant dog.

Kim got here yesterday and she's hoping to make it big in the big city. Kinda like how I did. Or tried. I'm still working on it. But Kim went to baking school and she can bake stuff so if y'all want cakes or cookies, order them from Kim.

See? Look how good that cake looks.

But with Kim here, that means that we'll only have enough barbacoa for 2 meals. Check out that math, y'all. 6 servings means 2 servings for 3 people. I used to be an electrical engineering major before I switched over to the highly lucrative and prestigious English major.

She's not saying anything, but I can tell she's stressin' a bit. I was when I first got here. Stressin' hardcore to the max. I came here three years ago (three years this Friday, actually) expecting to take the comedy scene by storm. Instead, I'm making slow-cooker barbacoa and my hands smell like onion foot. But I am happy.

Not everyone can be Bill Murray or Bill Clinton or Bill Russell. There's only room at the top for one. And I know that sounds depressing, but it's not. Really! You think Chevy Chase or Bob Dole or Wilt Chamberlain are super depressed? Well, maybe Wilt because he's dead, but albeit not reaching the success that Bill Murray has, Chevy Chase is still a legend. And Bob Dole is… Doing something. With Viagra.

The point is that you don't have to be number one to be happy. And I know that sounds like loser talk and maybe it is loser talk, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Will my life be over if I don't write a NYT Best-Seller? I mean, maybe. I might be dead. But that doesn't mean it will have been a waste or I wasn't happy. I am happy right now.

I have goals that I'm working towards, but I'm super happy. I count my blessings everyday. And I feel like I'm getting preachy so I'm going to stop getting preachy and start getting freaky.

Freaky deaky.

Happiness comes from within and all that jazz. That's what I'm trying to say. You don't need no accolades or awards. You just need a loving family, a loyal dog and a big pot of barbacoa.

Vulnerability

The Cheese Monkeys is a novel. It is a novel that I am reading. The author is Chip Kidd. Chip Kidd looks like a big dork.

See? But Chip Kidd is a graphic designer who did the covers for a lot of books that have cool book covers. Like Jurassic Park and its sequel, The Lost World.

They're pretty cool looking book covers. Chip Kidd is an author and he wrote The Cheese Monkeys and that is the novel that I am currently reading and I like it. I do. I really do. But Chip Kidd does those things that a lot of contemporary authors do that's a little annoying. I'm referring to two things in particular:

(1) He sometimes writes extraordinarily long sentences that are longer than traditional paragraphs and should be broken up into various smaller sentences so that the prose flows better, but it's a quirky stylistic device that a lot of people like and that I, too, am guilty of. Then he'll pepper short sentences in between the longer ones. Like this. Real short. Fragments, really.

(2) He is very judgmental and condescending. Well, the narrator is. Again, maybe it's a stylistic choice that many people appreciate, but I feel like that's more Chip Kidd than the narrator, if that makes sense. Or rather, Chip Kidd has imbued himself so much into the protagonist of The Cheese Monkeys that the protagonist is more a slightly altered version of Chip Kidd than an entirely new person. Make sense? Kinda? I hope it does. But here's a quick snippet from one of the first few pages that showcases both of these bullet points.

I was her captive in line for the duration and I learned a good deal about her, as one would from a misplaced child in a police station while awaiting the arrival of her parents. Her name was, cross my heart, Maybelle Lee. She was born outside of Augusta, Georgia and moved up North when she was twelve (Daddy's company was expanding. She made it sound as if he owned it, which surely meant he did not). She'd always had that creative "itch" and she decided to scratch it by pursuing the Visual Arts, with the hope that someday she could "apply her acquired knowledge and amassed skill in a conventionally useful and lucrative way."

See? Chip Kidd is definitely a funny and talented writer, but he (or, rather, the protagonist) has to distance himself from any kind of emotional attachement. Chuck Klosterman employs both of these techniques and he's one of my favorite writers. But that dettachement (deattachment? deattachement?) makes it more difficult to be vulnerable. Which is the point, right? Can't judge me if I maintain this snide veneer.

I do that too. It's hard to show emotion. It's much easier to be witty and clever. Also, whenever someone calls you out on it, you can use the excuse that you're just playing. It's not to be taken seriously. Duh.

My sister (not gonna say which one so as to not call her out) has started reading a lot and it makes me real happy (This might seem like an abrupt topic change, but it'll make sense in a bit. Just bear with me). I have these vivid images of the two of us going to coffeeshops, reading for an hour or two, and then discussing what we just read afterwards. We'd act very scholarly while drinking our yerba mate.

When I took Kayla Christmas shopping, she picked out one of those books with a cowboy on the cover for our sister. Those books that you find at the front of Kroger or Jewel-Osco, with titles like "Midnight Delivery," "Master of Desire" or "Ripe for Seduction." Something like this:

She said that our sister liked reading romance novels. I thought she was mistaken. Our sister was surely reading Anne Lamott or Lucy Grealy. Right? Not that nonsense drivel that's for middle-aged woman with no excitement in their lives. Riiiiight?

I was wrong. Kayla was right. Our sister liked Elizabeth Reyes on Facebook a couple weeks ago. Elizabeth Reyes is an author. She is an author that writes romance novels. But not just any romance novels. Romance novels with a Latin twist. From her Amazon page, we can see that Elizabeth Reyes is a prolific writer. Not just prolific, but also successful. Like, really successful. She has 109 reviews on her latest book. That book has a 4-star rating.

Here is a snippet from one of her more successful books:

“I wanna taste you,” he said in her mouth, stopping when he felt her body freeze. Her wide eyes got even wider when he added, “everywhere.”

Instantly, I judged. It was an instinctive reaction. I judged Elizabeth Reyes so hard that I dropped my pen. What trash, what tripe! But then I felt bad. Because my sister liked it. And who was I to judge? What had I done? Elizabeth Reyes has released nearly a dozen novels. Are they good? I don't know. I haven't read them. But other people have. And other people love them. What gives me the right to say whether or not it's trash/tripe?

But, what's even more important, is the fact that this woman is trying. This woman is putting herself out there, you know? She's working on her craft and putting her work out for the world to see. And she's actually making money off of it. That blows my mind. She's a hustler. She's doing what she loves and she's earning a living off it. Shouldn't we be applauding her, even if some of her novels have titles like Making You Mine: The Moreno Brothers? and Always Been Mine: The Moreno Brothers #2? (See, there I go, judging again)

A few days ago, Delma and I checked out a Neo-Futurists show. It's billed as a sketch/improv show, but it's not. It's very different. The Neo-Futurists try to do 30 plays in 60 minutes. The plays range in length from 5-seconds to 5-minutes. And they're not all comedic. In fact, I thought the comedic ones weren't very funny. I wasn't a fan. But the dramatic ones... Man. Those were killer.

There were a bunch of the dramatic plays that I loved, but my favorite was a monologue. A guy came out and started talking about this recent event in which scientists recorded a zebrafish's thought process. He then moved on to his thought process, using very precise scientific terms explaining how his thought went from one part of the brain to the other. To illustrate this, he used a sharpie and drew all over his bald head, following his thought process. But then he started getting to the area of the brain that deals with doubt and then, from there, went to a very dark place and started talking about how he often deals with suicidal thoughts because of it and if he ever did commit suicide, it'd be like "this," as he drew down his forearm with the sharpie.

That gave me chills. And it started off as comedic, but very quickly shifted into dramatic without skipping a beat and it was so... Poignant. So powerful. So fucking simple, man. I think that's why I loved it.

But what I loved most about it was how vulnerable he was up on stage. He wasn't out to get laughs or to come off as witty or smart. He was simply opening up to us, the audience, and revealing himself. Exposing his mind to us. And that was crazy.

I want to do that.