Back In The Saddle Again

Dorothy was right, there is no place like home. Chicago was great. Mom’s house was great. I returned to the country and the house was still standing. I learned the old man and the kids don’t mind living in squalor. And to think of all the time I’ve wasted over the years cleaning this dump. They would have been perfectly content with me letting things go to hell in a hand basket.

It was a bummer leaving Mom. She took care of me, made sure the coffee was always on and fresh, had food waiting for me when I got home. She shared her computer so I could work from her house, and get my homework done. Best of all, she was happy to provide me with a little material for you guys, which I’ll get to over the next couple of days.

Driving into the city from my mom’s house shouldn’t have been one and a half to two hours one way, but because I had impeccable timing with traffic lights, it was. (She lives 25 miles from downtown.) Besides the traffic lights, cars and absurd amount of jaywalkers, someone tried to sell me crack through my open car window. Another guy was selling snow cones from the median. Someone a few streets down spit on my windshield, squeegeed it and tried to demand payment, there was also a guy selling bootlegged CDs and DVDs car-to-car. Maybe getting there really is half the fun. Like my mom, these characters were there everyday doing their thing.

The Second City was everything I wanted it to be and more. I was paired up with the most usual group of people. A group of funny people I otherwise may have never met, whom I fell in love with.

Like a good television show, we had our token black guy, a Mexican, one lesbian and gay guy. We had a lady who was retired, a princess who wants to be on soap operas, a space cadet, a handful of college kids and then there was me, married with two kids.

Somehow this odd bunch managed to work together in writing and sketch collaboration. Maybe that’s what it is really like working within a team of writers. We clicked and we were pretty sure we were funnier than shit. I guess coming from all over the country, being different ages and living different lifestyles is how we were able to bring so many angles to our writing. If this is anything like that dream writing job of mine, I can’t wait.