This will be my last chance to plug this show in this newsletter. It’s really important to me. I’m turning 40 and I wanna be doing something I love to do, which is telling jokes, hopefully surrounded by friends, family, comics, and a keg of beer. I’ve never done 40 minutes before and I’m real stoked to hit that goalpost on what some consider a landmark birthday.
Also, shout out to my friend in comedy, Omer Orbison. My original flyer was weak and he knew it and out of the kindness of his heart, he made me two new beautiful flyers. I’ll post the second flyer below in the, ‘Upcoming Shows,’ section. Thanks, dude!
Random Thought:
This will probably be the last long form thing I write in my 30’s. I’ve never considered myself any type of fancy writer or skilled enough to go pro or write books or anything of that nature but I’ve always enjoyed writing a thing here and there, like this newsletter for instance. I had a blog for a little while, still do, I just don’t update it a whole lot so it feels like a thing of the past to me but if that was something you ever wanted to check out, you could go to http://joshaintfunny.blogspot.com/
Anyways, I feel this odd pressure that no one is applying on me to write something to sum up the 30’s and I don’t know what to say and I’m worried it’s gonna come out sad. I don’t feel like a totally sad person and I don’t even know if it was an overly sad decade, but sad things happened and they’re hard to ignore. In some ways, life got way fucking real in my 30’s. It was the first bunch of years where mortality struck a chord and let me know it’s always there, lurking silently.
The saddest thing was watching parents of friends die. That happened more than I wished in the past ten years. It felt like it came outta nowhere and then it just sorta kept happening. I was still naive in my 20’s. Parents don’t die. I’d built up this mythology that they’d live as long as they wanted to and when it was time for them to leave, they always left on their own terms, completely fulfilled, everyone applauding a life well lived, not a tear to be shed because all our parents are gonna get the happy ending they deserve.
I don’t know what to tell a friend when one of their parents pass. I’ll write something on Facebook and mean well but I don’t know if I can properly communicate the sadness I feel for them and I don’t think there’s anything anyone can say or do to understand the well of sadness within them. It sorta feels like this dark path we will all have to walk alone emotionally. I wanna hug all of my friends forever, maybe to the point where their parents comes back. But that never happens. It fucking sucks. I’m bummed typing these words but this is life and this is the ugliest lesson I learned in my 30’s. If you got a parent, go give them a hug. And if you lost a parent, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that is or how much it takes from you.
The second saddest thing is the lose of pets. Two of my cats passed away, Mittens and Gizmo. I got both of them off the streets around the same time, when I first moved out on my own, so when I was like 24. I did a lot of growing up and learning and living in that time and those cats bore witness to it all. They were always there. The 20’s and 30’s can be so fucking turbulent at times, but Gizmo and Mittens were always readily available to be pet and fed and to jump all over me and be crazy and make me laugh. I miss both those little bastards so much. I cried so hard when Mittens died (was put to sleep). I just felt completely robbed, exploited, empty, and dejected. That was the first creature I ever took care of from almost birth to the very end. That’s the saddest day of my life so far. Losing Gizmo was tough too but I guess dealing with death is like anything else, you become adjusted to it. You start to develop a slight immunity. I don’t mean to say it like I’m completely dead inside. I was plenty sad when Gizmo died but I couldn’t help but think after Mittens passed that I’d be doing this again sooner or later. I was preparing for it. Up until that point, I had never prepared myself for death.
And while that is all very sad, I am very grateful for the time I had with those cats. It ends sad, it always ends sad. But Mittens and Gizmo were also some of the brightest spots of my 30’s.
And now I have Bella and she’s great and I hope her and me both make it through my 40’s.
The 30’s were also filled with a lot of cool stuff:
-tattoos (I was a late bloomer, didn’t get my first tattoo till like 29).
-running (started running in my late 20’s and haven’t stopped. Running changed my life.)
-Dani (my girlfriend and partner in cat wrangling and cohabitation)
-comedy
-traveling
-the Josh-Mobile (my mom gave me her old car and I have put some miles on it and it has reliably gotten me around. Thanks, mom!)
-nieces (2 of them)
-new friends (I hear a lot of people talking about making their social circles smaller as they get older but I don’t subscribe to that philosophy. And maybe it’s because I meet a lot of people doing comedy, but I think if you keep your heart open to other people, you’re always gonna make new friends and you should embrace that, not purposely try to deny it in some effort to keep your social circle more easily maintainable. You’ll grow out of touch with old friends and that is sad but also not all relationships are meant to last.)
I don’t like to get all preachy or try and wax poetic about some specific life ideology but I’ve always tried to live my life to enjoy it. Have fun. Make memories. Make friends. Enjoy time with family and friends. In my 20’s, I was way more hardcore about the having fun part and I’d lose sleep and money that could’ve maybe been better spent over it. But mostly, I think I’m still very similar. I still like a good time and a good hang. I still go to concerts. I still have a beer too many sometimes. But I’m also way more disciplined on making sure my bills are paid and now I do things like exercise regularly and enjoy a good nap. But the enjoyment of life is still top priority. I hope to keep living life and enjoying it through the next decade and beyond. Y’know, like a person more famous than myself once said:
Okay, I think I’m gonna break format and end it here. Maybe I’ll go back to the previous format next week.
As always, thanks for reading! Share it with your friends! Make sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram:
@joshaintfunny
Upcoming Shows:
Fri, 12/13
Sat, 12/14 THE BIG ONE
I’m turning 40 and doing 40 minutes and I promise this night is going to be so much fun.
and then my schedule gets pretty light. So if you book things, consider booking me. I’m pretty cool and super mature now that I’m gonna be 40.