I'm sitting here . . .

. . . trying to figure out why I've done what I've done for the last month or so, since getting back to New York from my father's place in Tucson. My plan was to get back to London this month, as soon as I had enough money to do it. An occasional gig, my friend Steven's cooking and the ability to walk long distances would then combine to help me get by until the word of my greatness blew through the trees and was carried by the wind to bookers and colleagues and bears (oh my!), rendering me the fifth most employable comic in Britain.

Central to accomplishing this, however, was having the money to buy a ticket on a plane.

Now, I'm not a total idiot - I had a plan for this, too, But as with the rock solid, intellectually pure, basic "get thee to Britain" plan, the doing was not up the (already questionable) level of the planning.

For example, one source of money I was counting on was my friend Marc, a comedian who's been throwing some dollars my way in exchange for helping him develop new (very good and generated by him) ideas for his act. And he has not let me down.

But, for some reason(s), I haven't done the work as frequently or dedicatedly as I might have. Which has resulted in less money, less frequently -- an eminently predictable corollary.

Another small but useful chunk of money was to have come from the headline I sold The Onion. But it never came and I didn't want to be a noodge for fear they wouldn't buy something from me again, although if they haven't paid, they haven't really bought anything in the first place, have they?

So, I waited and, occasionally, obliquely asked about it and eventually I was told to send an invoice, which I would happily have done two months earlier had I been given the chance but . . .

That money still hasn't come, although it may be in my friend's mailbox.

Well, we're talking about hundreds of dollars from those two sources alone. That could have been my plane ticket money.

But I didn't get it and I don't have it and, to be honest, I knew I was going to have to delay my return to the UK by mid-January; still I hoped I'd be there by now.

However, with a little money for a ticket and maybe a little more than that for day-to-day things and a little money from an occasional gig and no guarantee of anything else, my survival over there would depend largely upon the reliability of my friend Steven's good home cooking.

So, naturally, as the end of January approached, he informed me he would be leaving town and subletting his flat for -- months -- starting in February.

This meant I couldn't enact my "plan" (really more of a scheme) even it I had a ticket. (Thank God I hadn't licked my money into a ticket. Thank God I hadn't gotten my money.) Fortunately, things in New York were interesting. I wasn't that unhappy about sticking around.

There've been television ideas I've helped develop and theater spaces I've been involved in conceptualizing. Good food and drink (and a winter coat) have been thrown my way in return and there is the promise of greater reward. But even without that reward, the creativity is sufficiently rewarding to make my efforts feel as if they were worthwhile. (Feeling this way has probably been my undoing.)

Also, there are women in New York who have piqued my interest and crucial to finding favor with them is being here and not elsewhere, currying (dis?)favor with others. Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a pattern of meeting women who, after meeting me, make the decision to another state before we have our first date, which we then, futilely, might still have.

It seems the women who are attracted to me are likely to be reaching the edge of their patience with life in New York and considering me as worthy of their attention is probably indicative of this, the feeling being, "Who knows? Maybe this kinda guy . . . "

I had a woman in (unbeknownst to me) just such a New York crisis track me down via the internet after losing the contact information I'd given her at an East Village bar. We drank wine ("Two-Buck Chuck") and ate Nathan's hot dogs on the beach at Coney Island on the same day that she was gathering up boxes to facilitate her move to Vermont.

And last month's most-desirable moved, suddenly, back to Indiana, which was particularly frustrating because she's since said she hadn't realized I was that interested 'cause I'd been dilly-dallying about when we'd be getting together.

Which comes, of course, back to money.

With no income and an unstable living situation, what would have been a good time for us to get together?

One day, I might have needed to do laundry but had no money, another I might have been down south at my sister's to save cash. Or maybe I couldn't be reached because I hadn't topped up my phone.

Y'see what I'm saying?

So, why, you might ask, did I not just get some kind of job to get me through this rough patch?

Well, after always getting by (if only just) via my wits and my art, I had a job for six years and when it ended I decided I would devote my time and energies to my comedy career alone, no longer allowing "the man" to sap my strength and focus. Maybe these current difficulties are necessary if I'm to get what I want from life.

But surely, I could've worked a couple of hours a day slinging hamburgers at my friend Anthony's burger joint.

Why? I was gonna make enough money to get to England doing what I was doing. It wasn't necessary.

It could've helped me have a social life in the meantime.

I wasn't gonna be around here long, anyway. And there are women I like in England.

But I'm not going to England so quickly. Especially since my friend whose place I stay in told me his place would be unavailable starting this month.

But since then, he got a gig that's keeping him there 'til March.

But I don't have the money to get there now. And it's almost March, anyway. What do I do when he leaves?

Maybe there'll be comedy opportunities there.

Maybe there'll be comedy opportunities here. My friend Zach, who's been a regular on several series and co-starred in the movie, "The Comedians of Comedy", said he'd get me in with the upper echelon of hip comedy venues and performers.

(God, I must be going crazy. I'm talking to myself.)

Through all this mental back and forth, only one thing remains clear:

My sneakers are really starting to stink again. I gotta do a laundry or buy new socks.

Or a powder or a spray.

But to get the money, I gotta PayPal money I don't have to a friend and get the cash from him, counting on the money I think is coming in being available by the time PayPal tries to take it from my bank.

Otherwise there'll be a $30 fee.

But in the meantime, I'll have sweet-smelling shoes.

Oh, yeah. my friend Alan said to stop boring you with the stuff about my stinky shoes. (But then he also said that people like to read about it because they like a "geek show", so how boring can it be?)

But stinky shoes are a serious issue in the world today. If I have stinky shoes, how can I take out a troubled girl in time to stop her from leaving the city in humiliation and defeat? (That's not a spelling error. I meant the other kind of "de feet". You know, the failure kind, not the stinky kind.)

I wonder if Alan's making meatloaf today or if he made it yesterday when I wasn't able to come by.

Would be good if he made it tomorrow, 'cause tonight I have to go to my friend Jack Fetterman's monthly party. (I have to.)

I guess I'll be blacking out later tonight and ending up in The Bronx or Bermuda or something. (See Don't know what it is about those Jack Fetterman parties . . . ) Maybe I'll wake up on the tube in London and then all this agonizing will be moot.

Giving me the chance to engage in some new and better agonizing.

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21 February, 2007 @ 17:08 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer