There are really only two times I’ve thought that I would love to do what that person does. Well, said it and meant it. I would love to have been any number of famous actors or comedians or writers or athletes. Their lives all look great from the outside but then if I ever had to actually be Chris Rock or Steven Malkmus or Jumpa Lahiri or Lionel Messi, I don’t know if I’d enjoy the work.

But like I said there are two people whose careers I envy. The first is Spalding Gray. I love his monologues and think touring with them would have been a pretty cool gig. And I found this second person and I didn’t even know I was looking for her. My girlfriend had a copy of Even the Terrible Things Seem Beautiful to Me Now by Mary Schmich in her bedroom. I had no idea what it was but I picked it up and read the first essay that Mary wrote about her mother. I thought it was great. Heartfelt and honest and just damn good.

And she did it for her job at the Chicago Tribune. And she won a Pulitzer for commentary. And here’s my favorite one: remember that sunscreen graduation speech years ago that everyone thought was written by Kurt Vonnegut and Baz Luhrmann put it to music? Mary Schmich wrote that.

I don’t know if her job really exists anymore. Are columnists at papers a thing at this point? Because that’s probably my dream career. I’ve learned that I need the structure of a day job. I need a reason to get out of bed, put on pants, and leave the house. I need an office to go to for several hours to force myself to do something productive. It’s a lame thing to learn about oneself but I’ve learned it. But if the activity was writing stories about my life and other people’s lives that readers can relate to, that would be amazing. I do the former here all the time. I’m sure I could learn how to do the latter.

After almost ten months of blogging, I’ve gotten used to my own voice and my own writing. Reading the essays in this book has made me pretty jealous. I keep thinking, “Damn, I wish I could write this well.”