I finally slept for more than 4 hours in a row and was able to process some of what’s happened. So instead of starting to work on the real-life stuff I need to do in order to keep my physical body safe and warm and relatively healthy in a strange city, I’ll do some more blogging about my new favorite subject: Me. ME!!

In no particular order, chronologically or thematically or otherwise:

• At that surreal launch party I wrote about the other day, I met a fan who works at The New Republic. I said, “Hey, wow. They like me at TNR?” The fan said, “Well, I do.” Which was the only correct response to something so stupid on my part. It was a reminder that I’m a complete hypocrite who constantly complains about the team-sports aspect of politics/culture and then does the exact same thing. People are individuals, and sometimes individuals forget that about others.
• Don’t worry, while typing the previous entry I was honking a bulb horn and making funny faces.
• I either didn’t know or forgot that there was a Washington Post photographer coming to the office the week before last, which is probably why I dressed like a homeless person. (On my way to work that day, three people offered me spare change. And that was after I told them I worked for Tucker Carlson.) Alex Treadway, our COO*, said, “Hey, that’s fine, it’s okay to be hip.” I said, “This isn’t ‘hip’, this is poverty.” I don’t dress like a guy who just came out of a 20-year coma and thinks he’s still a college kid because I want to make a statement, but because I’ve been poor for a long time. Of course, now I’m a big-time blogger who is very important, so I was thinking of buying some pants that go with a top. What do you call that? Oh yeah: a suit.
• I hereby apologize to all members of the Homeless-American community for the preceding item. Now please just let me step inside this CVS.
• One moment of personal humiliation I don’t think I’ve told anybody: It was about an hour before the site launched, in the middle of the night on Sunday, when everybody had been there for what seemed like days in a row without sleep. Because it had in fact been days in a row without sleep. In the middle of that single-minded frenzy of activity, I walked past Tucker, who was chewing a big dip of Skoal** while talking to somebody about something that looked important. It just struck me as funny, so I said, “Hey, aren’t you Tucker Carlson?” Except I was so sleep-deprived that it came out as, “Hey or ayu Tuckaaaaahzibbuh?” And he flinched and blinked at me uncomprehendingly from the depths of his nicotine psychosis. I really love this job.
• About 20 minutes before launch, when everybody was clacking away furiously on their laptops and fixing problems and sweating like they were bringing in Apollo 13, I said, “Hey, is it too late to change the name of the site?” I find that employing humor can ease tensions in times of great stress. I wish I had tried that instead.
• So I’m a Mac guy now. Yep, I’m typing up this here disjointed mess on a MacBook. I used to think Apple partisans were a bunch of dumb jerks, but now I see what they’re talking about. This thing just works. At first I felt like a toddler trying to land a space shuttle, but now I never want to go back to a slow, clunky PC. This MacBook is like a part of my own body, only thinner. Thanks, bosses.
• You might criticize me for making two NASA jokes in a row, but do they really rise to the level of jokes?
• Another humiliating moment: On my very first day I was sitting in on the morning editorial meeting, where the reporters and editors hash out which stories they’re going to cover. In the conference room there’s a large flatscreen monitor on the wall, and it had one of the pages from the pre-launch version of the site. The big story on that particular page was Narayan Dutt Tiwari, the 86-year-old Indian political figure who had to resign after making a sex tape with three young women. I blurted out, “Headline: Curry Favors!” Instantly, I realized that Neil Patel, my new boss, is Indian-American. And was sitting three feet away. Utterly mortified, I muttered “Sorry, sorry” and stared at the table in front of me and tried to figure out how I managed to get fired before I even found the office coffeemaker. I couldn’t even look at him. But after I came out of my panic-induced fugue state, it turned out he thought it was funny and it was completely fine. Good guy. I’d like him even if he wasn’t paying me to do what I’ve been doing for free all these years.
• And then there was the story about almost accidentally running over Senator Al Franken within 20 minutes of arriving at my new home, but that’s kind of a boring anecdote.

Hey. Wake up! Move it along, pal, you can’t sleep here.

*More like koo-koo! Sorry.
**I’ve never worked in an office where so many guys chew tobacco. And I’m from freaking Indiana.

P.S. I can’t believe I forgot to mention meeting Brian McKim and Traci Skene. They’re stand-up comics who are married but have separate bedrooms. I mean separate stand-up acts. We got to know each other online, but I’d never talked to them face-to-face before. We had a great conversation the other day about online humor vs. stand-up, the state of the world today, and weighty matters like that. They’ve been very supportive of me and gave me some great advice. (Mainly: Be true to yourself. And keep a bag packed. Also, they bought me a sandwich, which is good because I like sandwiches.) Check out their blog at sheckymagazine.com.

P.P.S. Or maybe “Curried Favors” would work better? Now I’m obsessing over it…