It feels like forever since I’ve done this. I know it’s only been a week, but right now it feels longer than that.
I got back from Miami around 2am Tuesday morning and walked straight into a data center in peril. Catastrophic is the right word. It took hours to stabilize. No customer impact. No equipment damage. Redundancy back in a decent place.
Still brutal.
Chris was solid through all of it. Good partners matter more than anything when shit goes sideways.
By the end of the day things were smoothing out. Leads coming in. New product interest. Sales process actually working. That part felt good.
Then I went to Purple Quarters.
I was relaxed. Laughing. Body finally calm. And then the moment showed up.
There was an altercation brewing. I saw it early. I felt it before it fully formed. Every instinct in me wanted to step in and shut it down. That’s how I’m wired. That’s how I’ve lived most of my life.
And I didn’t.
Not because I was scared. Because the odds weren’t in my favor.
If I step in and it goes sideways, the consequences are real. Legal. Financial. Physical. Nobody’s paying me to do that. Nobody’s protecting me if it turns ugly. The system doesn’t care about intention. It only cares about outcome.
So I walked away.
And I hated it.
I’m still sitting with that. There’s a part of me that mourns that choice. Not because I wanted violence, but because there’s something clean about stepping into chaos and ending it.
It would have been fun.
It also could have been fatal.
Both things are true.
That decision drained me more than any bad set ever has.
My nervous system was so out of whack afterward that I couldn’t even handwrite my name to sign up.
And that matters.
People ask me all the time how things are so easy for me. How I put systems together so fast. How computers, strategy, problem solving, chaos — all of that just clicks.
What they don’t see is how much energy it takes me to do things that are simple for most people.
Standing there with a pen, trying to slow my body down enough to write my name, was exhausting. I could write the K. I couldn’t figure out where to put the pen to start the next letter. Signature was easy. Writing was not.
That took a ridiculous amount of effort.
That’s when the autism question really hit me, and I want to be precise about this.
It’s not that I’m “becoming more autistic.”
What I’m noticing is that my autistic symptoms are surfacing more frequently than they used to.
The question I’m sitting with is why.
Is it because I now have a diagnosis and I’m allowing myself to stop masking so aggressively? Is it because I’m letting my nervous system do what it needs to do instead of forcing it into compliance? Or is it just that I’m finally paying attention?
Since the diagnosis, I’ve been letting myself stim in public. Touching textures. Tapping my chest. Holding my hand over my heart. Hugging myself when I need to regulate. None of that hurts anyone. All of it helps me stay present.
Maybe this isn’t self-inducing anything.
Maybe this is what honesty looks like.
Zen, for me, isn’t calm. It’s permission.
After all that, nobody had signed up yet. Doug wasn’t starting the show without names on the board. Andrew gave me shit for not signing up first. He signed up first.
I told him I don’t like going first at Purple Quarters. I like to hang back. Watch the room. Feel the energy. See how the comics are landing.
Andrew told me going first makes you a better comic.
Because you don’t get to ride momentum.
You have to create it.
You have to change the energy of the room.
That logic landed harder than I wanted it to.
So I signed up second and went up.
The set wasn’t clean. My energy was off. I went long. Lost language. I even stuttered once, which I haven’t done in a long time. But it was honest. The AI psychosis bit is landing. The language hypocrisy bit is getting clearer and more respectful every time I do it.
It felt real.
Bar mics are practice. That’s the point. Not every night is about killing. Some nights are about learning where your edges are and how much energy it costs to hold them.
I’ve got a six-week run coming up in April. Six Friday nights. Ten minutes each. That’s where this all gets tested. That’s where consistency matters.
Tonight taught me a few things.
Walking away is a skill.
Walking away costs me something.
Going first changes the room.
And a lot of the things people think are “easy” for me are paid for somewhere else.
That’s still the work.
Good night.
I love you.
