-As a kid growing up in the suburbs, I was always perplexed when I took a standardized test and the address section on the form had a space for “apartment number.”  Back then, I didn’t know anyone who lived in an apartment and could never imagine doing so myself.  Now, I’m on my fifth apartment and can’t imagine anyone my age living in an actual house.  For me, though, my apartment is not just my home, but my office as well.  It has been almost three years since I first described “daycrawlers” in Ruminations #82.  Daycrawlers are the self-employed, the creatives, and the freelancers – those often misunderstood twentysomethings who work from home – and our numbers are growing.  We don’t own suits, we usually don’t have bosses, and we’re all wearing pajamas right now.

-One of the drawbacks of being a daycrawler is convincing people that I do in fact have a job.  When my buddies want to visit me in LA, they’ll say, “Karo, we’re thinking about coming Wednesday to Sunday.”  While I’m excited for them to crash, they don’t seem to realize that I’ll be working more than half the time they’re here.  It’s the equivalent of me coming to visit you and literally living in your cubicle for three days.

-One of the benefits of being a daycrawler is the ability to get laid on weekday afternoons.  I used to date this girl who was in law school.  Sometimes she’d come over after class in the middle of the day.  It was the simplest recipe for sex ever, since I’d already be laying around in my boxers.  Just add chick.

-Because I live alone, I often wonder what would happen if I was attacked or I choked on a pretzel or something.  I’m worried that no one would realize anything was wrong for weeks.  I tend not to leave my apartment for days on end and if I don’t respond to email, people just assume I’m really busy or on tour.  I’m like a kidnapper’s dream.

-I was talking to my friend Holly the other day and she asked me, “How’s work?”  I was touched.  No one has asked me that – or at least phrased it that way – in about five years.  I thanked her for caring and told her that work was busy but going well.  So please, people, reach out to your local daycrawler.  A little question goes a long way.

-When I get a voicemail later than 10am, the caller usually makes a joke about how they hope they didn’t wake me up.  First of all, I resent your implication that I do nothing all day – I’ll have you know that I get up quite early every morning.  You just happened to catch me napping.

-Since I left Wall Street to pursue comedy, I started getting all my dress shirts custom-made.  They’re all too short to be tucked in and the collars are too narrow to be buttoned or worn with a tie.  Essentially they look great at a bar but could not be worn in an office.  Just in case I get too drunk I don’t want to wander into the wrong place by accident.

-Being a daycrawler for so long has conditioned me in such a way that I could never again function in corporate America anyway.  If it gets too hot in my home office, I just take my shirt off.  I go to the bathroom without fear of seeing a co-worker’s shoes in an adjacent stall.  I watch ESPN from 2-3pm every day.  And despite all this, I’m ten times more productive than I ever was on Wall Street.  “How’s work?” you ask.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I am either the worst or the best possible houseguest.  I either get too drunk and vomit in your bathroom, or hook up and never make it back to your place at all.

-In the past few months, O.J. Simpson’s girlfriend stood by him at his trial, the world’s fattest man got married, and Mini-Me made a sex tape.  I’m not sure if I should be proud to be single, since these people are giving relationships a bad name; or embarrassed to be single, because apparently it doesn’t take much to date these days.

-Last time I was in New York, I called my buddy Claudio to meet me out at a bar.  He walked the ten or so blocks from his apartment while listening to his iPod.  This baffled me, since he then had to carry the thing around with him for the rest of the night while we got hammered.  But he was unfazed.  I, on the other hand, like to have as few accoutrements on me as possible when I drink.  Sometimes I won’t even wear a watch or shoes with laces.  You never know what might happen.

-When Google announced its Mail Goggles application that prevents you from sending drunk emails by making you solve arithmetic problems first, my inbox was instantly flooded with hundreds of messages from readers eager to hear my take.  Quite frankly, this program won’t do much for me because I’m really good at math and don’t use Gmail anyway.  It has confirmed, however, that most of my fans believe me to be an alcoholic.

-On the side of the box of Frosted Flakes in my kitchen, it says “The official cereal of Tony the Tiger.”  That just seems redundant.

-I was working out recently and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the TV at the gym was displaying an electoral map where every state was blue except for Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Mississippi.  I thought, holy shit, Obama is really pulling away.  Then I realized it was just a SportsCenter poll about whether the Cowboys would make the playoffs.

-And, finally, the other day I went to get the mail – which is generally the one time I venture out of my apartment and down to the lobby each day.  When I turned around to go back to my place, I saw an attractive girl about fifty feet away walking in my direction.  Her breasts were huge.  I mean, they were like Civil War cannons.  As I walked toward her, I actually said to myself, “Don’t stare at her tits.  Don’t stare at her tits!”  But when she walked by, I still gawked involuntarily.  My autonomic nervous system completely took over; it was pure instinct.  At first I was embarrassed, but then it occurred to me that this woman could be a daycrawler too – after all, she was also wandering about on a workday.  I decided to chat her up, foolishly thinking I could convince her to go for an impromptu roll in the hay.  How did it go?  Well, let’s just say this is the kind of conversation I wish Google Goggles had been there to prevent.  Fuck me.

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