THE CLOCK IS NEAR TO MIDNIGHT AND THE CARRIAGE IS GOING TO TURN INTO A PUMPKIN!

by Helene Gresser

Okay, here's the deal: it's now 11:45 p.m., I had a great afternoon and evening with my cousins, walking and talking and seeing sights in NYC, and ultimately sitting at the Olive Tree Cafe on MacDougal (which is above my favorite comedy clurb, The Comedy Cellar) and talking about family secrets.

It's fascinating and revealing and refreshing and a relief, even with the darkest of revelations, to discover that we all had illusions and delusions and horrid stories and tear-inducing memories of our childhoods and parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, as well as touching moments that stay with us, burned into our memory hard drives.

This is why I tell stories, and not jokes. Maybe I'm not really a stand-up so much as a storyteller who tries to find the humor in the darkest of tales from my life. It's what keeps me sane (or at least sane-ish,) and I believe that sharing these "oh my god TOO MUCH INFORMATION" stories can make us feel part of the human race, when there are times that one feels completely isolated and weird and alone in one's quirks and ugliness and neuroses.

It is now 11:56, and I fear that if I write more, that I will not be posting on my assigned day, but bleed over into Thursday's post slot and that would be unfair to the lovely goddess who deserves to have the Thursday slot free of my late blentry. More to come, next week, I promise.

I love my family. And my family of fellow comics. That is all.

-hmg