It started at 6:55 this morning. I was all cozy and out like a light. My phone rings. I don't recognize the number. I let it go to voicemail.

7:08, 7:20... 7:22... finally, I answer it after setting it to silent and having to listen to it continually vibrate.

"Hello?" I bark in a crinkly sleep-full voice.

Nothing.

"Hello?" I rasp again.

Nothing.

I hang up.

8:10- "Hello?!"

Nothing.

8:15- "Hello!??!!?"

Nothing.

8:30- "Hello... Hello?!... OK... This is the twentieth time you've called and this is getting FUCKING ridiculous... Please..."

"Hello?" An old woman's voice interrupts me.

"Um, hello!" I screech exasperated.

"I...I'm sorry... are... are you my son?" The woman's voice shakes out.

"I... I'm not... no... I'm sorry." I say settling down. I have this problem. When I hear soft old women voices, I think of my grandma. The one that once got lost in the middle of downtown Milwaukee and had to pull over and ask for help by a bunch of twenty-somethings that completely mocked her and sent her in the wrong direction as a prank. I think of being alone and old and confused and I think of how scary it would be trying to find my son and not sure how find my son if I didn't know how to find my son.

"I need help.."

"What's wrong!? Where are you?! What kind of help?" I ask nervously.

" I need help, please..."

"Where are you?!" By now I am throwing on clothes and grabbing a pad of paper in hopes she can give me an address."

Click.

She hangs up.

In a frantic pace, I start putting on shoes while redialing the number.

"Hello, Harmony Nursing Home, this is Sheryl."

"Oh... uh.. hi... I just got a phone call from someone who said she needed help..."

After ten minutes of explanation from Sheryl, I find out that the lady that had been calling me often sneaks in to the phone room and dials random numbers looking for her son who doesn't visit her anymore.

Today, she randomly chose mine.

I crawl back in to bed not able to sleep. With all the number combinations, she dialed mine. Of course, this could be coincidence. My number could have been close to her son's, you know, she was probably a number or two off.

I can't help but think about numbers and how we all eventually get old. It's the most beautifully scary thing about life. As much as you think you can prepare for it, you can never really be prepared.

But I can't help thinking about getting old... and being alone. I've always prided myself on being an individual and standing on my own. I never wanted to be too dependent on someone else that, if I ever lost him, I would be lost.

Maybe one is the wrong number.

So lately I've gotten some sassy emails: Did you die? That was one of them. It made me laugh. The other one was more sassy, like: Is your life so boring that you don't have anything to blog about? I liked that one too.

So I thought I would do a little debriefing on why blogging has been so sparse lately. I call it "The Byron Briefing"

5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

It starts like this: A few weeks ago I was asked to perform a story at a sex show, which I did and loved and it was totally fun. Somehow that launched in to a gazillion amazing opportunities that I can't even express how excited I am. Like, this one called "Story Slam" which is for University of Chicago which I am going to teach a workshop. TEACH. A WORKSHOP. AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO! What? WHAT! WHAT!?!??!?! I met with the awesome guy that started it. We had coffee and he was all: You're gonna do this, right? And I was all: I am going to do this and that is leading me to working with really really smart students who want to do some really really awesome storytelling.

I went to Toronto. Which was rad. I learned not to make fun of the "aye" and learned that the graffiti in Toronto is almost as phenomenal as the graffiti in San Francisco. Here's proof:

I am doing this:

I just got this published:

I am volunteering for this:

I saw them(They BLEW me away):

I went to the opening for this:

I visited Wisconsin and held one of these:
(

Saw this live and it changed my life:

I'm gearing up for this and this.

Obsessed with this:

I leave for New York in a few weeks(Yah!). Then Las Vegas. (YAH!) And then South Africa. Woah.

Not dead. Just out living and being thankful for everything. Every. Single. Thing.

But I'm back. I swear. I miss you. And you. And all of you. HI!

Theater 7
2nd Story People(I'm on May 3rd) are performing before the actual show. A show that's one many many awards. You should go. You can buy tickets here!
2nd Story Festival April 23rd, 2009 @ Webster's Wine Bar.
Buy tickets here for my night!
Homolatte, May 19th, 2009 @ Tweet
Check out their site here!

"You are not the one."

It was written on a folded piece of light pink paper in black ink. Which, when I turned it over, was written on the back of a gas station receipt.

When you live in the city, you tend to stumble upon pieces of other peoples' lives. When you share this small space with large amounts of people, you're bound to find relics of others that have been somewhere before you. Often these relics are hard to decipher much like ancient relics--Egyptian ruins with exotic drawings or faded scrolls found deep in a dug-up tomb. Other times, like in this one line of text on a receipt, you're given clues to what might have been.

Read the rest of the column here.

The other day Josh is trying to explain a moral concept to me. I wasn't picking it up as quickly as I could have been.

"I'm going to put in "Byron" for you, OK? So, you know when Zack Morris[from Saved By The Bell] wouldn't go on a date with a girl in a wheelchair because he didn't know he could do it? It's like that."

A few nights ago, my friend Alison was trying to explain her love life situation while at a concert with me. I wasn't getting it.

"OK. You'll understand this. So, um, you know when Carrie Bradshaw[from Sex and the City] was digging through this guy's closet because there was something she just didn't trust even though there was no reason not to trust him? It was like that."

And just yesterday my friend Sarah was trying to explain this problem she was having with her boyfriend.

"Um, hmmm... OK, you know that Alanis song on her second album that one that goes like [sings some of the lyrics here]... that's what I feel like."