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thinking like this I protect myself from disappointment. And if anything other than the worst-case scenario unfolds, what a pleasantsurprise! The problem is that I am always walking around preparing for and reacting to the horrors of what my brain is making up, living as if every potential terror and every defeat were already happening—because in my mind, it always is. I think if I could just create a series of characters to enact all the heinous possibilities my brain manufactures to insulate me from joy, then I would be using my creativity in a safer way. I see maybe an animated series or perhaps several epic paintings, large canvases. I’m talking the whole wall of the gallery big.
    I don’t like animation and I’m not a painter. All I can do is imagine these horrors and share them with you.
    I sat in my seat powerless, waiting for the plunge. I was squinting hard and clutching the armrests when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see the entire flight crew standing over me. The one who seemed to be the leader, a hard-looking woman, asked, “Are you all right, sir? Do you need medical attention?” The kind flight attendant had betrayed me and now stood behind the monster in an apron who was interrogating me. I wondered how I became the problem. If they only knew what was about to happen they would be thanking me for being the one person perceptive enough to see it. I was actually hoping that we’d lurch into a sudden descent at that moment. I was hoping that they would all go flying toward the back of the plane, screaming and thumping along the ceiling. Then they’d know I was right.
    I noticed the other passengers were also looking at the problem, which was apparently me. I looked up at the huddled flight attendants, all feigning concern, and I said, “No, I’m good. Thanks.”
    As this ambush was unfolding I noticed the dubious-shaded-brown man making his way back down the aisle toward an emptyseat. His seat. He shot a look at me with those same eyes in which I’d seen a deadly agenda minutes ago. Now they seemed to be smiling and nodding. Racist .
    “I’m really okay. Just tired. Sorry,” I said to the crowd looking down at me. They dispersed, warily. I was embarrassed.
    I sat there ashamed. I had profiled. I was delusional. I felt like everyone on the plane was looking at me, the weirdo who freaked out. I sat with my head down the rest of the flight. When I heard the landing gear engage I looked up and saw the flight attendants once again strapping themselves into their little seats. I was a little mad at the ex–wild woman. I thought she’d be cool but she ratted me out. I couldn’t hold anyone’s eye contact. Just before we touched down she leaned in and asked, “What happened up there?” I looked up at her. She looked caring and sympathetic at that moment. Reluctantly, in a quiet, shaky voice, I said, “I had a situation in my head.”
    She looked at me nodding and said, “It happens to all of us.”
    The wheels hit the tarmac.

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Twenty-Six
    Years ago I did a particularly angry set onstage. I talked about AIDS, the end of the world, and how silly and hopeless life was. A guy came up to me after the show and asked, “Why comedy?”
    That was all he said. I was dumbfounded.
    I started doing comedy in the late eighties. I was raised in Albuquerque, but I went to school in Boston, and that’s where my career started, after I placed second in a regional competition sponsored by radio station WBCN. The competition was called the Comedy Riot. There were several rounds; we started out with a five-minute round, then a ten and after that a fifteen. That was probably about all the material I had when I started working, which was immediately after the contest.
    Back then there was an unspoken system in comedy. You started at open mics, then you opened or hosted, then you middled or featured, and then you graduated to headlining. Thosewere the hoops. The time it took to jump through