Every day, so far, since Ani’s gone to camp, I’ve written a letter, really, an email, and they print out those emails and deliver them to the campers.

I also maintain a little web-based chat app that my family can use to communicate, and sometimes when Ani’s in the computer lab, we’ll get some real-time chats there.

It’s a little cute little app that I made where it pings my cell phone and Lauren’s when Ani is writing, and then we can all rush to the chat app and start talking.

Sometimes it’s for half an hour, sometimes it’s for 12 seconds.

But every day, I write those emails, and thus far, every day, I’ve also handed those emails to Chat GPT and asked it to do something with them, like turn this email into a rap or a Shakespearean sonnet or a limerick, and I include that at the bottom of my email.

So I thought you should know.

I could read them to you, but I’m not going to, but trust me, it actually does a shockingly good job, as do I on this podcast.

♪ Your Daily Lex ♪ This, this being the recording of this episode of this podcast, this is one of the last things I’m doing before I leave the state.

I’m off to Richmond, Virginia to visit my friend Casey.

Now, that’s not where I’m going, but it is going to happen.

I’m off to Richmond, Virginia with some pals from Comedy Sports to participate in a Comedy Sports Championship of sorts.

So if you’re in the Richmond, Virginia area and you like comedy, and really, who doesn’t, you should check that out.

Saturday night is the big matches, I believe, at the Comedy Sports Theater in Richmond.

It’s funny when you think about prepping for an improv show, because you can’t.

You know, you can warm up your mind, you can warm up your body, but you don’t know how an improv show is going to go until it’s going.

And people who are good at improv, you can have a pretty good hit rate.

You can, you know, stick to good techniques and styles and openness and trust in your teammates, your scene mates, to know that it will have the capacity of being good.

But will it be good?

Who the hell knows?

I mean, it will be, but that’s the thing that I like about it.

There’s an excitement on the part of the performer of, is this going to happen?

I think there’s something interesting on the part of the audience, because the audience wants improv to be good, right?

They want to enjoy it.

When you have those moments where the audience feels like, is this going to work?

This is awkward.

Oh, they’re struggling.

Oh, this doesn’t make any sense.

I don’t understand what’s happening.

Like, that’s bad improv, right?

You want it to be good.

You want the experience to be enjoyable for everybody involved.

And I like that.

I like not just putting the audience at ease or making them feel comfort that this is, that we know what we’re doing and it’s going to go well.

I like them to be surprised and delighted by how good it can be.

Like the best is when people say, I don’t know how you could do that.

That’s the best compliment you can get after a good old improv show.

Now, this time I’m meeting a bunch of improvisers I’ve never met before.

And so of course I want to impress them, but I don’t want to be like a show-offy person either.

I don’t want to like, I’m not looking to be in there.

Look, I’m the best.

I just want to look in there and look, I belong.

That’s my goal.

So I’m hoping to show I belong this weekend.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing Avenue Q rehearsals, of course, and those have been going pretty well.

I’m getting laughs at rehearsal.

That’s a good thing, right?

I guess I measure my life in laughs.

Is that good?

I’m 1.2 million laughs old.

I don’t know.

People talk about, you know, are there more doors or windows or wheels in the world?

How many laughs do you think you laugh a day?

And how do you measure a laugh?

Is that like three or four laughs?

Or is that one laugh?

But either way you can.

How often do you laugh?

How many laughs do you have a day?

How many laughs do you have in a lifetime?

That’s what that Rent song should have been about.

Not minutes.

Laughs.

Anyway, I think it actually mentions in laughter as well.

And okay, I don’t care about Rent.

I mean, I care about paying Rent if you have Rent, and I think Rent was a very good musical, but I’m not here to analyze Rent.

Boy, I’m seeing a lot of musicals in the upcoming weeks, though.

I’ll be seeing Music Man, which my wife and daughter are in.

And then a couple of us are going to Broadway, where we will see the following shows.

Let’s see if I can do it from memory.

Back to the Future, The Lion King, and Kimberly Akimbo.

Consider it also seeing Shocked.

But as far as I can tell, Shocked, while an enjoyable show, is basically all about corn puns.

And you’d think I would like such a corny style musical, and there is a kernel of truth to that.

But, see what I did there?

But I don’t know.

It’s just, I wasn’t motivated to spend Broadway dollars to see that one just yet.

Anyway, no episode tomorrow, because I’ll be too busy improvising and doing other things with improvisers in Richmond, Virginia.

But you have a wonderful weekend, and we will talk again on Monday.

You know, as long as you behave.

Lex.