I have always used humour, proper humour, not sarcasm, in a variety of ways. Find the dark humour in a dark situation. Make a wise ass remark during a stressful situation. Sometimes the humour is inappropriately placed; inappropriately placed but still funny. "I had an absolute shit Christmas - I got laid off, my dad died, and someone gave me white sport socks. Seriously!? Who the hell gives white sport socks as a gift?"

Humour is my armour.

Sometimes my clowning is seen as unprofessional by "serious business people" but I honestly don't care to work with those kinds of people anyway. I use humour to start conversations with people. I make my wife laugh every single day.

"What's up?" I asked as I walked in the bedroom.

"I'm burning up" replies my wife on a cold January evening.

"She's burning up. She wants the world to know. She's so hot she'll glow. She's burning up. She wants to know the cause! Maybe it's early on-set meno-pause! 'coz she's burning up!"

I'm an introvert.

"Hah!" exclaims someone at the back of the room.

No. Really. I'm an introvert.

I know all the names of the people at Trader Joe's on Sunset. I know the names of the people at the Starbucks opposite. I know the names of many of the regulars. Many of the people that work the stores around the area too. The people at the post office. Our regular UPS and Fedex drivers stop to chat. I can tell you about their kids, their jobs, their life. They know me too, or many of them do. I talk to them all. Ask questions about their day.

What you see in-person in front of you at the office, at the restaurant, making sure everyone is included, talking to anybody I run into, working a room at a networking group, that's not me. I put on my Oxford shirt. I put on my black cashmere jacket. I pick up my electronic business cards. That's my sword and my shield. I step into battle. Face the world. Talk with everyone. Make sure they aren't left out. Approach everyone. Show interest. Ask questions. When people come together in a social setting, I'm usually that single connection between a lot of disparate people.

At a networking meeting where I know nobody to start I will know dozens by the end of the night, "Hey Dave, great to make your acquaintance! Have you met Jeff? Let me introduce you, he's this awesome software developer out of Facebook. You guys should talk." A minute ago I didn't know Dave. Fifteen minutes ago I didn't know Jeff.

People want to talk about themselves. And nobody knows how to break into the conversation. I'm that catalyst. Their ice breaker.

"Here, let me find Mike in this crowd, he knows Android stuff, he can answer your questions." I know Android stuff too, but let's introduce two new people to each other, this isn't about me.

I go home and I close the door and I sigh a sigh of relief that it is over and I can just be alone and recharge.

I studied improv and comedy for a few years, had a small side career in it too for a while, even appeared in a few Hollywood clubs, which sounds more impressive than it really is.

Robin Williams and Steve Martin were teenage heroes of mine. I wanted to be like that. That non-stop onslaught of stream of conscious pinballing from one comedic observation to another. The art of improv isn’t that it is all done right there, but that its rehearsed, and rather than an entire show, a six course dinner served at a fine restaurant like many comedy routines, improv is a Chinese buffet where you are elbowing the last words from your mouth out of the way to get at the next crunchy morsel your ADD brain just leapt too.

There is a scene, where Pam Dawber played by Sarah Murphree in the test footage for a biopic tells Robin Williams, played by Jamie Costa, "Shut up for a minute, I'm being serious."

When I watched that footage with my wife, she looked at me and said "That's you." And I had to apologize to her for having to live with that.

Years ago, when I first met my wife, I said "one day, you'll tell me to shut up. It'll happen."

"Oh, that'll never happen" said she.

"She wants the world to know, that she's burning up!"

"Shut up for a minute would you? I'm being serious!" she said.

Do I suffer from anxiety and depression? No, actually, I enjoy it. Who wouldn't? All those awesome memories flooding back to you in vivid detail at 4AM in the morning.

Pain takes away your humanity. Comedy brings it back.

When people ask me how I'm doing I deadpan that I am living the American dream, but really, deep down, I'm fine, I'm just a little tired that's all.