My job as a comedian is to go where the work is. That of course means lots of travel and luckily being based out of London as opposed to someplace like Idaho I’ve done shows in 25 different countries. It’s been amazing and some gigs pay better than others of course but pretty much all of it includes some sort of travel. Planes, trains and for me motorcycles have all been used to get to the place where someone on a stage calls my name and I walk out and do my job. I’m lucky, really lucky. Now I’m a dad to a little boy who looks up to me and as he grows older he’s becoming less of a mama’s boy and more ‘what’s daddy doing?’. That question comes up at the oddest times and I feel it’s my job to tell him as honestly as I can what it is I am doing but lately because of work I’m not always around. That didn’t bother him much before but as he’s gotten older it’s occasionally become a bit of a focal point. I warm him up to the idea that daddy has to leave for 1 or 2 or 3 sleeps for work but in the end he’s started to tell me he doesn’t want me to go. Even after I’ve scolded him about misbehaving he still whines a bit about me leaving. Obviously it pulls at the heart strings and I used to placate my guilt by bringing some sort of toy back with me but after a while that didn’t mean as much and it wasn’t something special anymore but more a thing that became expected. Thankfully we have Facetime and Skype so he can see me no matter where I am. Crazy considering it was within my lifetime the idea of even calling from one continent to another involved some preplanning and ultimately because of the expense of it became prohibitive to just about everybody. Facetime has it’s own drawbacks of course especially in the hands of a 5 year old. One of the things he does when he needs a ‘poo’ is he takes all his clothes off. A bit time consuming but in his mind makes perfect sense. It’s at these times when I call and we do Facetime he wants to talk but has now asked for a little privacy. These exchanges are him on the toilet looking at me but he’s got the phone pointed up towards the ceiling so I can’t see him on the john and when I asked to actually see him he raises his voice slightly saying ‘daddy, I need some privacy!’. However if he gets mommy to call me and I’m on the toilet I tell him I’ll call him back after I’m done. He’ll ask where I am and when I tell him I’m on the john he comes back with ‘show me’. Creepy but he’s 5 so not unexpected and no he doesn’t get to see me. I tell him ‘I need some privacy!’ and I get the ‘okay daddy’ and before I sign off promising to call right back I always get ‘miss you daddy’. Damn.