Today

It should have felt odd, I suppose, to be standing in Rockefeller Center with a Today Show laniard around my neck, watching my cousin rock Matt Lauer’s socks off. But it didn’t.

Funny thing about life these days: nothing’s shocking. It’s not that I think I’m all that, or am impressing myself with anything. It’s just, well, it’s just my life. I feel blessed, fortunate, excited. I built it like this: relentless, ambitious, hopeful, seeking. And here it is.

Like last night. I was sitting behind Michael Musto at the “The Squid & The Whale.” In my early years in New York, his “La Dolce Musto” was my favorite column. I waited on Wednesdays. Last night, there he was plain as day, and regular as pie.

And today I spoke with “The Squid & The Whale” standout Jesse Eisenberg. He was calling from the Greenway Court Theatre in L.A. where he’s starring with Al Pacino in “Orphans.” Nice kid: real soft, real bright, real modest. Kinda’ sweet.

Yesterday, I stood on the sidewalk in front of 30 Rock — a few feet from one of my first job interviews at NBC News, and just down the street from my first job at Rolling Stone — MTV News microphone in hand, interviewing World Leader Pretend. It was difficult to focus amidst the rubbernecking tourists, honking cabs, and falling rain, but there it was. I was nervous, and distracted, but settled into the job. I reminded myself, ‘This is what you do,” and did it.

This morning I raced to catch Andrew’s Today Show performance. I stepped behind the barricades just as Katie said the band’s name. I stood behind the throngs of wide-eyed, screaming midwesterners starved for a Matt and Katie sighting. I smiled at Andrew, thre the devil horns high, and snapped photos like a tourist. It didn’t occur to me to wish that it was me in those shoes. It only occurred to me to be glad he was in his.

Afterwards, Andrew shuffled me inside. I milled about with the band, and revelled in the afterglow. They signed autographs, and generally tried to recover from the adrenaline rush of twenty million eyeballs.

Andrew said to me, “Dude, who would have guessed this one, huh?”

I took off my sunglasses and looked into his sparkling, youthful eyes and said, “You just have to keep imagining, man. You just have to believe that you can, and you will.”