The recent acceptance of my short humor piece “Why Texting Failed Among the Victorians” by McSweeney’s fulfills one of my lifetime ambitions.  I have long wanted to be a published writer of short pieces in the manner of Benchley or Thurber.  It’s just not the kind of thing you can mention to people in social conversation.  I’ve never wanted this as a full-time career, although I’m sure it pays better than venture capital, but more of thing on the side, in lieu of golf.  Think Wallace Stevens, without the poems, and no insurance company either.

So to have someone at McSweeny’s be amused enough by my little scribblings to risk his career and a decent education for his children is an outside stamp of approval of large proportion for me.  Having played the Palace so early in life, I wonder what next act can possibly top this one.

To answer the question of the title, in case you thought I had forgotten, humor and sanity have this in common:  thinking yourself funny, or thinking yourself sane, does nothing to make you so.  In fact, it is often a contrary indicator.  You need the verdict of other people to think this about you.  Maybe three is a good number?