2. Best Friends with the DoorDash Drivers

My dear readers,

After my first entry, where I detailed a chronic inconsistency with journaling and resolutions, I bet you were all pretty surprised to see a Part Two. Shock the world, I guess. It took a little longer than I would have liked, but I’m cautiously optimistic that any of you were truly waiting on the edge of your seat for this to drop. 

That being said, I did receive some pretty positive feedback after my introductory entry. One friend gushed, “I didn’t even know you could write, that’s great!” while another praised, “It was actually sort of funny, I was pretty surprised!” You know what they say, low expectations yield high results.

If you’re like me, a human being who interacts with other human beings, you've likely noticed that every small-talk interaction starts out with a version of “How are you?” Hopefully some of you can relate. But I've recently come to realize that nearly every time I answer this, I include some variation of the phrase, “I’ve been busy!” Hold me accountable, friends, because I'm desperately trying to get away from this response. It details more how my schedule is doing, and less how I am doing, which can be very different things. So even though it feels like the most accurate way to describe this last month, I will instead say, “My time has been very filled” since we spoke last, particularly as I’ve transitioned into my first audit busy season.

Once you leave college and enter the workforce, everyone's favorite question becomes, “How's work?” This new life as a NSRP™ (non-student regular person) is so vastly different from the last 22 years of my life, that it can sometimes be hard to answer that simple question. When I came back to campus a few weeks ago, so many people (understandably) asked me this, and I honestly wasn’t sure how to answer.

These last 5 weeks have included days in the office from 7:00AM to 10:00PM, at which point I get home, study for a bit, sleep, and repeat. I’ve had to learn how to coordinate 35 individual food orders, pick up a custom birthday cake with a coworker’s face on it, and find time to get some serious accounting work done. I was so tired last week that I fell asleep wearing my contacts not once, but twice. I woke up in the morning with perfect vision and, for about 5 seconds thought “It’s a Busy Season Miracle!” Hey, a guy can dream.

Despite the demands of this insane season, I've worked hard to stay joyful, and more realistically, sane. Walking to a farmer’s market every Saturday to prep for weekend cooking, watching sports with a friend from kindergarten in a Berkeley sports bar, and biking down empty California streets at night have all kept my heart pretty happy. And of course, flying down to the illustrious San Diego to see the twin’s new fiance helps keep things interesting. 

If you weren’t one of the 761 people (don’t let it go to your head, Brooke) who liked their Facebook post, then I’ll go ahead and break the news for you: Justin and Brooke are engaged! I’ll let them share the whole story on their own time, but if you want the SparkNotes, the proposal involved a guitar, an adirondack chair, a Justin Cohen original song, and of course plenty of nervous sweating. I know, right? *swoon.* I wasn’t able to make the event itself, but I did accidentally wear Justin’s shirt to the office that day, which was a pretty special realization. I also started tearing up at work when I saw the pictures, so now my professional image is basically ruined. Worth it, though. 

To get serious for a moment, I am overjoyed that Brooke will be joining our family. The girl loves Jesus, board games, Notre Dame, and making fun of Justin, so she’s a perfect fit. She has felt like a sister for so long, and I can’t wait for them to embark on a lifetime of adventure together. The weekend was the perfect end to their season of dating, and the perfect start to engagement, and I’m so thankful I got to be a small part of that. I also want to publicly apologize to all of Brooke’s family and friends who came up and congratulated me on my engagement at the party. I corrected most of you, but there were a few where I played along and just went with it, so we should probably clear things up before the wedding.

And with that, I need to go and decide on a day-of Halloween costume. It's a lot tougher when you can't just throw on a Zahm sweathshirt and grab a saxophone, but I'll piece something together. Final life update - if things go according to plan, I will be done with the last of my 4 exams on November 20th, at which point I will politely ask you to change your contact info to read “Mr. Danny Cohen, CPA” (I’m absolutely joking, never don’t do that.) But I would appreciate prayers and personalized motivational speeches recorded on voice memos, because it's starting to feel like 2nd-Semester Senior Spring all over again. Before I get back to spreadsheets and coffee orders, I will leave you with a quick story that proves Notre Dame stays with you forever - for better or worse. It also proves that spending hours inside a windowless audit room does wonders for your social skills.

This weekend I was on a bike ride, wearing a bright-yellow EY shirt. I had left my phone at home, planning for a 15-mile ride. However, when I finished the trail, I had the realization that I hadn’t actually gone in a circle. I had gone 15 miles in one direction. In that moment, I was Michael Scott in “Fun Run”. Anyways, as I was nearing my house after the exhausting ride back, a walker on the sidewalk yelled out “Hey, I used to work there! Go EY!” And for some reason, I thought it would be funny for me to yell back “No, Go Irish!” I think the world gained another ND hater that day. Love you guys.

Warmly,

Danny