Day: October 26, 2025

• I spent 42 years working in IT in an office.
• Instead of playing pickleball or traveling to Portugal like people my age, I’m launching a new career.
• I know it’s hard to be good at comedy, but this is my passion.

The Metro North train to New York City got stuck due to torrential rains, which meant that I missed one of the few “Ladies Night” open mics of the week. I usually travel three hours round-trip, then pay $5 to get five minutes of stage time. That night, I had traveled five hours to miss five minutes on stage. I got a delicious cup of coffee at Grand Central Terminal for those five bucks, though.

At 68, I am launching a career as a comedian.

I’ve spent the last 42 years working in Information Technology; no one outside my industry knows exactly what I do. My parents went to their graves wondering. I paid the bills, got married, bought a house, and had kids. In my free time, I wrote humorous essays and performed comedy in obscurity, with little to no compensation.

While friends my age are playing pickleball, visiting Portugal, or hitting the golf course, I’m hanging around a rag-tag collection of high school students, ex-lawyers, college dropouts, Wall Street bros, housewives, and older folks, in the back rooms of dingy bars, telling jokes and embarking on a long slog to fine-tune my craft.

I feel like my life is just beginning.

I was the family jester

I chased laughs even as a kid. As the middle of five children, I was the family jester and the only chubby one, and humor was one way I could get attention in a crowded field of brilliant, talented, average-sized siblings. My family laughed at my jokes and loved to see me onstage, even if that stage was the local Y’s all-purpose room.

I wrote parody songs as a side hustle while pursuing somber endeavors, embarking on a career as a technical writer/promotional writer/quality assurance analyst/business systems analyst/project manager.

People often ask me, “Why didn’t you pursue a comedy career sooner?” The answer is simple: It’s because I love spending money — I like to shop at Whole Foods and Williams Sonoma, and I favor a steady diet of restaurant food (in order to keep the Williams Sonoma sauté pan pristine). Luckily, I discovered that I also love the predictable grind of office work.

I used humor at work

But even in the office, my humor seeps out. At my first professional job, I worked in a glass cubicle in a psychologically toxic environment, and my sarcastic asides so entertained my cubicle mate that he recorded them in a notebook we called the “quote log.” I wound up marrying that coworker, we are still married, and we still have the notebook.

I have jokes in journals and papers all over my house. For my entire life, I’ve lived in fear that I will forget a great line, so I always write things down. I don’t remember where the notes are stashed, but they surface serendipitously while I am looking for my phone charger or missing tax receipts.

I know it’s hard to be good

So why now? With menopause in the rearview mirror, the relief of having survived the pandemic, and analysis from my financial planner indicating that I will be able to live until 96 years old at my current level of spending (which I had previously lied about), I am finally ready to ditch the office.

I’m not one of those annoying senior citizens who stumble into a new vocation and claim, “I’m here! This is easy! What’s TikTok? How do I download the app?” I am humbly aware that becoming a comedian is a long haul — it’s exceedingly difficult to be good, nearly impossible to be great, and all too common to be awful.

You put in hours, years, and decades of hard work, building a set word-for-word, discarding scores of failed jokes until a precious few comedic gems remain. Even then, there’s additional tinkering and paring back. Every word is intentionally uttered, even if it looks like the comedian is just riffing. But you also have to be so in-the-moment onstage that you can seize on a spontaneous comedic line when something funny happens. Comedy is more poetry than prose.

There are more like me

Most people give up or just settle for a chuckle. But I want to get better and better, and that’s why I drag my plantar-fasciitis feet and arthritic hips to open mics. Actually, my aches are fodder for my performance, as is my age, my girth, and my grumpy husband.

The most surprising thing about my new passion is that sometimes I am not the oldest comic on a show. There is a community of retirees and second- or third-acters chasing this crazy dream. Striking comedic gold means hitting on something that is at once unique and universal — a nugget of truth about our shared existence with a twist that whacks the audience upside its head and brings forth a huge laugh.

I’m thrilled to have joined the gold rush.

Ivy Eisenberg is a writer living in White Plains, New York. She is working on a memoir about growing up in the groovy and turbulent 60s in Queens, a New York City borough.

• Kanye West sold his Wyoming ranch back to its original owners for $16.995 million.
• West bought the 6,713-acre Bighorn Mountain Ranch in 2019 for $14.495 million.
• West seems to be done with Wyoming, but he still has another property on the market.

After years of sitting vacant, rapper Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, sold one of his two Wyoming properties back to its original owners.

West purchased a 6,713-acre ranch known as Bighorn Mountain Ranch in Greybull, Wyoming, from David and Paula Flitner for $14.495 million in 2019, according to TMZ.

Wyoming local outlet Cowboy State Daily reported in October that Flitner’s son Greg and his wife, Pam Flitner, bought it back. The sale was notarized in September in Zurich by Bianca Censori, West’s wife, according to Cowboy State Daily. According to the listing, the property sold for $16.995 million.

“It was not listed publicly at first,” Pam Flitner told Cowboy State Daily. “It was just honestly a fluke that we found out it was listed, and then it was taken down again.”

While West had grand plans for his Wyoming property and was unable to fully realize them, the Flitners said he didn’t cause much damage to the existing structures. The same can’t be said for his other Wyoming property.

“He did not knock down — unlike Monster Ranch — he did not knock down any of the buildings,” Pam said. “They may need a little TLC, but they’re all solid. He didn’t go in with a bulldozer and take them down.”

West’s other Wyoming property, which he bought for $14 million in 2019, according to People, is still on the market for $12 million.

Here’s a peek inside West’s old Wyoming ranch.

In 2019, Kanye West bought two properties in Wyoming months apart from each other.

The first purchase was a 3,885-acre property called the Monster Lake Ranch in Cody, Wyoming, in September 2019. In November of the same year, he purchased Bighorn Mountain Ranch, which he sold in 2025.

The recently sold ranch sits on 6,713 acres and is located less than 100 miles from the other ranch.

The 6,700-plus mountain ranch has cabins and lodges, but is highlighted by the surrounding nature.

Bighorn Mountain Ranch’s listing states the property is “completely surrounded” by Bureau of Land Management and National Forest lands.

The privacy of the ranch was probably a selling point for West.

One area of the ranch, The Lodge at Bald Ridge (also known as the “Upper Hideout”), features a log home with five bedrooms and four bathrooms.

There are also three cabins that sleep up to six guests, with full bathrooms.

In a separate area, there’s the Snowshoe Lodge, a three-bedroom and three-bath home, and three additional cabins that can fit between two and four people each.

The three-story main lodge has a wet bar in the basement and an adjoining walk-in sauna that can be used year-round.

The Snowshoe Lodge also includes a garage for car and ATV storage.

“Cow Camp,” the final cabin, has a simpler style with fewer bells and whistles — the listing describes it as “a quintessential Wyoming homestead.”

The Flitner family homesteaded this property in 1906 and originally called it Cow Camp, according to the listing.

The Flitners leased some of the land for hunting when they owned it.

The listing estimates that between 1,500 and 2,000 elk use the ranch and nearby property frequently.

There are also a few creeks that run through the property, offering fishing opportunities.

The ranch is located in an area known for its natural beauty.

Situated close to White Creek, the ranch is also near scenic hiking trails, canyons, meadows, and grassy hills.

West seems to have left his Wyoming dreams behind, as his other property still sits on the market.

West’s plans for Wyoming were never fully actualized, and it looks like he’s leaving the state, for now. However, the Flitners understand why someone would want to build an oasis away from the spotlight.

“A lot of people have said he was a really, really good guy,” Greg told Cowboy State Daily. “And that he was really on task a lot of the time. So, none of us can fault him at all for buying it and trying to get something accomplished for himself.”