(Sunday Paper, Year IV, Issue 9)

I didn’t really know what I was going to write about this week.

It was a busy week and there was a lot happening, but nothing that was really Sunday Paper-level interesting.

(I know. I write about a lot of boring stuff. I’m just saying, I do have certain standards for what I write about.)

But I knew, if things fell a certain way this week and we had Friday night free, that we were going to take a family trip to Ikea.

And things fell a certain way.

So to Ikea we went.

I am not sure what Ikea is to you. Maybe it is an everyday option in your neck of the woods the way Bed Bath & Beyond is to me. But here it’s an out-of-the-way novelty.

I had never been to Ikea…but I love that type of store. I could spend all day there. (I used to make a joke…I could live there! Figuratively and literally!)

And, when it opened near Boston, it was kind of an event. I seem to remember there was always insane traffic around the store.

But, as is my way, I gave it a number of years to get less popular before I partook in the trend.

And with the imminent move into the office for me, I needed some office furniture. We looked around at a couple of options (more of which I’ll tell you about next week), and Kathy suggested Ikea. And I found a desk I liked there. It cost a lot to ship, so we decided to go to the store.

Unfortunately, we hit a little bit of Friday rush hour heading there. (Which also shed a little bit of light on how they could get away with charging so much for shipping…I’d have easily paid a ton of money to not sit in that traffic.)

The shopping experience itself was pretty easy to figure out. (Kind of self-serve - see what you want on the floor, find out where it’s located in the warehouse, and then get it.) What I didn’t expect was walking through every department on the way…on another night, without a hungry family tailing along, I might go back to Ikea and look at everything a little more and spend a little more time in every department. (And, likely, spend a little more money at the store.)

But as it was, after a couple of departments we were all getting a little hungry and crabby and it was time to fetch my desk and move on. So we walked through the last six hundred departments and then checked out.

In retrospect we should have eaten at Ikea - we didn’t have dinner until much later after driving back to Framingham.

But I have heard good things about the food there.

I guess that might just give us another reason to go back.

Writing

*I think we’ve just concluded my last week working without my own work space. The dining room table served its purpose for a good solid few years - it took me away from working in front of the TV, which I did my first year or so of freelancing, and that was not an ideal working situation. (I don’t think it’s coincidence that my productivity increased when I moved my workspace to the dining room.) Now I have a desk and workspace and I’ll be working there this week and I’ll be telling you about it next week.

Comedy

*Great week of comedy, and I didn’t even think about how good the timing was, because Kathy is going away and I won’t be getting out much this week. Sunday night at the Comedy Studio was pretty great…I closed out the lineup, which isn’t the biggest deal in the world on a Sunday night but it is a pretty big deal to me. Tuesday night I did an open mic in Worcester, which was a good time, and then Wednesday I had a good set at The Pour House - my best set there ever, in fact. And Saturday night was another show for Maine Event Comedy. Those shows are always great. This one was at Island Dog Brewing, and it featured a fun lineup with people I enjoy being around. Also, the beer there was quite good.

The cool thing about comedy right now is that I’m working like five of the next six weekends or something like that. That’s kind of been a steady goal of mine - to be performing every weekend - and it’s nice when it happens consistently.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

*I’ve mentioned before that I’m a radio listener and my favorite station these days is 92.5 The River, which is an independent station in the area. Unfortunately the signal doesn’t come in on any radio in my house…but I just realized (like an idiot, because I always knew this was a possibility and I just never did it before) I could stream it over the website and listen while I do things like build desks for my office. (I do not do this often enough with New York stations, like when my brother was working at PLJ or if I want to hear New York sports radio.) Anyway, I figured I’d share with you what a dope I am. Also, we’ve shifted from what I’ve been enjoying reading, which I did the past few weeks, to what I’ve been enjoying listening to, because I think I’ll be writing about music a bunch coming up.

Notes

*Saturday night is the March edition of Comedy Night at Exhibit ‘A’. In the Comedy section I mentioned The Pour House - that’s Shawn Carter’s show. You might remember that name because I mention him often - he used to run shows in Quincy that I performed at in my early comedy days. Anyway, he’s great and he’s headlining on Saturday and tickets are going fast, so if you want to see the show, act now. You can click here for the ticket link.

*One of the things I’m excited about musically is my brother’s new album. ‘Thousand Dollar Dinners’ comes out on Wednesday, and you can pre-order it…also, remember that he’ll be in town on Friday, March 22nd. He’ll be at The Red Room at Cafe 939. I’m going - you should come too. Here’s the link to get tickets for that.

*You can follow me on Twitter here and Like my Facebook page here. I think I’m a fun follow on those places, and slowly but surely I’m using the Facebook page better.

*Thanks to everyone who’s been reading and checking in, and thanks for all the supportive comments about the marathon. (I should mention I have not been getting out for runs. I have been carb loading - is that a thing? I’ve just been eating a lot and not running. I think that’s what marathoners do.) It’s always fun for me to see people comment…sometimes I wonder if the link is reaching people and then I’m surprised when it starts to get a lot of likes and comments. So feel free to like and comment - it always makes my day. Thanks for reading. Maybe I’ll see you next week at Exhibit ‘A’? OK. Cool. See you then.