(Sunday Paper, Year IV, Issue 5)

Welcome to February.

Last month I told you about my overall goals for the year.

Big, career-oriented goals.

But there are some other, less impactful (but still important to me in some fashion) things I hope to accomplish this year that I think it would be fun to write about.

And then, later in the year, check on my progress with them - how they turned out, whether I followed through at all, that kind of thing.

I have four of them and, conveniently, there are four Sunday Papers in February.

We’ll start with cribbage.

This is not the first time I’ve written about cribbage. I won’t even link to the previous times, but I’ll highlight in the following sentence all you need to know: I used to read about Terry Francona and Dustin Pedroia playing in the clubhouse before Red Sox games years ago and thought it sounded like fun, and then I intruded on a game being played by friends of my sister-in-law and made them teach me how to play.

That’s my cribbage history.

My current cribbage situation is: I don’t remember the rules, and Kathy got me a cribbage board for Christmas and the instructions that come with the game are hard to understand and I learn better by experiencing a game rather than reading about it anyway.

So I’ve set up a meeting with a friend this week to review the rules. (I have a faint memory of some of the game. I know ‘His Heels!’ is something you say when you get a Jack or something and you get to move your peg. Maybe. I don’t know.) And I’ve put out a call on Facebook to find out who else understands the game and will play against me when I have a grasp of the rules so that I can turn that grasp into a more firm grip.

And then I’ll teach the girls, and I’ll have a house full of people willing to play cribbage with me.

I like to say this about cribbage: it’s my favorite game that I have no idea how to play.

That’s about to change.

Writing

*Here’s an interesting fact about my writing career these past five years: I’ve always had some kind of work going on…but never too much at once. I’m kind of striving to reach everything happening at the same time. Here’s what I mean: I just put together my January invoice for the one job I do right now where I invoice. It was small. Partly because my hourly job increased the hours a bit. Now, the increase in hourly time didn’t really affect the hours I usually spend on the invoicing job…but nevertheless, I think in my mind I knew I was kind of making up for the invoiced hours with the hourly hours.

All I’m saying is: I have room to grow, where I’m working at capacity with all of my free time. I guess that’s the next step in my journey. (After I learn how to play a card game, of course.)

Comedy

*Another slow week for comedy - not helped by having a sick kid at home. (And, to be honest, not feeling 100% myself.) I did get out to the last mic at Terry O’Reilly’s on Wednesday like I told you about last week…and I’m happy to report the update that the mic has already found a new home, for now on Mondays but it sounds like that might not be set in stone, at Bill’s Pizzeria…right across the street. I’m looking forward to checking that out in just a couple of weeks.

We shouldn’t have another comedy lull like we’ve had the past couple of weeks for a long while: February starts off strong with McGreevy’s Monday night and there are consistent shows now straight through the end of March. That includes, of course, Comedy Night at Exhibit ‘A’ on Saturday night, and you can buy tickets by clicking here.

And - special note here - if you’ve thought about coming out to a place like The Comedy Studio to see me perform, I’m doing my first weekend at the new place the weekend of March 15th. That means Friday night the 15th, and then two shows on the 16th - one at 7 and one at 9:30. That’s the weekend to be there. Check The Comedy Studio’s website for details.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

*I’ve been reading a bunch lately, so I’m pretty sure the next few ‘What I’ve Been Enjoying’ sections will be some recommendations of things I’ve enjoyed reading. We’ll start with this - in last week’s The New Yorker, Robert Caro wrote about some of his research process, in particular some of the research he did about Lyndon Johnson. (I apologize if that link doesn’t work without a subscription. I’m giving reading The New Yorker a whirl. I’m not trying to humble brag…just telling you why the link might not work. I guarantee you more will go unread in The New Yorker than read, but for the second time in my life I’m going to try reading that bear of a magazine. Did I tell you I canceled my Sports Illustrated subscription? Maybe I didn’t mention that yet. Anyway, this is a possible substitute.) I am not sure if reading Caro writing about his writing is something everyone will love as much as I did…but if you’ve found in reading the Sunday Paper that your brain works in the same way mine does, I bet you’ll find it fascinating.

Notes

*If you’re a cribbage person and you haven’t already told me - let me know! I hope to gather as many potential players as possible. Maybe I’ll even set up some kind of cribbage tournament or something. (Knowing Francona and Pedroia played with money on the line may or may not make the game more enticing for me.)

*If you came to the Sunday Paper somehow without already Liking the Facebook page or following me on Twitter, I’d love for you to do that. You can Like John Sucich on Facebook by clicking here, and follow me on Twitter at this link.

*Hey, local people: My brother is performing in Boston on Friday, March 22nd. I will advertise this more as it draws nearer, but just planting the idea in your heads that it’s coming.

*Three more February Sundays, there more things I need to tell you about. I hope you’ll help keep me accountable.