This is me doing Zoom comedy, which I tried two times before the end of 2020. Maybe there will be more of it in 2021.

(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 1)

Hi.

Happy New Year.

This is a weird post to write, because usually at this time I’m laying out ambitious goals for the new year in both the realms of writing and comedy and spending the year in various stages of trying to meet those goals and/or avoid falling too short in pursuit.

But one thing 2020 taught me is that there are some things you can’t control.

And if those things are big enough, they can derail everything.

So for this year, I’m going to keep the goals modest, but still somewhat ambitious…and I’m going to try to re-set the bar so that ambition becomes routine.

I consider myself lucky in the work I’ve done the past six-plus years.

I’ve always had work - even in the pandemic, my writing didn’t stop.

But when I get busy with work writing, the creative writing takes a back seat.

So I guess the big goal in 2021 is to make time for the creative writing.

I often say this, and it might seem obvious to some of you who maybe have better work habits than I do, but what I really need to do is lock myself in the office for a set amount of time and just write every day.

There are obstacles to this - and I too often seek out those obstacles rather than work around them.

For example, the girls have three separate lunch times during the day, spanning from around 10:30 in the morning all the way through to 1pm. I like to make their lunch…but that’s a big chunk of the day to allow myself to be disrupted for something I can easily prepare ahead of time…or allow them to do themselves, which they are certainly capable of.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about those obstacles and how I can sidestep them to make sure I am devoting myself to doing more of what I want to do with my writing in the new year.

(Looking back on my goals last year, I wanted to submit way more than I did in 2020…but I consider anything that fell short in 2020 to be due to circumstances beyond my control.)

Which brings us to comedy - the industry took a big blow in 2020…so I can’t really complain about my personal comedic shortcomings.

I obviously did far less than I wanted to last year - the Exhibit ‘A’ show, like almost every other show, stopped in March. And it wasn’t until the last two weeks of 2020 that I tried my hand at comedy over Zoom.

I almost forgot, until I re-read last year’s goals, that I headlined the Exhibit ‘A’ show just about a year ago. I honestly don’t know that I could remember a half hour’s worth of jokes right now if you asked me to.

So what do I hope for in comedy in 2021? Well, I played around with a few different things on my own as far as online performance - Instagram Stories and Facebook Live - and then I also did the Zoom shows. I think I’d like to find something on those platforms that I could do somewhat regularly to scratch the performance itch.

They’re certainly different, but I enjoyed doing them once I got over my resistance.

And, of course, I hope that by this time a year from now we’re back to a semblance of normal - and there’s a way to safely do in-person live performance.

Until that time, I’ll keep the goals flexible…because there’s too much uncertainty right now to get too ambitious.

Notes

*I’ll definitely keep you posted on this as the month goes on, but I think new music from Matt Sucich is coming in January. Hopefully you caught his video for ‘See You Soon’, which came out this week. It’s a fun video, and the song is very catchy. I love it. (Obviously.) You can get on his mailing list or find the video or the song at his website - www.mattsucich.com.

*I tend to think I do better creatively when I’m exercising more. So on that front, good news - the Peloton arrived this week. It’s a big hit with the entire family (so much so that I’m thinking we might need a sign-up sheet like they have at the gym in order to make sure we aren’t competing to use it). And it’s gotten me back to regularly exercising, which hadn’t been happening during the holidays. So that’s good.

*That post from last year that I linked to above was interesting to read, not knowing what laid ahead in 2020. I thought the Christmas tree pickup note was interesting, because that always makes me a little sad. (This year it’s next Monday, so I’ll be doing that undecorating process during this week.) But I always leave the cards and my family pictures up a little longer…and last year the family pictures stayed up all year because I like looking at them. Maybe I’ll do that again this year.

*It was also a good reminder to get a tarp out of the shed so I can try to wrap the tree to get it out the door and limit the amount of pine needle mess.

*I also liked seeing the birth of “Every Week On Wednesday.” I think I will keep that going this year, and I’ll figure out how it manifests itself. I like doing the pictures, maybe I’ll just dig into some old ones once in a while. I also thought about using it as a way to workshop new jokes I’m writing. Not every joke translates from the way it’s written to the stage, but so many of my jokes start out that way maybe it’s something worth trying just to see what kind of feedback I can get.

*If you want in on the action, you can Like the Facebook page here, and of course, Twitter is always a good follow - you can follow me on Twitter here.

*Regular readers know I get all excited about the Super Mega Crossword the New York Times has put out around the holidays for the past few years. This year I had trouble getting into a groove with it. But I sat down to it over the past few days and finally finished it…and then on Saturday night Kathy helped me solve the puzzle-within-the-puzzle that represents the contest portion of the whole deal. The deadline is on Tuesday. So I’m glad we met the deadline…and if anyone wants to talk puzzling, I’m always game.

*I wish you a healthy and happy 2021. Brighter days have to be ahead of us, right?