(Sunday Paper, Year IV, Issue 12)

I really didn’t mean to get so wordy last week…because I know the office is probably more interesting to look at than to read about.

So we’ll make up for that this week.

This week’s Sunday Paper will also feature the new office - but it will be far more visual, with a lot fewer words.

Thanks for your continued interest in this exciting endeavor.

(That’s your basic office look right there at left - note the sweatshirt in permanent residence on the back of my chair. It can get cold in there.)

I guess the first thing I need to stress to you is there are a ton of super heavy-duty desks I could have gotten on our trip to IKEA.

Because you might be looking at that desk and thinking, “You went with something that wouldn’t look out of place in a college dorm?”

I realized afterwards that that’s exactly what I did.

And I guess part of me is nostalgic for that kind of furniture.

But I also thought, when I bought it, for now the idea was to save space. I didn’t need an incredible amount of desk space because I had the desk/standing desk combo in mind and I even told Kathy at IKEA when I looked at the bigger desks, “Maybe down the road when we send this one off to college with one of the girls I’ll get one of these…but this is all I need right now.”

And it is.

My bookshelf came this week - you can see it there leaning against the wall on the left.

It’s a leaning bookshelf and I’m really glad I waited on it. (I almost didn’t order it because all of the pieces weren’t available until mid-March and I was so anxious to have this done in early March.)

As you can see in the background, there are some shelves built into the wall in this room, but I felt one more set of shelves would really help with some other books that were laying around. I’m excited to get that all organized - it came on Friday and I only just put it together and haven’t started putting books on there. But it should also allow me room to display some of my sports knick-knackery and clear out space in the house’s common spaces.

Speaking of sports knick-knackery….

That’s Mooke Betts, Rusty Staub, Carlton Fisk, Jacob deGrom (from my birthday game!), Mr. Met, and Gary Carter, from left to right. Stories about them will follow someday.

I’m just so glad to have a place to put some of these bobbleheads that I really like.

And lastly, one of the more exciting features of the room right now is all the available wall space.

One of the best things about the desk I bought is it has a magnetic backdrop, so I bought some magnets and I can leave myself notes and such there.

(It’s also a whiteboard, but I don’t think I like the idea of writing on that and smudging it all up.)

But with so much wall space open to me I’m toying with the idea of a big wall planner - maybe a whiteboard? But definitely magnetized..

I’m also thinking about shelves along the top where I can put my little stadium models, because there are a lot of them and Kathy has never liked them out in the living room.

(PS, Kathy originally painted the room purple. She thought, when I was touching up the paint, that I might want to re-paint the whole room. I don’t. I’m fine with it. But then again details like ‘the color of a room’ are not things that ever really register in my brain.)

As you can tell there’s still plenty of organizing to do in there. It’s exciting. I have a notion to do a little Facebook Live tour of the space once it’s all finished that I hope will draw some interest. Stay tuned for that possibility.

Oh. One more picture. That’s Kathy working in the office this week. She thinks it’s everyone’s office, not just mine.

I don’t know. I guess I can deal with that.

As long as she doesn’t touch my bobbleheads.

Writing

*Pretty productive past couple of weeks. I’d still like to get a little more creative writing to happen, but the fact that I’m working a lot and consistently is a very good thing.

Comedy

*Slow week for comedy, partly by design but partly because there was so much going on as a family. Monday night the girls danced at the Celtics game, so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go out early in the week, and I kept the end of the week open so I could see Matt perform in Boston. (More on that in the ‘Notes’ below.) Then I ended up getting sick in the middle of the week, so that was unfortunate.

This week is going to be equally slow, for different reasons. But I do end the week as part of the inaugural Bricks & Bridges Comedy Fest up in Lewiston and Auburn, Maine. If you’re in the area, I recommend you come check out a show. They’re put on by Maine Event Comedy, which I’ve told you about before. Those shows are always good. I’ll be at Bear Bones Beer in Lewiston on Friday night at 7pm.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

*I forgot to mention this, but a couple of weeks ago we went to the Worcester Art Museum. (My daughter had a piece of art on display there for Youth Art Month, no big deal.) I am no art aficionado, but I figured - art museum, new experience, I’ll go with an open mind. It was enjoyable. I think I really like American art - like from the late 1700s, early 1800s…I don’t know if I have enough of a frame of reference to say if I like much more than that. But I find those things more appealing than the European stuff. And I liked seeing some of the more modern stuff too - again, from the American artists. Then, I read a little blurb about looking at art in the New York Times this week, excerpted from the article at this link. I thought that was cool, especially as someone who maybe spends too much time at an art museum reading (the descriptions) instead of looking (at the paintings).

Notes

*Matt had a few shows in New England this weekend (following a string of shows in Illinois, Kentucky, and up and down the 95 corridor, I think). But I saw him Friday night at Cafe 939 again, where I’ve seen him the past few times he was in the area…and this one was great. I know I say that each time…but he is truly getting better each time I watch him perform live. It is a great performance, in every sense of the word. If you get the chance to see him in person, I hope you do it.

*If you’d like to see me, two chances coming up in Framingham: April 6th at Sofa Cafe, and April 13th in the monthly Comedy Night at Exhibit ‘A’. Both should be a good time.

*If you want to stay informed about what I’m up to - and be mildly entertained while doing so - you can give me a follow or a Like on social media. The link to follow me on Twitter is here, the link to Like my Facebook page is here.

*One more note on the office - if you have any good leads on book ends I might need some. That leaning bookshelf is my first experience with a bookshelf that doesn’t have closed sides, so I can’t just jam books in there until they’re flush up against the wall, so to speak. So I might need to stack some books vertically versus horizontally….and if I do have a couple of horizontal rows, I am probably going to need some book ends to hold things in place.

*Holy moly am I getting crushed in the NCAA Tournament. Not just by my wife and daughters but also by myself, historically. (Yes, I keep my NCAA Tournament records dating back to 1993.) By Friday night I was out of any consideration for winning any pools, and it just gets worse for me every year. Terrible. Good thing baseball season is so close on the heels of the tournament this year.

*Speaking of baseball - next week I’ll tell you about THE CRAZIEST DECISION I’VE MADE AS A PARENT TO DATE!! It’s going to be great.