(Sunday Paper, Volume III, Issue 13)

I am not a very smart man.

I mean, I'm not a big idiot.

I just could be smarter.

And, since April Fool's Day falls on a Sunday this year (always a delight back in my teaching days), I guess we'll take advantage of this Sunday Paper to tell you about how I'm kind of a fool.

I'm guessing some of you are thinking, "John, don't sell yourself short."

But a lot of you are probably nodding enthusiastically. "You certainly could be smarter," you're saying.

I use the deodorant picture above as an example: I recently bought myself some new deodorant because I had a coupon. I never realized how much the wrong kind of the deodorant brand I like to use looked like the right kind of deodorant I like to use. (I really want to use the word 'flavor' but that doesn't seem appropriate for deodorant so I'm going with 'kind' even though that's not a great word.) (Also, I'm sorry to talk about my deodorant so much. But we're all adults here, so it's not that big a deal.)

One time Kathy bought me the wrong deodorant. "How could you make that mistake?" I wondered. Now I know.

They look really similar.

Maybe I'm not the fool in this situation, I sometimes think. That packaging is way too similar for two different flavors. (I mean kinds.) If we're being honest, the one on the right, which is the one I like, smells like it should be the color of the one on the left, which I don't like. But I degress.

The point is I'm making myself face the consequences: I'm wearing the deodorant to remind myself every day to be more careful and think a little more before I make a mistake. (Is that foolish, or smart? Would a smart person throw the deodorant away, or wear the wrong deodorant? I don't really know the answer here.)

Every time I get a whiff of myself these days I think two things. One is, "I should be more careful in all of my actions." The second thing is, "I smell like I'm having an affair with a man who wears terrible deodorant."

I could go on and on in honor of April Fool's Day with stories of me being a fool...but I'll leave you with this one. Most of the time my foolishness in conversation is just due to social awkwardness and the fact that I sometimes have trouble coming up with the right thing to say. A woman I used to work with often told me that I reminded her of her son. Then, one time, her son was there and she introduced us and she introduced me as "the one that reminds me of you!"

And I said to him, "You must be a real dope!"

Which is hilarious. But he didn't think so.

Writing

*Back to as normal a week as I've had in a long time this week. It was nice. The two-week vacation was over, so I was back to work Wednesday through Friday and there were no weather interruptions and I spent Monday and Tuesday writing the article I told you about last week. And I got a couple of paychecks in the mail. That's always good.

Comedy

*I've been telling you for a while now April is going to be a good comedy month. I did one of these pictures with dates written on it like the kids do...it was my first time so it's not perfect. It drives me nuts, for example, that I didn't close the parentheses on the top right and I would have liked to have laid out the 'Spring Vacation Week' dates a little differently. But I didn't edit it so you could see that I'm not perfect and I'm working through my mistakes.

*This past week I went to the Hideout in Faneuil Hall on Sunday night - I'm trying to get there more often. They now have shows on Friday (8 and 10), Saturday (8 and 10), and Sunday (8pm). I'm not scheduled to perform there again until June, but I think that's a pretty good place to spend my weekends when I'm free for the foreseeable future.

*A couple of shows I should draw your attention to: tonight I'm on at Improv Boston at 9:30pm. Looks like a funny lineup, if you're in the area around that time. Also, Saturday I'm on the show pictured here - it's a fundraiser and if you can come out it's for a great cause. If you can't make the show but would like to help out, here's the link to the GoFundMe. Thanks for considering. Happy to talk to you about the event if you'd like more information. Maybe I'll see you at a show sometime soon? Maybe one of these two?

What I've Been Enjoying

*I told you a while back that we got a new TV. It's a TV that has apps on it...which, when I was down in South Carolina, Kevin explained to me. When I got back from that trip I downloaded to the TV the MLB.TV app I have on my phone...and when we watched a couple of spring training games it was terrible. They weren't high definition, it was very glitchy...I was disappointed.

Then on Thursday I decided to test it out during the Mets season opener after starting the game on the computer. It. Was. Amazing. For the first time in my life I have every Mets game available to me in high definition on my television. The only drawback is, unlike when I use MLB.TV on my computer, I can't watch four games at once on the TV. I guess maybe we'll have to watch multiple games the old-fashioned way - with one on the TV, one on my phone, one on the iPad, and four on the computer.

Notes

*Not many of you probably even saw me with a beard this time around - I've been quite the hermit with the two weeks off and Kathy being away and the weather not being great - but I shaved it this weekend. I think it comes down to the fact that I'd rather be on stage without a beard.

*Very exciting opening few days of baseball season. I love it.

*Remember me and the girls are doing some reactions to the Mets games (and probably baseball in general as the season goes on) in my Instagram Stories. It's been fun so far - my kids are the best. I'm @jsucich on Instagram if you're interested in checking it out.

*And while we're throwing plugs around, it's @jsucich on Twitter and the Facebook page can be found by clicking here. I'll take your follows and likes wherever I can get them.

*You didn't think we'd get to April 1st without a melting snow update, did you? I don't think even the big mounds of snow in the parking lots where the city dumps the overflow snow are going to make it to May. We're down to the final patch on our property...funny because this is the spot where, after digging out the cars and from the work the plows do, the biggest snow piles end up. And it's also a spot that gets a lot of sun. I took this picture Saturday morning - the snow was gone by Saturday at 4pm.

*Happy Easter if that's your thing. Happy Passover if that's your thing. Happy April Fool's Day if that's your thing. If you like baseball, I hope you're enjoying the new season. I sure am.