(Sunday Paper, Volume II, Issue 46)

I'm not going to lie to you, lovely readers.

This week's Sunday Paper was a struggle.

This part, anyway. The sections below aren't much of a problem once I get to them.

But usually I just wait for inspiration to strike at some point during the week, and nothing really did.

Well, actually, there was one bit of inspiration.

And that's what I figured I would tell you about today.

So usually I'll have most of the Sunday Paper written by Friday and then just polish it on Saturday.

This week I had nothing written on Saturday morning.

And then I thought of something great to write.

And then I decided it was so great that I might actually want to submit it somewhere. So I figured I'd spend most of Saturday working on that and then I'd just do the lower half (Writing/Comedy/What I've Been Enjoying/Notes - from now on I think I'll just call that 'the lower half') as a Sunday Paper this week.

Then I thought about the other essay quite a bit.

Then I avoided work, snuggled up in a blanket, and took a nap. (See picture above.)

Then I started writing this instead of the other essay.

But, now that I'm not worried about the Sunday Paper anymore, now I can really focus on the essay and get it published. Stay tuned for that.

I'm going to go work on it right now.

Well, maybe after I take another little nap.

Writing

*I am a great procrastinator. That's what I'm trying to tell you in that top half of the Sunday Paper. (Just had to get the term "top half" in there to see how it felt.) In other writing news, this week flew by. It was a little off-schedule in terms of work because the girls were home Tuesday and Friday. But I worked Wednesday through Friday as usual.

Comedy

*Pretty good week. Monday night I went to check out a show in Brighton and they gave me a set, which was unexpected and went pretty well. (Photo credit Sam Ike.) Tuesday night I went to The Winner's Circle in Salisbury and worked on some material - that's the place I was telling you about that I said I will be writing more about soon. Still planning on doing that.

*And then you might have seen the announcement that I was selected to participate in The North Carolina Comedy Festival in February. That's pretty exciting and I'll definitely write more about that as it gets closer. You can keep tabs on the festival here on their Facebook page if you want.

*What? You'd like to keep track of me as well? How nice. You know the deal: "Like" the Facebook page here, follow me on Twitter here. I'll keep updating that 'Comedy Shows' link at the top with dates heading into 2018.

*Oh! One more date that's pretty important: next Saturday night I'll be at The Comedy Studio in Harvard Square. It'll be my last time on that stage - on the third floor of the Hong Kong restaurant. The Comedy Studio will be moving out of that space in the new year after twenty-plus years, hopefully into an as yet-to-be-determined new location. The Comedy Studio was the first place I was booked to perform back in January of 2015 and I hope there will be many Comedy Studio performances at the new location...but I appreciate this one last chance to perform on that stage and I'm looking forward to it. Not sure if tickets are still available - Saturday nights there always sell out - but if you're looking for something fun to do next Saturday, that's my recommendation.

What I've Been Enjoying

*As I think I've made pretty clear since the Sunday Paper rebirth: I prefer Dunkin' Donuts to Starbucks most of the time. But this time of year I'm a sucker for the caramel brûlée macchiato. I've loved that drink for five holiday seasons now. (How do I know it's been five? 2013 was the first time I had it because it was one of the '365 New Things In 2013'.) And the past couple of days Starbucks was selling these holiday flavors 2-for-1 after 2pm. So Kathy gets one of her (I don't know what she gets because she's gone the past two days and this afternoon she waited 20 minutes at Starbucks for the drinks so I guess we're not the only ones taking advantage of this deal) and I get my caramel brûlée macchiato, which - fun fact - I always call creme brûlée.

Notes

*I don't think the Jets are on TV today, so I'll just hope to be pleasantly surprised if they are. But, as I've mentioned in previous weeks, we are in the unexpected position where I am very interested in score updates throughout Sunday if I can't watch them.

*Not getting a lot of traction on the last few Sunday Papers. Through Facebook, at least. I might need to take a social media course or something to get the most impact from my social media presence, Anyway, Kathy does something clever - she sets the 'John Sucich' Facebook page so that it comes to the top of her feed. That's why she's the best. Maybe you might want to do that too. But - this is important - I won't marry you if you do. Kathy's already at the top of my feed. Haha. Gonna save that one for our anniversary.

*Anyway, the reason I bring this up is I'm hoping to do a mailbag-type post to close out the year. So if you have a question/comment to e-mail me or to post in the comments below or on the Facebook page - please do it. You know how to reach me.

*Speaking of not knowing whether everyone is seeing my various posts - If you missed last week's Sunday Paper, it was another edition of 'Silly Mind Games', where I confess how my brain is mis-wired. Anyway, this one was all about my obsession with knowing people's birthdays. It's a good one, I think. And I know there are other people out there just as obsessed with dates as me. So I know there are people out there who will secretly like it even if they won't admit it.

*And you know that you can always catch up on old Sunday Papers by clicking the 'Sunday Paper' link at the top of the page, right? OK, good. Just checking.