Today is the 200th consecutive Sunday that I’ve published a weekly humor column on this website. There won’t be a 201st.
I’m taking a break.
It’s time for me to scroll off your screen and into the sunset to wherever fate takes me next.
Looking back on the 200 weeks since I started, it’s amazing how much my life has changed.
For starters, I’ve conceived and fathered two kids, quit my job to be a stay-at-home dad, survived the first several waves of a global pandemic, bought a “new” house while selling my old house, and got a remote control from my cable company that lets me talk to it (even though it hears me wrong half the time).
200 weeks is a long time; 3.84 years.
It’s significantly longer than other transformative experiences in my life.
I’ve only been a dad for 134 weeks, though it feels like SO MUCH longer.
It took me 194 weeks to graduate from college but only 140 to graduate from law school.
I also lived in Austin, Texas for 145 weeks, which is just the right amount of time to still get out with your soul (and liver) intact.
I performed stand up comedy throughout that time in Austin. It was an amazing creative outlet but also an incredible time suck.
In 2011, I spent my 31st birthday on 6th Street outside The Velveeta Room explaining to family and friends who called me why spending the evening alone waiting to go up around midnight at an open mic was how I wanted to celebrate.
Exactly one year later I was the paid month-long host of that same open mic and it felt like a major accomplishment, though it was not.
I’ve leaned on those experiences heavily while writing this column to justify the countless hours I poured into the work.
There is an intangible but deeply satisfying meaning I get from bringing happiness into other people’s lives, even if just for a fleeting moment.
Back then I thought nothing about waiting for two or three hours to perform five minutes of material for a dozen disinterested people.
Other times, I’d host or open for paying audiences on actual shows. And on a few rare occasions I performed on big stages in front of big audiences primed to cheer.
All of those crowds were dwarfed by the number of people I could reach here with just a little cross-promotion to subject-matter-friendly places on the Internet.
My most popular column, I Can’t Stop Comparing My Newborn Baby to a Cat, still gets appreciative comments in parenting forums every time it comes up, though I haven’t had much time for cross-promotion lately.
Since publishing my first column, I’ve been honored to be republished on places like the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, Scary Mommy, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists blog, every Hearst newspaper in Connecticut, and many other subject-specific blogs, Facebook groups, and Reddit threads.
I wrote a very silly column about being uncomfortable using a teenage boy’s shower and a Pulitzer Prize winner had to hand me an award for it. That will always be a source of immense pride for me.
It also brings me great pleasure that this website is a leading Google search return for some pretty awesome (though offbeat) queries like “Buddy the Beefalo,” “best harmonica players,” and “toddler Olympics.”
And I absolutely love that the most consistent Google click-throughs this site gets is for the search, “beer snobs are the worst.”
But it hasn’t only been silly. Some of my more sentimental pieces gained traction too.
Readers of every Hearst newspaper in Connecticut may have opened their Thanksgiving newspapers last year seeking Black Friday coupons, but they also found my column, When the Holidays Don’t Feel Right, as one of three featured in the opinion section that day.
It was extremely validating to finally answer the age-old question: what do Connecticut’s Governor, a Catholic Bishop, and Chris Gaffney all have in common.
Writing is how I process things.
Whether it’s formulating hopes for the future, articulating my love for my family, processing grief, or pondering the meaning of life and whether my life has provided enough value – writing provides the clarity I need to make sense of it all.
Ruminating isn’t enough on its own.
My fickle thoughts flitter between emotions and get swept away in flash floods of cognition spinning after every intuition and perception until they wash ashore like Gilligan and bumble somewhat humorously about looking for the Professor and Mary Ann.
Writing anchors my thoughts providing the framework to flesh out my thoughts and pursue my own truths. Having found this safe harbor I cannot imagine ever again riding through a storm unmoored.
Coupling that with my lifelong need for public affirmation, I have no doubt that I’ll be back. Somehow, in some way, though it won’t be very soon.
In the meantime, please feel free to pursue the archives of 200 humor columns.
You can sort in the sidebar menu by topic or by date. The categories are: family, holiday, home & garden, musings, parenting, pop culture, and society.
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Finally, thank you to everyone who’s spent some time with me over the past 200 weeks, especially those who emailed or commented with encouraging words and shared their views.
And, of course, the biggest thanks go to my wife and kids who’ve had to deal with my wandering away to jot things down or sneaking away to my office for long stretches of time.
With the number of unfinished projects sitting on my desktop, that probably won’t change, but it might be a little different.
I’ve gotten so much out of writing this column from sharpening my views and developing my “writing voice,” to validating my belief that there’s inherent value in every part of our shared experience.
I figure if I can write a 650-word Ode to Paper Towels and actually gain subscribers at least a few others feel the same way.
There is so much more that unites us than divides us and all of it is cause for celebration or at least a tiny chuckle before scrolling on to the next adventure.
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