Friday December 29^th, 2006 - Chicago, IL

This year is winding down and I’m trying to get everything in place before I head up to Calgary for New Year’s Eve and the following week. I have a lot of details to get finished before I leave and I didn’t get nearly as many done today as I had hoped. This will be my chance to start the new year off in solitude and hit the ground running for the first week.

I really need to finish the rewrite of the movie script. My partner Rick has a deadline for when he can collaborate because he has a book coming out. I am sick of having it undone so I will use this next week as a boot camp and crank out as much of it as I can. I will use every free minute to work on it and since the club is in the hotel it will be easy to do. Plus there is no American cable TV so I will have minimal distraction for eight whole days.

They asked me to come in a day early and that was very smart. I am not sure how much snow they have and won’t even look until I get to the airport and see if the plane has been delayed. I love not having to travel on a work day and New Year’s Eve is the biggest day in a comedy club’s year so I’ll be in town and refreshed and ready to go for Sunday night.

Before I go I need to do a load of laundry and write out a rent check and bills and all the little details I am not good at. I let stuff fall through the cracks but I am hoping to improve that in the new year. 2006 was really great in many ways and I improved a lot in ways that I never imagined. If I am going to continue that in 2007 I need to keep adding to the list.

Doing this daily diary is one thing I’m glad I did. I really appreciate you reading it and I hope it’s at least interesting or funny once in a while. I try to just be honest about how it’s like to be a road comic and all the ups and downs there are along the way. I have learned I can keep it up every day and at least write SOMETHING. Now it’s just part of my day. If I can keep adding positive things like that to my every day routine I will keep improving.

Diet and exercise has to be another one. I’ve been doing well for a few days now and it feels great just knowing I’m trying to get better. Yesterday I fasted for another 24 hours. I went to the Old Country Buffet before the show but didn’t go nuts at all. I had vegetables and soup and even sat next to the Coke machine but didn’t have one. That was difficult.

Today we had a Chicago Style Standups meeting and I had a bowl of Bill’s ‘super soup’ which happened to be tomato and I even had a couple of diet sodas but I decided to allow myself a treat and will keep on exercising and eating better and fasting more so I can drop some pounds. I had my whole life until now to eat whatever I wanted and I loved it. Now it’s time to get in shape and I think that will be a positive thing. I accept the challenge.

I’m back in a good mindset again and I couldn’t be happier about that. I made it through my little dip at Christmas but now I’m gearing up to work harder than ever and give a full effort for 2007. I will clear up my loose ends in the morning and head to the airport and I intend to come home with a punched up movie script and a plan of attack for the year and some money and like James Brown I will just keep working hard until I can’t anymore.