J as in Jerry

It's the last day of February and I'm not sure what I want to work on in March. I feel like I should already have this figured out, you know? Like I should already be excited about what I'm slated to work on. But not yet, I suppose. The options include (but are not limited to): painting (I have a few gesso'ed canvases awaiting my artistry, but is a pile of paintings going to fatigue my desire to paint in general?) visual art (similar, but like, maybe I'll just make a drawing or a painting or something every day for the month) music mixing (I have a MIDI keyboard that I'm ready to learn to create electronic beats of my very own... but should I wait to dedicate a month to that once I've learned how to use it better? I don't want to just be frustrated) story writing (I'm on a writing kick, what with February being humorous essay writing, but do I want to have two months back to back be in the same genre?) The answer is there are no wrong answers. I need...

 The What Humorous essay writing. The Why This one was an easy choice. I'm currently enrolled in a class at Second City called Writing the Humorous Personal Essay . The class only runs through the end of the month, so, bingo! I took Stand-Up 1  through Second City late last year, which culminated in a final performance in front of an actual audience. Now, it wasn't quite my debut Netflix special; it was friends and family members of mine and my fellow classmates, but man, what a rush. It was something I signed up for to get me outside of my comfort zone and something to push me to just try . I fully intend on taking Stand-Up 2  at some point during 2023, but I needed a break. It's exhausting  going to a 3-hour class once a week where you're expected to perform and think on your feet. Not to mention that I feel I'm still changed from the pandemic, and I've grown more... anti-social? How It's Going The month is not over yet. And man, February has flown by. But...

The Thing Rebuild my personal website, from scratch. I'll get more into what "from scratch" actually means later. (Spoiler alert: I did it .) The Why I completed a coding bootcamp in 2017. Since then I've had the practical idea to create my own website. This means that I would code the whole thing, and not pick a plug-and-play/drag-and-drop solution, such as SquareSpace (which is the service I used for years). There's legitimately nothing wrong with that kind of solution, but I was like, "I know how  to code. Why aren't I using it for my own practical use?" Beyond that, I'd be free to explore with my own designs, learn some new technologies and likely find a way to host the site for free. (I think I was paying something like $13/month for SquareSpace.) The Work Why Hadn't I Just Done it Before? As with many things in life, getting started was the hardest part. I knew that I wanted the site to have a sexy frontend (AKA, I wanted it to look goo...

The year is 2023. I'm not one to typically start the year off with a bunch of resolutions, or any for that matter. I'm averse to resolutions. Because what is a resolution, but a goal? I don't like setting goals. I'm not saying this out of pride; I know that it's a problem. It makes sense. I don't like setting goals because setting a goal is just a couple of steps away from admitting failure. If you never set any goals, you can't fail. It's foolproof. Except. Except that there are fewer opportunities for success, by the same measure. Sure, successes come along sporadically in life. Little surprises, little miracles, little wins. But is an unintentional win as tasty as something you've been working toward? I'd argue not. So I find myself attempting to face that fear of failure. I spent my "winter break" (the week between Christmas and New Year that I took PTO and relished in having "nothing to do") charting my accomplishments fr...