To Dream the Improbable Dream

In December 2013, marketer Julie Bayley resolved to get back into stand-up comedy — her last performance was 30 years ago — and to perform a set of new material by the end of 2014.

March Update:

This is crazy. I have spoken before hundreds of people hundreds of times since 1985, but I haven’t bared my soul. Now I have to. Me and my big mouth had to share my secret New Year’s resolution with none other than Kurt Bloody Andersen of Studio 360. Good! That means I have to do it.

This month, I’ve been thinking an awful lot about aging. When one is the primary caregiver for an aging parent, in my case my 93 year old Mom, it is amazing how quickly your life can collapse in on itself. How easy it is to narrow your focus. So… One of the things I have been doing over the last several weeks is re-immersing myself in culture. I’ve been listening to my favorite songs, visiting my favorite museums, seeking out my favorite comedians and learning how to laugh freely as opposed to wryly.

This resolution is the catalyst I needed to remember that introspection only takes you so far. I am not true to my promise of a joke a day. It is more like a thought a day; a fragment a day, a scenario a day:

So about the aging thing, that’s really where my snippets of thoughts are leading me. I am preparing to go into the hospital for surgery at the end of the month, so as a result of that a lot of the material that I have been trying to shape deals with the disconnect between the Julie in my head who will forever be 27 and the Julie in reality who is deeply mired in middle age (assuming of course I live to be 105!).

In the meantime… Leap! And the net will appear.