ALL THE IMPORTANT THINGS

Are we still talking about New Year’s resolutions? I’ve had a bit of time off so I feel like we can, right?

MY RESOLUTION was to be more organised. Gosh I make myself laugh. I’ve already broken that pact as I’ve never lodged this column later. But hey, here we are! Apologies to my editor. New haircut? You look great! I truly don’t know where my lack of organisation stems from. My parents have the organisation of a first world military regime. My father makes restaurant reservations months out, has zero unread emails in his inbox and has a colour coordinated shoe collection (so admittedly I have picked up SOME traits from him). He’s like Marie Kondo … but from Perth. My mother’s pantry has labels on every single jar, she irons clothes when she doesn’t intend to wear them straight away (oh my god can you imagine?) and makes sure she hits her goal “steps” each day.

By contrast I’ve forgotten what day of the week it is, I’m wearing pyjamas with a robe over the top, popped my phone on flight mode because I’m fairly sure Fines Victoria are trying to contact me about parking in a loading zone and I currently have a tray of oysters in the fridge left over from a BBQ last week that still need to be thrown out (don’t worry it’s bin night tonight). People assume I am organised because my house is incredibly tidy. That’s more to do with the fact that I entertain a lot and my pride outweighs my lack of organisation. Oh, and much like my emotions I’m very good at jamming things in the back of a wardrobe.

Out of sight, out of mind … out of the way of spoiling my party. I’m actually so disorganised I regularly forget my stand-up material. I’ve done 12 solo tours that go for, let’s say, about 90 minutes each. So essentially I have over 1000 minutes worth of material (not all hilarious, trust me).

I don’t write any of my material down however so of that material I can maybe recall 3 minutes. I regularly have to text friends on my way to a gig and ask them if they remember how certain stories go. In fact the other night I did a gig (my first in 9 months) and I was struggling to recall material so badly that I ended up booking an Uber so I could sit in the back and watch old clips of myself on YouTube. It’s not until you’re sitting in the back of an Uber frantically flicking through YouTube clips of yourself that you realise a) people that have called me irritating over the years may have a valid argument; and b) I’ve worn some extremely questionable outfits over the years. So I’ve scrapped my New Year’s resolution to “become more organised” and I’m going with a more general “just be a bit more adult yeah, Joel?”. I’m not going to label my Tupperware containers or count my steps. I’m probably not even going to take my phone off flight mode until tomorrow. But I promise I’ll start sending my column in on time. OK, not PROMISE. But you know what I mean…