First, some info on upcoming shows and preorder links. I know, I know, you love this stuff.

Thursday, March 12th, I’m putting together a fundraiser, which will be a Pretzel Stacking Competition at Littlefield! Competitors can enter as individuals or teams of 4 people max. BYO pretzels (any size, so be strategic) and edible adhesive (peanut butter, thick mustard, etc). You’ll have one hour to stack, and the highest and girthiest? pretzel tower takes the winning title. This concept is really really stupid, but it’s for a good cause. Proceeds are going to the Midwest Immigration Bond Fund. TICKETS HERE!

Saturday, February 28th, I’m doing the Creativity Hour at Union Hall for the last time. I’m not ashamed to say that every time this show has been either mediocre or downright bad. But I keep making tweaks, and this final time, I’m hoping it’ll be transformative! There is a chance it could still be mediocre, but I can’t possibly know that yet. TICKETS HERE!

March 18+19, I’m opening for H. Jon Benjamin’s show Jazz Daredevil at Union Pool, and they’ll be recording a live album from the shows. Here’s the ticket link!

If you haven’t already, you can pre-order Sex on Murder Island, which is the sequel to Murder on Sex Island. Recently, my friend Josh Gondelman joked that the second book has all the same words as the first book, but they’re scrambled around. SEE IF HE’S RIGHT!

Anyway, passions this week include: Red Bamboo, the check-in guy at the DMV, and orange juice.

I just found out Red Bamboo is closing on February 28th. If you haven’t been there, it’s this vegan comfort food spot on West 4th and 6th Avenue, and ooh you gotta go! They’re known for these vegan BBQ wings where the bones are wooden sticks, but my personal favorite is this combo plate that has a scoop of mashed potatoes, a bunch of fake chicken nuggets, steamed vegetables, and always to my surprise, a big corn on the cob, which is impossible to eat inside a restaurant. Damn, I wish it could stay open forever, but I’m sure the rent is being raised to 8 million dollars a month, so they gotta do what they gotta do.

I had to go to the DMV this week and there is this man checking people in at the front and he’s got a little stereo playing music and he’s dancing (!) and he’s yelling, “I LOVE WHAT I DO!” I can’t believe I encountered this guy at the DMV. Makes me excited for who I’m gonna meet once I go to hell!

It shouldn’t be called orange juice, it should be called SWEET COLD ELIXIR! Man I really love to chug this stuff.

This email’s gotten too long, but if you have a passion, you can reply to this email with 1-2 sentences about it. Stay warm out there,

Jo

Last week, we went to go get our marriage license, and if you ever get a chance to go to the city clerk’s office, go! It’s a wonderful place. Everyone is wearing suits and gowns even though we’re basically at a post office. If you ever go there, just know it’s a long wait. We were the only couple to bring a bag of cheez-its.

A couple of announcements that might be of interest…

I’ll be doing the Creativity Hour at Union Hall this Saturday at 5pm, and another time on Saturday, February 28th, also at 5pm. This is a show where the audience and I collectively try to make the worst art imaginable so that we can leave purified to go make good stuff. It’s fun and positive and some people even get to touch clay.

I’ll be in San Francisco doing some shows at SF Sketchfest, including the dating show, Friends of Single People, and the Creativity Hour! Over 4 real life couples have been formed over the years at Friends of Single People, and this show could make it 5 or 6!

On Thursday March 12th, I’m putting on the 199th Annual International Pretzel Stacking Competiton. Teams of 1-4 people work together to make towers of pretzels with edible adhesive. BYO pretzels! If you don’t want to compete, you can walk around and watch people defy gravity. After an hour, whoever has the tallest structure wins the title. So far only 6 people have bought tickets to this, and if it stays that way, this will be my 5th worst production yet. Exciting!

Lastly, the sequel to Murder on Sex Island comes out this June, and it’s called Sex on Murder Island. Similar titles, yes, but VERY different plots! This one involves a billionaire sex cult! You can pre-order now!

Okay now to the meat. Passions this week include: Cosmic Crisp and big piles of dog shit (stay with me on this).

What are they always doing to apples? Why is there always a new one? Is it because we hate Red Delicious that much? I don’t know how they make Cosmic Crisp (probably A.I. involved) but whatever they’ve been searching for all this time, I’d say they did it. They no longer have to keep making new apples. They solved apples with Cosmic Crisp.

If I were a detective, and I’m not, I’d say every single person in my neighborhood let their dog shit in the snow and left it there. Maybe they thought it was decoration. But since the snow thawed, the dog shit is everywhere. Every time I manage to walk outside without stepping in a big pile of crap, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

And now some from the readers…

Sally: “My passion is listening to bass lines. Any song I am listening to, a song I know well or a song I’m hearing for the first time- follow the bass.”

Mason: “My current passion is my weekly CSA fruit box, which I pick up from a neighbor‘s front porch every Tuesday. I got some amazing seasonal stone fruit in the summer, and now that it’s late fall I get apples and pears. My favorite from this week is called a Seckel, a tiny two-bite, very sweet pear, apparently the only pear first discovered in America. I’m learning new fruit facts and tasting cultivars I’ve never seen before!”

Irene: “My passion these days is making collages. It's fun because you can spend hours just cutting cool shapes out of magazines, but then you can tell everyone you were making art. It is also very low commitment art - you can just rearrange it until it feels "right", like a puzzle where none of the pieces have to fit. They aren't even from the same puzzle - It's like a half cat, a third horse and a quarter Ferris wheel.”

I’d love to a year in review, but I got the memory of a fly. I can’t even really remember this week, so we’re doing the top 3 passions of today. It’s kinda like being in the moment, but my brain is weak and I have no other choice.

Passions for today, 12/31/25, include: thinking about cheesy roll-up, staying awake while reading, and wind on my bald spot.

If you're hungry late at night, there are a few go-to options for food delivery, but the major one is Taco Bell. I’ve eaten Taco Bell during the day but it really doesn’t hit the same. Anyway, they have this item on the menu called cheesy roll-up and it looks like something I could make in the microwave so I never order it. Instead I order stuff only they can make it in the microwave. But I kept thinking about C.R.U. Who orders it? Is it for babies? Anyway today I found tortillas and shredded cheese in the fridge, so I gave it a shot. Turns out actual cheesy roll up is not good, especially for how long I’ve thought about it. It’s hot and also gluey with almost no flavor at all. Much better thinking about it. Maybe Taco Bell makes it better.

I keep reading in bed thinking I’ve hacked the system, and every time I fall asleep after two pages. System hackin me, more like it. But today I stayed awake 12 pages! The Hearing Trumpet… pretty fun book!

I live in a wind tunnel, and no matter how I’d style my hair, the wind would blow against my head with such force, my bald spot would be revealed 6 seconds after going outside. I used to hate this and get “mad at the wind” (foolish), but now I accept the freezing air on my balding head and say fair enough!

And now some from the readers…

Justin: “My passion is getting my son to yell “No thank you, squirrels!” every time we see them eating his pumpkins.”

Maria: “I’m genuinely passionate about work fit selfies! It’s so fun to see my friends in their weird, fancy workplace alternate identities. And the fashion!!”

Ross: “Recently I've changed to watering my indoor plants on the weekend with a narrow spouted teapot. I can direct the water with more accuracy than the previous instrument, a plastic quart container you see them using at restaurants, and the soil gets a more balanced amount of water. It takes a little longer but I got time.”

If you have a passion, feel free to reply to this email with 1-2 sentences about it.

Hope you have a happier 2026 !

<3, Jo

Before you go, some announcements:

I’ll be at San Francisco Sketchfest doing a few shows in late January! Tickets for the individual shows: https://sched.co/2BQwm and https://sched.co/2BQwj

Doing another Creativity Hour at Union Hall on January 17 and February 28. Tickets are here.

Lastly I’m putting on a pretzel stacking competition at Littlefield on March 12. I don’t think this is even comedy anymore, just stacking pretzels, but we’ll see? Tickets here!

I agreed to do some live shows coming up, and I’m already nervous even though some of them are months away. I stopped doing standup three years ago, and quickly after, I adapted to the home at night lifestyle. You take a nap before dinner, you wake up disoriented and ravenous, you eat something weird, you watch a show, you eat a snack, you go to bed at 9. I know that sounds sad, but what if I told you movie star Glen Powell has the same routine?

He doesnt! Gotcha!

Passions this week include: ranch oyster crackers, Fisk, and wearing a big coat on the bus.

I had the most amazing food I’ve ever had at my friend Dawn’s house. Her roommate had a big tupperware full of oyster crackers, and I thought huh that’s a strange place to store your oyster crackers. When I asked about them, she told me they’re ranch oyster crackers. You rebake already fully baked crackers with ranch powder and oil and garlic powder. She let me try some. Those things are out of this world! I keep offering to make them and bring them to people’s houses, and people keep refusing, which pisses me off! Must be because they haven’t tried them yet. It’s Chex Mix for the soup crowd!

Speaking of the soup crowd, I just started watching this Australian show called Fisk based on Emmy Blotnick’s recommendation, and I am laughing so much! It’s about a divorced lawyer named Helen Tudor-Fisk who hates people, loves soup, and only wears big brown suits. In episode one, she goes to work at this new law office for wills and probates. The office manager played by Aaron Chen (HE IS SO FUNNY!) asks if she wants her office decorated, and offers to get her a poster… ah wait, I’m actually not going to ruin the joke by writing it out from feeble memories. It will be much funnier if you watch it.

Something about wearing a big coat on the bus makes me hunch until my body’s a candy cane shape, then as a bonus, no one sits next to me. They think I’m going to the hospital, but jokes on them, I’m going to the library! And guess what position I’ll be doing in the library? More hunching!

And now a few from the readers…

Anna-Liza: “Buying books even though I’ve yet to finish reading the stack by my bedside. I end up ordering new storage solutions for them. Probably counts as two passions: book buying & ordering more storage!”

Rachel: “My current passion is going to pre-concerts (aka listening to the entire setlist of a concert before I buy a ticket). Then, once it’s real-concert time, I don’t have anxiety about if I’ll be the only one in the crowd who isn’t somehow singing along or if they’re going to play my favorite song--all I have to do is show up and relax. This has been a polarizing passion in my social circle but has gotten me to more concerts in the past few months than in the past few years.”

mg: “one of my recent passions is gossip girl.. its just so addictive!”

Zygy: “My passion is pipes that don’t leak. We got a new dishwasher and when I turned it on, it leaked. The store sent someone who fixed it, but after they left, when I turned on the washing machine, that leaked. A third person came who fixed that leak. I love putting my hand in the bowl under the pipes because now it’s dry.”

If you have a passion, you can reply to this email with 1-2 sentences about it!

It’s around the time of year I start to think it’s Ina Garten’s world, and we’re all just living in it. Imagine being a good cook and going to a party with a steaming tray of food, and the people scoop it onto their plates, then they groan and smile and praise you. God, that’s the life! I brought an original dish to a Thanksgiving potluck, and sure, it was ugly and the colors were barf-esque, and sure, it was unclear what it was “supposed to be.” I joked on the way there, “haha what if no one eats this haha”. And then, no one ate it. I will say somebody sure used the spoon for another dish because I found a chocolate chip in there when I got home, and mine was originally a savory dish. I ate some of the heaping leftovers for breakfast the next day, and it was not my best, I’ll say that.

Recipe for the original dish:

-Roast sliced up sweet potatoes in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper. 400 degrees is gonna burn them, but 375 isn’t enough, you figure it out.

-Add the sweet potatoes and pan oil to a bowl with the juice of one lemon, a package of crumbled feta, chopped up olives (you pick the amount, but know it’ll always feel wrong), and chopped up smoked tofu (one block, tastes like hot dog).

-THIS ENDS UP GOOD USUALLY!

Anyway, passions this week include Wicked 2, voice note in the group chat, lemon spaghetti, and Myq Kaplan’s new special.

I saw Wicked 2 last night, and beforehand everyone said, blah blah all the good songs are in the first movie, blah blah the second movie’s just plot. Well, I LOVE plot! And turns out it’s got some fun songs, too! I ordered just a water, I kept my seat ramrod straight, and I was riveted. And I’m not afraid to say it now: I also liked Wonka!!!

Someone put a voice note in the group chat. Everyone was typing away, piling on, heart reacting, then suddenly to hear someone’s real voice? REALLY freshened up the feed! Try this!

Spaghetti al limone, I’m gonna call it lemon spaghetti when I talk about it out loud because I’m embarrassed to pronounce Italian words both with and without an accent. It’s spaghetti with butter and parmesan and lemon juice, I don’t know why this works so good and my original sweet potatoes come out so bad.

My friend Myq Kaplan released a special called Rini and you can watch it here. He and his partner Rini created it together, and it’s hilarious and charming and about love, and what more do you want!

And now some passions from the readers…

Faith: “This week’s passion is getting what I want, and not feeling bad about cajoling my husband into taking me and the kids on a Walt Disney World vacation.”

Monica: “My passion is 3M Command Strips. They come in a large range, and with all sorts of accessories. I love the velcro-type to attach frames to the wall. I put a loop on my window sill to keep my phone charger cable from falling on the floor and out of reach. I used some other cable keepers in the window to keep a viney plant under control. They have a million uses! Want something close at hand but don’t have table space? Stick it on the wall with a Command Strip! It’s that easy!!”

Abbey: “I am passionate about Aqua Zumba! You dance in the water where no one can see how uncoordinated you are. All the while the instructor is dancing on the pool deck but acting like they are underwater. And you know we are splashing around to Espresso. It is very silly!”

If you want to submit a passion, you can always reply to this email with 1-2 sentences about it!