Month: October 2022

  • The Reason Why I Am Edgy This Week

    I had mentioned in my post on Friday that my family and I were going out this weekend for some apple picking, and I had joked about how silly the act of picking apples was, but deep down I really enjoy doing it. The place we went was Apple Dave’s Orchards in Warwick, NY, and we’ve gone there for several years and have always had a really enjoyable time. I recommend you head out there, and get the apple cider donuts while you’re at it.

    And after the apple picking, we ran a few errands in New Jersey before we headed home to Harlem. While we were running these errands, I felt myself getting edgy. I didn’t have an outbursts, or get mad at anyone, but I could feel this slight level of annoyance building in me. I know myself well enough to know that I needed to remind myself to relax, and not take anything serious.

    But for the rest of the weekend, this feeling of frustration never left me. It was also a feeling of stress and anxiety. My shoulders ached. I got a canker sore in my mouth. I had trouble sleeping. I was feeling like I was falling apart, but I could think why? I’m having the normal stresses in life, such as nothing has changed recently. We are plugging away, trying to get ahead like we have been trying for the past two years. Life’s normal.

    As I was taking our laundry to the laundromat this morning, I started thinking about my weekend, and how I might want to write a blog about apple picking. I took some pictures of our apple adventure on Saturday, and thought I might want to use them in the blog, which reminded me of the first time we went out to Dave’s Orchards with my parents, who had come to visit us in the fall of 2017. And the reason we go back to Dave’s every year because it is a place that we have fond memories with my mother, who passed away four years ago on October 14th.

    And then I knew.

    I had forgotten about the anniversary of my mother’s death. Well… consciously I had, but not sub-consciously.

    I know that my mother is dead. It’s not like I forgot that. I am at the point now that I can talk about my mother without an issue. I can even talk about her death and the awfulness of losing her. What does get to me is thinking about the things Ma isn’t here for; birthdays, holidays, and a simple phone call. It breaks my heart not being able to share things with her. Whether she wanted it or not, I did talk a lot to her.

    It will be a tough week, and I’ll be subdued while just feeling sad. It’s not like I won’t be able to function this week, or that I will be angry or something. What it’s like is having a blanket of melancholy around me, and all events will be filter through that feeling. And that will be manageable.

    I just miss my mom, still. That’s all.

    (Hey. Thanks for taking a second to read this. If you could, please take a moment to give a like, share, or comment, and follows are always welcomed.)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Apple Picking, I Like Teams that Frustrate Me, and Halloween Costumes

    (By Mennen!)

    It’s Fall, which means apple picking. This is the one stupid Autumn tradition we have that I cannot quit. It’s… it’s just dumb. We go to a farm and pay the farmer to go out and harvest his crop for him. It feels like such a con, but damn do I love doing it. And we do take it too seriously. We’ll get up at the crack of dawn and drive way out to a farm in upstate New York, so we can be the first people there. And we’re gun’na buy a pumpkin too, maybe pickles as well, because I think we did that last time. The dog will be with us, and we’ll wander around the orchard, picking, then sampling apples, and if they don’t meet our standards, we’ll toss the half-eaten fruit on the ground, like some inconsiderate Patrician. Then for a week afterward, we’ll find a way to work apples into every meal. But the wife will make a really great apple pie, so that does make it worth it. It is a little bit of a cliché thing to do, but aren’t stupid traditions the ones we love the most?

    Oh, I sure know how to pick sports teams that end up confounding and frustrating me. I will say this, Tottenham accomplished the bare minimum in their Champions League Group match against Frankfurt – They didn’t lose. At the half way point in the group stage matches, Spurs are in second place with four points, so they are not out of the woods, and could still blow this. And that is the thing with this team – they still don’t seem to have found their groove. The Kane/Son duo still hasn’t shown up this season, and I think without that threat up front, it gives opponents the confidence to try added pressure against Tottenham’s back line, especially in the final ten minutes. And this Saturday will be another test against upstart Brighton, who is in fourth place behind Tottenham in the Premiere League. With only a month left to go before the World Cup break in November, Conte has to get this club into some cohesive championship form. The goal this season wasn’t to just be good, it was to win trophies.

    And, I spent two hours this morning searching and ordering a Hermione Granger costume for my daughter. Not that tie and robes boarding school stuff, no sir! She wants a very specific version of Hermione from a certain scene from a movie. I didn’t mean to, but I think I am teaching my daughter how to Cosplay.

    (Don’t forget! If you are enjoying this blog, please be kind and give a like, share, comment, or even start following! It would help my case to the wife why I need to stay in my pajamas on the sofa all morning writing this stuff.)

  • I Hit a Wall Today (Unedited)

    I’m throwing in the towel for today. I have been at it for about three hours now, I have been unable to string together a 300 to 500-word blog for today. I could say that some factors came into play today, but I have overcome tough and hectic days before.

    So, I call quits, and will do the half assed, “I don’t know what to write blog.”

    I was looking up the war in Ukraine earlier, but I don’t feel like I have an insight on that. It’s all awful, and also seems like Ukraine is sticking it to Putin now.

    But, I don’t want to get into news or politics, and I was thinking about.

    What I wanted to say was something about how the start of “Planet Telex” is a really great opening.

    Then I wanted to add that when I saw “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” I didn’t think it was that great of a movie, but I was on a pretty awful double date at the time, so now looking back at it, I think that situation might have unfairly jaded my opinion of the movie.

    Then, I read the pilot script to “Cheers” this morning, and to be honest, it wasn’t that great of a script. Kind’a surprised that it got made.

    And I need to get the kid’s Halloween costume put together.

    Anyway… this is a bit of a cop out, I admit it, but I did show up today.

    (Look, I ask the end of every blog for you to like, follow, comment, or subscribe to this blog. But, hey, let’s be honest. Today wasn’t the best. Check out the older ones, and like those.)

  • Short Story Review: “Shelter” by Nicole Krauss

    (The short story “Shelter” by Nicole Krauss appeared in the October 3rd, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Photograph by Elinor Carucci for The New Yorker)

    What are the two biggest cliché subjects in literature? Boys at boarding school, and middle aged men dealing with middle age. It once used to be like you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one of these novels at a bookstore, but it now does feel like things are beginning to change. I mean, I get it. Long ago, the only people who would get published and did the publishing were middle aged men who all went to boarding school, so they produced what related to them.

    When I started reading “Shelter” by Nicole Krauss, and it dawned on me that our main character was a middle-aged man, dealing with being a middle aged man, I did get a little nervous. Was this about to be a story about a dopey, middle aged man that grasps for some meaning and purpose to his life, as per the cliché? The bad news is that the main character is that cliché, but the good news is that Nicole Krauss taps into an emotional base that gives an authenticity to that character.

    The story is that Cohen, our middle-aged man from New York, is in Tel Aviv for a business trip. There is a pregnant woman across the hall in the building where his AirBnB is, and we know that these two characters will become interconnected. For Cohen, who is dealing with his feelings of uselessness in his job and marriage, he has been self-medicating with different drugs, which have led to different levels of effectiveness, but end up costing him his bag which is stolen while on the beach during in a euphoric haze. Waiting back at the building for a new set of keys, the neighbor goes into labor, and Cohen helps out, thus finding a purpose. And then more stuff happens.

    While reading this story, I never had a doubt where it was going, and it did land where I thought it would. But, I found Krauss’ insights into Cohen’s motivations, thoughts, and his feelings while high, resonated with me. Even in a respect, I identified with Cohen a little. The feeling of being useless, and having lived enough of a life to know that you used to be useful, but somehow can’t figure out how to get back there. How being comfortable, which seemed to be the goal, actually is the thing that killed one’s ambition. The story stayed light, even comical, but still had an emotional weight to it. A nice feat of writing, I might add.

    I really like stories like this. It made me rethink that cliché that I had written off as meaningless.

    (Furthermore, if this blog spurred an inkling of enjoyment, even mirth, then if I may request that you reciprocate with a like, share, comment, or by-golly, start following it. That would bring a genuine smile to a face that might be mine.)

  • It’s a Tottenham Blog Post

    I don’t know a whole lot about Premiere League football, but I am learning. And as a burgeoning Tottenham Hotspur fan, I am still taking in as much lore and history about the team as possible. One of the things I have down is that Arsenal is the chief rival, and when these two teams play, it’s a very big deal, and it even has a name; North London Derby. I got that much down.

    It does seem like every time that these two teams play, there is something very important on the line. Last year, the second match between them pretty much determined who was going to qualify for the Champions League. This year, it was to see who would lead the top of the table, as Arsenal was in first and Spurs were in third.

    The match didn’t go Tottenham’s way, and though Kulusevski was out with an injury, he wouldn’t have helped. Arsenal was clearly the better team and they were determined to prove it. And this is the part that makes me nervous about Spurs; they are a fragile team. When things start going bad in a match, it’s hard for them to right the ship. The second goal that Arsenal scored should have been stopped by Lloris. It was a fluke mistake, or accident depending how you look at it, but the end of the day, he shouldn’t have let that ball squeak by him. Which leads me to Royal’s foul. Did he deserve a red card for it? I don’t think so. But it was a stupid foul, done out of frustration. And Arsenal made they pay for it, scoring four minutes later. At the end of the day, Arsenal is still in first and Spurs are third, but instead of a one point difference, it’s now four.

    Tottenham have now suffered two losses in three matches, and in both cases a lack of focus has done them in. Sure, I understand the argument that Conte is putting too much emphasis on scoring, and the defense is lacking. Maybe that will get solved later in the season. Maybe.

    As for now, they face Frankfurt, in Frankfurt, for a Champions League Group match. I haven’t heard if Kulusevski will be back, but just as with the Arsenal match, I’m not sure he will be the key to their success. The team needs to come out swinging, and be that aggressive group that Conte keeps talking about. That’s what I will be looking for.

    Here’s the obligatory: #COYS

    (OY! Be a good lad, and share a little love with a guy trying to write about football! A like, a share, a comment would be ace! As would be subscribing to this blog!)