Month: March 2026

  • Planning Home Projects

    General Update – The car got fixed, you know, from yesterday. It was the engine thermostat that needed to be replaced. Cost over $1,200 to get it fixed. But the car is back, and all is well in the Universe.

    The other thing that happened yesterday was that the air conditioner that we ordered arrived a day early. See, this winter, we got rid of the a/c unit that was in the kid’s room – it was over six years old, and had seen better days. The plan here is to move the unit in the livingroom (6,000 btu) into the kids room, and replace it with a larger and more powerful (8,000 btu) unit. 6k btu might be overkill in the kid’s room, but it just wasn’t cutting it in the livingroom. (Also, the end of March is a great time to buy an a/c as they are all on sale, to move out last year’s inventory for the new in prep for Summer.) BUT, before all of this installing can happen in both rooms, we need to repaint the windows and trim, so everything will be matching, and the apartment looks a little more unified.

    I say all of this because, as I was hauling the unbelievable heavy a/c unit up three flights of stairs, I was excited for all of the home improvement projects we have. You know of the a/c and window project. Then there is redoing our “mudroom” area by the front door, and replacing the livingroom ceiling fan. There is the touchup painting in our bedroom, and hopefully coming up with a better closet situation. The biggest project of them all is working on the kid’s room. It reflects the interests of an eight-year-old, and not the aspirations of a soon to be teenager. Not sure how to accomplish that, nor what budget for it will be, but I know that it’s important to the kid, so it’s important to me.

    I say all of this because what it really means is that we are coming out of Winter. We can open the windows again, and let the breeze blow through. There is a wonderful peace and tranquility that comes from this time of year. It is fleeting though. Soon, it will be too hot and steamy in the City, and the windows will close up and the a/c’s will roar on. If it’s a good year, we’ll have a comfortable Spring until early June. If it’s a bad year, we’ll be locking up in May.

  • Check Engine Light: The Beginning of the End

    I don’t mind owning a car, and I’m okay with owning a car in the City, but if I had my choice, I would not own a car. I do enjoy how the car allows me to feel free in the sense that I can leave NYC whenever I want, and I would be lying if having a car hasn’t made some tasks/chores a whole lot easier.

    My problem is that I feel like a car is a ticking time bomb, and at any moment, it is going to blow up in my face. What that means is that a car is just a machine, and the more you use a machine, the likelihood of it breaking down increases, and it will break down. That’s just a fact. So, to me, owning a car is just a waiting game until that breakdown happens. Doesn’t matter how well one can take care of the car; it will break down.

    I have been very good with our car. I get the oil changed regularly, go in for a yearly tune up, replace the tires, clean it often and not to brag, I have gotten a little handy with doing some basic maintenance on the car myself. I am proud of my ability to make sure that this car runs well, and hopefully for a very long time.

    But that ticking is never far from the back of my head.

    And on Friday, the “Check Engine” light came on.

    Tick Tick Tick…

    I didn’t fart around, and immediately schedule to have to car checked out today, Monday morning. Driving the car over to the shop, I couldn’t hear anything wrong with the engine; no gurgles, hiccups, chokes, coughs, or anything. She was purring like she always has. Even when I dropped the car off and the tech was asking me questions, he seemed a bit surprised that I hadn’t heard or felt anything. “Let’s check it out to be safe,” he said.

    Maybe, hopefully, the light means nothing. My dad had a Volkswagen Rabbit who’s check engine light came on, and when he took it in, they couldn’t find anything, but the light wouldn’t shut off. So, my dad just put a piece of electrical tape over the light; problem solved.

    I could get that lucky, too, right? Just a bug, no big deal.

    Tick Tick Tick…

  • ODDS and ENDS: Walking to Success, Sprung Spring, and Jeans

    ODDS and ENDS: Walking to Success, Sprung Spring, and Jeans

    (Make you come home early…)

    So… I’m back to the gym. I have been off of it since October, and my body is showing it. I have a little belly now, which is really wanting to become a bigger belly. No real surprise, I have let myself go for the past five months. But not any longer. Back to the gym, and my plan is to follow the same pattern as before; a pattern that garnered positive results for me. Thirty minutes a day for five days a week, aiming to get two miles in on the treadmill. And since I am a middle aged man, I know that I have to work my way up to running the whole thirty minutes. So, I do a brisk walk for now, then I will start running for a few minutes, and alternate back to walking. Slowly, I’ll start running more than walking, getting to the point where I walk the first three minutes, jog the next twenty-four, and do a cool down walk of three minutes. I’m on week two of being back to the gym, and I’m still walking for the time being (Next week we start jogging for a few minutes) but is there a way to just walk my way to losing ten pounds? Better yet, is there a way I can just lay on the couch and… well… just lay on the couch because I hate going to the gym, and none of it is fun for me. But… I want to be healthy, so I have to suck it up…

    No one cares about the second Spring day, which is effectively what yesterday was. It was 72 out in the City. It was great out, but it was the second day of Spring and no one cared. See, that first day of Spring, when it gets to the upper 60’s for the first time, everyone and their dog is out. I love how there are the super ambitious people who are dying for Spring and Summer to show up, to the point that they are running around in shorts, t-shirt and sandals as if it was a Summer day. More importantly, that first day of Spring has a feeling of relief and joy that Winter is finally coming to an end; that we have made it through the darkness and better times are ahead. The second Day of Spring is more about people complaining that they out on the wrong coat in the morning.

    There is one sure fire way to acknowledge that I am getting older, and that has to do with decreased amount of time that I wear jeans. There was a time, say from the age of ten to twenty-five, when I would have worn a pair of jeans everyday. Even in Summer, and I used to live in Texas. I lived in jeans. And over this time frame, I did own other pants, like khakis and such, and for shits and giggles I might wear them out, but on the whole, jeans as far as the eye can see. Then I graduated college, and had to go get a job, and the dominance of jeans began to wane in my life, well, at least between the hours of 8am to 6pm, Monday through Friday. Nothing but jeans, in different colors (Blue, dark blue, light blue, and black) and styles (Baggy and Straight) and brands (Levi’s and Old Navy). Now that I am older, sensible slacks seem sensible, and wearing pants that seem appropriate for the season I’m in also is a very logical proposition.

    (P.S. – The AI Image Creator is an RFK Jr. Fan, as It Thinks I Work Out in Jeans)

  • Short Story Review: “Floating” by Souvankham Thammavongsa

    (The short story “Floating” by Souvankham Thammavongsa appeared in the March 30th, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Julien Posture

    Dating sucks. I think there are very few Universal Truths out there, and that’s one of them; Dating, on the whole, is not a pleasurable experience. When dating works, it’s unbelievable, exciting, fulfilling, and all the other words that poets have shared for hundreds of years. But of all the unfun things that dating can conjure up in a person, the not knowing where you stand with the other person is damn near the worst. Souvankham Thammavongsa’s “Floating” tackles that feeling of uncertainty when it comes to meeting someone new, and though it is a charming piece, it does seem to trip over its own feet at the end.

    I say charming because the piece feels as if it is coming from a very authentic place for the protagonist. She is waiting to give a talk in front of people, when a gentleman strikes up a conversation with her. They have a mutual friend, and he suggests that they should all get dinner together. We learn that the protagonist has gotten out of a bad marriage, and has some additional baggage with her family, which lends credence to her hesitation and the guard she puts up with this new man. But soon, he starts to become a bit of mystery. He has to travel for many months, and their possible connection is delayed. Soon, she starts to learn new things about him that don’t totally add up, and bring into question his motivations and intentions. All of this leads the story to create that feeling of instability that only dating, or the hope of dating, can create in a person, which makes all of this relatable.

    I am a fan of stories that are about characters dealing with a situation they’re never fully able to understand. The example I always use is the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock” which is about people dealing with the mystery of what happed at a picnic. “Floating” is that type of story; the protagonist is never able to unravel the mystery of this man, and must come to terms with that. And when I said that the story trips over its own feet, I say that because she doesn’t make a decision at the end of the story. I admit that I might be splitting hairs here, but there is a difference in “floating” because one didn’t make a choice, and “floating” because one is choosing to wait and see. One is passive, the other is active and has agency. Even with an attempted “Dead Chick in the Basket”* ending to conclude the piece, the protagonist chooses to be passive, and though that might be the most realistic decision in this situation, for a short story, it’s not a satisfying narrative conclusion.

    *“Dead Chick in the Basket” refers to a story device wherein the final paragraph of a short story contains new information about a character which is meant to make the reader view the actions, statements, or feelings of that character in a different light. The first known use of this device was in J.D. Salinger’s short story “Just Before the War with the Eskimos.”

  • Earworm Wednesday: You Can’t Fight This Song

    I was about to say that I’m not a big Elton John fan, in the sense that I have never owned one of his albums, but I would never deny that he is one of the giants of rock/pop music. Then I did a search on some of my Spotify playlists, and Nearly everyone has an Elton John song on it.

    Which brings me to “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” which might not be Elton’s best song, but it is a great song. When I first heard it, I thought it was more cheesy than anything else. Yet, this song drills into your head. For me, it’s the guitar hook at the start, and the chorus of “SATURDAY!” being chanted over and over again.