Author: Matthew Groff

  • Your Level of Bullshit

    If you ask most people, they will tell you that they don’t put up with people’s bullshit, or that they have a “Bullshit Detector,” or my favorite which is that they are a bullshitter and one cannot bullshit them. These are all lies because people put up with bullshit all the time, especially from our friends and family. Probably because we love those people, and we just deal with their little lies.

    So let’s just call it what it is; we accept other people’s bullshit all the time. No one exists in the world who calls everyone out on everything. That person is not real.

    But we all do have a threshold. A line, once we get pushed over it, we start to fight back.

    I was told when I first moved to NYC that I would have a moment that I would yell, “Go Fuck Yourself,” to a person for either a minor or great indiscretion caused upon me. And that was true. I yelled at a guy in his car who almost ran me over in a crosswalk in Midtown.

    But today, I crossed a new threshold, and I thanked the pandemic for it. My tolerance for bullshit is lower, but I no longer feel the violent reaction to scream and yell at people.

    See, I was on an uptown local, coming back from grocery shopping. I had got on train at 96th heading to 125th, and there was a homeless person on the train, which is common and I don’t have an issue with that. But when the train started moving uptown, the person decided that this was a good time to start urinating from their seat.

    Yup, done here.

    I didn’t make a scene, just got off at the next stop and awaited for the next train.

    Now, you might say, of course you did that as that is a right normal thing to do. But I retort with that I was the only person who got off that half full car. Just me, everyone else put up with it. That was my line, and I guess it wasn’t the same for everybody else. I guess to them, that’s normal.

  • My Sporting Weekend

    I’m not the biggest sports fan, but I do enjoy writing about it, and spending this time, when I’m trying to figure out what to blog about, to think about sports in my life.

    This weekend wasn’t the best. Tottenham went down in flames against Arsenal. The North London derby was more like a stampede and massacre all rolled into one. And Arsenal isn’t a good team, but damn, they sure did make the Spurs look worse. It was one of those matches where the other team seemed to be everywhere on the pitch. I gave up at half time and cleaned the bathroom.

    Then I thought I would look up where the Cubs were in the standing, and I knew they weren’t having a good season, but I saw that they were 26 games back. It was like the Cubs from the 80’s had returned from the grave. I was expecting to see Mark Grace and Andre Dawson out there on the field. Looking at the Cubs stats for the season just made me angry again at the Ricketts selling off the team a month or two ago. Looks like another 100 years of rebuilding.

    And that now leaves me with Monday night football and the Cowboys playing against the Eagles. I have hope the Cowboys will win, as I despise the Eagles as a team, and Eagles fans as well. They are just not nice people. They threw snowballs at Santa Clause, you know. And the old Veterans Stadium used to have a jail and a courtroom in it to deal with the drunk rowdy fans. Anyway, I’m hoping that the Cowboys will win, and Elliot will have a good game. Like, “get me 15 points so my fantasy team can win this week,” good game.

    Not that I’m a sports fan.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Tottenham Confusion, Unruly Passengers, and I Am That Guy

    Man, what is up with Tottenham? I mean, they just got by Wolverhampton in their League Cup match on penalties, and in total, they haven’t won a match since August 29th. With the North London derby this Sunday, it would be a good opportunity for the Spurs to show up. Arsenal isn’t playing well either, as they are sitting at 13th on the table, so you’d think that Tottenham would have the advantage, but, I’m not confidant in this squad. After a great start of the season, Spurs seem to have just floundered. The attack is lacking, and giving up two 0-3 blowouts to Premier teams doesn’t say much about the defense either. I mean, I’ll watch the match on Sunday, but I don’t see myself in positive supporter mindset for it.

    I know I can’t prove this, but I think one of the contributing factors in all the unruly passengers on airlines is the fact that the seating is too damn small, and people are too damn close! Just look up “The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat” and see how many stories you can find. When people are too close, they get angry. Remember personal space?

    I am wearing a sweatshirt today. Is it that cold? Sort of. Am I doing it because I want it to be Autumn? Yes. It was 56 degrees this morning, so the A/C is off, the windows are open, and I am pretending that the season has really changed. I am that guy. But at least I’m cozy.

  • Too Hot in September

    It’s hot and humid in New York today, and it’s the end of September. That’s not normal. And it was like this last year. At the park yesterday, I was in shorts and getting bit by mosquitos. Again, that’s not normal.

    I say all of this as I have my air conditioner running in my apartment.

    When I moved to New York back in August of 2006, it was hot and humid; normal. I remember everyone telling me to just wait for September, and everything would be different. And usually around the 10th, the humidity went away, and the high was around 76, with the low being in the 60’s at night. You could leave your windows open all day, no a/c. It was warm in the sun, cool in the shade, and if you went out at night, you would take a light coat.

    I know I sound like a crazy old man, but it’s not like that anymore. This is the second year that we are still hot and humid at the end of September, with A/C’s running all day. NYC summers have always been awful; hot and humid, but it was a northeast hot, like 85 degrees, and maybe three days or so of 90’s. Now, we have several heat waves, three days in a row of more of 90 degrees, every summer.

    It is climate change. It’s here. This isn’t something that might happen one day in the future. We are in it now. And what I feel the worst about is that my kid has to deal with this. That she is getting this used up world. That she has to make it better, and that is too much to ask of any kid.

  • Personal Review: “The Monkey Who Speaks” by Han Ong

    (The short story “The Monkey Who Speaks” by Han Ong, was featured in the September 13th issue of The New Yorker.)

    Sincere and gentle are difficult qualities, and also odd descriptions to use for a short story, but those were the first two words that popped into my head as soon as I finished reading “The Monkey Who Speaks,” by Han Ong. And as I sat longer thinking about it, this story also made me feel like I followed the protagonist on a journey of growth.

     “The Monkey Who Speaks” is about a home health care worker named Flavia, who is from the Philippines, and her decision to leave her agency to care only for the elder Roscoe. Flavia is actually hired by Roscoe’s daughter Veronica, and through this new arraignment, Flavia begins to earn more money, but also has the time to start going to community college. What we see is how Flavia takes care of Roscoe, his love of movies, and the trust between caregiver, patient, and family. It also covers how we move on in life, how things change, and how little events, comments, actions, linger on in our lives, reminding us of people from our past.

    This was my first time reading a story by Han Ong, and I was impressed by the work. The story never felt predictable, and unfolded in a way that was very honest to the sometimes monotony of caring for an elder individual, while also highlighting those moments of connection between people. I felt Flavia’s concern for Roscoe, while she also tried to keep the relationship professional with him and his daughter. It reminded me of how even I, especially over the pandemic, found myself thinking about clients from my former career. I would wonder how they were doing, if they survived all these changes. And just like Flavia discovered,  I also found myself realizing that all these years later, those interaction are still with me, and still make me glad that I had that time with that person.