Author: Matthew Groff

  • The New Normal: The Job of Staying Home

    I over slept this morning, by thirty minutes. In this world we live in, it felt like I lost the entire morning. I was a half hour late on getting things started around the apartment.

    I had to quickly suck down a cup of coffee, shower, change and winter up so I could walk the dog in the twenty-degree cold that was this morning. Hurry, hurry, hurry, because I still had to get the kid ready for remote school, and when I got back home with the dog, the kid informed me that I don’t have a job, and need to get one.

    “You’re my job,” I said.

    “That’s not a real job,” The kid told me.

    Ah… the curse of the stay at home parent; no one thinks it’s a real job, even your kid.

    Is this the effect of capitalism on our society? If the endeavor does not earn capital, does it have a value in our society? I mean, this is not a new question, as I remember hearing this being asked when I was a little kid. That would mean, that over thirty-five years, stay at home parenting is still not viewed as a productive job that has a value.

    Or is this a matter of roles in a household? As in, the wife and I have always been working since the kid has been born. The child has only known us to be a family where mom and dad both have jobs outside of the home, and then share the responsibilities of all the domestic tasks. With the world turn upside down, did we ever take the time to explain to the kid what the new make-up of our family roles will be?

  • Monetize This Blog!

    First of all, I have fun writing this blog. It’s a weekday writing exercise for me, and something that I can easily dedicate 30 minutes to. I have written before about why I do this, so I won’t go down that road again.

    But, this morning, I was reminded of a goal that I had set for myself; I wanted to earn enough money from writing to buy a new Mac Mini for the family to use as a hub computer. That would be about $800 to $1,000.

    Well, the update on that goal is, to be honest, I sort of forgot about it. At the same time, in six months, I have gained 100+ followers, and average 25 views/visitors a week. It took me 26 months to get 60 followers, and in that time, I averaged 2 views/visitors a week. That’s an improvement. Now, if the goal was to generate enough traffic to earn some money, those numbers just aren’t cutting it.

    I have read, and also follow, blogs that talk about how to improve traffic to earn money off your blog/writing. Most of them say pretty much the same thing, which is writing about something you are passionate about makes things easier. (Check! As I like to write about a lot of different subjects that excite me.) The next thing most of these blogs say is that you either need to be the “best” at what you blog about, or the “only” person who blogs about whatever it is you are writing about. (Check! As I am the only person who writes about me!) Then the third thing that most of the advice bloggers say is that you either need to write about a topic that is already popular/in-demand, or you need to convince people to care about your subject matter. (Ung… well… that’s the trick, isn’t it?) If you can’t answer point three, then they say to go back to step one, and start over.

    And they aren’t wrong. It’s business 101, to be honest.

    So… Do I start putting ads on my page? Expand my social media footprint? Move from the free page to the paid one? Do I want to make this a job?

  • Same Old Super Bowl, and the Next Normal

    Well, there was a Super Bowl yesterday. In my home, we were more excited about the Buffalo Wing Nachos my wife created last night. We are more of a snacking family, than watching the game family. (Unless the Cowboys are in it, then that’s a different story… but it doesn’t look like that will be happening anytime soon.) We recently introduced the kid to nachos, and she has become a big fan.

    As for the game; for a few minutes, things felt a little bit normal. Brady and Gronk in a Super Bowl, and wishing that they would lose. But they didn’t. Brady got another ring, and was the MVP. Just like bunch of times before. Just like normal.

    And with that having been said, I just thought about a post a friend of mine made recently, about using the phrase, “Back to Normal.” She made the argument that even when the pandemic is under control, when we all have gotten the vaccine, when we have reach herd immunity, and when we can go out in public again without fear of getting sick, things/life will not be like it was before. Everything has changed. Work is different, school is different, health is now viewed differently. As she sees it, we can’t return to normal, but what we will get is the “Next Normal.” And in her optimistic way of seeing things, the “Next Normal” is an opportunity for things to be better. We all now see the need for human in person interaction. We see who is truly essential in our communities, and who we have taken for granted.

    And maybe the Next Normal includes a Cowboy Super Bowl. Anything is possible.

  • Ghost Locations of Creativity

    Do you know who Donald Barthelme is?

    I had no idea who he was until 2003. That was the year I was directing “Six Degrees of Separation” as my senior project in college. There is a line towards the end of the play where the character Paul references Donald Barthelme’s obituary in the New York Times, saying;

    Paul: Did you see Donald Barthelme’s obituary? He said collage was the art form of the 20th century.

    As a dutiful director, I researched Donald Barthelme and his stories, all the while spending time thinking how Paul, who was running from the police, still took the time to read the obituary section of The Times, and contemplate art and collage, and how that affects the meaning of his life.

    A few years later, I read a review in The Times book section about a new biography on Donald Barthelme, titled “Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme.” The review intrigued me, so I went out and bought a copy of the book. Sadly, it sat on my shelf for about six years. I know this because, when I did pick the biography up, it was right after the birth of my daughter, and I would read it as I rocked her to sleep. I then went out and got a copy of “Sixty Stories,” to keep my envelopment in his work.

    I recommend the biography, clearly. There are many great insights, and Tracy Daugherty does a very good job of setting up the context of the world around Donald; the art world of the early 60’s, how The New Yorker treated their writers, and what The Village used to be like – overflowing with writers and eccentric people. The book, even gave Barthelme’s address off of 11th Street, which happened to be seven blocks from where I worked at the time. I took an extended lunch break from work one day, and walked down to Donald’s old block. It had only been about 25 years since his death, and the neighborhood was nothing like it used to be in his day, at least what I learned from his biography. I stood across the street looking at his old building that housed his apartment, feeling a little like the stalker of a ghost. I don’t know what I was expecting to feeling by being out front, but I was curious to see a place of creation; The location where stories I loved were first pounded out on a typewriter. Maybe it was a pilgrimage, but it felt like I was trying to say hello to a friend.

  • Confession: Reading Failure

    I have a confession to make. Awhile back, I said that I would read The Stories of John Cheever this fall. Well… as we are now clearly in the middle of winter, I have to admit that I did not read The Stories of John Cheever. In fact, I only read the first story in that book. I looked at that volume every evening on the nightstand as I got into bed, and I would say to myself, “Tomorrow, I’ll get back to it.”

    Yup, I failed at this personal goal. I mean, I didn’t even come close. I wish I could say that I got caught up reading another book, but that isn’t true either. Sadly, my fall and winter reading progress is pretty disappointing.

    And if I am to be fully honest with myself, I only finished three books in all of 2020.

    I’m not saying this to garner sympathy, or to make excuses. Its more that I want to identify what isn’t working. You can’t write if you don’t read.

    What had brought this about is that I am now teaching my daughter how to read, and I want to instill a love of reading. The best way I know to do this is by example, as that is what my parents did for me. It’s not that they told me to read, or made me; reading is what they did for enjoyment.

    Gotta get my shit together. For all of us.