Author: Matthew Groff

I read a heartbreaking blog this morning about a mother finding out that her little son has stopped liking things because the other boys at his school teased him about it. The mother spoke about how she cried for 10 minutes because the world of peer pressure has started for her son, and the unseen machine of societal control has started its march of shaping her boy into a different person.

It stung me, coz I was that little boy. I can still feel the looks from the other kids when I talked about liking learning and school, and reading, and musicals, and an endless list of things I loved but was made to feel inferior for liking them. It happens to everyone, and the pressure does take a toll. Somethings I fought to keep, others I discarded in shame… It happens to everyone.

I just don’t want it to happen to my daughter.

And that is never going to happen.

But I don’t want her to react the way I did. Folding, and not standing up for myself. That is the trick as a parent; making our children stronger than we were.

I can grow one of the worst beards. Hands down, it’s just awful. Sparse in places, patchy, gray/brown and blond hair all mixed together… My face has a calico cat feature to it. Only in the last 10 years have I felt the urge to grow a beard. Before that, I was a fan of the goatee, as I was a 90’s kid. I could grow a nice version of that, and when it got to the point that it required some maintenance, then I would shave it off. It was a nice pattern to have with facial hair.

The beard came about when it dawned on me that working in New York City, no one cared if you looked scraggly at work. So, I would start growing one on Thanksgiving, and let it go through New Year’s. Then on New Year’s Day, I would shave it all off save for a moustache, which I would keep to the Super Bowl.  There wasn’t much thought put into it and the dates seemed right.

And not that I did this every year. Sometimes I would have a performance gig that I needed to be clean shaven for, or we would travel home to see family, and I wanted to look nice in family photos, and not homeless.

In 2016, I grew a Cubs rally beard for the post season, and they did win the World Series, so clearly, the beard as the key.

Currently, I have a too lazy to shave in the morning beard. I really need to get rid of it before it gets hot for the Summer… But that feels like too much work.

I seem to be doing a lot of that lately; just forgetting stuff. I have left home without my keys twice in one week, which is something I very rarely do. I forgot my wallet today when I left work for lunch. At work, for what seems like the past month, I have to be reminded about things that I have promised to do. I’m only 41… So, I’m not that old.

It feels like my memory keeps getting jogged all the time. Such as, I asked where a co-worker was today, and then I was reminded that they were on vacation. Now, the second I was about to be told this information, in my mind, there flashed the image of the email that was sent out to the office last week stating that they would be out. It’s as if I’m one step behind.

As stated above, I’m not too old, so I must think this is being caused by other factors. The first is that I have not being sleeping well at all; kid-o, work stress, life stress, I need a vacation stress… But I went through other periods of stress and lack of sleep and didn’t forget things all the time…

Or did I, and now I have just forgotten about it…

That’s spooky…

Like the realization that I have never directly seen my face… it’s only been a reflection off of a mirror.

Anyway… I’m forgetting stuff all the time now.

I have had to write everything down, and I use the reminders in my phone. What this makes me feel like is that I am living off of a list all the time, and everything feels scheduled.

This could be what it is like to get older after all.

At least the sun was some up…

I met a friend last night for a drink, but he was running late, and I had thirty minutes to kill at the bar by myself. It was 5pm, and the start of Happy Hour, and I was the only patron there.

I got a beer and a bourbon neat. I sat at the end of the bar, and watched as people came in, and I jotted down notes.

I thought about the fact that I really can’t day drink anymore. I mean I could, but I don’t feel right about it. This would be due to the kid. I feel like I need to be sober “just in case” something was to go wrong. So, when I get a moment to drink in the day time, I feel like I am getting away with something.

As I had my beer and bourbon, I thought popped into my head that I hadn’t had in a very long time; I wanted to smoke. I haven’t had a cigarette in four years, and I have no desire to smoke, but it was there for a second in my mind. Like thinking about an ex-girlfriend you never want to see again, but “POP!” – There she is in your head. Not that I was going down that road, but just for a second, I did miss smoking in a bar.

And to be in a bar, to meet a friend, and catch up, and laugh.

There was a book that I read called “Bluets” by Maggie Nelson, which I was considered poetry, but read like prose, but impacted me like I felt poetry always should have. I enjoyed it highly, and even tried copying its style for a book that I was writing. Of the many things that “Bluets” is about, the color blue plays a role of popping up in the authors life.

I feel that I’m having the color “navy” show up in my life. I am the one bringing it into my life, as I feel that I want more “navy” colored things in my life. I have even got my wife to add some navy colored clothes to her wardrobe, and we are not contemplating painting our bedroom a shade of navy. I have a watched whose band is red and navy, I have a navy checkered shirt, and navy blazer, and navy argyle socks. I do associate the color with New England, and I have a desire to relocate there when the NYC adventure, and maybe I see the color as a sign that it is time to leave the City.

I do feel like the color blue is the default refuge color of boring white men, or at least that is what I used to think. I remember someone making the joke that the Republican National Convention was also the national convention of khaki pants and button-down blue shirts.

I own several pairs of khaki pants and button-down blue shirts…