Blog

  • Distracted Today

    I set a schedule for myself and I try to stick to it. Wednesday is the one day of the week that is all my own. I don’t have any chores to take care of, no obligations to the family other than dropping off and picking the kid up from school. Wednesday is the day that I read short stories, write a review of one, and then work on my other writing.

    But not today.

    Everything has felt a little off.

    It started like normal. Got the family up, kid off to school, and went to the gym. Got home, settled in on the couch with a coffee, and started making the rounds of reading short fiction online, and in magazines. And I read for two hours, about 8 different stories, but my mind kept pulling me out of what I was doing. I was having trouble focusing, you know, just an overall difficulty at completing the simple task of reading, and thinking about what I had just read.

    It was a malaise that was coming over and around me. I was doing something for myself, that I enjoy doing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be doing something else. Something practical. Reading this morning started to feel like I was hiding out, avoiding, procrastinating away from what I should really be doing with my time.

    My mind wanted me to think about money and finances.

    We have a plan, which we have stuck to, but we hit a rough patch yesterday. Surprise medical bills, which delays our ability to pay down the debt. There is a chance that things could improve, but for the improvement to happen, I need to get a job.

    And that’s what is gnawing at me today; should I really be sitting around on the couch reading? Should I write a blog, when I should be updating my resume, searching Indeed?

    Clearly, I opted for the blog. I mean, I’m going to look for a job after lunch, and then get back to reading.

  • It Snowed

    It snowed last night. That was cool. We haven’t received any snow this year in NYC, and it feels really weird. I am aware that this might become the new normal for the region. Warmer than average temperatures, then a bomb blizzard, then back to above normal temps. When do we get to the point that this is now normal? I think you get there when all of the people who remember what it was like before have died off.

    Yikes! There’s your dark take on a Tuesday.

    The nice thing about our three inches of snow was that it made walking the kid to school an exercise of fun and excitement. She got to put on her snow shoes, which, obviously, she hasn’t had a chance to wear. And the best part was her walking in all the spots of fresh snow no one had touched yet. She was giddy, and I am sure it has made sitting in class today very difficult.

    For me, I feel like I have been granted the first season of the year. It really isn’t Winter around here until there is snow. You know. You need flowers in the Spring, heat in the Summer, and leaves changing in the Fall. It’s part of the deal. And the older I get, the more I need it to happen. The cliché is for old people to move South or West, get out of the cold and live in the heat. But I find myself running in the opposite direction. I want to see the passage of time, the cycle continue and renew.

    Let’s face it, as some people get older, they want to be as comfortable as possible, which makes complete sense. You have worked hard, now you want to relax and enjoy the final years, and be as predictably comfortable as possible. Not knocking it, and I may want that someday.

    But what I want now is to see the changes come. To count my Winters and Summers, and experience the seasons. Has being comfortable ever spurned growth? Maybe I’m not ready to stop the wheel of time in life. Maybe I need to see the passage of time to know that I have a place in it. (I’m putting a lot on these three inches of snow, I know that.) Maybe seasons remind me that there is something bigger than me out there.

    (Psst! If you enjoyed, pleas take a moment and give this post a “like.” I, ahh…, I need the algorithm to kick me up a notch. Thanks.)

  • The Kid has Learned Well

    Last week, I mentioned that the kid was off from school for her “Mid-Winter Break.” I do not know of a single parent in the City that finds this “break” enjoyable. It is a week of scrambling to find things for the kid to do, so she doesn’t sit in front of a screen the whole time. I think I did an okay job last week. She surely didn’t have less screen time, but she didn’t have more.

    I mean, I’m not an idiot here. I do understand that I am receiving a wonderful gift, which is getting to spend time with my kid, at an age where she still likes and respects me. (The clock is ticking until that goes away…) She is forming her own opinions on music, and movies, and books she wants to read. She is just now taking the first steps in trying to figure out the world around her, and where she fits in. Being a witness to that is a great fringe benefit of being a parent.

    The kid did pepper me with lots of questions last week about growing up in Texas during the 90’s, in the suburbs, where it was warm or hot all the time. Describing growing up outside of Dallas is a fascinating and odd tale that my daughter, with her urban New York City upbringing, has a hard time wrapping her head around. Of all the things I have told her, she finds it amazing that the D/FW area will totally shut down at the first sight of snow; Not a blizzard, or sub-freezing temperatures, but just the tiniest of snowflakes falling would wreck North Texas.

    I think my story telling had an effect on her, as this morning, when getting ready for school, she told me she wanted to dress like a “90’s kid.” I was puzzled, so I asked her what a “90’s kid” looks like? I was told “90’s kids” wear; light blue jeans, All-Star shoes, baggy long sleeve tee-shirts, and listen to cd’s.

    She wasn’t wrong.

    And I also find it rather amazing that my daughter so succinctly summed up a very formative decade of my life. The only way she could have been more on the money is if she wanted a pack of clove cigarettes and a beat-up paperback copy of Naked Lunch to read.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Dog Person, NYC, and The Sofa

    (Growing Equals Learning, and Vice Versa…)

    It dawned on me last night, as I was walking the dog around the neighborhood at 9pm, that I can’t go back to having a cat. I like cats, I have a soft spot for cats, and I love seeing bodega cats; they are my favorites. But I’m a dog person now. And it comes down to litter boxes. I prefer to have my animal friend relieve themselves on the street, or on occasion, in neighbor’s yard. I am totally fine with having green plastic bags on me to pick up poop. But the idea of having a box in my home that I have to clean excrement and clumping pee out of daily is a task that I never want to return to. This is not a knock against cats – it’s just that I don’t want to do that chore anymore. So, my lot is now thrown in with dogs.

    I still like living in New York. After everything that we have gone through these past three years, I still like this town. Wednesday and Thursday, I had to run errands all over Manhattan – from Harlem to the Battery, and I still find this place fascinating and thrilling, and dirty and gross, dangerous and wonderful. I fear that I might become one of those people who cannot function when away from the City. That I will be locked in a perpetual low-grade orbit of this place, never to break free.

    If my office is the couch, then I need a better couch.

  • Short Story Review: “The Last Grownup” by Allegra Goodman

    (The short story “The Last Grownup” by Allegra Goodman appeared in the February 27th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (I will SPOIL the story.)

    Illustration by Geoff McFetridge

    Being a grownup sucks, and being a divorced grownup sucks even more. This is the basic idea behind the short story “The Last Grownup,” by Allegra Goodman, which follows Debra, a divorced grownup woman, as she navigates the official end of her marriage, and the changes that come with an ex-husband, teenaged daughters, and life with a dog.

    There is nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking in this story; just a solid piece of honest “slice of life” fiction. I was struck on how ordinary everyone was in this story. There is no drug addiction, strange sexual desires, angry confrontations, or absurdist flights. This was a story about people you might know, or friends of friends you have heard about. People you would be happy to know that are doing their best to make the divorce work, in the best possible way. You know, those people.

    Goodman structures the story to function and travel in two parallel lines. The surface line is Debra doing all the “right things” or giving the reactions that a good, well-adjusted grownup would give in situations. When Debra informs her parents that her divorce is officially over, her mother asks to keep Debra’s wedding picture up in the house. Though Debra says she’s fine with her mother doing that, you getting the feeling Debra isn’t okay with it, but doesn’t say anything. And this is the second, under current line of the story; Debra not allowing herself to say, or express what she really feels, because that’s not what a grownup would do.

    This structure could have become very tedious, and made Debra a weak and passive protagonist. Yet, Goodman knew to make the “offenses” that come Debra’s way never amount to a true outrage or betrayal. What happens are annoyances. Things one could complain about, but a grownup should just let go.

    Such as the climax of the story. Debra’s ex-husband, Richard, and his girlfriend, Heather, are planning on getting married, but Heather ends up getting pregnant. The three grown-ups gather to discuss the best way to tell the teenage daughters. They decide that Richard and Heather should announce the engagement first, and then a little later, announce the pregnancy. Yet, when the day comes, Richard and Heather announce both developments at the same time. They changed the plan, and Debra says nothing. Even when one of her daughters suspects that Debra was aware ahead of time, Debra side steps answering the question as to not draw attention away from Richard and Heather’s moment.

    What this parallel line structure creates is a wonderful melancholy sadness in Debra. She’s grownup enough to know that complaining would accomplish nothing. And she is grownup enough to recognize that everything is changing and that, she will, eventually, have to change as well. And this sadness is never blatantly expressed, but is shown through Debra’s actions, or lack of actions. The muted responses are so telling, and helps define Debra’s character as a good, decent person.

    I liked that Goodman told a subtle story. A story about adults behaving like well-adjusted adults. But being well-adjusted doesn’t mean that one is drama or conflict free. Being a grownup can also mean that you have to let some things go, so you can continue to move forward.