Category: Life

  • ODDS and ENDS: Moving, Weather, Tottenham, and Crappy Time Lords

    (Half days are killers)

    Last night, we brought up the idea of moving apartments to the kid. She did not like the idea, and I understand why. Her objection was that she didn’t want to leave her friends, and I knew that was coming. Having gone through the pandemic and not being able to see anyone, she now is living a rather normal childhood; school, parks, friends. (She’s just missing playdates, but I know that is coming.) For a seven-year-old, she’s living the dream. We mentioned to her that moving to a different neighborhood in the City would mean that we would have a bigger apartment to live in, and though she would be in a different school, we were still in the City and can come back and visit her friends. That didn’t sell her. To her, our little corner of Harlem is the best place in the world.

    I don’t like getting older sometimes. Lately, I keep thinking and talking about the weather, which clearly is a sign that I am getting older. Such as, it was 40 degrees this morning, and it’s the end of April. As we are about to hit May, it should be warmer. I say this because the month of May is one of the reasons I still live in New York City. It’s supposed to be not too hot and not too cold. It’s a Baby Bear month! I want to put on a lite coat and sunglasses and take a walk. It’s the little things in life that make it worth living, and I need my little things, damn it!

    Tottenham better beat Leicester, and West Ham needs to beat Arsenal. That’s my weekend.

    What if we are living in the “fixed” timeline? What if things got so bad that people in the future went back in time and “fixed” whatever made things so bad, and this is the “better” version of things?

  • I Make Schedules Only to Break Them

    I had made a schedule for today, and I 100% did not follow it.

    Last week was Spring Break with the kid, and all the plans got thrown out the window. For one, our car got hit while parked on the street, so it’s been in the shop since then. The loss of the vehicle killed all of our plans of getting out of the City. I had this idea that me and the kid would go disc golfing up around Beacon, and then the next day, head to a beach on Long Island. Sounds like fun and we were looking forward to it. I replaced that with going to The Strand one day, and the Museum of Natural History the next. The kid seemed fine with it.

    Anyway, with all of my time last week being spent with the kid, I knew I wasn’t going to get any work done, not that I minded. So, the start of this week, I wanted to hit the ground running. Like I said, I created a schedule for today to make sure I would be able to get everything I wanted to get done, done.

    And the day started out fine. We all got up on time, and made it to school early. I went to the gym to work out, and really got into my run. Came home from the gym, and it just went downhill. Not that it matters, honestly. I’m writing the blog in the afternoon instead of the morning. I have yet to journal, but that will be next, and I know that I won’t get to fiction today.

    BUT! I did get the laundry done, balanced the check book, did some home finance projections for the wife, took down the Easter decorations, made lunch and shopped for dinner. See, I got some shit done.

    On to the next thing

  • ODDS and ENDS: Museum of Natural History, Alice Walker’s Journals, Dallas Mavericks, and Jazz Samba

    (Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags!)

    It’s Earth Day! AND the kid is on Spring Break! So, we’re going to the Museum of Natural History today! This is low hanging fruit when it comes to doing something with the kid that she will enjoy for several hours. For most of my friends with kids, the zoo is their “go-to” place to occupy some time, but my kid never has really enjoyed going to a zoo. Now, a petting zoo, or looking at baby animals, she will go crazy over that. But your normal, run of the mill zoo; nope, my daughter ain’t having it. What she wants is a display case with rocks in it. Maybe a diorama from the 1920’s. Give us a squid and a whale!

    Yesterday, I read a piece in The New Yorker about a book of Alice Walker’s journals. I was interested because I think Walker is a great writer who I look up to, and being that I journal, I am curious what her journals are like. Two things I took away from the article are that Walker at one point thought she should smoke “less weed,” and her preoccupation with money. I admit that I haven’t read this book and am only going off what was in the article, but these two points, weed and money, humanized Alice Walker for me, and made me respect her more. The weed statement means that she feels like she should be getting high less, and doing other things, and I infer that means writing. Even someone like Alice Walker thinks she should be working harder. And there is money. It’s not surprising that Walker was thinking about money issues before she was “ALICE WALKER” and was just another writer trying to make it. Yet, to see it in her journals just proves that finances were taking up a large part of her thought process, and needed to be expressed. Yes, she was trying out new ideas that would become great stories, but she was also trying to figure out how to pay rent and eat.

    I have been enjoying watching the Dallas Mavericks vs the Utah Jazz in the NBA Playoffs. Especially, I have enjoyed the Dallas bench playing some clutch basketball.

    Today’s album that I am listening to is “Jazz Samba” by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd.

  • Stuck in My Head (Unedited)

    Some days, no matter how hard I try, I can’t get out of my own head. You know, you get one thought that keeps bouncing around no matter how hard you try to get rid of it. Like, I keep thinking about how I embarrassed myself at a party back in college. I am sure no one even thinks about that moment other than me, but the thought just keeps taking up space and popping up over and over again.

    Also, so does the NBA theme song that John Tesh wrote for NBC. I can go a couple of days in a row humming those opening bars of the song, just over and over again. Oh, and if I am focused on doing a chore like cleaning the bathroom, I’ll start to sing “Outshined” by Soundgarden. And then today, I can’t stop singing, “(Nothing But) Flowers” by Talking Heads.

  • ODDS and ENDS: World Travel, This Made Me Laugh, Easter, and You Know

    (I write, you read, we’re all happy)

    I have not left the confines of the United States, and that is a situation I would like to correct. I would like to leave the North American continent, and see the world. And when I say that, I really mean there is only one place that I have to go and see before I die, and that is the zebra crossing in front of Abbey Road. I want to walk it, and have my picture taken while crossing it, and I even what to be in other people’s pictures when they cross it. That’s it. I just want to be in the same place where my favorite and best band once walked. Everything else in the world, I can take or leave. Sorry Taj Mahal, and the Pyramids.

    Sesame Street is a National Treasure!

    https://ew.com/tv/brett-goldstein-sesame-street-first-look-cookie-monster-tamir/

    As a secular family, Easter is hard to explain to a seven-year old. She loves the Easter Bunny, and the coming of Spring, but trying to make her understand that people get very happy about the son of God getting killed, then coming back from the dead, and NOT being a zombie, is a little hard for her to wrap her head around. But we try.

    Tottenham is in fourth place. That is all.