Category: Life

  • ODDS and ENDS: Caroling, Sweaters, and Oh Dolly!

    (I Still Want My Hula-Hoop!)

    Does anyone go caroling at Christmas time? When was the last time you remember seeing carolers walking around your neighborhood? Honestly, for me, 1982 or 1983. It’s a fuzzy memory, but I feel like when we moved to Texas from Alabama, which would be 1983, that there were a group of people who wandered around our neighborhood. I mean, we lived in a subdivision outside of Dallas, and winter in Texas is like 45 degrees at night, so it wasn’t a rough experience being outside. I want to say it was a church group, no shock there, right? The other thing I remember is that it meant a lot to my mother. I guess it was something that happened back in her childhood of the 50’s in small town Illinois.

    I just got word from LL Bean that the sweater that I ordered for Christmas has been delayed and I won’t receive it until after the New Year. I did wait to order the thing, and my pause is my downfall. I say all of this not because I am slowly beginning to dress like a guy who lives in the Vermont woods, but because the wife and I just buy our own gifts. I mean, we will still shop for each other, a little, but on the whole, we just go out and buy what we’d like for Christmas. Sure, sometimes we give each other a list, and shop off of that. Yet, it’s just easier to buy what we want, wrap it up, say it’s from the other, and act very surprised on Christmas morning. Sure, the “surprise” part is gone, but the satisfaction of getting what you want, and not have to exchange anything, is rather rewarding.

    If you don’t have “Hard Candy Christmas” on your Holiday playlist, you really are missing out.

  • Pretty Much My Last Blog Post of 2023

    I think that will be true. We are getting down to crunch time for the Holidays; the kid will be off from school, and soon the wife will be taking her Christmas vacation from work. Then we do have some traditions around the City we like to take part in, so the time to blog is growing short. And as such, this might be the last one I write for the year.

    Not that anyone is asking for this, and I am talking to the couple of you who stop by this blog, but I’ll post a Best of 2023, as well as some Holiday videos for Christmas and New Year’s. Once the kid and wife are back in school, I will resume the normal blogging schedule.

    As for 2023, it wasn’t a bad year…

    On the writing front, I submitted to 50+ magazines, and got accepted in one. I had planned on sending out to 100, and only then did I hope that maybe I’d get a bite. So, I’ll chalk that up as a win. I have three stories out there that I am waiting to hear on, so I guess there is still hope. The blog readership grew this year, which was unexpected to say the least. Most days, I feel like I am talking to myself in the dark, and lets be honest, that’s a rather true description. Yet, I averaged 5 readers a day in 2022, and in 2023 that grew to 20. I’m sure there are some Russian bots in those numbers, but some of you are real. Also, looking at the numbers, if you stop by this blog, you’re reading the Short Story Reviews, and not many of the other things I write about. (I don’t get any likes for my Tottenham posts, but I’m still going to write about my club.) I will say this about the reviews, which is that I have read more short stories this year than any other year of my life. I have discovered many new online lit journals which are great, and most importantly, I have read so many great new writers. I could do a better job about promoting these journals and writers, and perhaps that should be a goal for myself in 2024. I was hesitant in 2023 as I was writing and submitting myself, and I had this idea that it could be considered a conflict of interest. Then I reminded myself that no one knows who I am, no one cares, so I should just relax.

    On the other personal fronts; my wife is good, the kid is healthy and doing well in school, and life in the City isn’t too bad. There will always be things that I need to work on so I can be a better husband and father, and friend, and son, and brother. I’ll still be pulling for the Dallas Cowboys to win the Super Bowl this year, and I would be happy with Tottenham just qualifying for the Champions League. Cubs are the Cubs, so I’ll be happy with a winning season. It would be good if I got back to sketching more, and maybe I should complete a book or some art project in 2024. Who knows…

    But, in the end, I would like to say thank you to the 20 of you, if you are real, who look at this thing each day. You do validate my existence, and that’s a pretty nice thing to do for someone. Especially when it’s a middle-aged guy still trying to figure things out and expressing… opinions about stuff. Anyway, I appreciate it.

    Have a good Holidays and I’ll talk to you soon.

  • The 7 Habits of People Who Are Complete Failures, Or Who Stopped Eating Sugar

    So, I made a mistake recently by reading a click-bait story that was on my Google News feed about the 8 habits of successful people, or some shit. I know it was a listicle about habits of certain types of people because my news feed is now inundated with these types of articles…

    8 Habits of Caring Spouses

    10 Signs of Above Average Kids

    23 Annoying Things Super Rich People Never Do

    1001 Words Well Adjusted Emotionally Solvent Adults Always Say

    And then I began to notice that some of the good habits of happy and successful people happened to also be the bad habits of sad, lonely and failure people…

    Did you know that getting enough sleep is good, unless you sleep too much?

    Then it’s bad to stay up late, unless you are staying up late to read and do self-wellness shit.

    Taking the time to enjoy good food is a good habit, while enjoying food too much can be bad.

    Don’t get me started about the gym! On the whole, it’s good to go to the gym, unless you obsess about body image by going to the gym too much.

    And you know, they never site their sources for this information. Did the Mayo Clinic do a 20-year research study on the habits of people who always are positive in the morning? Is that where this information is coming from. Or is this just some dude (Or AI) coming up with click-bait to fill up their site with content?

    It’s content; I know it’s content.

  • ODDS and ENDS: My Nose, My Teams, and My Goodness

    (Out you pixies go!)

    So, something has happened to my nose of late. My right nostril is completely clogged up, and won’t budge. I don’t feel sick, so I don’t think it’s a cold, but I am totally congested. I went out and bought a couple of different nasal sprays, which do work like magic and open things up, but a few hours later, everything closes up again. I thought it was the heat being on in the building and the really dry air. I turned the shower on and steamed up the bathroom, and that seemed to work, yet again it only gave temporary relief. This is very disconcerting, as I feel out of breath all the time; like I am slowly being suffocated. There’s no punchline here as I think I am slowly dying.

    Since Maddison got injured, Tottenham has been playing awful. They lost three in a row, and then had a glimmer of a match when the eeked out a draw in Man City. But yesterday, Hotspur lost again, and I have this awful feeling that the season is slipping away. I’m trying not to be dramatic as there is a lot of football left to be played in the season, but I don’t think I am alone when I say that I really need Spurs to finish in the top four and get back in the Champions League. Now the Dallas Cowboys seem to be doing better. They finally beat a team with a winning record! And Sunday, they will play the Eagles in Dallas, and we’ll see how good the Cowboys really are. It’s a good sports weekend.

    The year is almost over. I think I might need to start putting my “Best Of…” lists together.

  • The Ebbs and Flow of Christmas Time (Unedited)

    Christmas time is here again, just in case you didn’t know.

     

    The year has flown by. The tree is up, and we are getting ready to start doing all of the Holiday stuff. You know, shopping, wrapping gift, baking cookies, seeing friends. The usual. And I do enjoy celebrating Christmas in New York City. For all the things this City is famous for, it really is a Holiday Town.

     

    It’s taken awhile for Christmas to start feeling fun again for me after the passing of my Ma. The absence of a parent during this time of year seems to hammer home the void that has been left. I think I have been doing a good job with trying to keep Christmas fun for the kid, and I do worry that my sorrow and mourning might affect her enjoyment of the Season. I think I have succeeded in this effort.

     

    I can also admit that slowly, year by year, the joy of Christmas has started to slowly return to me. It’s still not the same, and certain things, traditions, still don’t ring true as they used to. But now, I feel the kid’s excitement of this time of year, and that is a replenishing feeling that helps alleviate the experience of loss.

     

    And that is where I am now. I miss my mother, and I know that my Christmas will never feel the way they did when she was around, and that’s okay. My Christmas now is about my family, and making the kid have memories, and building something new on top of the love that was shared with me.