Category: Life

  • ODDS and ENDS: The New Summer, NYC Summer Smell, and Hungry All the Time

    (Clever One-Liner!)

    It’s hot. And not only that, its steamy, too. Not the good, Faulkner Southern Gothic steamy, but the awful humidity life sucks steamy. I’m not a big fan of Summer, and I am even a smaller fan of heat, but when it comes to Summer heat – I hate it. I grew up in Texas, and about my junior year in high school, I had enough. I was going to live up north. I’d rather freeze in Winter than melt in Summer. I had no idea how hot and steamy NYC gets in Summer. Honestly, someone should be out there telling tourists and perspective residents how bad July and August can be in The City. Sure, if you have a half a brain, you’d notice that NYC sits on a bay and well… you know… humidity follows. The thing is that now, just about the whole country, if not the world, lives in this awful extreme heat and humidity now. And it’s not going away, or getting fixed for a very, very long time. Its rather depressing that this is the world that my kid, and yours, is about to inherit – weather that is unbearable to live in. I still hold out hope that we can fix this, but if we can’t… People are going to start moving north and Canada could start having immigration issues from all of these illegal Americans.

    Say, did you know that New York City’s Official Summer Smell used to be wet garbage on a sidewalk. Well, not anymore! NYC’s new Official Summer Smell is Pot Smoke! You can’t go ten feet in this town without being hit by the smell of weed this Summer. Hey, I’m for legalization, but holy crap! It’s like the entire City is getting high. Right Now!

    I don’t know what’s going on with me, but for the past three days, I have been hungry all the time. When I say that, I don’t mean that I feel the urge to have a snack. I mean that I feel like I have been working all day and that I am starving for lunch or dinner. And no matter how much I eat; I never feel satisfied. Back in college, me and my roommate used to call this phenomena “Ravenous Days.” I don’t know what causes it, and eating doesn’t seem to solve it.

  • Inability to Relax

    I should be relaxing. Taking it easy. Kicking back. Not thinking about anything.

    See, this kid is gone to sleep away camp, which means half of my work load is gone. The wife still has to work, and there are things that I want to do, like projects around the house and stuff. But my wife keeps telling me that I should take, you know, relax, and allow myself to enjoy not having as many responsibilities this week.

    Except, I am having trouble doing that.

    First of all, I am having a little anxiety with the kid going to camp. And it’s separation anxiety on my part. It will be gone in a day or two, as the kid leaving is rather recent. (This is a blog for another day.) Suffice to say, I’m excited that she went to camp as I know this will help build her independence giving her an experience that is all her own, and in the end, that’s what I want for her.

    No, what I am talking about is that if I sit around and do nothing; watch tv all day, sleep in, play video games – I end up feeling like crap. Reading is okay, that feels like a worthwhile activity, but sometimes also feels like work. No, I can’t sit and do nothing. I have to accomplish something. Even an easy win like taking out the garbage. I have to goal, and check off that box.

    I didn’t used to be this way. I used to waste days left and right, without a care in the world. Waking up at noon, going to bed at dawn. The coming and going of days like an endless cycle that I seemed to float above.

    Now I am in the grind. If the day goes by and I don’t have something to hang my name on, then I become the most useless man in the history of the known universe.

    Yet another thing to work at.

  • Gone Fishin’

    Be back tomorrow

  • ODDS and ENDS: UNION!, American Folklore, and Ice Cream

    (Casey Jones you better watch your speed!)

    Oh, shit! The actors joined the strike! Yup, SAG-AFTRA is on the picket line with the WGA, and now no one gets pretty new movies and shows this Fall! I hope you’re happy Studios! Both sides will make their case over the next few weeks, seeing who can build up the bigger public support, and then the real negotiations will begin. The truth of the matter is that the delivery of entertainment has changed. The traditional way for studios to earn income (movie theatres, cable, and ad tv) has declined and streaming hasn’t closed the gap, though that’s how everyone wants to get their entertainment. But I will also point out there are only five media corporations in the US, and it’s been that way for a very long time, so if they aren’t making money, that’s on them. It’s not like there is a ton competition out in the market. Media is an oligopoly so they are in control for how it all works. The studios could solve this tomorrow; stop paying your C-Suite hundreds of millions of dollars. Sorry, but CEO’s can only have two mansions, one Learjet, and one yacht from here on out. We all will have to make sacrifices to survive.

    And when was the last time you thought about American Folklore? Like, Casey Jones, Paul Bunyan, and John Henry. They don’t teach that stuff in school anymore. I asked my daughter about it, and she has no idea what I was talking about. I can’t prove this, but I have this weird feeling that schools were teaching American Folklore as a form of propaganda, to get us kids to believe that there was a mythology to American development and enguiniety, instead of teaching us that our past was a whole lot more about exploitation and exclusion. I can’t prove it, but these people who pushed the Folklore might have been the same people that killed teaching us kids the metric system.

    Ice cream really is the best. Doesn’t matter the season, ice cream is perfect.

  • Can’t Get an Idea to Stick (Unedited)

    I have been working since this morning, and I can’t get an idea to stuck for the blog.

    I have summer on the brain, and I can’t get myself to focus.

    And this is a cop-out of a blog, in case you weren’t sure.

    I can’t write, so I write about not being able to write.

    I should make a category for this posts.

    The other thing that becomes apparent on days like this is that I don’t do enough pre-planning for blog posts. I do them day of, most of the time, and when moments like this occur, I feel like I got caught with my pants down.

    Long ago, I tried writing ahead, so I could give myself windows of time off. I should revisit that plan.

    Since I am throwing in the towel for today at 3:14pm, I might just state what I have been doing while trying to come up with a blog idea.

    1. I went shopping for journals with my daughter.
    2. I read the Wikipedia page on Watergate.
    3. I have been following all of my writer and actor friend’s social media posts to see when the SAG-AFTRA strike is going to start.
    4. For lunch, I got falafel sandwiches for the family.
    5. Finished my Summer Playlist
    6. I took a nap.
    7. I read some flash fiction.

    Now, I’m about to take the kid to the local pool as it is summer and hot as shit out. Thus will end my writing portion of the day.

    At least I got 262 words in.