Category: Uncategorized

  • The First Time I Met Diane (Unedited)

    (This is a follow up on my post from yesterday, which dealt with the passing of my dear friend and mentor, Diane Simons.)

    I want to say that this all happened over the Summer of 1996. I was nineteen years old, and a professional slacker, as that was the term then. I was in between universities, and when I wasn’t smoking cigarettes and thinking about how great I am having accomplished nothing, I spent all my time hanging out with my old high school friends in our home town.

    One night, two of my friends thought it would be a good idea for us to go way the hell out, to the sticks of west Fort Worth, and see a play in the woods. I’m pretty sure this is how the idea was sold to me. The reason to see this play was that one of my friends had promised their theatre teacher at the community college they were attending that they would go see this play, which was “Lysistrata.”

    When I say it was way the hell out there, I mean we must have drove for over an hour, and the took the wrong exit off of 820. And this was so far away from the city that there were no street lights, nor any other people on the road. It was just darkness and trees. My friends had written down directions, but they didn’t make sense. Only when we tried the next exit off the highway, did we finally see the hand painted sign for Hip Pocket Theatre.

    There was a long drive way that lead to the parking lot in the back of the property, but along that drive you had to pass the outdoor theatre, and we could see that the play had started and we were late. We debated whether we should attempt to go in, as we were late, and concluded that we would at least try.

    Crossing the lawn to the weathered gray wood shanty of a box-office, a woman popped out of that building and waved us over. She looked like an old hippie; salt and pepper hair in a bun on the top of her head, large glasses, and lots of colorful flowing clothes. “Show’s started, but I can get you in,” she said to us.

    We forked over our money, and she lead us to a steep staircase that was next to the sound and lighting booth. “Climb that and there will be seats in the last row,” she told us. Cresting the top of the stairs, we fully took in this theatre whose stage was encircled by branches of oak trees creating a natural amphitheater. It all had a rustic natural feel, and was one of the most unique and original spaces I have ever been in.

    And the show was great. Bawdy, hilarious, offensive, sincere, playful, and sweet.

  • Happy New Year!

    I’m a sucker for all things Charlie Brown.

    Happy 2025

  • Goodbye, Twitter or X

    I have been thinking about it this weekend, and I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to leave Twitter, or X. Not that I have a huge presence on Twitter/X, as I think half of my followers are Russian bots, but it just isn’t the same on there anymore.

    I join a long time ago, and would only pop in occasionally, but with the onset of Covid, I found myself using the app more and more. In fact, I had come to appreciate the app for being able to connect with so many different writers, at different stages of their careers, and I was starting to feel like I was a part of a larger community.

    That changed with Elon taking over. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, as Twitter always had a cesspool side to it, and trolls abound in darkness. But, since Elon told us that he was a champion of free speech, I began to notice more and more vitriol, hate, and the lies started to boil to the surface often. Now that Elon is using Twitter/X as a platform for boosting Trump’s agenda, and hate, I cannot sit by.

    Though I know I am not a large amount of bandwidth on Twitter/X, I do know that the one commodity I have on this site is my content. And all of us put our content out here for free, which allows Elon to make more money and reach more people. Because of that, I will no longer be complicit. I will use my content, and my dollar, and go somewhere else.

    That platform will be Threads.

    And I am painfully aware that I am swapping out one billionaire for another, which doesn’t sit the best with me, but this is the world we live in. I fear that it will only be a matter of time before I will have to question if using an app is the same as making a moral choice.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Going to Bed, Getting Up, and Central Park

    (If this isn’t making sense, it doesn’t make it lies…)

    In the spirit of self improvement, I have decided to go for the lowest of hanging fruit on the personal empowerment tree; I’m trying to go to bed at a normal time. This one should be easy, real no brainer. This is actually the hump I am having trouble getting over. Did you know, all the cool stuff happens at night? It’s a fact! Look it up! Also, that’s when all of the worst movies come on tv. Anyway, going to bed is a real trick for me. My body wants to fall asleep, I get very tired in fact, and then I find a second wind and decided that tonight needs to be the night that I watch “Sorceress” on Prime. But not anymore. I want to become boring, and healthy. I want to get in better shape, and have a better out look on life, and my doctor told me that I have to get more than five hours of sleep a night. So… poop.

    But, the flip of this is that I now get up early and get shit done, right? Well, sort of. Getting a jump on the day is nice, and I have also found it very rewarding to make breakfast for my family. I’m not talking cereal in a bowl, but actually making breakfast food for them. I started making gimbap for the kid – that one’s more of a special occasion breakfast – but most mornings it’s omelets, and egg sandwiches, and I even make a pot of miso soup. The one thing I would like to tweak, is that I do sit on the couch and stare at my phone for like thirty minutes before I get going. There is a part of me that thinks I should be using that time constructively.

    I took a walk with the kid around Central Park today. She’s off from school, for some reason, and I needed her to get off the screen and do something outside. The Park seemed like the best idea. It is the one place in the City that I pass by daily, but only visit twice a year at most. And one of those two times will be to cut through it to get to the East Side. The fun thing about walking around the Park with the kid today was that she noticed that you can be in parts of the park, and not see or hear the City. Like a magic trick.

  • Road Trip!

    I stopped by Antietam today.