Category: Uncategorized

  • Note Taking, Not Writing

    Last Friday when I was at the park with the kid, besides keeping an eye on her, I did some journaling with the intent of reminding myself of the story ideas that I needed to work on. Total, I have about four good ideas I want to flesh out.

    And that’s all the work I have done on the for four days. Just notes.

    I am beginning to get very frustrated at myself and my situation. Maybe I’m too ambitious or not enough of a realist when it comes to the world I inhabit. I keep thinking I can get it all done. Each day that goes by and I don’t work on these stories makes me feel like I’m flushing away my creative potential.

    I’m also tired of using COVID or the election as the excuse why I can’t work. I doomscroll and keep checking polls, but I don’t live like they cause an atrophy to my drive.

    It’s not working the way it should, and I feel like I have to go back to the drawing board.

  • NYC Almost Back to Normal?

    I had a busy ass day in NYC again.

    I was up early to get the kid ready for school.

    Then I had to move the car for alt-side parking, but got my spot back after the sweeper went by.

    When I got back home, I help the kid with her remote learning.

    Next I made lunch for the family.

    Then me and a buddy went in my car to pick up our friend who had foot surgery from the hospital and got him home.

    Dealt with crazy drivers on the West Side Highway

    Parked the car, amazingly, right back in the same parking spot on the street, which never happens.

    Did some shopping on the way home.

    And now I am home, and exhausted.

    It almost feels like an old fashioned pre-Covid New York kind of day.

  • Anger Stage of Grief, Again

    This is a tough week for me. Two years since my mom died, and I thought I was dealing well with it. The 14th was the actual day, and it went fine as death anniversaries go. The 13th on the other hand, and I wrote about it yesterday, was just anxious to no end, as I was dreading the 14th. Today has just been anger. Not that I’m lashing out at anyone, but I have been arguing with a troll online about Trump. It’s not making me feel better.

    Just angry at the world and I don’t have my mom to talk to about it. I feel like I need to be keeping it all together because the world is falling apart. But I feel like I’m failing at that job.

    I am very fortunate to have a great wife that I can talk to about all of this, and I do talk to her. But the anger still happens.

    What I am wanting is to channel these emotions into something productive. That seems like the healthy thing to do, but right now I don’t feel like I have the energy to even start that.

    It is a process and I know that I am still grieving. I have to forgive my anger and accept that I have these emotions, and all of that is normal and healthy.

    But at the end of the day, I still want to give her a call.

  • Dance of the Parked Cars

    We have a car in the City. It is something that I thought we would never really do, but here we are. To be honest, it’s been great having the car. It has been our release valve with the pandemic, just allowing us to get out of the City, regardless if we actually get out of the car, and just drive around. It has helped in running errands, and we have even helped friends out when they needed a quick ride.

    But as with all good things, the is always a downside.

    And that would be parking on the street.

    I just dread having to park the car. Not only am I a horrible parallel parker, but it is a level of Lord of the Flies out there for a spot.

    But the bane, demon curse of my life is Alternative Side Parking! Here are the current NYC Rules, and I fear when things go back to normal. Currently, I have to go out once a week and move the car, and the dilemma I am in is whether to sit in the car, and wait for the street sweeper to come, move the car out of the way, and then back into my spot. That sounds simple, but it could mean that I have to sit in our car for an hour and a half. Or, I can leave my spot and see if I can find one where the sweeper has already gone through, which is a risk, as that could take five minutes, or one time took me an hour and a half to find a spot.  

    What is really interesting, and I should take a pic of it, are the people who line up their cars on the opposite side of the street, waiting for the sweeper to go by. There are guys smoking in their cars, or reading the paper, neighbors talking to each other, sharing coffee. It appears to be such a feeling of community and neighborliness fraternity on those blocks, that it does make me envious for their parking reality.

  • Taking A Walk, Clearing My Head

    We had a pretty decent weekend. We weren’t too ambitious, like coming up with home improvement projects, or deciding that we had to go on a road trip. We just stayed at home and ran errands.

    One of the errands that I took care of was going grocery shopping. I got a crazy idea, which was that I going to do the shopping out of our neighborhood, but I was going to walk there. (I have put on some Covid weight. A nice solid ten pounds.) It was a good 40-minute walk to get to the 93rd street Trader Joe’s.

    It had been a while since that I had left our neighborhood, and it was a nice Fall day to take a walk. It was cool, but I found not cool enough to wear a light jacket. There were more people out than I expected. With the exception of masks, it almost looked normal out. I know we are still a long way from getting back “to normal,” but I have to keep hope alive.

    The other thing was that this was the first time, in a very long time, that I did something by myself. And had a good amount of time to myself. Time to think about ideas, and stories, and current events, and odd song lyrics. I even thought about that guy skateboarding while listening to “Dreams.”

    It was a simple act of self-care. Just a walk, listening to music, and thinking about things. It did give me a lift, and made me feel better about where I am in my process, which is still very much in the beginning phases. And being at the beginning is a good place.