Tag: #family

  • Spring Break Broke Me (Unedited)

    I take full responsibility for my actions. Let’s start with that.

    The kid has been on her Spring Break for the past week, and on the whole, I have enjoyed the time we have spent together. The older she gets, the more fun she is to talk to. She very smart and a very opinionated kid, which makes conversations with her enjoyable because she is very passionate in what she believes in. She’s at a fun age when the world is brand new and just waiting for her to explore it. I didn’t try to over schedule her, but we did some fun stuff like spend an afternoon at the Whitney Museum, and we shot some arrows over at Gotham Archery in Brooklyn.

    But I did make a mistake with this Spring Break; I fell out of my routine. This was the kid’s Spring Break, not mine. For some reason, I got it in my head that I was also going to enjoy some “time off.” Unfortunately, this was a miscalculation, as you see, when you are a stay at home parent, you never really get a day off. Your job is to keep the family on track and moving forward. This I lost sight of.

    What I ended up creating in myself was a feeling of anxiety, and the sense that I was letting “everything” fall behind. Everything was taking longer to do, and thus created situations where I wasn’t able to complete the tasks that were important to me; mainly writing and catching up on my reading. But if I took time for myself, then I started feeling guilty, and then those feelings rolled up into a ball angst, as I wasn’t doing enough for my family.

    I chalk this up on bad planning, and too high of aspirations, on my part.

  • Short Story Review: “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli

    (The short story “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli appeared in the February 16th & 23rd, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Jesús Cisneros

    “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli is a short story that gave me a reassuring hug. The reassuring didn’t come in the form of any answers to the questions which the story brought up, but it reassured me that life is about growth and discovery.

    Overly Simplistic Synopsis: After a divorce, a mother and her daughter spend time in Sicily, not too far from where the mother’s grandmother is originally from. And they try to cook a swordfish head, too.

    In the story, the main character has a small mosaic fragment of the god Proteus which her grandmother obtained/stole from an archaeological dig she was working at. The mosaic fragment is a clever dramatic device in the story. But I had this thought in my head that “Predictions and Presentiments” was a bit like Proteus; it kept shifting and changing. Was this a story about just the narrator, a mother, and her daughter? Was it about her grandmother as well? Legacy trauma? Family origin story? Connection to the past, or the ancient past? What truths do we share with our families, or do we make fictions out of those truths? Can we change who we are, or we destined to our nature? Is our future but a guess, or is there a way to logically know what’s coming?

    This is a story that walks a very nice tightrope of keeping it all together. I couldn’t shake the feeling that at any moment the mother and daughter could spin off into ruin. I can’t say where in the story I got that from; perhaps it was the refrain of starting over in a new place, the perils that come with beginning again, and discovering something new? Maybe it was the climax of the story, or the fishmonger who sold the fish head? Or it could have been how not everything that happened in this piece got wrapped up neatly, or fully explained? This created a feeling of fragmentation, that Proteus mosaic again, but Luiselli held it all together. See, it reassured me that life is messy, not neat, but wonderful to experience.

  • Day Off with the Kid (Unedited)

    You know, I never really feel like I have a day off. Today, President’s Day, is a day off for the kid. She slept in, video chatted with friends, did homework, read a little from her new book, and generally has been a really good kid. I don’t think she’s brushed her teeth yet, hence why I am holding back and giving her a “generally good” rating.

    Me? I had to get all the normal Dad stuff accomplished. The feeding of everybody, and doing laundry, and making sure this home runs smoothly. Not that I am complaining, but it’s not till 4pm that I get a chance to sit down and do this; put a blog up.

    But something that has become painfully clear to me know is that I am running short on days that she will sit around the apartment with me. I can’t stop her from getting older, and more than I can stop myself from getting older. Soon, on days like this, she’ll be off to her friend’s place to hang out. I wouldn’t call this a melancholic thought; more like a dark realty of the world that is barreling toward me whether I’m ready or not.

    The solid truth that I hold to is that as my kid gets older, that this is the most enjoyable age to be with her. Like the baby phase was great, and who doesn’t love a snuggly cute baby! But, the kid now has opinions, and can make jokes, and likes to show me stuff that’s she learned, and it is infectious to be around a person who’s view of the world is still optimistic and exciting. I like this age. And in another year when she’s a teenager, that will be the best time! and so on and so on.

    This might just be the fastest eighteen years of my life.

  • ODDS and ENDS: The Cold That Won’t Die, Writing in a Blazer, and Tottenham Woes

    (Cryin’ never did nobody no good…)

    So, I’ve had this cold for almost a week now, but it’s not a normal cold. Stuffy nose, post-nasal drip, coughing, but I don’t feel run down like I normally do when I have a cold. Also, this cold only seems to come alive for the first two hours of my day, and then all night when I try to sleep. Other than that, I feel rather normal. But the damn thing won’t go away. It won’t get worse, and it won’t get better. It just exists in a perpetual state of being… Neither gaining nor losing energy.

    I am sitting and writing in a blazer today. No real reason to be this formal, other than I want to sit on the couch, my computer on my lap, trying to think up three jokes to write about, with a blazer on. It’s not cold in the house, and I have no one to impress, just felt like something I should do. Like, how I should put jazz on, get a glass of wine, and catch up on some reading. Hell, here’s a picture to prove that this is really happening.

    So, Thomas Frank got sacked as manager for Tottenham Hotspur this week. I think it was a mistake, yet I also freely admit that things can and will get worse for this team. They just can’t get out of their own way, and with the injuries piling up, there seems like little chance of hope. Relegation is a very real possibility. I won’t blame Frank for this, as it seems like he just has had the worst luck for a first-year manager. I put the blame for this situation on Daniel Levy and Peter Charrington. Levy created an untenable situation where the expectation is that managers are interchangeable. Honestly, the team hasn’t been the same since Mauricio Pochettino was at the helm, and he was fired for a stupid reason like not being successful enough. Sure, do wish we could go back to those days when we were in the Champions League Final and at the top of the table in the Premier League. Honestly, I don’t put it past West Ham to get enough of their act together and make a run to get out of the bottom three, and kick either Nottingham Forest or Spurs down the ladder. I don’t want to see Tottenham in the Championship, but if that’s what it will take for the owners to get their heads out of their respective asses, then so be it.

  • Getting Things in Order (Unedited)

    I know that January is over half way over, but in my little world, the wife and I are still trying to figure out what our 2026 is going to look like. This is more than “New Year’s Resolutions” which are I feel are doomed to fail. No, this planning is more like setting out birthday and holiday budgets, if and where do we want to travel, do we remodel the kid’s bedroom this year. Stuff like that. You know, planning.

    And then there are goals. Paying down debt is high on the list, and it would be nice to drop ten pounds. I think that 2026 is the year that I need to start earning an income. A few dollars here and there from writing has been cool, but it isn’t enough to actually make a dent in the family’s finances. I’m not sure/confident that 2026 will be the year that writing starts bringing dollars, or if I will need to go out and get a traditional job. And if I go out and get a job, do I return to my former career of arts admin, do I try something different, or do I go after a part-time gig to keep my stay-at-home-dad creds current?

    Now, 2025 didn’t actually work out the way we planned, but I do know that God got a good laugh outta it; per normal. Yet, 2025 wasn’t a bad year. We made progress as a family, and the kid is good and happy, which is our paramount concern day in and day out. But, I have to take responsibility that I didn’t complete the number of stories that I had set as my goal, and I did fall one story shout on my publication/acceptance goal for the year. And I did drop ten pounds, but put it back on during the Holidays, so that was a wash.

    But as I look at 2026, and even with all the shit that is flying around in this country and in the world (I’m still doom-scrolling in the morning) I haven’t given up yet. I hope that one day I will get to rest and relax, but I know life is struggle and I don’t see that changing. Struggle for a better day, a better world for my kid and yours, too.