It’s New Year’s Eve. The sun has been trying to break through for most of the day – a day that started off gray, damp, and foggy and is now only partly gray and damp (and that’s just my mood… say nothing of the weather). The dog has been following me around from room to…
Category: Dear Diary
Languishing
That’s how my friend Mike described my life. He turned to me at the bar after I had been complaining about pretty much everything – the traffic, the cold, the lack of social opportunities, the dog, and what feels like an inability (despite trying pretty hard) to get anything accomplished professionally – and he said,…
Christmas 2021
It’s Christmas morning. I’m back in Philadelphia, but will be driving back to State College in a few hours. It’s another Christmas that doesn’t quite feel like Christmas. I didn’t decorate my place – mostly because I wasn’t going to be there and partially because I figured the dog might pee on the tree if…
Poetry, Books, and Broccoli
I have a few hundred books. Most of them sit packed away in boxes downstairs in a room I seldom visit. I have a nice bookshelf made from a repurposed door. That’s where the unpacked books stand mostly at attention, snug and shoulder to shoulder: poetry, books on Buddhism or relationships, a few novels and…
I Like That
It’s Sunday morning slow and I like that. Down the street someone is using a leaf blower. On the sofa opposite me, the dog is breathing heavy but not quite snoring. I’m sitting by a lamp, wearing a gray winter hat that was given to me as a gift a few years ago. I’m fighting…
Yellow-Light Matt
I’m convinced that my timing is worse than what most people experience. I wish I could say it was part of my aw shucks, hapless sap type of charm… a Charlie Brown lovable loser vibe… but some days it feels less charming and more loser-like than others. My ex-wife used to call me yellow-light Matt…
The Car: One More Year?
The dog is on the floor a few feet away chewing on a bone. Every time I look over, he wags his tail – he wants to play. We’ll be taking our first long-ish trip together when we head to Bucks County for the Thanksgiving weekend. I’ve never traveled with a dog before – let…
The Best-Laid Plans
Friday morning… For the first time in nearly two years (two Christmases ago), I’m heading back to the Philadelphia area. I haven’t seen many of those people, family and friends, in that time. I’m looking forward to it, but I hate the “scheduling” of things to do and deciding on who I’d like to see…
Low-grade Withdrawal
On Sunday afternoon (10/17/21), a little after 4pm as the sun tried to break through the clouds, I consciously uncoupled from social media. I didn’t go so far as to delete my accounts (I didn’t even deactivate them), but I did remove them from my phone’s home screen…. which is a little like putting them…
Constant Acts of Self-Interpretation
Yesterday, my chest heavy and my head dull from the beer the night before, I moved slowly through the morning. My voice was scratchy and deep from loud-talking over the music. I met two strangers, TJ and Rachel, who are both regulars at the bar. We talked about things… the local music scene, the cops…
3 AM
The dog shakes his head and in that moment, the sound of his ears flapping combined with the slight jangle of his collar seems like the most distinct sound in the world. It’s 3:24 in the morning when he does this. Now, half-an-hour later, I’m still up. I don’t want to be up. I rolled…
A Break from the Routine
Monday, 2:14 AM. That’s when my phone buzzed with an email from MyAnalytics – a type of productivity software that seems to be tied in with my Microsoft Office account. The tagline under the logo reads “Discover your habits. Work smarter.” I can’t imagine that waking me up in the middle of the night (I…