That can’t be good.
3:31 am. Dad. Missed Call.
Category: Dear Diary
Thanksgiving 2020
Like so many things in 2020, Thanksgiving this year was different. Last Thanksgiving was the first one I spent away from my family. Friends of my friend Stacy were kind enough to invite me over to a friendsgiving type of event. It was fun and warm and friendly – all the things we expect out…
Attitude of Gratitude
Venting, complaining, bitching – I fell like I do too much of this. By nature, I tend to joke around and be pretty easy going – I like to think I’m laid back…. but then I remember that whiny little bitch inside me. My sense of humor is dry and self-effacing – usually to mask…
Paperwork, Detours, and Things of Little Consequence
A number of years ago I was driving to work and listening to NPR when I heard a piece about the psychology behind (and stress we create for ourselves by) putting off relatively simple, but perhaps tedious, tasks. The speaker was a professor at a university. He was, by all accounts, perfectly capable of handling…
Sights and Sounds
When I lived in Memphis and took long walks along the Mississippi, I had a lot of time to think. On a good day, I would get in two walks – one in the morning and one just around sunset. The morning ones were long and contemplative – the best of those being times when…
Indecision
Nobody told my cat about setting the clocks back. He usually likes to wake me up sometime between 4:30 and 5:30, which of course meant 3:30 and 4:30 today (he chose 3:30). I avoided getting up for as long as I could, but after he walked over me about a dozen times and gave me…
Cloudy with a Chance of Clouds
It’s dark right now. We’ll set the clocks back an hour this weekend (I just got sidetracked reading about daylight savings and standard time – fun fact: most of Arizona doesn’t observe it…). As the days have been getting shorter, there have been fewer hours of sunlight. Here in State College, sunlight is a term…
More News at 11….
I begin this post wanting to justify the long silences between blog posts. I feel guilty – partially to those of you who, with some regularity, read what I have to say, but mostly to myself. Life gets busy. That should be an acceptable enough excuse. But for the past year, I’ve been trying to…
Out of Practice, Out of Routine
The last two weeks have been a whirlwind, and I’m not sure where to begin. There were several times this past week I had wanted to write about what it felt like to leave a city and people I had gotten attached to. I had wanted to write about what felt like another premature ending…
Walking Through O’hare
Today is my first real non-road trip COVID travel experience. I’m flying from State College, PA to Memphis, TN with a substantial layover in Chicago. I’m writing this from the Chili’s To Go in Chicago… and various other spots in the airport. I spent the last two days driving from Memphis to State College (with…
A Small Victory Against Time
It’s been a few days since I’ve written anything… I suspect I’ll have more, and possibly longer, breaks. A year ago, I struggled to build a consistent schedule. I was starting a new job, moving from Pennsylvania to Memphis, and just trying to adjust to starting over. I’ve read in a few places that it’s…