Yesterday, I ended my post about belief systems with some statements about the world being a more wondrous place when it’s shared with good company. I didn’t say it that succinctly, but it was part of what I was aiming for. That sentiment runs slightly counter to the type of self-reliance I’ve been trying to…
Category: Life
Green Flags and World Beliefs
The prompt on the dating app reads, “I’ll fall for you if…” One answer I recently came across said, “You’re a gentleman who does that thing where you walk on the street side of the sidewalk …” Admittedly, this is not something I do or consciously put into practice. This isn’t the first time, I’ve…
Stretching Beyond the Daily Task
Yesterday marked half-a-year of my daily fifty-two project. The on-going goal is to force myself to write a little something every day. The on-going goal is to spend a few minutes, maybe ten or fifteen observing something or thinking about something I’ve observed. Limiting myself to fifty-two words was an arbitrary decision, but is/was intended…
Differences of Opinion
They might not be the worst people in the world, but the couple I met from Florida were among the least generously spirited people I’ve encountered. Our conversation ended when they called me disgusting and a pedophile and stormed out of the bar. Meh. She was an attractive blond who was well put together with…
The Come Down
This is the come down. The moment of crashing back to reality where Saturday night entails listening to some music and Sunday will be spent doing chores and prepping for the week ahead. After a week of urban exploring, meeting new people, eating and drinking, and sitting outside at cafés in the sun, I am…
Be Here, Now.
I’m still caught off guard by how quickly negative emotions or something approaching nervous dread can creep in, pour themselves a drink, and settle in on the couch with feet up as though they own the place. Minor setbacks in the face of major change, or small realizations that none of this is going to…
Lovely, but Fleeting
After a full day of travel (3+ hours in the car and close to 7 hours on a plane), I arrived in San Francisco Saturday night. I had just enough time to check in to my hotel and Uber my way over to Oakland for a dinner date. We hit it off well, and had…
Unqualified
Sometimes I think I’m not really qualified for this job,the job of my life, I mean. “Homework” by Tony Hoagland Today, I felt wholly unqualified for life. I bounced between trying to write poetry, trying to write a post about trauma, processing the potential challenges of moving (tied to the post about trauma), reading poetry,…
Being Present, Engaging the Senses
In June or July of 2019, I went on a road trip through North Carolina. I had a few interviews lined up and spent time wandering around different cities. I stayed in Asheville, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Charlotte. I can’t remember which city or Air BnB it was, but the shampoo they had was the same…
Conflict and Therapy
Thursday nights were therapy nights. We did this every week or every other week for a few months. Trying to recall our routine, I think it must have been every other week, but then something tells me that we had weekly homework or that we would be asked “how was your week.” The frequency only…
Sometimes Expecting the Worst
Oof. On Twitter, I saw a poet say she had time to provide feedback on a few poems (for a fee). She was being recommended by someone else who said that after incorporating the feedback, all of the poems were accepted for publication at various literary journals. Despite being turned off by the prospect of…
The Day after Valentine’s Day (2023)
Yesterday, I thought about writing a Valentine’s Day post, or an anti-Valentine’s Day post. I also thought about doing a phone dump of screenshots of love poems (which quite often aren’t “love” poems). Apparently, the former poet laureate, Billy Collins, has been doing a video blog or podcast or something like that in which he…