Indifference…. we sometimes deploy it as a defense mechanism. We sometimes use it as a cudgel. Because it can be used in these ways, it seems important to be able to distinguish between real indifference and manufactured indifference. As a defense mechanism, feigned indifference – saying one doesn’t care – means they can’t be disappointed,…
Category: Life
Another Piece in the Puzzle of Becoming
A journal I’ve heard of through Twitter opened their submissions for a 48-hour window. I had until 11:59 pm on Monday to get something in. This seems to be a thing some journals do – open for brief windows. I don’t know much about the journal other than some writers I’ve followed seem to mention…
With More Enthusiasm than Skill
Twice I sat down to write about free speech, Twitter, hypocrisy, and whether or not a business should be forced to serve people when doing so would violate their religious or ethical beliefs (current supreme court case). I didn’t get very far in either attempt – a few paragraphs here and there about the state…
Learning to Tie My Shoes
I have days, today being one of them, when I feel like my life’s failures and frustrations are mostly the result of poor organizational skills and a piss-poor memory. There are times when I feel like I might have missed some class that everyone took – maybe in the fourth grade or freshman year of…
Poetry and Alchemy
Yesterday I received a rejection email from a journal where I had submitted some poems. Last week, I got a rejection email from a different journal. I had forgotten about the one from a week ago – by which I mean to say I hadn’t even logged the submission on my spreadsheet. I didn’t remember…
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Leave My Job
11/17/22 Yesterday, I did a thing. Without knowing my next move, I gave notice to the executive team of my board of directors. It was a soft notice, not a hard two weeks. I said I’d be leaving, and I’d like to do so early next year (two or three months from now). I said…
Some Thoughts about Quiet Quitting
I haven’t posted anything… I was going to say significant or substantial, but my cynical side asked the snarky question, “when do you ever post something ‘significant’ or ‘substantial’?” Other than the daily fifty-two project, I haven’t posted since November 19 – before Thanksgiving. I’ve started a half-dozen things: observations on living alone (prompted by…
Revisions and Deletions
This week’s “My Back Pages” list has been full of old posts from three years ago – apparently I was writing a lot then. Most of those posts are raw attempts at getting to the heart of the cognitive dissonance I felt when my engagement fell apart. They are/were my desperate attempts to understand, move…
Maybe I Could Be a Star
This morning I, Matt Uhler, am in a familiar loop. I’d like to put more time and effort into writing. I haven’t had any success (publications or new readers) to justify putting more time and effort into writing. I don’t send much out for publication and I do nothing to promote my writing, which might…
A Spider in the Kitchen
When I was young, I once got in trouble and had to stand in the corner. Ok, probably more than once. But on one occasion, there was a spider in the corner and I begged to be allowed to leave. I’m pretty sure I cried too. Instead of reducing my sentence or granting me clemency,…
Sundays Are…
Sundays are sometimes a wreck. If I have emotional roller coaster days, they’re usually on Sundays. I read a lot of poetry on Sundays. I look out the window a lot on Sundays. I try to do some writing and usually get the groceries. I used to hate getting groceries and now when I find…
Love Lessons from the Gottmans
It’s cuffing season – “that magical time of year during the colder, winter months when people are more compelled to start relationships. It usually runs from late fall, through winter and up until the warmer days of spring and early summer.” Oddly, almost all of my significant relationships started in the frolicking days of summer….