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…
Category: Life
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….
Sometimes on My Mind but in Different Ways
Last week I started texting with a woman from California. We talked late one night and I found myself frequently referring to my recent past as “a few years ago.” It seems everything in my life happened a few years ago – all of my dating history falls into this category, my recent jobs, my…
The Stories We Tell
I’m near the end of the cup, and the coffee has gotten cold. I’ve been sitting at the computer half-paralyzed by a big bugaboo of mine: purpose (story and audience). The other half of my morning paralysis has been a reconsideration/expansion of that notion that dating lots of people is really about falling in love…
Going a Few Rounds
It’s football season, which means my dad and stepmom have been coming to the house on home-game weekends. The last few times they’ve visited, I’ve felt this urge – at the end of the night before I go to bed – to want to call or text someone as part of some end-of-day unwind conversation….
Galleon
An observation… I went on to a website (syllable count dot com) because I wanted to verify that galleon was three syllables (in my head, my bastard tongue and speech can quicken and make the word sound like two: gal yun). Most of the ads on the site were for a website called money metals…
Attention and Avoidance
The other day I went to the pet store. I needed to get treats and poop bags. In one end and out the other. 120 poop bags – that’s almost two months’ worth of shit that I’ve committed to picking up. The cashier was new and wasn’t sure how to exit the current register screen…