The other day I wrote a long and rambling mess of a post about indifference as a form of accepting uncertainty (Adjusting the Throttle of Indifference). Or at least that’s what I was trying to write about. I was also trying to touch on what it’s like to try to live without expectations and how…
Category: Relationships
Thoughts and Readings on Being in a Healthy Relationship
Adjusting the Throttle of Indifference
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,…
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…
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….
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…
How We Disagree
I wish people who love each other would say to each other, when they fight, “Please – a little less love, and a little more common decency.” -Kurt Vonnegut When my stepmom asks my dad if the heat is still on, he responds by asking in a mocking and almost harsh tone, “What’s wrong? Are…
Reflections on Reflections
I’ve been stuck. In another tab, I have a rambling mess of a blog post that I’ve been playing with for an hour or two each day for the past four or five days (very similar to this one). I keep adding and deleting, cutting here, mixing there. It has paragraphs that end mid-way through…
Wanting to Be Missed (Part Two), Except Not Really
I love you for shattering.Someone has to. -Dean Young Six new books of poetry arrived yesterday. This morning, with a steady rain tickling the leaves outside, I sat by an open window and started in on Bender: New & Selected Poems by Dean Young. A few weeks ago Young passed away. I had never read…
Empty Pillows
It’s 11:00 pm on a Tuesday night in August. The temperatures feel like early fall and the windows are open. From the kitchen I can hear the hum of the refrigerator, but mostly I hear the outside chorus of crickets and katydids and the occasional car passing by. Earlier tonight I sat on the deck…
The Affair
The other morning, instead of scrolling Twitter and Facebook and reading the news – or more accurately, doing less of those things – I spent my time revising poems and researching the submission guidelines of a few journals. I still didn’t hit submit, but this was a step. I have continued to add to my…