Rumpled
I don’t like wrinkled clothes, but there’s something comforting about picking up a rumpled sweatshirt from a pile of worn-once clothes and throwing it on for a morning walk, not caring who you might see or what they think of the creases across your chest. Wearing a sweatshirt once without staining it or sweating through it is sacrilege. Sweatshirts feel better the more you wear them over and over.
Hybrid
My favorite non-pet animal is a sloth bear. When we visited my sister, I used to take my kids to the San Diego Zoo, and they had sloth bears. There is something so weird about animals that somehow mated when you can’t really see the connection. A zorse makes sense because zebras and horses are pretty much the same size, but sloths and bears? Did someone encourage the sloth with a four-pack of wine coolers, or did they meet on animal Tinder? Either way, the animal is adorable, and it might rip my head off if I put it in the cage.
A Slow Tumble
I’m in the waiting room of a pediatric dentist’s office in Park Slope. One of my kids must be inside with the dentist. I don’t know how I got here. A boy is telling his mom how badly he has to pee. She is scrolling on her phone. He walks over to the artificial plant in the corner of the room, takes out his kid wiener, and pees on the tree. It takes her three seconds to notice.
Casting
I’ve never understood casting. I was watching a commercial this morning, and the father in the scene had to skip a rock into the water, and there is no chance he had ever skipped a rock. It seems to me that, even if you are selling a stay at a motel chain, the most important part of “acting” when skipping a rock is being able to skip a rock. I don’t think this guy, with zero lines, was THAT good at being a dad that they couldn’t have found someone who could skip a rock.
Joshy
When I moved to Sarasota, I transferred from one State Attorney’s office to another. I made a couple of friends quickly, and one night we went out for a drink after work. I was happy to chop it up with some people in a new town, but I only had an hour because my kids were 4 and 2, and I had to take over dinner and nighttime play when I got home from my wife. I told them my kids’ names, Benjamin and Chloe, but we'd only known each other a week or so. I showed one of them a photo of my son, and he said, “Joshy,” in a voice I can still hear, thick with beer or two. I sometimes walk around the house and call my cats Joshy in the same voice.
A Barometer of Hope
I look at the old versions of myself, as if they were hung in a California Closet and sorted by color. Some days, I mistakenly take out an oldie and wear it with whatever the smirk version of a frown is. A light frown because part of me still likes that guy. But when I put him away at the end of the day and become my current self again, I realize how far I’ve come.
Sample Sizes
I know they have free trial periods for a lot of things, but those are usually a farce. If it’s impossible to return, no one’s going to do it, and that’s the game. You can return your sample if you play hopscotch in the rain, on a Wednesday in October, while wearing a down vest and holding an old TV antenna in a lightning storm. They know what they are doing.
Grandmas Walking With Weighted Vests
Weighted vests are like podcasts. Everyone has one. Your brother’s antisocial high school friend, Aaron, is now crushing it with an anthropological podcast about how humans evolved from chimpanzees. He has two vests in his hall closet. One is a blue finance bro vest; the other is weighted and black.
The Things That I See
We once had 34 empty plastic cups, formerly full of Tom Collinses, on our table at the East End Comedy Club in East Hampton while we were in the front row to see Andrew “Dice” Clay. I was woefully underage, with a fake Swedish bus pass for ID, and hoping that, whatever form of God there was, he would not go on a rant about my pimples. Bada-bing!
Hammering Nails Into Clouds
Open political discourse has reached an abominable level. Actually, it’s been here for years. It looks like a thermometer that goes up to 100 degrees when it’s 112 in the shade in Scottsdale. Bursting at the seams. I stopped talking about politics and religion with people long ago, but not because I don’t like an intelligent back-and-forth conversation. It’s because people don’t like to play educational ping pong anymore. They like the buy that half-table that exists so they can hit the ball back and forth to themselves for hours while their like-minded friends watch on Twitch.
The Effervescence of Modern Day
My whole life is a never-ending to-do list of things I don’t actually have to do. Maybe everything is aspirational at this age. Some might call it delusional. I want to be more like my cats. They seem to be free of appointments and genuinely happy relaxing until the end of time. Maybe I should also take breaks to chase bugs and pat tiny balls around on the ground with my off hand.
Tiny Bits Of Randomness
We had a dog named Bo at my dad’s house growing up. I think it was my older stepbrother’s dog. He was a golden retriever. One summer, when we owned and managed the Cozy Cabins in the Hamptons, I remember him lying on the ground with a giant ice pack on his swollen testicles. I still don’t know what this was about. I always imagined him being a fancier dog if he was named Beau instead.
Handling a Stick On Fire
I like leaving text messages on read. I guess it’s a power move. I just don’t want to be forced to respond, and once I read the message, I am caught in that obligatory arena with no gloves and Jon Jones standing across from me, knowing that I mistakenly insulted his mother. I don’t want to spend my life in the octagon.
Jumping Up and Down
If you found a stray koala bear and brought her home, would you make sure she has everything she needs first, or would you share a photo of you and her on Instagram? This tells us everything we need to know about ourselves. Be honest.
The Days Are So Long
Bark falls from a tree, and the ants celebrate because now they can board this boat headed nowhere. At least they will have snacks along the way. The branches look down in disdain.
Glockenspiel
I know what type of person you are solely by whether or not you hold the door for others. This is the only thing that is truly black and white in the world. I used to think Missed Connections would work. Everyone who rode the subway in New York City did.
Hammers to the Forehead
I’ve never had coffee, other than a sip here and there. When people hear this, you would think I just called them a child molester. I can say that because I spent more than a year as a prosecutor in a Sexual Battery and Child Abuse unit. It was called SBU on the inside. It would have made a good television show. I could rarely sleep at night with what I read every day.
Kicking Dandelions
Nothing is quite like the sound of a woodpecker. Peck, peck, peck. Horns honk in unmoving traffic. Jimmy chews his gum in rhythm with the off-center clock in the corner of Math class. The last water on Earth is a kiddie pool.
A Panoply of Randomness
Late at night, dreams intersect. A caterpillar inches up a leaf. A dew drop forms on your front lawn. We are all one second from failure.