Personal Obliviousness
Many times in my youth, a friend of a friend asked me if I liked their friend. They meant liked-liked, not as a friend. I never understood what they were asking. I would always ask, “Why wouldn’t I like them? We hang out all the time.” Then a game would begin that I wasn’t part of because of my personal obliviousness. They would say, “Why do you hang out with her all the time?” I would retort, “Because I like spending time with her.” Stalemate. Sometimes these awkward conversations led to something; other times, they just disintegrated into the air because of my obtuseness. In both cases, I'd go fill up another McDonald’s giant-size USA Dream Team collector’s cup with ice and Mountain Dew and go on with my day.
My AI Won’t Stop Asking Me If I Am Okay
I remember reading something a couple of weeks ago that said that Anthropic wasn’t going to allow anyone to abuse their AIs anymore. What? How can I abuse something that is artificial? Part of the fun of using Claude is lambasting it when it makes errors in a way that I would never do with a human. I quite like calling Claude a fucking idiot and knowing it will just say it knows it is and is sorry for disappointing me.
Performative
She once gave me a hundred-dollar bill after one of my Bad News Bears skits, and my mom and grandma put the kibosh on it, much to her dismay. They thought she didn’t know what she was doing and that she was “tipping” me too much. I thought I had just crushed my role as Tanner Boyle, playing shortstop and spitting in the ground before making a diving catch. Later, she would slip me some candy when no one was looking.
The Essence of Time
My grandma taught me how to crack walnuts, and it was way harder than I expected. When I did it by myself for the first time, I felt like I had won a Nobel Prize. My other grandma pretended like she was senile, but I knew she wasn’t. She just didn’t know how to deal with the loss of her husband. Everyone talked over her as if she was kind of there, but she would wink at me to let me know she was more than that. Then she would pee in the seat she was sitting in.
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.
Crutches
I never used the deaths of my parents as a crutch. How would I have done that? I get pulled over by a cop for running a stop sign and just say, “My mom died two days ago”? Come to think of it, I could have used these disasters for such trivial things. Forgot my wallet when I really wanted a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos? Dead dad. I’ve been doing it all wrong.
Long Cuts
I’d rather take a long, meandering walk through an oblong forest with only orange marks on the trees to help me find my way. I’d rather take 47 minutes, lay down a blanket in a grassy field, and practice stillness of body and mind under the only tree. I want slow mornings with clouds lollygagging through the sky outside my window. I want to wait too long for my tea to steep, then let it cool, before I value every sip until it’s gone.
All the Things I Will Never Do
I will never go 100 miles per hour again. I did it once, when I was sixteen. I was with my stepbrother, Erik, on Sunrise Highway on the way into the Hamptons, and we wanted to see if his red Toyota Supra would display 100 in its digital speedometer. It did. The lights went on behind us. The police officer asked if I knew I was going 90. At sixteen, I said, “I actually thought I hit 100.” He didn’t laugh. He asked Erik if he could drive home. Erik was pretending to be asleep.
Watching Movies By Myself
Even before Missed Connections existed, I had this fantasy: I would go to the movies by myself, and a beautiful girl would come in and sit one seat away. We were two of maybe six people in the theater. It would be awkward. I wouldn’t be able to focus on the movie. She would sneeze. I would say, “Bless you.” She would smile. I would do nothing. Even in my fantasies, I did nothing. I wouldn’t remember the movie.
Characters In Other People’s Stories
I tried to look at some of the worst moments in my life and frame the movie from someone else’s perspective. What did it look like for my Uncle Norman to be a doctor in the room when my mom was dying, but not her doctor? I don’t think I’ve heard from him since then. Does he still think about me standing by her bedside waiting for her to stop breathing? I doubt it. His story had other turns.
Warm Beer
My stepbrother, Nick, threw a warm can of Busch beer into the backseat to each of us. We were probably fifteen, and he was twenty. It was the first summer we were big enough to have fun with outside of sports. We were in Henry Flynn’s car and Erik and I, unbelted, were flying from side to side as he navigated the Hamptons’ back roads with the virtuosity of an old Formula 1 driver. The beer was disgusting.
Twenty-Five
My oldest kid turned twenty-five today. Actually, he turned twenty-five yesterday because he is in a time zone twelve hours ahead of me. When my kids were younger, we had to switch off birthdays and holidays, as most divorced parents do. It was harder than this. He is living his life. Every day feels like a birthday because we're so close. Today is just a road marker.
It’s Alright
Nothing that anyone else does around you matters unless they are intentionally doing something to or for you. Everyone has their own issues and demons. It doesn’t make what they do right. Sometimes, it doesn’t make what they say wrong. It just is. We are all individuals who would love to pull through the Taco Bell drive-thru and order a Gordita Crunch and a Seven-Layer Burrito, and eat them sitting in the parking lot with the car running and a random Spotify playlist on.
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.
The Pace of Life
So many people are propelling themselves through each day at maximum speed, like Tom Cruise’s cheeks hanging on to the side of an ascending airplane. I am more like the Molasses Swamp in the original Candy Land board game. It’s an interesting perspective on the world because, as I stand still, it twirls past me, then straps itself to a rocket and takes off. I shrug and go back to my matcha.
Rainy Days
Driving in power storms isn't much fun. I know what hydroplaning feels like, so I never drive fast in the rain. I never really drive fast at all, but other people fray both ends of the driving speed spectrum in a rainstorm. Petey drives his F-100 at 70 in the left lane because he can. Betty pulls over under an overpass in a three-drop drizzle fest. Everyone has their own shit going on.
Writing In Oblivion
My old journals were for me. Writing is for me. I lost my way so many times because of the rigors of the Internet and the FOMO one gets from being micro-successful in a niche product that exists to resell you your own stuff. Building this site and pouring my letters into it is the antidote. I still harbor odd wishes that someone from The Paris Review or The New Yorker will happen upon this asteroid of a site and fall in love. Here, I wait.
Solitary Confinement
I used to cry when my kids went to their mom’s for their half-week after we got divorced. After I dried my tears, I went to Taco Bell, ate some in the car, and brought the rest home to eat in my underwear on my couch in front of the TV. It was hard to sleep without them at home. For all the years I found so much pleasure in solitary confinement, I never realized how lost I would feel in it as a parent.
Best Laid Plans
Some mornings you wake up expecting to absolutely crush the day. Then your kid is sick, your dog barfs on your shoe, your cat gets out, and your boss reminds you that you said you would be in early today, and early is in forty minutes, so you throw an Eggo into the toaster, and it shorts out. But your partner comes in, handles all the home psychosis, and lets you rush out the door so you don’t get fired. You get to the corner and realize you forgot your wallet, so you try a risky U-turn to hurry up. You hit the curb, pop your tire, and have to call a tow truck. Also, your phone didn’t charge and is now out of battery.