Sometimes, it’s the subtle things that make us see the writing on the wall. Sometimes, we wear blinders so thick that the first line of the eye chart seems blurry to us. Sorry, Doc, I can’t make that out because it’s not something I want to see right now. I never liked wearing glasses.

No one says, “Hey honey, I’m house.” Home is a state of mind. It was hard for anything to feel like home to me with my mom gone. Looking back, the difference between a house and a home, to me, was family. When I had my own family, I could’ve lived in a shack and still felt at home. Curated decorations help, but I still feel lonely when they are the only things to welcome me home.

I could overhear her whisper-yelling at my dad and then ramping up the volume for my benefit while I huddled in the basement room playing Bubble Bobble on Nintendo. Pop, pop - it was a fun game. “You do everything for the little Jew boy.” I couldn’t argue with her. I was technically a Jew boy, and my dad did do everything for me. She never called him a Jew man.

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.

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.

I wish my dad left me a 23-minute message once that I could replay for the rest of my life. I wish my grandmother left me a voicemail telling me just how much sugar she used to put in my hot Lipton tea. I even wish my stepmother would text me in what would have been broken Swedelish to get “baloney” sandwiches on a roll with “butr.” I wish my mom just said my name.

I had oatmeal for breakfast. Every time I eat oatmeal, which is a lot, I remember when my mom took me on a cruise to Bermuda when she was sick. I was actually doing a commercial for Macy’s for Father’s Day. Everyone pinched my cheeks the whole cruise. She was sick and pretending to be seasick when she had cancer, so she sent me down to get breakfast on my own. I was maybe seven. I was so shy, I forgot to find the sugar when I got the oatmeal. The texture was gooey and clumpy; it was fantastic, but I had never had oatmeal without sugar. It tasted like cardboard. My mom couldn’t get out of bed.

My teenage years were a constant hustle. Hiding pimples, eating junk food, writing letters to girls, sports, warm beer, and spoonfuls of angst. I don’t know how I ended up with a flat top, but I did. My barber in Hightstown had shaky hands and smoked heaters the whole haircut. I don’t know how I survived. I think it was the freedom. I walked there from boarding school when I was off class. Then, maybe I walked and got pizza. I was drifting with the wind.

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.

When I moved back to Brooklyn as an adult, I walked my kids to their school under the same awning where I grew up every morning. It gave me a personal jolt of happiness every time. If only my mom were still up there and could come down and walk with us.

I’ve never worn a fanny pack, but I’ve also never thought they were uncool. I think they rip. They are like acid-washed jeans. I don’t want them, and I won’t get them, but they are cool. So was the vest I got at Chess King at the Buckland Hills Mall in college with my stepbrother. I once wore it out without a T-shirt underneath. Still not sure about that move. My arms were stacked at the time, though.

I think most hoarders secretly want their house to burn down. They think the problem would be solved, but it wouldn’t. There will just be a new house to put new stuff. That’s social media. If Meta deleted all of my accounts, I would feel lucky. Then, at some point, I would convince myself again that they were a necessary evil for business. And the cycle would start again.

I broke up with a girl once because she was a bad speller. I would imagine her leaving me a note in the morning, if we lived together, saying, “See you tonigte, hony.” I couldn’t do it. I feel bad because our first date was out of a rom-com. I still look her up from time to time. I’ve never found her online.

For Halloween in 5th grade, I went as myself. When we rang the doorbells in our apartment building, the adults shunned me for not “dressing up.” I tried to explain how meta what I was doing was, but they didn’t get it. My friends probably got full-size Mounds while I got an old Jolly Rancher. I was tired of wearing the store-bought costumes. Even the adults didn’t want me to be different.

In middle school, I once wrote something distasteful about the principal in bubble letters on a piece of paper. I wrote it in bubble letters so they wouldn’t know my handwriting. I was a smart kid, but not as smart as I thought. They called me into the office, and I almost let out a small turd in my tighty whiteys. He asked me to write in bubble letters on a piece of paper right then. They didn’t know the level I was at. I made the letters insane on purpose. I never got in trouble.

My English teacher in eighth grade wrote on a report card that I had “severe cerebral atrophy.” She didn’t understand that I had somehow found solace as a new kid in school by messing with her. To be honest, she made crazy seem like a teddy bear sitting on a bench seat looking out of a window on cool Spring day. She was at her pinnacle.

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.

It’s hard not to judge people when we spend most of our time judging ourselves. Dumb-looking shirt. Stupid haircut. Why did I say that the way that I did? His name is Robert, not Richard. I stepped in gum because I deserved it.

I pissed my pants in eighth-grade science class in what could only be described as a tidal wave. No one said a word. I went through school the rest of the day with piss-soaked corduroys. Life can be a dagger inside of a knife display, shot out of a cannon at you. Bullseye.

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.