DIVORCE: A Survivor's Guide: Part Three
Yes. You are now divorced. Stew on the reality for a moment.
Music and The Mind’s Eye
As I reached the front steps of the library I saw the source of the blaring ballad: a beige, 2013 Cadillac XTS.
I Believe… [Puppy Casserole?]
...that if anyone in the country is guilty of eating dogs and cats they all live in the Appalachians.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 8, 2024
Get out. Out of your house, out of your head, out of the doom scroll, out of your way. Get out and go get it.
In Praise of Blasphemy
Blasphemy is a method to force the mind to confront the conformist dogma at play at any given time. To crack open the calcified bone cages of concrete certainty and challenge the mind so happy to be imprisoned.
Running Through Your Past
I wound through parts of Flossmoor I didn’t even know existed, despite growing up there. Oh! That’s where Flossmoor Hills Elementary is. I just never had any reason to journey to that part of town. In the familiar parts, I found myself thinking about my childhood. Acknowledging all the landmarks with memories. That’s where I ditched school that one time and smoked cigarettes when I should have been in math class. This is where my high school friends and I would meet before school to smoke cigarettes. There’s where there used to be a church where I once tried to woo a girl by playing her punk songs as we sat in her car—it didn’t work—and would sometimes smoke cigarettes. I wasn’t a teenage smoker, but, apparently, when I did smoke, I did it all over town.
I Believe… [The Tease of Autumn]
...that, after a summer broiling in a giant outdoor venue for hours a day, the tease of jacket weather is as sexy as the collarbone revealed with an off-the-shoulder dress.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 1, 2024
Managing our expectations of others is the most humane thing we can do for one another.
I Believe… [Doing Unto Others]
...that treating people the way you’d want to be treated is really not that difficult.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 25, 2024
Always plan for the unexpected.
For Love of Inanimate Objects
I’m a curator of stuff. A collector of evidence. I struggle to throw anything out because so many things are artifacts that map out my life’s journey. Each relic has a story about a moment that informs the person. In the most egotistical way possible, I’m preserving my legacy. Shaping it, really. Creating my own Presidential Library for a guy who will likely never be president. (Likely… This mid-life crisis I’m in has endless possibilities.)
The Evolution of a Misanthrope
Solitude, while a wellspring of creativity and introspection, is also a place of vulnerability and isolation. The crowd, a source of collective strength and unity, can equally be a crucible of conformity and chaos.
I Believe… [It’s the Economy, Stupid]
...that the emphasis on class and labor and muting of identity and social justice is the pivot required for the Left to win elections moving forward.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 18, 2024
Considering how the DNC disrupted and shut down so much of Chicago, I’m left with this realization: Democracy is the greatest obstacle to progress.
A Truly Chicago Moment
There is something amazing about an audience of that size watching a movie together.
While the Rest of You Slept
A prayer. Asking for the things I can no longer influence. Recognizing what I don’t and never will control.
I Believe…[Sell By Date]
...that like beer and cheese, a person’s ‘sell by’ date is a fiction, an illusion designed to prioritize the new over the seasoned, youth over experience.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 11, 2024
I don’t like bibliophiles. They’re right up there with vegans, Swifties, and born again Christians, and Disney Adults. Calm down. All of you. Your one-dimensional personality sucks.
A Rare Moment of Ease and Simplicity
Let me first tell you how much I hate running errands. It’s not due to laziness. Because I’m a guy who thrives off of immediate gratification.
Donald Duck or Donald Trump?
The electorate, in turn, becomes the park visitors, willingly suspending disbelief to partake in the spectacle.
If you ever want the Ellis Island experience circa 1907, swing into the Chicago City Clerk’s office in Portage Park. The number of different accents is loads of fun and reminds you of the shared American Experience, which is that city bureaucracy is no fun for any of us.