Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

I can’t remember when, but years ago—or long ago as the literary vein would muse—I found the ideas of Sunday’s in the park to be romantic and the dream. As for the park, I’m not going to lie ... Central Park it is.  Leisurely strolls, bike rides, and perhaps runs always struck me as the ideal, epitome to a weekend’s end. Of course, to be blunt and a snob, scores of other New Yorkers find it the same. Today, I—with those New Yorkers and tourists from the four corners of the globe—found my source of vitamin D and sensory delights within the former pig boiling grounds and Native Lands. Perhaps Frederick Law Olmsted’s crown jewel of his parks, the rush of the city, the pace of life, and endless streams of people typically find a kinder, more peaceful balance within the bricked interior. Of course, not all people know how to—oh I don’t know—look both ways and cross the paths properly, but overall it’s pretty hard to remain beaten and angr...

Sometimes life has a way of becoming a shit show.  A prolonged one.  This past week and a half has been one of those for me.  Some of it involves first world, white people problems like trying to upgrade my phone and encountering corporate robots, the grocery being out of my favorite beer, running out of coffee, and exploding coffee all over my kitchen (yeah, there was coffee on my CEILING).  More problematic things involved nearly everything I touched becoming a prolonged, nightmare of a project; having the fucktards at my CVS pharmacy act like I was a lunatic when I asked for a prescription refill and where the muscle ointment was (seriously, when someone asks for something like an ace bandage and you work in a pharmacy . . . as you say you have to get the manager--after she asks three times--because you are too stupid to respond . . . ); middle aged malarkey; medical hell; and learning that you aren't worth the time, hotel room, or moment away you start to wonder ...

Fall has long come, and with it arrays and shades of golden color the sky, trees, and ground.  This week, as the temperatures dropped--a decided crispness enveloped the air--I finally got to pull out two projects I long ago finished.  Layers, wool, spun yarn crafted into fabric of its own signal a sadness that the last short sleeved days of the year are gone, yet at the same time there is a melancholy delight writer's like myself find in the cooler months.  Words and clicking keys acts as perimeters of distance between night and day, and in someways I know when the pages turn--the faster they do--my next destination and season will arise.  Though, as much as I take rhythm with the colder seasons I will say long and brutal ones, making you forget what summer weather is, take their toll, defeat you, and crack the line between a productively cold winter and a failed start as the battery froze and engine failed to start after six long months of running.   La...

Last month, as it really has been a month now, I took my annual voyage to the summer camp for nerds, AKA the College Board's read of the AP US History exams.  We've been in Louisville, KY for my tenure, which isn't all bad.  I lived in Kentucky twice, got my bachelor's there, and while it is not my longest place of residence it is the place that captured my soul for homesickness boughts and markers of oddly made binaries of identity.  In blunt laymen's terms, I'm not from the Bluegrass but parts of me are.  So, amid the mass of grading--and OMG there are so many essays in seven days--I meet up with some old friends from years gone by.  And . . . I partake in local cuisines, like Ale-8 and bourbon.  We all know that I have a long love of bourbon . . .  That being said, this year's view derives from the Marriott . . . as I wasn't at the Galt.  Did I mind? Eh, ya know . . . those little free apps and bourbon mixers at 5 everyday went a long...