Month: April 2015

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personal

Gone Fishing

Thanks

Me in DC

I started this blog all those years ago to just have an outlet for writing and as a place to put all these thoughts I have rattling around my head.

Turning 42 last week means that I have about 12,410 days left here and there are things I want to do and write about before those days run out. Which means less time for this here blog.

There’s just not enough time.

So this is my last regular entry here. There might be others, I’m not sure, right now, though, this is my last one.

But I want to leave you with something silly that you probably never thought about:

You can see you nose, you just choose not to see it.

You see it now, don’t you? And you will for several minutes before it disappears again. And throughout this day, you’ll notice it, forget it once again, notice it, forget it, until you forget it completely.

That is how most things are in our lives.

Things that are so a part of our lives that we don’t see them any more. The people, the experiences. We make them disappear. I walked by a beautiful waterfall every single day for years in college and never noticed it.

I live in the heart of Manhattan but rarely notice it.

Sometimes it’s a good thing. The major impetus for this blog was a bad breakup that has completely disappeared from my mind until I wrote this.

So I leave you with this thought: You see a million things every single day – literally, not figuratively – but you only notice one or two. This is by design.

I realized writing this blog, that it helped me separate signal from noise; to choose what I deemed noteworthy and what was not. Syd helped.

We all get to choose what matters to us, what we allow to affect us.

This blog was about all the things I’ve noticed about my little slice of the world and I wanted you to see them too. Because I thought they were worthy of note. Even thought it was mostly about nuthin.

Anywho, I wanted to say, Thanks for reading – for listening – to alla this nuthin.

There’s a line from You’ve Got Mail that goes, all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.

Likewise.

I’ll still be around on Facebook, Twitter from time-to-time, and Instagram regularly if I can swing it.

Harold’s not with me anymore so it’s just the wife and me.

And we’ve gone fish’n…

 

Location: away, but still here
Mood: nostalgic
Music: heartbroken cause I can’t see further than my own nose at this moment

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Logan’s 42; I’m (not) a New Soul

Hoping I could learn a bit bout what is true and fake

Edison Lightbulbs in NYC

Him: Happy birthday!
Me: Thanks! I can’t believe I’m 8 years from 50.
Him: Nice way to think about it.

I’m 42.

As I say it out loud, and it sounds so strange to me. Don’t feel 42. I’m told that I don’t look (particularly) 42. And yet I am.

There was a time where I was the “new guy” or “the kid.” Those days are long gone.

On April 17, 1973, I was a new soul. Couldn’t do anything on my own, and didn’t know a thing. All I wanted to do was eat and sleep. Which is little changed from now.

But as I slowly started figuring stuff out, stopped being a new soul became an old one.

Have you heard about this odd thing happening where adults are returning to “preschool” to re-live some of their earliest memories?

While I think it’s silly, I get it.

After a certain age, people try to re-live parts of their childhood that remind them what it was like when everything was new.

It’s why I am always reading something, because my childhood was spent studying, so learning something new is the closest thing I have to having that feeling of being a kid again.

It’s part of the reason why I take wrasslin and fencing classes and take things apart all the time – there’s always something new and cool to learn.

Besides, learning new stuff has the added benefit of always having cocktail conversation at the ready:

Me: …the liquor comes from the island of Curaçao; when Spanish sailors went there, they planted sweet Valencia oranges but the soil there transformed them in to these tiny bitter oranges.
Him: Why do you know know that?
Me: I have no idea.

Probably going to take it easy today; go to the gym and roll around like a kid with some friends and then top it off with some rum.

No longer a new soul but I’ll try not to be an old an cynical one for as long as possible.

Location: my apartment
Mood: thoughtful
Music: Finding myself making every possible mistake

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Catching up with friends when I can

Plus some Instagram Pics

Empire State Building in clouds
Had a rare bit of downtime and coorporating weather so I saw my friend Claire for dinner the other night and then went out with my friend Bryson to celebrate his wife’s birthday.

Don’t actually get to catch up with people in RL all that often; partly because we’re all busy and partly because FB and other social networks are kinda like “keeping up, lite.” We get the curated highlights that people want to share and, for the most part, that’s often good enough.

But it’s nice seeing people when I can. Claire is staying here in The City from California because of her fella and Bryson is, as always, the same guy I knew back in college but with two kids now.

It’s nice seeing how your friends’ stories unfold.

Shots of liquor

On a different note entirely, I’ve been trying to get more into Instagram.

My main issue with using is that I don’t generally like how pictures from phones come out. But here are the highlights of what I’ve done recently – follow me!

Spring in NYC and Bryant Park.Spring in NYC and Bryant Park.

#Cloudy day in #NYC and autumn leaf bag bear downtown is unhappy. #Cloudy day in #NYC and autumn leaf bag bear downtown is unhappy.

Nighttime falls in the #UWS in #NYC. The #DINKYs and #YUPPIES grow restless. Nighttime falls in the #UWS in #NYC. The #DINKYs and #YUPPIES grow restless.

It's #spring and sunny in #NYC but still cold enough to freeze you solid. It’s #spring and sunny in #NYC but still cold enough to freeze you solid.

NYC is always a work in progress. NYC is always a work in progress.

Location: HomeDepot getting supplies
Mood: excited
Music: If you’re gonna do it, do it right – right?

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Busted Stuff

I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards, and broken things.

Rebuilt White Nexus 5

Him: Why wouldn’t you just buy a phone? That seems like a waste of time and money.

When I was in college, my buddy Buckley used to fix my computer for me, which was often because I had no idea what I was doing. After the umpteenth time, he finally slammed the door in my face and said, “Fix it yourself!”

Which ended up being a really good thing because I taught myself how to do just that – before the age of YouTube – and ended up paying for part of law school with money I made building computers and networks.

Similarly, after I realized I didn’t know a thing about cars, bought a really beat up old BMW 325i and essentially fixed most things I could. To this day, a lotta of my old friends remember me driving around without a passenger seat while I was looking for the perfect one.

In any case, couldn’t sleep well last week so I started a project I’d been wanting to do for a while; built a phone from scratch.
Cracked Red Nexus 5

After doing some research, I ended up choosing the Nexus 5 because (a) I’ve owned a few and (b) it got an iFixit rating of 8 out of 10 to repair and the parts were pretty available.

My cousin Lynn was nice enough to give me her busted phone to practice on, which was also a good thing because I absolutely destroyed that.

With those lessons learned, the whole thing went surprisingly fast; only about three total hours and I was done. The most expensive part was the screen, which I managed to snag for $90, new.

Figure I’ll just sell it for what I bought it, which prompted a buddy to ask me why I did it in the first place.

And my answer has always been the same as for why I built my own computer, car, DVR, network, etc.

Me: I didn’t do it for the phone. I did it for the understanding. I don’t like not understanding things.

We should all die knowing something, cause we’re not here for very long.

But there’s another reason, of course. Like the good Mr. Lannister, I have a soft spot for discarded and broken things.

Should mention that I remained friends with Buckley for over 20 years; he and I ended up buying the Manhattan apartment I live in now.

Good friends challenge you to be the best version of yourself.

Location: my UWS apartment
Mood: accomplished
Music: Rolling stone gathers no moss but leave a trail of busted stuff

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Rolling Stones gather no Confirmation Bias

Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires

Buskers at 50th St Subway Station NYC
While I enjoy Kanye West as an artist, as a human being, he seems like a lout.

So when a posting came up on Facebook that said that he did another douchebag thing, I shared it only to find out later it wasn’t true.

The thing is, I assume he’s a douchebag so when I read something that proves it, I immediately believe it.

What irritated me most about that was that I should’ve known better.

One of the few things I remember from my first year in Prof. Maas‘ Psych 101 Class – waaaaaay back in 1990 – was the idea of confirmation bias, which essentially echoes poet Jean De la Fontaine idea that Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires.

So when the Rolling Stone article about the UVA rape case was found to be completely false over the weekend, I thought of Prof. Maas and De la Fontaine again.

Rolling Stone and the authors wanted to believe that colleges are a hotbed of rape and misbehavior and found evidence to prove their position.

Only they didn’t. Instead, they just made it harder for genuine rape cases to be believed.

I see it every single day on Facebook. People that have evidence that aspartame and tilapia will kill you, Obama is a secret Muslim, and that jet fuel cannot melt steel.

It’s a daily thing – and something I perpetuated myself with Kayne West, because I wanted to believe he’s a douchebag and found evidence to support this, even when I didn’t.

Beliefs are dangerous things and they cloud judgement, even from those that should know better.

Still, it’s better to appreciate this with the smaller, insignificant things, than to realize it with bigger, more meaningful things. Just ask Rolling Stone magazine.

 

Location: in midtown later at midday for some afternoon cognac
Mood: hopeful
Music: People around gotta find something to say now

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Robinson Crusoe died wishing he was on the island

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us

Home on an island in Bermuda
In my spare time, I’ve been writing a break-up book. Figured it’s the logical extension of the other two dating books I wrote

One thing I truly believe is to try to distance yourself from the pain of the breakup – or any pain, really – and try to appreciate the good things that come out of it.

While I don’t believe in that old saw that “everything happens for a reason,” I do believe what this poet named James Russell Lowell said:

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.

I started blogging during a really bad period of my life. But during that period, I had some pretty fun nights, met some incredible people – some of whom are among my best friends today – and, of course, met my favorite person.

And during that time, I listened to songs from singers like KT Tunstall, Camera Obscura, and Imoegen Heap; now, whenever I hear anything from them, I’m reminded of that time. And I look back on it fondly.

Did you know that Robinson Crusoe was based on a real guy? He was a fella named Alexander Selkirk that ended up alone on an island for four years and four months. After he was rescued, he became a multimillionaire and celebrity.

But he realized that that time alone ended up being some of the best times in his life. He died wishing that he was back on his islands with his goats and his thoughts.

In fact, when he could live anywhere in the world, he lived in a cave by himself for a bit. And one of his last thoughts was, I am now worth 800 Pounds, but shall never be so happy, as when I was not worth a Farthing.

Now, this isn’t like my usual rambling post so much as it is a letter to a friend to whom I say this:

Most people handle life as they do bad weather: they wait for it to stop.

Don’t be most people, because you’re not most people.

Try to enjoy these difficult times while you can, as odd as that might sound. Because it’s only just for now and it’ll be over before you know it.

In any case, I’m always (not so secretly) on your side.

Location: back to the gym again
Mood: content
Music: that time of year, leave all our hopelessness aside

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