"Blowing smoke" ends today. Please?

Listening to the “Patriots from the Past” podcast yesterday, hosts Matt Smith and Bryan Morry were interviewing former Patriots quarterback and current radio and television personality Scott Zolak. Twice during the interview, one of the hosts was complimenting Zolak for his outstanding play and media prowess and said, “I’m not trying to blow smoke up your keister.”

I hate this phrase.

No, I loathe this phrase. And I despise every form and variation of this phrase and wish people would stop using it immediately and forever more.

I hate it for so many reasons.

First, it’s gross. It conjures an image in my mind that is loathsome and disgusting.

Second, it makes no sense. No one wants smoke blown up their posterior regions, so to imply that offering someone an exceedingly and perhaps overly generous compliment is equivalent to blowing smoke up their butt is stupid. It makes no sense.

I also despise being constantly reminded of the historical origin of this stupid phrase. In 18th-century England, blowing smoke up a person’s ass was an actual medical procedure, used most often to revive people who were close to death, often as the result of drowning. It was believed that a tobacco enema would restore health to these nearly deceased patients. The process was so common, in fact, that several major waterways kept the instrument, consisting of a bellows and flexible tube, nearby in case of such emergencies.

Old-timey people were so stupid.

But in 1811, it was discovered that tobacco is actually toxic to the cardiac system, so this ridiculous procedure was quickly ended.

Sadly, the stupid, disgusting, meaningless, asinine phrase still remains.

I’d kindly ask that we all stop using this awful assemblage of words and every variation immediately.

We can probably put “keister” to bed, too. It’s also an odd choice of words.

Let’s make 2020 the year of the coronavirus pandemic but also the year when we eliminated this gross and stupid phrase from our lexicon forever.

I do a lot of stupid things. I promise to tell you about all of them.

My friend recently made a ridiculous and hilarious mistake. A wondrously stupid blunder. Sort of the equivalent of complaining that your television is broken without checking to see if it’s still plugged into the wall.

Only a lot worse.

Luckily, I was the one who discovered his mistake. As he described the problem that he was experiencing, I thought, “It can’t be this. Right? That’s just too stupid. He would’ve seen that solution a mile away. Right? Wait… could it?”

It was.

Upon realizing the mistake he had made, I burst into laughter.

My friend immediately asked - perhaps begged - me to never tell a soul about his mistake. If anyone ever discovered how foolish he had been, he explained, he’d never be able to live it down.

I agreed, of course, but I’ll never understand why.

About a year ago, on the way to the movies, Elysha and our friends stopped at CVS so I could run inside and buy some candy. As I jogged up the candy aisle, I tripped and fell, face-planting on the industrial carpeting in front of the Swedish fish.

A real ass-over-teakettle situation.

In fairness, the candy aisle had a slight, nearly imperceptible hill in the middle of it. An oddly unleveled surface in the middle of the store. The toe of my sneaker had caught the incline of this hill, sending me sprawling.

A woman at the end of the aisle saw the whole thing and immediately burst into laughter.

My chin, which had skidded across the carpet after I had hit the floor, was already burning. I wondered if it might be bleeding like a skinned knee.

My very first thought:

“I can’t wait to get back into the car and tell Elysha and Shera and David what just happened.”

My second thought:

“I’m so glad someone was here to see this happen.”

When I make a ridiculous mistake or a hilarious blunder, I can’t wait to tell everyone. I’ve felt this way for as long as I can remember. Even in middle school, I would do something inexplicably stupid and immediately find a way to tell everyone I knew.

Sometimes I find myself jealous of other people’s stupidity. I find myself wishing that I had done their stupid thing, too.

What I think I inherently understood at a young age and so clearly understand today are three things:

1. Sharing my acts of stupidity will make other people laugh, and making people laugh is always a good thing, even if they are laughing at how dumb I am.

2. Sharing my acts of stupidity always brings people closer to me, because every other human being is just as flawed as I am. Most people just don’t openly speak about their flaws. So when I tell people about my flaws and failures, they feel a little better about their own. Slightly less alone in this world.

3. Sharing your acts of stupidity is a demonstration of confidence. Sometimes even courage. It’s a sign of great strength. Not weakness. A person who cannot laugh at himself or admit his own faults is a tragically fragile, deeply broken human being.

   Donald Trump is an excellent example of this.

This is not to say that my friend is tragically fragile or broken in any way. He’s perfectly capable of laughing at himself and often does. In this particular case, his mistake exposed a professional weakness that he preferred to keep from becoming known.

I understand, but I still don’t get it. Being someone who publishes a list of his shortcomings and flaws every year (and requests that friends, family, and even strangers offer contributions to the list), I still don’t entirely understand my friend’s reluctance to share his weakness with the world, either.

It’s funny. Also understandable and relatable.

Five years ago, I asked my friend, Jeff, to repair a lamp from my daughter’s bedroom. It had stopped working, and she loved the lamp. The next day, Jeff handed the lamp back to me and said, “I changed the bulb, idiot.”

One year later, I handed Jeff that very same lamp, assuring him that this time it was actually broken. The next day, he handed the lamp back to me and said, “I changed the bulb again, idiot.”

My first thought:

I must tell everyone I know about this. Strangers, too. The whole world needs to know how stupid I am.

The last thing I would’ve done was beg Jeff to keep my stupidity a secret.

About three years ago, while driving home from dinner, Elysha and I started arguing over the color of our house. Even though we had been living in the house for almost a decade, we could not agree on its color. She claimed that it was somewhere between tan and gray, but I insisted that it was yellow. “As yellow as the sun,” I had declared with certainty. “I know the color of my own damn house.”

I did not. The house is not even close to being yellow.

I couldn’t wait to tell the world.

Do you think any less of me for sharing these blunders? These ridiculous acts of stupidity?

Probably not. If you do, I think it says more about you than it does about me.

My suggestion: Share your random acts of stupidity with the world. Celebrate your falls, failures, and foibles. Turn your moments of foolishness and idiocy into something that will bring laughter and joy to others.

Life gets a lot easier when you no longer need to spend your time and energy concealing your mistakes from the world. Even when that mistake is as ridiculous as not knowing the color of your own home.

Normal is good but hard to find.

As you well know, the world is feeling like a very strange place these days.

Small things - like the massive accumulation of recycling that sent me walking the neighborhood late last night, distributing my excess boxes and bottles into the bins of my neighbors - was a simple reminder of how our lives have suddenly changed.

We’re doing almost everything in the comfort and isolation of our house now, and as a result, the recycling and trash in our home piles up quickly.

Then there are the big things:

The absence of friends and family in our lives. The inability to visit a friend in the hospital as she battles COVID-19. Missing the energy, enthusiasm, and constant interruptions of my students. My daily Egg McMuffin. The beginning of Little League season. Our cancelled trip to Niagara Falls this week. The abrupt end to the NBA and NHL seasons. The elimination of dozens of shows, workshops, and open mics, where I was to stand in front of thousands of people, telling stories, performing comedy, and teaching.

Finding a little bit of normalcy these days can be hard, so I’ve been striving for it whenever possible.

Yesterday, for example, almost felt normal. The day began with our annual Easter egg hunt. This year, the Easter bunny was especially generous. Lots of eggs and lots of candy. Elysha and the kids are Jewish, so Easter has never meant church or family gatherings. It’s always been limited to the Easter bunny and candy-filled eggs, so as I watched the kids scurry around the house in search of treasures, I managed to forget about the virus for a little while.

All was blessedly normal.

The night before Easter, as I loaded jelly beans and chocolate into plastic eggs, I played poker with six of my friends until midnight. The game took place over a phone app and Zoom, combined with Spotify and Venmo, so although it wasn’t half a dozen friends gathered around my dining room table, it actually started to feel a little normal for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I played golf for the first time this year. Golf turns out to be an excellent way to spend time with friends in a time of social distancing. Maintaining a safe distance from your fellow players is fairly easy on a golf course, and given that the game is played outdoors, it’s considerably safer than being indoors while social distancing.

The holes beneath the flags have been replaced with circular discs that your ball strikes and bounces off, eliminating the need to reach into a cup that others have already placed their hands within, but otherwise, it was golf. I played with my friend, Jeff, and a third guy named Dylan who joined us for the round.

It was kind of remarkable. Normal, everyday golf.

Normal except that I parred three of the nine holes, which is highly unusual for me, especially given it was my first time playing all year. Oddly, it was my above average play on several holes that was the most abnormal part of the round.

Granted, the day also featured a trip to the grocery store, which feels like running through razor blades. Wearing a mask that Elysha brilliantly sewed and lined with the best filter on the market, and armed with hand sanitizer in one pocket and Clorox wipes in the other, I entered the store with a battle plan. Happily, I chose my time wisely - early Easter morning - so the store was nearly empty.

Still, I yearn for the days when grocery shopping stops being a life-and-death struggle.

We also ate leftovers, played a game as a family, watched a movie, and did some chores around the house. All normal activities for a lazy Sunday.

Forgetting about the pandemic for even a few moments turns out to be a luxury these days.

After golf, I took a bike ride, hoping to extend normalcy for a little bit longer, but even on a sunny day, with music playing in my headphones and my legs pumping away, it’s hard to escape the reality of this new world. I rode past closed playgrounds. masked pedestrians, and a bus stop with a handmade sign taped to the plexiglass that read:

Thank you to our healthcare workers!

A reminder of a virus that is trying to kill us, but also a reminder of something that should’ve been normal all along:

Appreciation for the folks who work so hard to keep us healthy and alive, doing a job that that is more important and more dangerous than ever, but a job they have always been doing, oftentimes unnoticed and under-appreciated.

Perhaps we keep that from ever becoming normal again.

I wish you luck in finding your own moments of peace today.

Speak Up Storytelling: Strategies for Communicating and Performing Via Video Conferencing Platforms

On episode #93 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast, I offer strategies and insights into effective communication and performance on video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Skype, Google Meets, and the like. 

Leading a meeting? Conducting a webinar? Teaching a class or workshop? Telling a story or performing stand-up? I’ve been using video conferencing for years while consulting on storytelling, public speaking, advertising campaigns, film and documentaries, and communication strategies all over the world.

More recently I’ve begun performing via these platforms for shows in Boston, New York, Costa Rica, London, and Australia.

Based upon my experience on these platforms, I offer some simple, practical, occasionally unorthodox advice to improve your engagement and effectiveness while communicating online.

Consider this a bonus episode for those listeners who have found themselves transitioning to online platforms as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Stay safe and well, friends! Look for a regular episode of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast later this week!

_______________________________________________

Support Speak Up Storytelling through our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/speakupstorytelling

Purchase Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling: https://amzn.to/2H3YNn3

Purchase Twenty-one Truths About Love: https://amzn.to/35Mz1xS 

Homework for Life: https://bit.ly/2f9ZPne

Matthew Dicks's website: http://www.matthewdicks.com

Matthew Dicks's YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/matthewjohndicks 

Matthew Dicks's blog:
http://www.matthewdicks.com/matthewdicksblog

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The silver lining in Tom Brady’s departure from New England

As you probably know, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, at a time when so many of us needed a little bit of good news, Tom Brady left the Patriots and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

I’m a little annoyed.

I’ll probably find my way to respecting and appreciating him again. After all, he brought six championship to my beloved New England Patriots, and luckily, I have been sitting in the stands for the vast majority of his games over the last two decades. I’ve spent countless Sundays cheering for him and his teammates, and I have loved almost every minute of it.

But at the moment, I’m annoyed. After two decades with a single team, he can’t finish off his career in New England? I find myself hoping that he fails miserably with that godforsaken football franchise in Florida.

But there is one silver lining to this miserable turn of events:

With Brady’s departure, there is one fewer Donald Trump supporter connected with the Patriots.

Trump and Brady met back in in 2001 when Trump asked Brady to judge a Miss USA competition. In the years that followed, Trump would call to congratulate Brady after games and would frequent the sidelines of Patriots games before the two started playing golf together in 2004.

Trump asked Brady to speak at the 2016 Republican National Convention, but Brady wisely declined.

Trump got Scott Baio instead.

Still, the two have been friends for a very long time. Reporters even found a MAGA hat in his locker back in 2016.

During an interview with Howard Stern last week, Brady was asked about his friendship with Trump.

Brady said:

“I got brought into a lot of those things because it was so polarizing around the election time. It was uncomfortable for me. You can’t undo things. And not that I would undo a friendship, but the political support is totally different than the support of a friend.”

I actually agree with Brady to a degree. As a Democrat, I have friends who are staunch Republicans, but our political differences have never stood in the way of our friendship.

None of those Republican friends are Trump supporters, of course, but that only makes sense. I choose friends based upon their intellect, moral compass, and decency. Those qualities - at least in abundance - preclude anyone from being a Trump supporter.

But here is where Brady and I differ:

If my dearest, lifelong friend stole from his own charity, operated a fake university that stole millions from innocent Americans, separated families at the border and placed children in cages, referred to Nazis as “very fine people,” bragged about committing sexual assault, cheated on all of his wives, publicly denigrated war heroes and Gold Star families, paid hush money to porn stars, had more than two dozen claims of sexual harassment and sexual assault pending investigation, and still didn’t know the difference between a bacteria and a virus in the midst of a global pandemic, HE WOULDN’T BE MY FRIEND ANYMORE.

I would drop that corrupt, immoral, unethical thief and ignoramus in a heartbeat. Friendship be damned.

Brady apparently doesn’t possess the same scruples as I do. He’s fine with all that.

So no, I still haven’t come to terms with Tom Brady’s departure from the Patriots. I’m still angry. I still hope that his team fails to make the playoffs and the Patriots return to the Super Bowl with a shiny, brand new quarterback.

But I know I’ll eventually come around. When I can push my feelings aside and gain some perspective, I will find my way to respecting and honoring the many, many Sundays when Tom Brady brought joy to my life.

But until then, the fact that another soulless friend and supporter of Donald Trump is gone makes this bitter pill a little easier to swallow.

Beating cancer is great. Bragging about it isn't quite as good.

I don’t like it when people brag about beating cancer or brag about a friend or loved one beating cancer.

I hear it often.

“She kicked cancer’s ass.”

“He wasn’t going to let something like cancer take him down.”

“I fought long and hard and beat the disease.”

I get it. Truly, I do. If you fight a battle against a deadly disease for months or years, or you watch a loved one engage in such a battle, your instinct is to feel victorious.

And you are. I take nothing away from your struggle or survival.

But the implication in such statements is that folks who succumb to cancer did not fight hard enough. Didn’t kick cancer’s ass. Allowed cancer to defeat them.

Listening to someone rightfully boast about how they kicked cancer’s ass, knowing that your mother or brother or husband fought just as hard hell but did not survive, doesn’t feel great.

While I know that a certain degree of strength and stamina, coupled with a positive spirt, is often required to beat the disease, the truth is that most people beat cancer because of five factors:

1. The type of cancer that you are battling

2. Your genetic predisposition

3. The quality of healthcare you had access to during your fight

4. Your income level

5. Luck

Early detection, for example, is key to beating most cancers, but if you don’t have healthcare insurance, you are far less likely than to have your cancer detected early. And when it comes to treatment, your healthcare or income level may afford you access to the best cancer treatment centers in the world, whereas someone without healthcare or the means to travel to these world renown treatment centers might be left waging their battle at a small, regional hospital with far less expertise and experience.

If you can rest and recuperate during your cancer treatments, you are in a much better position to wage your war. But if you are an hourly employee with a family that depends on your paycheck and no paid sick leave, that luxury might not be possible.

The type of cancer also plays an enormous tole in your battle. Some cancers are simply much more difficult to defeat than others. In some cases, you can be the most badass cancer warrior of all time and still lose your fight in the end.

Genetics also play an enormous role. If you are battling your cancer while also suffering from underlying symptoms of a genetic condition, your battle will be much harder and perhaps impossible to win. Some people also respond better to treatment than others, not because of how hard they fight but simply because of who they are.

Unavoidable genetic predispositions.

Then there’s plain old good and bad luck. You get hit by a car in the parking lot outside of Starbucks, and during a scan of your broken leg, a mass is discovered just above your knee, just in the nick of time.

Or your colon cancer goes undetected because you were 48 years-old at the time, and colonoscopies are recommended for most men at the age of 50.

Or you were born in the United States into a stable, upper middle class home where education, nutrition, and healthcare were affordable. As a result you were able to battle the disease with far greater advantages than the Syrian refugee or the child living in squalor in a favela in Brazil.

We like to think that our sister defeated cancer because she is a badass warrior, but the fact that she wasn’t living in a refugee camp in Turkey played an enormous role, too.

All of these factors play a huge role in beating the disease.

So while I hope that every living human being who face cancer defeats this insidious enemy and is victorious, I would like these warriors to be a little less publicly triumphant.

For every badass cancer survivor alive today, there are countless cancer warriors who were just as badass as those survivors who tragically lost their fight.

Not so bad after all

I worry about a lot of things when it comes to the pandemic, but one of the more insidious concerns of late has been the welfare of my children.

You only get to be a child for a short period of your life, and now, with the coronavirus cancelling the Little League season, dance recitals, vacations, field trips, play dates, afternoons at the playground, traditional schooling, and so much more, I find myself worrying that these important, precious childhood days are being lost forever.

Last week Elysha and I took the kids to the park. We avoided the playground equipment, of course, and kept our distance from others. Instead, we walked around the pond and tossed rocks into the water. After making a complete circuit of the trails, the kids asked if they could run in the field.

“Of course,” I said, and they were off, running and jumping and giggling for far longer than I would’ve expected. Eventually they plopped themselves down into the grass about 50 feet away and began pointing at the sky and laughing uncontrollably.

It took me a moment to realize what they were doing:

Finding shapes in the clouds. Hilariously so. At one point, I heard Charlie say, “That one looks like it’s pooping out an asteroid!”

After about 20 minutes of cloud watching, I called to them, telling them it was time to go.

They protested. “Please… just a little while longer!”

We acquiesced, of course, then watched as they continued to point and giggle and roll around on the grass.

Finally, we were able to pry them away from the field and clouds and made our way back tot he car.

As we climbed inside, Clara said, “This was the best day of the whole year!”

Charlie chimed in with agreement.

Clara didn’t say, “This was the best day since we started social distancing.”

She didn’t say, “This was the best day since the coronavirus arrived.”

She didn’t say, “This was the best day in the past month.”

She said, “This was the best day of the whole year.”

“The whole year?” I asked. “January first through today?”

“Yup,” she said. “I loved today.”

Just like that, my concerns over lost childhood days were gone. An enormous weight was lifted from my shoulders.

My kids are young. They still love running in fields and staring at clouds. Nothing makes them happier than wrestling with their father and snuggling with their mother. They could throw stones in water all day long. They still love drawing and playing with toys and eating mango and listening to Hamilton.

My kids are fine. Happy, even., Yes, they’d love to be able to play with the neighbors, and yes, they miss their teachers and classmates, and yes, it would be nice if we were departing for Niagara Falls today as originally planned, but it turns out that they don’t need any of those things to be happy.

I had to agree with Clara. It might’ve been the best day of the whole year.

You don't like sleep

Yesterday I played the Unpopular Onion Game, listing 10 things that I don’t like but many people do.

In addition to some much appreciated support for items like pickles, sushi, and Will Ferrell’s comedy, I also received lot of questions about some of the items on the list.

I’ll do my best to answer some of those questions and explain myself in upcoming posts.

But today I’d like to address one item on the list that baffled many people:

My hatred of sleep.

I’d like to propose that perhaps you don’t like sleep very much, either.

Yes, you may enjoy lying in a soft bed under warm blankets. It may feel great to allow your muscles to enter a state of relaxation. Resting your head on your pillow might seem heavenly. You probably adore the feeling of blissful restfulness upon awakening each morning.

You may even adore lying beside a certain someone while you are in bed.

I understand all of this. I might not enjoy any of these things nearly as much as you do (though lying beside Elysha is quite appealing), but I can’t argue with the positive feelings associated with any of them.

I get it.

I’m still not a big fan in the same way a massage, a spa day, or lounging poolside don’t appeal to me either, but I can at least understand why you might like these things.

But none of this is sleep.

Sleep is an unconscious state required for your body and brain to repair, restore, and reenergize. It’s a state of being that almost always lacks any self-awareness. Unless you are lucidly dreaming, which is rare, you’re not actually conscious while you sleep. You may dream for certain periods of this otherwise unconscious state, but as you well know, these dreams are fleeting, almost always forgotten, and beyond our conscious control.

When we sleep, we are completely unaware of ourselves and our surroundings. I could enter your bedroom, eat a hot dog, do 100 push-ups, and exit without you ever being aware of my presence. Some people (like my daughter) fall into such a deep state of sleep that they can sleep through noise and disruption of almost any kind. Their limbs can be manipulated without any awareness on their part.

My daughter is nearly puppet-like while she sleeps.

Even if this isn’t the case for you, most of us often awaken in a position that is different than when we fell asleep but have no recollection of moving.

People often express a desire to die in their sleep, not because they would be any less dead, but because if we must die, most people would prefer to slip from the temporary unconsciousness of sleep to the permanent unconsciousness of death, since the two are so similar to our unconscious brains.

Sleep and death are a hell of a lot alike.

Keeping all of this in mind, I’d like to propose that when people declare their love for sleep, they are actually declaring their love for the period of time spent in bed just before and just after sleep, but that sleep itself is a difficult process to love since it requires you to be unconscious for its duration.

Yes, sleep might make you feel better and prepare you for the day, but if you could retain all of the appeal of that time just before and just after sleep while only requiring 30 minutes of actual slumber each night to feel rested and refreshed, wouldn’t you take that deal in a heartbeat?

Sleep for just 30 minutes. Enjoy all the benefits of sleeping for 8 hours.

If you could actually do this, the world would declare you a superhero.

If you invented a pill that allowed people to feel this way, you would be wealthy beyond your imagination.

You still get to climb into a warm and cozy bed. You still get to rest your head on your pillow. You can still enjoy the bliss associated with lying prone under the warmth of a blanket. All of that remains the same. The only difference is the unconscious state of sleep only needs to last 30 minutes in order to remain healthy.

If you’d take my deal, then it’s not the sleep that you enjoy. It’s the rituals before and after sleep that you adore, and those rituals are very different than actual sleep, because they only take a fraction of the time that actual sleep requires.

I don’t particularly love the rituals that happen before and after sleep, but I don’t necessarily hate them, either, because they don’t take too long. They don’t consume too much of my day.

I hate sleep because it wastes my time. A lot of my time. About a quarter of my life. And I have many, many things that I want to accomplish and value my time spent doing things more than I value my time spent resting.

I would choose consciousness over unconsciousness every time.

That is why I hate sleep.

And I suspect that you don’t like it very much, either. Right?

The Unpopular Onion Game

10 Things Other People Seem to Love that I Truly Dislike

1. Pickles

2. Wes Anderson films

3. Steely Dan

4. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

5. The Big Bang Theory

6. Candy Crush

7. Sleep

8. Alcohol

9. Sushi

10. Will Ferrell’s comedy

Never Have I Ever

Several weeks ago, back when the world was still normal, a popular meme went around on social media called “Never Have I Ever.” The goal of the game was to give yourself a point for every item on the list that you had never done.

Here’s the list.

It was a good premise, but I didn’t think the list was constructed very well. Being the author of a novel written entirely in lists, I like to think that I’m a bit of an expert on the subject.

I scored a 5 in the game. The things I had never done included:

1. Done drugs

2. Gotten a tattoo

3. Smoked

4. Gotten a piercing

5. Been skydiving

A 5 seemed like a low number, but in talking with friends, most people scored between 4-6 points.

That’s no fun.

I thought it would be more fun to create a list of things that were less probable but still possible, so I spent some time creating a list of things that I’ve done in my life that most people have not.

Behold! My own “Never Have I Ever” list. I’ve done each and every item on the list at least once, so my score is zero.

What would your score be?

1. Been arrested and put on trial for a crime you didn’t commit

2. Required CPR from paramedic in order to restore your life (twice, though once is acceptable)

3. Been lifted from your bed in the middle of the night by firefighters while your house burned

4. Owned a pet raccoon

5. Pole vaulted

6. Evaded police in a high speed chase

7. Officiated the wedding of your ex-wife’s ex-husband

8. Assigned someone a permanent nickname that they didn’t want nor appreciated

9. Been completely naked onstage in front of more than 200 strangers

10. Robbed a retail establishment

11. Been suspended from school for “inciting riot upon yourself”

12. Been photographed for a medical journal after having been infected by a rare disease

13. Been paid to strip at a bachelorette party

14. Avoided using a drug of any kind, including tobacco

15. Egged a teacher’s house

16. Been homeless for more than a month

17. Successfully sued the President of the United States

18. Been robbed st gunpoint

19. Accidentally left an infant home alone

20. Competed in illegal, underground arm wresting tournaments

What’s your score?

Now go make your own list. I’d love to see it.

Speak Up Storytelling #92: Monica Malaver

On episode #92 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast, Elysha Dicks and I talk storytelling!

In our follow up segment, we debut our first bot of content on our Patreon page , announce online workshops and shows, and a weekly free storytelling workshop for families on Facebook Live and YouTube. 

STORYTELLING SHOWS 2020

April 18: Solo show, MOPCO Improv Theater

STORYTELLING WORKSHOPS 2020

April 18: Storytelling workshop (beginner), MOPCO Improv Theater
April 22, 29, May 6, 13, 20, and 27: Advanced storytelling workshop 
July 27-31: Storytelling boot camp, CT Historical Society

In our Homework for Life segment, I talk about combining two moments from your Homework for Life into a single story, as well as being open to the idea that you might still be in the midst of a story.

Next we listen to a story by Monica Malaver.

Amongst the many things we discuss include:

1. The power of self deprecation

2. Scene setting

3. Humor through vulnerability

4. Connecting the beginning and endings of stories

5. Avoiding process language 

Next we answer a question about the beginnings of stories. 

Lastly, we each offer a recommendation. 

RECOMMEDATIONS

Elysha:

• Guardians of the Galaxy Volumes 1 and 2

Matt:

• 5 Mistakes When Writing Flashbacks in Memoir

_______________________________________________

Support Speak Up Storytelling through our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/speakupstorytelling

Purchase Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling: https://amzn.to/2H3YNn3

Purchase Twenty-one Truths About Love: https://amzn.to/35Mz1xS 

Homework for Life: https://bit.ly/2f9ZPne

Matthew Dicks's website: http://www.matthewdicks.com

Matthew Dicks's YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/matthewjohndicks 

Matthew Dicks's blog:
http://www.matthewdicks.com/matthewdicksblog

Subscribe to Matthew Dicks's weekly newsletter: 
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Americans need and deserve answers to these questions.

Critical, reasonable, and yet still unanswered questions asked of a President who last week joked about having sex with models and bragged about his popularity on Facebook while discussing the number of Americans who may die as a result of COVID-19.

It is time for all Americans to put aside any partisan support of this failed President and demand answers to these questions from our federal government.

Elysha on social media

My wife, Elysha, is clever and funny. Legitimately so.

It might be her most attractive quality.

Actually, her most attractive quality is probably the way she dances. She and I danced in the kitchen two nights ago while she was cooking dinner, and it might’ve been my favorite moment so far in 2020.

Sorry you missed it.

Still, she’s quite clever and funny, and I adore this about her.

She’s especially amusing and occasionally biting on social media - brilliantly so - but since she doesn’t use Twitter or Instagram, nor does she friend just anyone on Facebook, the world is not privy to her online humor, wit, and occasionally sharp criticism.

So over the last two weeks, I’ve collected some of her comments on Facebook, and I offer them, along with associated photographs, here, for your enjoyment.

___________________________________________________

I just taught Clara the phrase “tough titties,” so things are effectively devolving around here.

Listening to Hamilton and feeling pretty inferior. Eliza Hamilton was teaching her kids piano and French, and also apparently how to rap. I am baking cookies and ignoring my children.

It occurred to me this evening that our current situation has, for now, eliminated my anxiety about mass shootings and school shootings. I think it's a pretty sad state of things in this country that it takes a pandemic to feel safe from being shot.

Indoctrinating Clara into my two religions: Judaism and Foodieism.

New pandemic level unlocked: At home haircut.

From your teacher friend, me: A great reminder about what’s important right now. This needs to be our collective mantra. And I think it’s worth adding that we need to remember to show ourselves this grace, as well. H/T to our awesome school psychologist, Cora Sharp Fuss, for sharing this tonight.

We are on a hike up Mount Carmel. One thing that is very apparent is that I’m not physically fit enough for an apocalypse.

I’m hoping this doesn’t apply to any of you, but if the term “Chinese Virus” seems ok to you in any way, please unfriend me right now. On Facebook and also in real life. (Once real life begins again.)

The dogs of America are really coming out ahead.

After 17 days of nonstop research I can say without reservation that there is nothing louder than a 7 year old boy who has been cooped up at home. Good thing he's cute.

Matthew Dicks and I brought home lots of resources from our classrooms to keep Clara and Charlie busy while we hunker down. I brought math games. He brought this:

For the record, I stand by my choice of The Donner Party. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and I don’t think getting trapped in the frozen wilderness and being forced to dine on deceased companions should be anything someone should be forced to do again.

Your meeting or workshop begins with a list of goals? Examine them carefully.

It’s become quite popular for meeting facilitators, presenters, professional development administrators, and the like to begin their meetings, workshops, and sessions with these two elements:

1. Norms

2. Goals

Neither one of these elements inspire me with confidence.

Yesterday I wrote about my problems with norms. Today I’ll address my issues with goals, sometimes expressed as objective, learning targets, or (worst of all) intentions.

My problem with goals is far less simpler than that of norms. In general, defining the goals or objectives at the onset of a meeting or workshop is not a terrible idea. It’s probably not necessary if the speaker or facilitator is skilled and engaging, but it’s not automatically a mistake to outline your goals to the audience.

The problem is with the goals themselves. So often they suck. The workshop might be scheduled for 45 minutes, but when the goals are stated, I’m appalled. I find myself thinking, “This goal could be achieved in 10 minutes” or “That goal could’ve been accomplished via email” or “I don’t want to achieve this stupid goal.”

Worst of all, “I don’t even know what that goal means.”

If you’re going to establish goals for a meeting, make them worthy of the audience’s time. Make the people sitting before you believe that there is great value in your presentation. Excite them about what they are about to learn.

For example, I teach storytelling workshops for beginners several times a year. Listed at the top of every agenda is a set of goals for the day, specifically designed to reassure nervous students that they will not be required to speak except to tell me their name and the reason they decided to attend the workshop.

For many people, public speaking is terrifying. My beginner’s level workshops are designed to provide a solid foundation in storytelling without the fear of having to perform. I think it’s important to reinforce this notion before we get started, in order to relieve any anxiety that someone might be feeling.

But since I’m presenting goals at the beginning of the workshop, I establish lofty goals. Goals that the average audience member can embrace. Goals that set a high bar for myself and the content that I am about to deliver.

Here is my list:

1. You’ll laugh.

2. You’ll be entertained.

3. You won’t need to speak a word if you don’t want.

4. You’ll be a better storyteller by the end of the day.

5. You’ll be given lots of breaks.

6. You’ll find stories in your life that you’ve never noticed before.

7. You’ll probably be one of the best storytellers in your social circle by the end of the day.

8. You’ll have clear, simple, easily implemented strategies to improve your personal and professional communication and help you find and tell better stories.

Please note how my goals don’t seek to broaden understanding, increase capacity, elevate skill level, unpack content, improve synergy, or enhance collaboration.

No one has ever been inspired by these goals.

Those may actually be some of the goals of your meeting, seminar, or workshop, but they will mean nothing to the people sitting in front of you.

Even worse, they might just depress or annoy them.

If you’re going to establish goals at the onset of your meeting, seminar, or workshop, make them the kind of goals that will excite and inspire people.

If those goals don’t exist, cancel the meeting. Refund the workshop. Rethink your professional development.

Or just don’t list any goals.

It’s better to say nothing than to aggressively un-inspire your audience.

Your meeting or workshop begins with a set of norms? Be afraid.

It’s become quite popular for meeting facilitators, presenters, professional development administrators, and the like to begin their meetings, workshops, and sessions with these two elements:

1. Norms

2. Goals

Neither one of these elements inspire me with confidence.

I’ll address the establishment of goals tomorrow, but today, allow me to deal with the insidious rise of norms, which are by far the worst of the two.

Norms (sometimes referred to as ground rules) are strange. To begin your presentation with behavioral guidelines might just be the stupidest way to engage your audience and get them excited about your content. In fact, I would argue that establishing norms at the onset of a meeting is an excellent way to undermine the norms of your meeting, for obvious reasons:

Launching your meeting with the assumption that grown-ass adults don’t know how to behave is an excellent way to make your audience hate you, and it’s the worst way to gain your audience’s respect, trust, and attention.

You’re almost begging your audience to despise you and ignore you.

As I see it, there are only two possible reasons for establishing norms at the onset of a meeting:

1. The meeting is filled with terrible human beings who don’t know how to behave in a professional setting, so the person who is leading this meeting thinks that providing these savages with rules of conduct will somehow improve their behavior.

This, of course, makes know sense.

If the audiences is filled with savages, they are savages for a reason. They don’t adhere to rules and expectations. Proffering a set of norms will not make them any less savage. I know this for certain because I am the kind of person who rejects nonsense rules all the time.

Some might even consider me a savage.

Lists of rules work really well for rule followers, but rule followers will not be the problem during a presentation. They already know the norms. They even like the norms. They feel safe in a space governed by decorum.

It’s the savages who can’t follow the rules, but your norms will not suddenly transform them into rule followers. Savages are not made civil by a PowerPoint slide explaining the expectations of the day.

PowerPoint has never made anyone do anything.

But here’s some good news. More than likely, the audience is not filled with terrible people. This almost never happens. Rather, the need for norms probably has less to do with the people in the room and more to do with the person offering the norms.

In this case, the implications are clear:

2. The person leading this meeting or workshop already knows that their presentation sucks. Or they know - probably through experience - that they are incapable of engaging an audience. Or perhaps they lack the confidence or skill to address issues that might arise during their presentation.

Probably some awful combination of all three.

In this case, the establishment of norms represents some desperate attempt by the presenter to impose a set of expectations on the audience in a ridiculous attempt to compensate for their inability to do the job.

“If everyone sits quietly, stays off their devices, and participates when appropriate, maybe no one will notice how much I suck at delivering content. Or how pointless and uninspiring this content is. Or how terrified I am to be standing here today.”

Again, probably some awful combination of all three.

But norms do not inspire people. The establishment of norms does not fill audiences with confidence. I have seen many great speakers in my time. I have attended some truly inspiring workshops. I’ve even attended some engaging, informative, and even entertaining meetings.

None of these great speakers, outstanding presenters, or engaging orators needed to establish norms at the onset of their presentation in order to be effective.

Not a single one.

Probably because these purveyors of content and inspiration know that telling grown-ass people how to behave is a prickish, asinine, and counter-productive.

It’s also possible that the use of norms have become an institutional expectation. A directive from some stupid person at the top. But even then, the establishment of norms is still stupid because the most effective and engaging speakers would forgo this dumbass directive, make light of it, use the requirement of norms as comic relief, or at least skirt by the stupidity as quickly as possible.

I know I I would. Most confident, effective, inspiring speakers would.

The message here is clear:

When you are faced with norms at the onset of a meeting or workshop of any kind, be afraid. Be very afraid. Something has gone terrible wrong. You are either sitting among heathens who can’t behave properly in a professional setting, or more likely, you are about to receive useless, uninspiring content from an ineffective, under-confident, uninspiring speaker.

If you’re like me, this is your signal to fine some way to be productive while the world around you grinds to a halt.

A terrible or pointless presentation is no excuse for not getting something done.

Eyes wide open

These are long, hard days for so many of us.

May I suggest that you pay close attention to the moments of beauty and joy in your life right now and hold onto them with everything you’ve got?

Admittedly, I’m blessed with two hilarious and delightful children and a wife who I want to spend every waking and sleeping moment with anyway, but I’m also focused on everything else I can find:

• The hawk I saw circling a cul-de-sac yesterday afternoon during my bike ride

• The three ducks and two geese who almost always visit us when we walk down to the brook

• The father and son who play catch on the church lawn almost every day

• The appearance of the sun after days of overcast skies

• The smile and eternal optimism of my neighbor as he shouts a hello to me from his stoop

• The crocuses pushing their way through the dry leaves on Briarwood Road

• The rainbows drawings popping up in windows around town

• The pink buds appearing on tree limbs

I’m not blind to the reality of the moment. I probably read and watch more news than most, and I’m constantly engaging with Trump’s Twitter feed.

Having been one of the two dozen Americans who sued Trump and won, forcing him to unblock me on Twitter, I feel obligated to engage. The Knight Foundation spent a lot of money on my behalf, so I owe it to them to make the most of their investment by exercising my right of free speech.

I’m well aware of the dire straights that we face. I know people suffering with COVID-19, and this week, I mailed my first condolence card to a friend.

But amidst all of that, I force my eyes to find beauty, and when I can, I capture that beauty with photographs.

2020 will not be the year of the pandemic for me. The pandemic will be a part of my memory of this time, for sure, but it will also be the year I rediscovered my bike. Learned to cook for my family. Watched every Marvel movie for the first time alongside Charlie and Elysha. Wrote a book. Maybe two.

This will be the year I watched and listened to my kids more than ever before. The year that Elysha and I picked each other up and held each other together when things got tough. The year when crocuses bloomed in March and hawks circled overhead in cloudless skies and a small family of ducks found the time to say hello to a small family of human beings who like to toss rocks into a brook and breathe fresh air and forget about the troubles of the world for a while.

I hope you can find as much beauty in these long, hard days.

Resolution update: March 2020

PERSONAL FITNESS

1. Don’t die.

This goal is more precarious now than ever before. But in response, we are now living in near-quarantine. On the rare occasion when I purchase food from the store, we place it in the garage for 3-5 days before washing and moving into the house, and I am nearly robotic in the grocery store, armed with Lysol wipes, hand sanitizer, and vigilance beyond compare.

Living with undiagnosed, untreated PTSD for decades turns out to be outstanding training when facing an invisible, deadly enemy. I’ve been engaged in a similar mental battle with forces beyond my control for most of my life.

I’m not messing around.

2. Lose 20 pounds.

Done! I lost seven more pounds in March for a total of 20 pounds in 2020.

Elysha told me not to mention this, since I know there is a lot of stress baking and stress eating going on right now, but I acknowledge all of my failures, of which there are many, so I get to acknowledge my successes, too.

Credit my rapid weight loss not to any crash diet or insane exercise regime, but instead to a few, simple switches in my life:

• Avoidance of all vending machines

• Zero candy bars in 2020

• One cheeseburger per week

• Healthy, low calorie lunches of oatmeal, fruit, and soup

• Increased level of intensity while exercising, first at the gym and now during my daily bike rides

• Identification of low calorie, much loved snacks

That’s it. Simple switches like boosting effort during the exercise I was already doing, avoiding high calorie foods that don’t fill you up, and finding the right snacks.

Simple switches. I believe in this strategy.

My job now is to maintain the 20 pound weight loss and lose another 20 pounds, which would bring me down to my high school pole vaulting weight.

Maybe unrealistic, but I lost 20 pounds in three months without much effort, so another 20 pounds in 9 months feels doable.

3. Eat at least three servings of fruits and/or vegetables per day, six days a week.

Done! Now that I’m eating all of my meals at home, this has become simple automatic. Tons of fruits and vegetables. A silver lining in this nightmare scenario.

4. Do at least 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 3 one-minute planks for five days a week.

Done.

Also, after learning about a 62 year-old man setting the new world record for a plank at more than 8 hours, I’ve begun extending my plank time. I did one 6-minute plank in February, and I’m doing 2-minute planks now regularly.

I had hoped to do a 10-minute plank by the end of March, but I’m not even close.

Unable to go to the gym anymore, I’ve also rediscovered my bike. I’m riding about 10 miles a day now, having only missed one day because of weather in the last two weeks.

I really love it. A lot. Another silver lining.

5. Set a new personal best in golf.

The golf courses were not open in March, both because of the weather and the pandemic.

WRITING CAREER

6. Complete my seventh novel before the end of 2020.

I met with my new editor, Alice, in February to confirm that she doesn’t think the next idea for my new novel is stupid, and she doesn’t. She seems to like it quite a bit, so it’s full steam ahead.

Also, I’m working on revising my first middle grade novel, too, so between my adult novel and my middle grade novel, I’m feeling good about finishing at least one of these books in 2020.

7. Write/complete at least five new picture books, including one with a female, non-white protagonist. 

No progress. But it’s about time I get started.

8. Write a memoir.

Writing continues. Rather slowly.

9. Write a new screenplay.

This goal has transitioned into a musical (sort of a screenplay) that I am now writing and will perform with my friend, Kaia, despite the fact that I cannot sing.

This should be interesting.

10. Submit at least five Op-Ed pieces to The New York Times for consideration.

Two pieces submitted in March. The first two pieces submitted so far in 2020.

Neither was accepted, but one was later accepted by the Hartford Courant and ran in the Op-Ed section on March 28.

11. Submit one or more short stories to at least three publishing outlets.

None submitted in March. None submitted in 2020.

12. Select two behaviors that I am opposed to and adopt them for one week, then write about my experiences on the blog.

I’ve identified a behavior to try:

I’m going to read 50 Shades of Gray. I’ve always assumed that it’s a terrible book, but at a recent party, I listened to friends disparage this book (despite having never read it), which automatically made me want to defend the book based upon its commercial success and their hints of literary elitism.

I also have an oppositional disposition, so I almost instinctually take the opposing viewpoint in many situations. I’m a joy to be around.

I’ll start reading after I’m done with Elton John’s memoir.

Another behavior I’m considering:

Engaging in the weirdness of ASMR, but it might just be too stupid to try.

13. Increase my newsletter subscriber base to 5,000.

I added 57 subscribers in February for a total of 4,181.

I need to pick up the pace.

If you’d like to sign up for my newsletter, you can do so here:

14. Write at least six letters to my father.

Three letters written to my father in March. Four written in total in 2020.

Also, my father wrote back to me this week. A much-needed bit of joy in the midst of these long, hard days.

15. Write 100 letters in 2020.

Eleven letters written in March, including my first letter of condolence to the family member of a COVID-19 victim.

Sadly, there will probably be more to come.

I also wrote letters to three grocery stores, one pharmacy, and my insurance company, thanking their employees for continuing to work through this time.

A total of 15 so far n 2020.

16. Convert 365 Days of Elysha into a book.

No progress.

17. Complete and release my limited episode podcast on “Twenty-One Truths About Love.”

The podcast is nearly complete. Episodes with my editor, the cover designer, and more are ready to go. I need to record the first episode with Elysha and finish editing the last one and it will be ready to launch.

I may wait to launch the podcast in conjunction with the paperback release of my novel.

STORYTELLING/SPEAKING CAREER

18. Produce a total of 12 Speak Up storytelling events.

The cancellation of all shows through May and probably beyond will make this goal difficult to achieve. So far we have produced four shows in 2020. Zero shows in March.

On a side note, I’ve been performing in online storytelling shows in Boston, Australia, and Costa Rica, and New York, and I have an online solo show planned for April.

At some point we may begin producing our own online Speak Up shows, too, but we’re waiting a bit to allow people to get their footing in our new, albeit temporary existence.

19. Pitch myself to at least 5 upcoming TEDx events with the hopes of being accepted by one.

I pitched myself to three TEDx events in March (and three so far in 2020):

TEDx Salem State University, TEDx Hartford, and TEDx Yale.

No word on any of them yet.

I also helped two clients get accepted to speak in TEDx events in 2020 ands 2021.

I was supposed to be speaking at a TEDx event in the Berkshires in April, but that event has been rescheduled for later in the year.

20. Attend at least 15 Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended two Moth StorySLAMs in March and told a story in one, winning that slam. Three events so far in 2020.

Given that all Moth events have been cancelled in the foreseeable future, this goal is going to be much more challenging now.

21. Win at least three Moth StorySLAMs.

I won a Moth StorySLAM in March at Oberon in Boston. It was my first win in 2020 and my 48th Moth StorySLAM victory in all.

Given that all Moth events have been cancelled in the foreseeable future, this goal is going to be much more challenging now.

22. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

I completed in a Moth GrandSLAM in Boston in February and finished in second place.

Given that all Moth events have been cancelled in the foreseeable future, this goal is going to be much more challenging now.

23. Produce at least 40 episodes of our podcast Speak Up Storytelling. 

Elysha and I produced three new episodes in March (plus one rebroadcast).

A total of 11 new episodes in 2020.

Our latest dropped on Wednesday! Subscribe today!

24. Begin providing transcriptions of each episode of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast.

No progress.

25. Explore the monetization of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast.

DONE!

Our Patreon page is up and running, and so far 7 people have been kind enough to commit to a monthly contribution. In exchange for their commitment, they will be receiving bonus content on the Patreon page, including bonus episodes, additional workshop opportunities, and more.

Our first bit of bonus content - a conversation with storyteller Jeni Bonaldo - drops this week.

If you’d like to become a patron and support the work we do at Speak Up, click here.

26. Perform stand up at least six times in 2020. 

No performances in March and no performances in 2020.

Given the nature of the world, this goal is going to be much harder now.

27. Pitch at least three stories to This American Life.

No stories pitched in March. No stories pitched in 2020.

28. Pitch myself to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast at least three times.

I sent a pitch to Marc and his producer back in February. One so far in 2020.

29. Produce at least one new video for my YouTube channel each month.

I posted four new videos in March consisting of the free storytelling workshops that I am conducting on Facebook Live. Every Wednesday at 3:00 EST. I then post the recordings of these sessions to my YouTube channel.

Six new videos in total in 2020.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

30. Find a means of producing my storytelling instruction for an online platform.

I’ll be partnering with MOPCO Improv Theater on April 18 for an online storytelling workshop, and I’m developing a 6-week online workshop for storytellers, too. Ultimately I want to develop asynchronous offerings using recorded instruction, but this is an excellent start.

HOME

31. Print, hang, and/or display at least 25 prints, photos, or portraits in our home.

Art has arrived. The devices needed for hanging the art has arrived. Frankly, this is Elysha’s job now, but I’m confident that t will be done soon and well.

32. Replace the 12 ancient, energy-inefficient windows in our home with new windows that will keep the cold out and actually open in the warmer months.

Windows are purchased and ready to be installed. Unfortunately the pandemic is preventing new construction jobs from being started, so it may be a while before our windows are installed.

But we are oh so close…

33. Clear the basement. 

I’ve been taking advantage of my town’s free bulk pickup each week. Progress is slow but steady.

Incrementalism, people. Some jobs are best done through consistency and vigilance. Small progress results in big returns.

34. Refinish the hardwood floors.

This might be a problem. Hardwood floors require at least a few days to be completed, and we have cats. The cats will absolutely not stay with anyone else while the floors are being done, so what the hell are we going to do?

35. Purchase a new television.

Done! It’s large and beautiful and professionally mounted to the wall. THANK GOODNESS we did this early in the year. Our new couch, chair, television, and streaming services have been invaluable during this period of social distancing.

FAMILY/FRIENDS

36. Take at least one photo of my children every day.

I missed 0 days in March. I missed 12 days in 2020. Social distancing makes this job much easier.

37. Take at least one photo with Elysha and myself each week.

I missed two of the four weeks in March. I am simply not someone who ever thinks to take a selfie (defined as a photo of yourself, taken by yourself), so taking a photo of myself with someone else is also not instinctual.

I find the explosion of selfies in this world very disturbing.

But I’ll need to find a way to do better, because I want more photos of Elysha and myself.

38. Cook at least 12 good meals (averaging one per month) in 2020.

Done! I made 14 meals for the family in March alone, plus the one cooked in February. I prepared three Hello Fresh meals. Cooked a ham. Made a pasta dish. Made egg sandwiches and omelettes for breakfast.

This pandemic has done wonders for cooking skills.

39. Ride my bike with my kids at least 25 times in 2020.

Two rides with Charlie and Clara in March.

40. Plan a reunion of the Heavy Metal Playhouse.

No progress.

41. I will not comment, positively or negatively, about physical appearance of any person save my wife and children, in 2017 in an effort to reduce the focus on physical appearance in our culture overall. 

Done.   

42. Surprise Elysha at least six times in 2020.

I bought tickets to Mike Birbiglia’s appearance in New Haven in May, hoping to surprise Elysha, but that surprise now seems unlikely.

So do I count that ruined surprise as a surprised?

I also sent Elysha a bouquet of flowers to her workplace on her birthday in January.

One or two surprises so far, depending on how I decide to credit myself.

43. Play poker at least six times in 2020.

My friends and I used a combination of a poker app, Zoom, and Venmo to spend an evening playing poker on a Saturday night.

Two games played so far in 2020.

44. Spend at least six days with my best friend of more than 30 years.

No progress. We were supposed to working as DJ’s at two weddings in April, but they were both rescheduled for the fall.   

NEW PROJECTS

45. Understand Instagram better.

No progress. But a former student has offered to help.

46. Listen to new music via the Billboard Hot 100 Spotify playlist at least four times per month.

Done! We are listening to a lot of music right now.

I’m especially enjoying Billie Eilish, The Weekend (what a stupid name) and the new Lady Gaga song.

47. Host a fundraiser for RIP Medical Debt, which would allow us to relieve the medical debt of struggling Americans for pennies on the dollar.

No progress.

48. Complete my Eagle Scout project.

No progress.

49. Scan and send photos of Laura to her daughters.

No progress.

50. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog and social media on the first day of every month.

Done.

This is what a book should look like

In case you weren’t sure, authors actually love it when you deface their books like this reader has done to mine.

Unless you’ve borrowed the book from a library or a friend, the book is yours. Do with as you please!

Maybe not burn it, but even then, if an author has enraged you to such a degree, maybe burning is the only proper response.

Books are sacred, to be sure, but they are also meant to engage you. Inform you. Entertain you. Challenge you. There’s nothing wrong with arming yourself with a pen or a highlighter or a squadron of post-it notes and firing back.

Positively or negatively. Or perhaps just methodically, as the reader has done here.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed seeing these pictures.

The world looks very different atop a bike

About a month ago, I stopped going to the gym. Even before the gym was closed because of the pandemic, Elysha asked me to stop going, and I knew she was right.

I thought this would mean that I’d need to begin running again, which is not something I enjoy doing. My knee eventually starts to ache from prolonged periods of running, and it just isn’t any fun. I’ll run on a treadmill at the gym from time to time, alternating between it and the stationary bikes and various non-impact elliptical machines, but to run every day sounded miserable.

Then I remembered my bike.

I spent my childhood atop my black Huffy. I loved riding my bike, and I still do. I just don’t anymore. The kids are still on training wheels, so they can’t travel very far, and Elysha doesn’t enjoy riding in traffic.

But I thought my bike might be a suitable replacement for the gym.

That was an understatement.

I have fallen back in love with bike riding. I’m riding about 10 miles a day, up and down the streets and paths of my town, and I have discovered neighborhoods and oddities that I have never seen before. Nooks and crannies of our town that I’d never seen or bothered to notice before.

Every day that I ride, especially in the midst of this pandemic, I see something new. Things I’ve never seen before.

I drive by folks standing on the edge of driveways, engaged in loud conversations with neighbors still sitting on their stoops.

Fathers and sons play catch in the middle of empty streets as a Little League passes by, unplayed.

Pedestrians make wide arcs around one another, sometimes stepping off the sidewalk and into the street to keep their distance.

Someday I will look back on this time in our lives like an episode from the Twilight Zone, but today, it’s our new normal.

But I suspect that I will still be biking. Yes, I will no doubt return to the gym when it is safe, but I can’t imagine being foolish enough to stop biking again. A new, more comfortable seat would be good when the bike shop opens again, but until then, I’ll keep pedaling my sore ass up and down the streets of my town and the adjacent towns.

It’s a joyous way to spend an hour or two.

Just this week, I saw the following:

A Newington Public School security car covered in the flowers of appreciative students and parents.

One of those enormous chairs on the front lawn on someone’s home.

What is up with these ridiculous behemoths? Why do people put giant pieces of furniture on their lawns? It makes no sense. And adjoining hay bales?

This makes no sense.

While riding on a trail behind a church, I saw this “No Dumping” sign and thought, “Seriously? I can pay $100 and dump all of that extra furniture in my basement here? And the baby swings, too? That’s not a bad price at all.”

As I once explained to an irate librarian who wasn’t pleased about the length of time that my book was overdo, “A fine is simply the price that someone gets to pay to break a rule. It’s like a contract. I keep the book longer than it’s permitted, and I happily pay the predetermined fine. If you want me to return the book sooner, don’t make keeping it so affordable.”

She wasn’t happy with my rationale.

I won’t do it, of course, but dumping, at least in this particular spot, it very affordable.

I finished off an audiobook in the midst of my ride last week. I pulled over to the curb, opened my app, chose a new book, and hit play. Less than a minute later, I turned onto this street:

Elton Drive.

The book I had started listening to seconds before:

Me, a memoir by Elton John.

This is known as Coincidentalism, capitalized because it’s a religion, founded by myself about a year ago.

We currently have a congregation of three.

I’ll explain more later in the week, but for now, I saw that sign and thought, “Wow. Coincidentalism is at work in the world today.”

At least something is working.

How "The Goonies" altered my view on life forever

If you’re old enough, you remember the video stories of more than a decade ago. Many of us spent hours inside those stores, staring first at VHS boxes and then the DVD cases that lined the walls, looking for a film to brighten our television screens for a couple hours, and perhaps our lives, too.

I certainly wouldn’t want to return to the days when bringing a movie into your home meant a trip to the store in hopes that it might be available, but there was something fun about entering those stores and wandering around so much possibility.

While I was still in high school, about a year before I was hired by McDonald’s and started bringing home a steady paycheck, I rode my bike down to Video Galaxy on Main Street, adjacent to the Town Chef, in my hometown of Blackstone, Massachusetts. Using money that I had saved, I rented The Goonies, then I promptly lost the VHS tape.

I spent weeks trying to find that movie, afraid to tell my parents, as the late fees mounted. Eventually I determined that the movie was lost forever and called the store to ask how much it would cost if someone was ever stupid enough to lose a movie.

I don’t remember the exact figure, but it was well in excess of $100, which was an enormous sum of money for me at the time.

About $227 in today’s dollars, plus the late fees that had already accrued.

I panicked. I started searching all of the places that I had previously searched, feeling like I had just bankrupted my family. I obsessed over this movie, worrying constantly, feeling the weight of the increasing late fees piling up on my shoulders.

In my mind, this was the worst thing that I had ever done. My biggest problem ever. A dilemma of unfathomable proportions.

I was stressed for weeks. All thought about was that damn tape.

Finally, I went to mother on a Sunday night and confessed. I cried as I told her how much the video and late fees would cost our family, and I begged for forgiveness.

My mother was silent as I explained what had happened. She sat quiet and still.

When I finished explaining, she reach out and took my hands. Then she smiled and said, “Matt, we just won’t go to that video store ever again.”

I couldn’t believe it. In an instant, the clouds broke and sunshine finally streamed back into my world. In a single sentence, the worst problem of my life had been solved.

That moment changed me forever.

Thanks to an enormous pile of misfortunes, including being arrested, jailed, and tried for a crime I did not commit, a period of homelessness, robbery at gunpoint, decades of untreated PTSD, and two instances in which paramedics needed to use CPR to restore my heartbeat and respiration, I have an enormous amount of perspective on things today.

Most problems seem insignificant to me by comparison. I tend to be a person who does not worry very much and sees most problems as less troublesome than the people around me.

It can be irritating at times. I know. My nonchalance and cavalier attitude can be admittedly infuriating to someone looking for a little empathy. But perspective is a powerful force. It allows you to see things for what they really are and what they could be.

But oftentimes, in the face of trouble, it’s not my series of misfortunes that afford me the perspective to see past the storm and into the sunshine. It’s those simple words spoken by my mother that day:

“Matt, we just won’t go to that video store ever again.”

My mother taught me that solutions are oftentimes far simpler than we can imagine.

Also, breaking the rules (and perhaps a minor law or two) can often afford you a simple and expedient solution.

Surprisingly wise words from a woman who had much to worry about throughout her life and rarely stopped worrying herself.

If you’re feeling nostalgic for those video stores, I recommend these two short films which feature two of the last video stores on the planet

I’d also highly recommend the Twitter feed @loneblockbuster, which purports to be the Twitter feed from one of the last remaining Blockbuster video stores in the country.

It’s not, but it’s hilarious just the same.

The only Blockbuster still in existence can be found in Bend, Oregon. The NY Times did a piece on them a year ago.

Also a good read.