Joy in other’s unfortunate desire to sleep

This is one of my favorite times to write. I just spent the last two hours sitting in the lobby of a beautiful Vermont inn, working on my book, while the dozen or so guests (my wife included) quietly slumbered away.

My wife and I are in Manchester, Vermont, participating in the Books on the Nightstand weekend retreat. As much as we miss our daughter already, we couldn’t be more excited about the day ahead.

Since 5:00, I’ve written about two thousand words of fiction, completed a blog post to my daughter, written a short post for this blog, caught up on the news (government shutdown averted) and watched the sun come up over the low, rounded mountain to the east.

It’s been a joyous morning so far.

I’ve recently begun work on a semi-autobiographical book related to productivity, which sprung from a blog post that was getting entirely too long to post. One of the tenets of the productive life, I believe, is finding great joy in being productive.

This morning has been a perfect example of this.

And it explains why this is one of my favorite times to write:

Early in the morning, when the world is still dark, in a building filled with sleeping guests.

The building full of sleeping guests is the important part.

It sounds a little mean, but I take an immense amount of admittedly perverse pleasure knowing that I just spent two hours getting things done while so many others merely slept.

A little bit of personal schadenfreude to start my day.

I suspect early morning runners experience this same feeling, though most are not as foolish enough as me to admit to it.

The emailed thank you note: The sign of an advanced civilization

When the emailed thank you note finally takes the place of the physical thank you card in the minds of the minority of tradition-obsessed individuals who make the majority of us crazy with their arcane and time-wasting hoop jumping, I will be a happy man.

I have a new job.

Frank and Jaime McCourt, owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers and currently engaged in bitter divorce proceedings, paid a psychic hundreds of thousands of dollars over a five-year period to watch Dodger games on his television and send positive thoughts to the team in hopes of boosting their chances of winning. I have many areas of interest in my life. In addition to my future career as a life coach, I am also interested in working in the fields of economics and sociology. History, politics, the law and even physics also intrigue me. When my teaching career comes to a close someday, I could see myself perusing careers in any one of these fields.

But today I’d like to make my new career official:

I declare myself a professional psychic, ready and willing to begin work for any sports team except the New York Jets. For a fee slightly less than that of the clearly ineffectual psychic that the Dodgers hired (their last World Series appearance and win came in 1988), I am willing to send a tsunami of good thoughts to your team over the television airwaves, and if possible, in person as well.

That’s right. I’m a psychic now. And a damn good one, too.

Pretty exciting. Huh?

But please note:

I have one advantage that most psychics do not.

In addition to sending out positive thoughts to your team, I am also perfectly willing to wish destruction and annihilation on your opponent for no extra charge. While most psychics favor the positive realm of spirituality, I am an certified expert when it comes to wishing bad things on people. I am the king of schadenfreude. The champion of negativity.

I have been known to wish for career-ending injuries on certain New York Jets football players, and for the right price, I am willing to offer this service to your team as well.

Put the power of the positive and the negative to work for you today.

Matthew Dicks: teacher, author, DJ, minister, life coach, and now professional psychic.

An exciting day for me, and if you are the owner of a sports franchise, perhaps for you as well.

MATTHEW DICKS' RULES OF ALL DRINKING STORIES

1. No one will ever care about your drinking stories as much as you.
2. Drinking stories never impress the type of woman who one would want to impress.
3. If you have more than three excellent drinking stories from your entire life, you are incorrect in your estimation of an excellent drinking story.
4. Drinking stories must always be your own. Telling someone else’s drinking story reaches a level of separation that makes the story no longer tenable.
5. Even the best drinking stories are seriously compromised if told during the daytime and/or at the workplace.
6. A drinking story told by someone over the age of 30 or whose spouse is over the age of 30 is a sad, pathetic and ultimately tragic event except under the following conditions:

• The drinking story has surpassed all other drinking stories and has become the storyteller’s absolute best drinking story of all time.
• The drinking story is one that occurred before the age of 30 and is one of the storyteller’s three best drinking stories of all time.
• The storyteller is over 70. Elderly drinking stories are acceptable in any form as they are rare and oftentimes hilarious.

Undies in the mail

I’ve been working on a blog post dealing with productivity and efficiency for the past several days, but it has grown so long that it might make a better book. Sort of a side project. Self-help. A new genre for me.

Like I need another side project.

As my wife said, “Is that really the book you should be writing?”

Well… maybe?

Anyway, in the midst of gathering productivity ideas, I was reminded about the genius of Manpacks.

Manpacks is a company that will ship you fresh underwear every three months. Rather than waiting for my wife to throw away enough of my underwear to make staying in underpants throughout the week a challenge, Manpacks will simply send me fresh pairs four times a year without me ever having to remember.

I am always in favoring of outsourcing, and when the outsourcing can be done without any thought or coordination on my part, that’s just an added bonus.

And if it stops my wife from having to buy me underwear every Christmas, even better.

I only wish I had thought of this idea first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-BBmrVC-m8

The “I told you so” calendar

I have often said that the four best words in the English language are “I told you so.” People scoff at the assertion, but I have yet to hear four words that are better.

As a result of my fondness for the expression, I have created an “I told you so” Google calendar, set up specifically for time-stamped opportunities to say “I told you so” to someone I know and love.

While not going into specifics, an entry on this calendar might result from an encounter like this:

I’m talking to a Red Sox fan mid-season. Boston is in first place and their closer, Jonathan Palelbon, is pitching lights out, while the Yankees closer, Mariano Rivera, is struggling. I assert that by the end of the year, Rivera will have overtaken Papelbon in saves, and the Red Sox fan laughs at me, telling me I have no objectivity when it comes to baseball.

As soon as possible, I open a browser on my phone or laptop and access my calendar. I scroll ahead to September, and on the closing day of the major league season, I make an entry in my “I told you so” calendar, reminding me to call the Red Sox fan on that day if Rivera has indeed overtaken Papelbon in saves.

While this is not exactly what happened, something very close to it did and I was able to make that utterly joyous “I told you so” call on the last day of the season.

It was such great fun.

I was telling my mother-in-law about this calendar when it dawned upon me that she also has an entry on the calendar, due to arrive sometime later this year. My father-in-law has at least two entries on the calendar, one as far away as 2020.

While she desperately wanted to know what the entry related to her was, I refused, assuring her that she would find out in due time.

Red Dawn Moments

My wife recently watched Red Dawn for the first time. It’s my best friend’s favorite movie of all time, and while I like it, it has issues. Most glaring was the brother’s decision to attack the Russian-held town at the end of the film in order to create a distraction so that the last two members of their insurgent band could escape to Free America.

A diversion?

Had the Russians really sealed off tens of thousands of square miles of mountain terrain so tightly that a two-man attack on a town in the middle of the night would cause those Russian-held lines to open up?

I don’t think so.

But I digress.

It’s the opening the scene of the film that I want to address today. In it, Russian and Cuban paratroopers descend upon a high school in Calumet, Colorado. We see them landing from the interior of a classroom, where a history teacher is teaching a class of disinterested students. In mid-sentence, the teacher notices the paratroopers and assumes that they are US soldiers who have landed off course on a training mission. When he goes outside to investigate, he is shot and killed.

The war has begun.

And the kids never hear the end of the lesson.

This is what I call a Red Dawn Moment.

A Red Dawn Moment is any interruption that permanently prevents a person from completing an important task or garnering desired information.

When Stephen King was struck by a car and initially reported killed in 1999, I thought that his Red Dawn moment had come. In the midst of writing his Dark Tower series, a distracted driver had come along and prevented King from finishing his opus and prevented readers from ever learning the fate of Roland and his band of gunslingers.

Last weekend I judged the American Legion State Oratorical Contest in East Hartford, Connecticut. At the end of the contest, the two finalists were asked to rise so that the winner could be announced. But while the boys remained standing, awaiting their fate, two other Legionnaires delivered short speeches, making the wait for the winner feel excruciatingly long to me and most assuredly painful for the two finalists.

I’ve been in situations like this before, standing and waiting to discover if I had won, and they are long, awkward and painful moments indeed.

While waiting for the Legionnaire speeches to conclude, I thought about the idea of a Red Dawn Moment happening right then and there. I wondered what it would be like if Russian soldiers suddenly threw open the doors to the auditorium, announcing the start of World War III with machine gun fire and exploding grenades. The boys would duck as bullets flew and struck ancillary characters on stage. Audience members would flee for the exits, only to be gunned down by an anonymous Russian carrying an M-16.

Not me, of course. I would keep my head down and make a timely escape when no one was looking. The storyteller always survives.

Eventually, the two finalists would escape through a door behind the stage, where they would team up with the surviving oratorical contestants (including the two female contestants in order to provide a love interest) and head for the low-lying, somewhat populated Connecticut hills to wait the end of the war.

Through it all, neither boy would ever know who had won the contest.  Tempers would eventually flare over the rationing of supplies and the decision to head into town for news, and when they did, the questions over who had won the oratorical contest would arise again. A well-prepared, eight-minute debate would ensure, followed by a five minute off-the-cuff rebuttal, but no matter who was declared the winner, questions would remain. The mystery over who had won the contest would remain a subplot for the entire war, or at least until the two finalists were stupid enough to march back into Hartford armed with machine guns and soldier-launched missiles, intent on creating a diversion so that their remaining oratorical companions (one female and one male) could escape over the Connecticut line into Free Rhode Island.

That, my friends, if the kind of Red Dawn moment that runs through my head on an almost daily basis.

The lesson:

Don’t keep people waiting.  You never know when World War III will begin.

I get much, much better with age

On Saturday I served as a judge for the state finals of the American Legion’s Oratorical Contest. During the luncheon that followed the event, I learned that the mayor served as a judge for last year’s contest, and forty years before that, he had finished second in the same contest.

I suggested that after 40 years, the mayor might as well start telling people that he won the contest, since it was doubtful that anyone would bother to check.

This led me to decide that my achievements will also improve as the years go by.

For example:

• In 1995 and 1996, I won back-to-back state debate championships while attending Manchester Community College.

By the time I turn 65, I’ll have won six in a row.

• In 1996, I was a Truman Scholarship finalist and a USA Today Academic All American, second team.

By 2030 I’ll have won a Truman scholarship and a Fulbright scholarship as well, and my position on the Academic All American Team will be elevated from second team to first team.

• I was named the McDonald’s Manager of the Year in 1989, 1992 and 1993.

When I turn 60, I’ll have won the award from 1989-1995.

• In 2005, I was named Teacher of the Year in my school district and was one of three finalists for Connecticut Teacher of the Year.

By the time I retire, I will have won the Connecticut Teacher of the Year award and been named one of three finalists for the national award. And by the time I’m 90 years old, I will have won that as well.

Age has its privileges.

Naked life coaching?

I’ve been trying to establish myself as a life coach for more than a year without much success. I have two pro bono clients who can attest to my skill and expertise but no paying clients yet. Perhaps this is because I have not offered to take my clothing off while dispensing my keen and insightful advice.

My stock tip of the day

I don’t watch the Oscars, and I very much wanted a Twitter application last night that would block any tweet containing the word Oscar, but it’s worth noting that although I did not watch, I was almost certain of who the winners would be before the show even started.

For the second year in a row (and perhaps longer), USA Today went ten for ten in predicting the Oscar results.

Considering that you can wager on the Oscars with several offshore gambling websites (and coming soon to Las Vegas), this would seem like a reasonable opportunity to make some bank next year.  

Brilliant restroom redesign

I don’t have a problem with adjacent urinals in a men’s room, but even so, this would seem to make a lot of sense. 

Right?

THIS COULD HAPPEN, TOM.

I believe that the degree to which you find this funny says a lot about you.

I think it’s hilarious. 

I really, really, really want to pull this prank on my friend, Tom, who is afraid of flying.

Actually, he’s afraid of spiders, too, so if I could find a way to work them in as well, that would be AWESOME.  

Ten people who hate Valentines Day and should be avoided at all costs

1. Singletons who worry aloud that they will be single forever (almost always real life women and male leads in romantic comedies) 2. Recently dumped singletons who cannot help but wallow in their new found singlehood (usually but not always women who are quite capable of ruining your Valentine’s Day if you get too close)

3. Single women whose biological clock sounds like Big Ben

4. Widows and widowers who are still hopelessly in love with their deceased partner (the only Valentines Day haters who deserve our sympathy)

5. Men who reject Valentines Day on principle and revel in this self-perceived intellectual superiority (these are the same men who think the Terminator movies are stupid and can’t name the quarterback of the Denver Broncos)

6. Singletons who are overly concerned about what others think of them and cannot bear to be seen alone on Valentines Day (cowards, for example, who refuse to leave the apartment on Valentines Eve lest they be seen without a date, usually found in romantic comedies but also existing in limited numbers in real life)

7. Overweight male hipsters who cannot fit into skinny jeans and purposely reference obscure indie rock bands from the early 90’s in an attempt to appear simpatico with the likes of Patton Oswald

8. Husbands and wives in failing marriages (husbands will almost never talk about their failing marriage but will find a way to depress you nonetheless)

9. Cheap men who don’t like to pay a premium on flowers or be told when to purchase a gift. These men often have wives or girlfriends who pretend to agree with this anti-Valentines Day stance even though deep down they hope beyond hope that their overly frugal husbands will cast off the shackles of financial wariness and give them something beautiful and silly on this pink and glossy day

10.  Curmudgeonly versions of myself from fifteen years ago who once believed that nonconformity, logic and common sense trumped the quickened heartbeat, widening smile and joyful laugh of a woman who suddenly finds herself on the receiving end of a bouquet of roses

Not every honor is an honor

In the event that I lead a nation through its infancy or command an army of rebels against overwhelming imperial forces, please don’t name a structure like the George Washington Bridge after me.

I would hate to have something that causes so much grief and is cursed so often named after me.

I’ll just take a picturesque mountain or a well planned city and call it a day.

A possible Valentine’s Day treat

I think I’ve found the perfect Valentine’s Day activity for Elysha and me.

Seriously.

Sure, we could eat dinner at her favorite restaurant.

Or I could take her to a movie. Popcorn and hand-holding and such.

Or we could act like those disingenuous, high-minded pontificators who reject Valentine’s Day as a fabricated, commercialized Hallmark holiday under the guise of waiting a day or two in order to purchase roses at a non-inflated price.

You know those people. They say things like, “I don’t need the calendar to tell me to give my wife flowers” and “Our love doesn’t wait for February 14th.”

If I could vomit on command (unlikely since I am vomit-free since 1983), I’d vomit on the shoes of these people whenever they spout such nonsense.

Or Elysha and I could go to White Castle and make a memory that we will never forget.

Seriously.

Valentine’s Day at White Castle.

Could you imagine anything more memorable?

Especially with White Castle’s offer to take our photo so that we can “treasure the memory” forever.

Thoughts?

6 reasons for a lack of motivation

I have a brilliant friend who is unmotivated.

Check that. The guy has a good job that he does well. He owns his own home and has a retirement plan in place.

He has his life together.

But coming from the perspective of a guy with a teaching career, a writing career, a small ministerial career, as well as the owner of a small business(and the desire to become a life coach and a jumper-talker-downer as well), I feel like he is wasting his talents.

Unsurprisingly, he disagrees.

One of our mutual friends find his lack of motivation baffling, so I put a list of reasons why he is unmotivated.

I have since reviewed the life with my friend and he concedes all points. And it occurs to me that it is a fairly comprehensive list of reasons why someone might not be motivated.

Here is the list:

1. He was adored by his parents and raised in a loving and supportive household, therefore he does not feel the need to prove his worth to the world.
2. He was an only child. Therefore he did not need to compete for attention at a young age.
3. He does not place a high value on material possessions. He is content with simple pleasures.
4. While not financially well off, he is financially secure.
5. He possesses a strong sense of self and cares little for what others may think of him.
6. He is divorced with no intention of remarrying, so he has no need to impress a woman.

It really is the perfect storm for contentment, or from my perspective, a lack of motivation.

Anything from the list that I might be missing?

Jumper-talker-downer for hire

Another job I wouldn't mind adding to my list of occupations is  jumper-talker-downer. You know, the ones who talk people out of jumping off buildings and bridges. I think I would be pretty good at it. Sincerely.

I have the perfect skill set.

• I like pressure.
• I have no qualms about being the determiner of life and death.
• I have a great perspective on death based upon my own life experiences.
• I am quite convincing (one former student recently said that my ability to get a class to follow my lead is “magical”).
• I don’t mind working odd hours.
• I don’t get cold very easily, so sitting on a rooftop or hanging from a suspension cable in January wouldn’t be a problem.
• I have a powerful voice (no bullhorn needed).
• I could simultaneously offer life coaching to someone clearly in need.
• I am not afraid of heights.
• I compartmentalize well (for those less-than-successful days).

I know this may sound tongue-in-cheek, but I'm serious. I actually think I'd be excellent at this job.

Before accepting a position, I would have the following questions:

1. What is the pay like? Is it an on-call rate, a per-jumper fee, or is there a retainer involved?
2. How is job performance measured? Is there a rate of success that determines year-end bonuses? I can’t be expected to save everyone.  Right?
3. How much credit will I receive when I save someone? Up to this point, these guys have not been getting enough publicity.
4. Oh… good idea.  Does the department employ a publicist, and if not, can we look into hiring one?

That last question may have been a little tongue-in-cheek.

The people who didn’t kill dogs are good, too.

Like most Americans, I am completely in favor of giving someone a second chance, including people who do things as utterly despicable as Michael Vick.

But it’s important to note that I am in even greater favor of people who do not screw up  in the first place.

Redemption stories are great, but I sometimes worry that we fail to recognize the less newsworthy but decidedly more honorable people who just do the right thing all the time.    

Snob magazine

When I heard that Snob magazine was hitting newsstands in December, I was thrilled. What better way to tell a person that he or she is an unlikeable, unjustifiable elitist than by sending them a subscription to Snob Magazine?

I instantly had two or three recipients in mind.

Of course, the one caveat would be that the I could not send the magazine anonymously. The first issue of the magazine would need to be accompanied by a card clearly indicating that I was the sender.

To hide behind the mask of anonymity in a case like this would be cowardly and despicable.

Years ago one of my friends had a book on manners and etiquette sent to his house anonymously as a means of sending him the message that someone in his life did not think him very polite.

Thankfully, the idiot sender left the receipt inside the book, and since he had paid with a credit card, his name was printed alongside the price of the book, thus allowing my friend to confront his attacker face-to-face.

This should be the fate of every coward who uses anonymity when attacking another person.

While attaching a calling card to the first issue of the magazine would make the prank slightly less palatable, I would still do it in at least one case.

It would be too apropos to pass up.

Then I discovered that Snob is a Russian language magazine.

It almost makes me want to find a Russian speaking friend, snob or otherwise.

The idea is just too good to pass up.

The price of wealth

A quote from Heather O’Neill from This American Life: No one from a rich background can ever be cool.

The more I think about it, the more I am certain that it is true.