About 8 months ago I remembered that all of the music I had illegally downloaded in college was still in my computer from years ago. Somehow, as that machine became outdated, I forgot to transfer the thousands of music files over into whatever new machine I got with plenty of memory to handle it all. This has left me, for about the past 7-10 years with the same 10 or so albums on my cell phone. And, because music has never been something I was much invested in, i.e. I don't have Spotify or Apple Music - I JUST had these albums as the only music on my phone for what must be the much bigger part of a decade. 

They are an eclectic bunch that I've gotten to know intimately. And with one NOTABLE exception, I'm only mortified at the dearth of content contributing to the background music to my life - not full on embarrassed by the content itself.  What's more - since I now have all of my prior albums loaded onto my phone - I have to do this from memory. I laugh in the face of danger. Let's get into it.

image from https://blog.discmakers.com/2017/10/get-your-songs-in-music-libraries/

Hello again. The world's on fire and we need a smile so here we go:

If you read my last post, you already know that in a panic-induced shopping incident I inadvertently bought the title product instead of extra-strength tablets. That's my bad. But, since becoming a first time owner of an altogether new, to me, product, I have some suggestions. Marketing suggestions.

At this point, and I'm talking to you liquid pain reliever manufacturers, your target audience is parents and people who are too busy, distracted, or panicked to read a box before purchasing a product. And you are leaning into that "distracted" market by not clearly labelling the box "liquid."  Too simple and clear. Instead, in the upper right hand corner, away from all the other information it says,"oral suspension," which sounds more like a WIPEOUT challenge than a description of liquid.

I have a bunch of topics to write about. But, before I do I think it's important that my readers have some insight into my mindset during this current COVID-19 crisis. Am I scared? Do I think we are all sheeple? As a means of answering all of your questions, I present to you this very real vignette from a few weeks into the quarantine.

Matt's First Visit to CVS, and, in a Larger Sense, His First Time Out and Around Other People

The first thing you need to know is that I feel lucky. Lucky that I can work from home. Lucky I have a home and food security. Lucky that all of my levels of privilege let me worry about others during a pandemic, and not worry about my own survival. Lucky.

That said. One of my prescriptions has run out. The important one. The one I can't "just not take" without immediate and unsavory consequences. I have to go the the pharmacy, it isn't really a matter of choice. Sending my wife out for this, as opposed to grocery shopping, is essentially sacrificing her body for mine -- though if she goes, I go with her. I realize the previous sentence doesn't exactly read like marital bliss, but my anxiety is a red-eyed creature. And its teeth are real. And therefore, this is a reality, even though it isn't ideal.

I prepare. I obviously have a mask. I have read 22 different articles about wearing gloves and all the smart people say they cause more problems than they solve. I believe science and leave my food prep gloves at home. I lather my hands with soap for 20 seconds, I rinse in burning hot water (the virus doesn't like the heat), but I don't rinse well. I want a thin film of soap to still be coating my hands, like a force field, as I walk the half mile to the store. I touch my pocket to make sure my ID and credit card, already pre-removed from my wallet, are present and accounted for. I don't wear headphones because it feels like too much future touching of stuff. I depart.

I'm having flashbacks to pre-grad school. While those words hold no real polarizing valence, I can tell you with certainty, it's a good thing.

Back in Boston, inhabiting coffee shops. I find various cozy electrified nooks and each day brings new coworkers with colorful tales to overhear. You never forget the first break-up you get to completely overhear one side off.

"Tell me what I just said? What did I just say? Cause you're not even listening. Ok, a summary, the gist, of what I just said? It IS important! This is the whole problem. UUUUUfffff. You're infuriating."

Solid content.

I'm still on superheroes.

But today we're coming at the subject from a completely different angle.

I think comics writers have messed up a bunch of these origin stories. In what Social Psychology calls the Fundamental Attribution Error, many of these stories have emphasized the person as the driving force of their own destiny, and discounted the undeniable importance of the situation. To wit, readers or viewers first meet the young Carol Danvers, Peter Parker, Clark Kent (as a kid pre-powers), Hal Jordan, etc. pre-powers. As a viewer, we feel we understand the moral fiber of these characters before they realize their powers. But I think, for many of them, perhaps their powers ended up being the driving force of their future nature.

A great number of super-villains and evil mutants emit energy beams/lasers/fire/spikes/insert-dangerous-substance-or-weapon shooting from somewhere on/in their body. In my mind, the day you get pissed and turn the JV basketball team into a shish-kebab with your pre-pubescent projectile extrusions, is the day your "good guy" status also gets skewered through the heart. During that double-dutch tournament where Macy's feet begin emitting systemic booms, destroying the gym and killing everyone on the bleachers, she's probs not gonna be drafted to the superhero league of cool kids the next season. Macy's on the run. And that's how Macy became a super-villain.

I was b b b b born to be b b b bad!

I didn't take the dogs out to go to the bathroom before going to bed for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, I was going to bed early. Usually I'm up well past midnight, but I decided to try and start my day bright and early this Tuesday, so I was in the bathroom finishing my bedtime routine around 11:30. This all matters because my wife had gone upstairs a mere hour and a half before me, and both dogs went outside to the bathroom with her, before the little one, the mama's boy, went to crawl into bed with my wife. These dogs can hold it for quite some time, so I figure even with the 1.5 hour start, both of them would be comfortable until morning, 6 hours away.

Second, we have a doggy-door. So really, our polly-prissy-pants pitbulls can expel whatever they want, whenever they want. They have compete, and one could argue, too much, freedom.

"Dad, please open the human door for us for no apparent reason!"

If you need to  pee. Go pee. If you need to poop, same thing. Go poop.

And finally, the last reason I didn't wake up the pups to take them out to pee is that I'm lazy sometimes. Most of all right before bed. And I didn't want to take them out, knowing the probable outcome of that action would be one of them barking into the night like a cacophonous metaphor for life, and then I would have to wrangle that metaphor back into the house.

Essentially, I let sleeping dogs lie. Just like they tell you too.

It did not work out well for me.

I have the sharpest elbow. Yes, elbow, not elbows. It's the right one. Obviously.

Trust that I want to regale you with tales that go against my very nature. Bludgeoning. Perhaps a fairytale like instance whereby I was attacked in the woods by some mystical beast, and just before its outsized incisors clamped down firmly on my exposed throat, down came a haymaker that hit like a spearhead, my right elbow thrust straight through the beast's skull.

Never happened.

I've been wearing hats since my parents let me leave the house in them.

Last week was my wife and my sixth anniversary.
*Pause for audience applause*
Anniversaries are like birthdays for your marriage, but they are also unlike birthdays, in that they celebrate an actual accomplishment.
I mean, unless you want to argue that birthdays are a celebration of the accomplishment of your mother giving birth. Because all you really have to do to achieve a subsequent birthday is not die. And since I don't see people having "Mom" themed birthday parties, I'm gonna say that birthdays are like personal New Year's Eve celebrations: Much ado about celebrating the passage of time as an accomplishment.

Now anniversaries are an entirely different beast. Every year of marriage is a legitimate achievement, worthy of celebration. Hell, anniversaries are important. You don't want to take for granted the success of simultaneously negotiating two lives (at least) without complete implosion. Marriage is work. It turns out that "forever," even for humans, is a pretty long-ass time. And so, every year, at the very least, ya'll earned yourselves a cake. More than likely, a night out is in order.

Last year, our dog Grover took us on a trip to the Veterinary ER for our anniversary. It was, and forgive any potential hyperbole, the absolute worst fucking anniversary ever. So, the wife and I decided to bring it back to basics this year. Get our nostalgia on. And since our relationship poked its budding head out of the soil in Boston, we headed back to the Fens for our weekend celebration.

Pictured: My wife and my relationship, as a metaphor, in Boston

It's still free to park in Easthampton, MA. I see this as a temporary perk that will be short lived as our tucked away hamlet fills itself with more and more quality establishments.

For a itinerant worker such as myself, it isn't the buck I save on parking meters that gets me so excited. It is the relief I feel not having to worry about if I'm going to get a ticket. Personally, I've found that the majority of the times I do receive tickets, I'd put in enough money for the maximum time allowed. I'm not sure if the meter maids get sick of staring at my car during their rounds, or if their route randomly passes my vehicle after 3 hours and 2 minutes -- and by not sure, I mean of fucking course they are -- but either way, I get got. And in truth, the constant fear of a parking violation is much worse than the $10-15 fine.  Most of the time.

Today I went to the local coffee shop to work. Parking was free. Not only was it free, but there were a plethora of spots available. A literal plethora. I chose a spot directly across from my shop of choice, two spots back from the crosswalk. I got out and reflexively walked behind my car to the curb side where a meter will greet me in 5 years. But not today. I opened the passenger door to retrieve my computer and consciously decided to use the crosswalk instead of just darting across the two lane road.  The street wasn't particularly busy, but with parked cars on both sides, it can feel congested and filled with blind spots for both pedestrians and motorists.

A beige station wagon was already speeding toward the crosswalk, and just looking at the guy's face, I instinctively knew he wasn't going to stop.  He could. He had enough time and space. But his face -- the mustache, the shitty knock-off sunglasses -- told me that not only was he cruising through those white lines, he but simultaneously telling himself that he didn't have enough time to stop even if he wanted to.  He had the space. He didn't want to.

from collegehumor.com

Dear Bakeries,

Let me begin by buttering you up, it seems apropos. I love your work. Hell, I've loved your work right into a larger waistline.  I appreciate that you have to wake up before all those people who wake up super early in order to provide them warm, often crackling, golden doughy goodness. And the filo dough, I mean, shut the fuck up that is so tasty. And with the layering, and maybe some honey. Shit, this is already turning into an advertisement for bakeries worldwide. But that's not what this is. This is a plea.

Many of you provide a category of baked good that goes by many names: Cinnamon rolls, Coffee rolls, or Sticky buns. This is not the complete list.  Again, let me pause to commend you on your decision to concoct such delectables -- they are all excellent.  I realize that pastry chefs are appalled that I can't tell the difference between each independent sweet in this category, but the truth is I choose to see what makes things alike more than to dwell on their differences, because I'm morally superior.

*drool*

Among these coffee rolls (yup, that's what I'm calling all of em) we find more divisiveness.  The greatest division; Greater than the Crocs debate and perhaps even more enflamed than Uggs' controversy. The line in the sand is, of course, raisins versus no raisins.  While I reluctantly agree that coffee rolls may contain raisins, I'm not at all happy about it.  It is an abomination.  A perverse joke composed of desiccated grapes rubbing elbows with such kings and queens of taste the likes of brown sugar, cinnamon sugar, and melted sugar.  Raisins and cinnamon hardly mix (I'm looking at you cinnamon raisin bagels), but we can all agree that raisins are the odd man out of the coffee roll equation.  They're weird, and not in a positive sense.  At all.

When I look at a cinnamon roll with raisins, this is what I see.

Here comes the plea.  If you make coffee rolls, and you choose, despite my best efforts and your better judgements to add raisins, please please please make those raisins visible to the consumer. I'm specifically talking about putting at least a few raisins sprinkled on top.  As a warning.  Cause raisins are that bad in this situation.

I don't eat a lot of donuts and coffee rolls.  At least I try my best not to. I find these particularly glucose-filled delights are best left as occasional treats or rewards. So when I do purchase a swirl of sugary pastry, I begin salivating much like the streams of liquid that drip from my pitties mouth as he waits for the command to "eat."  It's a special moment.

For this reason, nothing gets me quite as ragefull as biting into the doughy outer arm of my swirl only to have my front teeth pop the wrinkled skin of dead fruit hiding inside the caked on brown sugar and cinnamon.  THERE SHOULD BE A LAW AGAINST THIS!!!!  While I admit to suffering the constant worry over the possibility that their may be fruit in my cinnamon roll, to hide those fuckers within the folds with no clear markings denoting their existence is simply immoral. It's immoral.  I'm saying it makes you a bad person. So knock that shit off.

Many of my long time readers will remember my series of pieces all set in the locker room of the UMass pool gymnasium.  To be clear, I'm not talking about the new multi-million dollar Athletic Center where everyone on campus goes to exercise, but rather the building that now holds only squash courts, physical fitness classrooms, and a state of the art pool that seems totally out of place.  The pool is the last remaining sentinel of the gym that came before. This used to be where students worked out 20 years ago, but now the place is deserted save for the swimmers forced into occupancy because of the lack of an aquatic center in the new building . . . so far.  As it stands, the locker room is an elephant graveyard of grey beaten lockers, and the shower room is straight out of a Revenge of the Nerds script.

Just add the smell of musky dead rabbits

A few weeks ago I signed up for my summer membership at the pool, and was handed a padlock and a locker number.  I loaded my suit, towel, and deodorant into the locker that time forgot. I wrote the combination on the back of my Faculty ID.

Last Thursday was my fourth visit to the pool.  As I flopped down on the bench in front of my locker, my eyes were still fighting against gravity's insistence that they close.  Once I hit the water, gravity's force would no longer apply to me.  My weightlessness in water kept the lids permanently lifted. These were the benefits of weekly exercise and a surge of adrenaline.

I twisted the padlock to zero.  I got lucky in this regard, my combination actually starts with zero -- so centering the dial served a double purpose.  I lazily cranked the dial around to the next two numbers and then yanked downward.  Nothing.  I repeated the sequence again with the same result.  The third attempt I held the lock in my left hand as I carefully entered the combination.  I pulled harder than was necessary.  Still locked.

Let's go back.  Back in time.  I am a wise-ass, tightly wound, over-achieving high school student.   My dad, at that time, is a tightly wound oncologist who hates, above all, being interrupted by telemarketers.  Especially during dinner.

Context.  This is a time when cellphones don't exist and the constant interruption from phones was not yet the norm.  This is before caller ID and knowing ahead of time not to pick up an "Unknown Number." Especially during dinner.

And so, when my father did, on occasion, pick up the phone to find a well-enunciating young man or woman asking him personal questions with no lead in, or telling him about the marvel that is so-and-so running for lieutenant governor, he let em have it.   There were definitely a few different tactics that he employed.  There was the pointed dressing down, where the fact that he wasn't screaming made it all the worse.  And then there were the more seldom, but much more fun to watch "sprint and slams." These are where he says one line about the fuckery that is calling people during their family meals and then says BYE! and slams down the phone.

Context.  Now, when i say 'slams down the phone', I don't mean an iPhone was thrown down on a table.  This is way back when phones had two pieces, the base and the receiver . . . AND THEY WERE CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER!  And there was this wonderful empowering feeling that could be had by violently returning the receiver to the base, thus ending the call with a slamming sound on the other end.  the bases were pretty much built for that impact.  These were the good ol days i tell yah.

I have a mark on my face.  Pretty much right smack in the middle of my chin.  It looks like this:

At least that's what it used to look like to me.

And so, because people are alternately worried about me or  completely invasive into my personal space, I have gotten a number of questions regarding how I came to get my face torn up.  I mean, it looks tough.  I look tough.  Unfortunately, the true origin story of this battle wound is that it is a stress sore.  Please remember I'm not a medical doctor when I tell you that as best I understand it, every once in awhile when I'm stressed, a patch of my skin starts excreting a clear viscous juice.  Sexy, I know.  And the first day the skin looks totally normal and it just juices and juices like some constantly pus-filled zit.  By the time I go to bed, usually I can see the faint outline of where I will be marked the next day.

So.  Give me a bit of rope on this one and I'll pay off.

Let's go back in time to when people weren't the highest rung on the species totem pole (judged solely by our preeminence at destroying the planet for everyone). Let's go back to the dinosaurs …

(because this was the tagline to about 50% of the TV I watched as a child, I image some 80's music and  a fade constructed of multiple laser beams.)

Now, imagine I appear as a human surrounded by the Mesozoic Era in all its splendor.  I'm wearing khakis.  The dinosaurs seem to ignore me and also seem to be getting along quite well considering most are on each other's menu.

As I look around, I see a great variety of shapes, sizes, and species of dinosaur as well as many other unclassified crawly-thingies.  I can only imagine that even back then there were some version of dinosaur cliques.  Maybe not, like, middle school style cliques, but more like, "this group of dinosaurs believe the world is flat, while this other group of dinosaurs is convinced its triangular."   But, you know, they've got dinosaur problems, not Homo Erectus problems.  And if you've learned nothing from Jay Z, you should at least have gleaned that everythangs got problems.  Even dinosaurs.