The Hubris of American Anxiety
Anxiety is the thing that’s ripped our country apart. It has divided us, caused us to fear and hate those who think and live differently than us, and even caused us to hate those who only slightly disagree with us. It has led to panic and overreaction. And I worry that American Anxiety is only going to exacerbate the social and political divide in this country to the point that there is no coming back.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of November 10, 2024
Through conversation may come conversion.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of November 3, 2024
Life is a balance of comedy and tragedy. It’s best to tip the scales by finding the comedy within that tragedy.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 27, 2024
If we truly believe in a united United States of America, then no matter who wins the presidency, we all lose.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 20, 2024
Sometimes, life feels like you’re eating a delicious bucket of perfectly popped movie popcorn. It’s fresh, hot, buttery. Other times, it feels like you’re eating a bucket of the kernel shells. The ones that get stuck in your teeth, buried in your gums, suction cupped to the back of your throat. And everything tastes burnt.
Fun Bags to Feed Bags: Advice for Expectant Fathers that will Save Your Marriage and Your Life
There is panic that comes with pregnancy. Panic about your life changing. Panic about whether you are ready. Panic wondering if you can do this, not fuck things up the way your parents did. (They didn’t. You’re fine.) Panic about the health of your child.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 14, 2024
I don’t think Trump should round up the immigrants. Round up and deport the influencers.
Revisiting the Saddest Thing to Ever Happen to You 15 Years Later
We shared the same boiling passion for knowledge, action, adventure, living life hard, fast, and for the sake of the story. We also shared a boiling disgust for hypocrisy, hubris, mean-spiritedness, and, at times, for ourselves. We were constantly brawling with the crazed beasts living within our psyches and our guts. We came from very different places with very different experiences, but when we arrived to one another, we found that we’d been forged in the same style and together, we’d have to do better personally, professionally, and in a way that could leave the world a better place.
Today! Casey Basch Funeral!
CASEY BASCH – FUNERAL TODAY!
The exclamation mark had to be a mistake. Maybe it was a prank—the work of teenagers out the night before? There was probably a church sign somewhere in town that read JESUS LOVES DICK.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 6, 2024
Ennui sounds cute and romantic because it’s French. But the French have a long history of violence and rape, and ennui may well have been the catalyst to most of it.
Mastering Disappointment: A Kamala Harris Love Affair
Kamala had the great benefit of a fantastic summer romance working in her favor. A short lived, white hot affair that would end before it could burn out. With about three months from candidacy to Election Day, I wouldn’t grow tired of Kamala. Neither would America. The joy she and her campaign were trafficking would carry us to a victory. Then we could settle into the day-to-day doldrums of romance. Probably fall out of love and elect someone else in 2028.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 29, 2024
My 2-year-old is in this phase where he points to every woman he sees on the street or on TV or in books and says, Mommy!” He does the same thing with men, exclaiming, “Daddy!” Yesterday, at the grocery store, he picked up a Star magazine with Diddy on the cover, pointed to Diddy and shouted, “Daddy!” My son doesn’t see color, wealth, or crimes against humanity. He sees only gender. To prove this theory, I will show him a photo of Rachel Maddow to see if he says, “Mommy” or “Daddy.”
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 22, 2024
Ethical lying is a way for unethical people to feel good about themselves. Nothing more.
The Lonely Live Goose
Silently soaring through the sky
Like a bird of prey hunting solo for breakfast.
But you won’t dive.
You only attack on the ground.
Chasing runners and bikers and preschoolers on a nature walk.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 15, 2024
I am not satisfied until my mosquito bites have been scratched into permanent scars. This is a literal and metaphorical commentary on the self.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 8, 2024
Get out. Out of your house, out of your head, out of the doom scroll, out of your way. Get out and go get it.
Running Through Your Past
I wound through parts of Flossmoor I didn’t even know existed, despite growing up there. Oh! That’s where Flossmoor Hills Elementary is. I just never had any reason to journey to that part of town. In the familiar parts, I found myself thinking about my childhood. Acknowledging all the landmarks with memories. That’s where I ditched school that one time and smoked cigarettes when I should have been in math class. This is where my high school friends and I would meet before school to smoke cigarettes. There’s where there used to be a church where I once tried to woo a girl by playing her punk songs as we sat in her car—it didn’t work—and would sometimes smoke cigarettes. I wasn’t a teenage smoker, but, apparently, when I did smoke, I did it all over town.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 1, 2024
Managing our expectations of others is the most humane thing we can do for one another.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 25, 2024
Always plan for the unexpected.
For Love of Inanimate Objects
I’m a curator of stuff. A collector of evidence. I struggle to throw anything out because so many things are artifacts that map out my life’s journey. Each relic has a story about a moment that informs the person. In the most egotistical way possible, I’m preserving my legacy. Shaping it, really. Creating my own Presidential Library for a guy who will likely never be president. (Likely… This mid-life crisis I’m in has endless possibilities.)
Anxiety is the thing that’s ripped our country apart. It has divided us, caused us to fear and hate those who think and live differently than us, and even caused us to hate those who only slightly disagree with us. It has led to panic and overreaction. And I worry that American Anxiety is only going to exacerbate the social and political divide in this country to the point that there is no coming back.