Author

Robert Hyma

Just a writer doing writerly things.

| Playlists |

Q1 – 2023 Playlist

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

My, my it’s the start of 2024 and this playlist is finally available for public viewing. I say that as though there was a smattering of requests to make them available, which is the fanfare that I imagine my playlists will one day come to be revered for.

My playlists are a bit like the past few SNL Seasons: you didn’t feel like watching at the time, but after catching a few sketches on YouTube, they are worth catching up on.

But beyond the hype, beyond the internet masses demanding to finally have access to last year’s playlists, here’s a roundup of Quarter One of 2023:

The Collection has slowly become one of those atmospheric bands that captures complex ideas in memorable tubes, which made sense to have them open the playlist and close it with songs that remember the good times in “Rose Colored Glasses” and “Love at the End of the World”. New releases from old favorites came out in droves over the first three months of the year (thanks in large part to Spotify acting as a dental office of sorts, sending out constant reminders of when a cleaning new EP is coming up). Filling out the playlist were thumpers like Half-Alive’s “Never Been Better” and “What’s Wrong”. Vulfpeck and Fitz and The Tantrums delivered must-have tracks, and Chappell Roan is becoming one of those starlit singer/songwriters that you cram into conversation for them to check out next.

Some new ear-ticklers rounded out the first quarter selection in Tove Styrke’s “Say My Name” and Amor Amor’s “Can I Go Away”. Add to the productivity playlist the reminiscing lyrics of Laura Jean’s “Too Much To Do” and the beginning of 2023 encapsulated feelings of get-up-and-get-going as well as we’ve-done-the-best-we-could

It’s a playlist of jams and good times to start the new year and is sure to have something for everyone. Give it a listen and leave a comment with what tracks you added to your mixes!

  1. “Rose Colored Glasses” by The Collection
  2. “Never Been Better” by Half-Alive, Orla Gartland
  3. “Dressed to Kill” by The Wombats
  4. “Too Much To Do” by Laura Jean
  5. “Them Jeans” by Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers
  6. “New Guru” by Vulfpeck, Antwaun Stanley
  7. “crashing down – acoustic” by Arlie
  8. “Carry You Home” by Circa Waves
  9. “I Wanna Dance With You” by Royel Otis
  10. “What’s Wrong” by Half-Alive
  11. “Can I Go Away” by Amor Amor
  12. “Good Nights” by Fitz and The Tantrums
  13. “19 in a Week” by Nieve Ella
  14. “Two Tens” by Cordae, Anderson .Paak
  15. “Honey” by Samia
  16. “better” by dee holt
  17. “Gordan Ramsey” by Abhi the Nomad, Kato On The Track
  18. “Say My Name” by Tove Styrke
  19. “Vines to Make It All Worth It” by Runner
  20. “Love at the End of the World” by The Collection
Robert Hyma’s Quarter One 2023 Playlist
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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #60

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

GIFT HORSES

There’s an idiom that baffles me:

“Don’t go looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

If you knew nothing about this phrase, two things come to mind when hearing it for the first time:

  1. What the fuck is a gift horse?
  2. Why am I not supposed to look in its mouth?

The phrase is wisdom wrapped as a riddle. It means to be grateful for what you’ve just received. After all, it was so kind of someone to gift a horse (hence the term “gift horse”), and who are you to inspect this newly acquired animal for gum disease and tooth decay to check if the mangy thing might die in the next hour?

In other words: “It’s a horse! Oh my gosh, what a great gift! You should be grateful.”

It’s worth noting that “Don’t go looking a gift horse in the mouth” is a phrase that isn’t in rotation much anymore. First of all, it’s downright confusing: Was there a time in history when horses were gifted at a rate that called for the invention of the term “gift horse”? On what occasions did people receive horses? And even if a horse was gifted to someone who, logically, made sense to receive one – say: a little girl who dreams of being an equestrian – was she supposed to happily take ANY horse as a gift?

***

COMPLETELY OPTIONAL SIDENOTE

Sidenote: If I’m given a horse as a gift, I’m absolutely going to inspect it. Supposing I wanted a horse at all, I don’t just want any horse—I would want one that might be useful.

Sidenote to the Sidenote: Who has spare horses to give away? No one that I know. And where does the guy giving away horses take any responsibility? What’s his motive? Not generosity, that’s for certain. Why give away a horse? The horse is probably decrepit and about to die; it’s no longer any use to this guy. Otherwise he’d KEEP THE F%&$ING HORSE!! So, instead, this stranger gifts a horse away to someone else instead of retiring it?? 

(Read: euthanize—which sounds cruel, but so is this practice of gifting away livestock, don’t you think?)

I could keep going, but I digress.

Of course, I’m complicating the intention of the idiom. The message is simply this: Don’t immediately inspect a gift for quality. It’s rude.

I mention the phrase because I think it holds up. We should be better Gift Receivers: practicing gratitude and grace when someone goes through the trouble of giving a gift.

Admittedly, it is tough to receive gifts gracefully today. Most people are not gifted gift-givers, and those that are talented at observing the hobbies and purchasing trends of others tend to receive mediocre responses for their thoughtful gifts.

There’s a reason for this, I think. Perhaps it is the current absence of horses as commonly exchanged goods, but the conundrum for why it is so hard to pick out gifts for others is precisely because of this overpopulation of Bad Gift Receivers.

Which, I’m convinced, all started with rectangular giftboxes of clothes.

***

GROWING INTO IT

My nephew is the best to buy gifts for. He’s 3, going on 4, and has so many loves: dinosaurs, Spider-Man, fishing poles, blocks and puzzles. The list keeps growing. Each birthday, holiday, what-have-you, is easy to come up with gift ideas for. I just think of what would add to his already bourgeoning imaginative world.

We all started at this way, with loves of superheroes, unicorns, racecars, and magical lands.

What happened?

It all started with a rectangular box unwrapped at holidays and birthday parties. These mysteriously wrapped presents was large enough to draw excitement at first, but once unwrapped became a symbol for disappointment. What was inside was never inspiring, never any fun.

Just the opposite: It was disgustingly practical. Useful, even.

Ick.

Have you ever seen more a defeated look on a child’s face than when they open up a box of clothes?

That’s because children, even without consciously understanding it, know that the gift of clothes is about forward planning. A child thinks, “How are clothes supposed to help beat the bad guy?” or, “This box could have been filled with LEGOs—why waste it on a winter coat that I didn’t even want!”

As the years go by, more rectangular boxes infiltrate the cache of gifts loved ones purchase.

“I found this on sale,” says a relative at a birthday, “and I know you’re outgrowing your dress clothes. You’ll need these for when you go to a wedding or a funeral. It’s a little big, but you’ll grow into it.”

“I found this sweater on the bargain rack a few weeks ago,” says a delusional aunt with an impaired fashion sense. “It’s 1,004% wool, but it’s a trending right now. You’ll grow into it.”

Years pass by and the clothes keep coming. Soon, you’re the one asking for clothes.

“Mom, I need a pea coat for this winter. Yeah, I don’t really play outside anymore, and all my friends are wearing pea coats now.”

Fast forward another ten years and you get a new sweater. That you bought yourself. To open at Christmas. As a gift that is technically from a relative who couldn’t figure out what to give you.

“There we go,” you say, extracting the sweater from the rectangular box. “1,004% wool. Everyone at work is wearing them. Thanks Dad, you know me so well.”

Who would have thought all of our childhood dreams could be neatly packed and forgotten into such rectangular boxes?

***

GIFT RECEIPTS

One Christmas, I unwrapped a special hardcover edition of Douglas Adams’ The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I already had the novels, and despite the glossy cover art, this was the same thing I already currently owned.

I didn’t take this gift well.

Image curtesy of thriftbooks.com

I smiled politely, mentioned that I had already read the books, loved them, and that, although this was a different printing, wondered if I could have the receipt to exchange it for something else.

What has always perplexed me about this gift is that I never exchanged it. The edition I received is still on my bookshelf, in its original packaging. Perhaps I unconsciously took it as a symbol: I remember the disappointment from those who knew of my love for Douglas Adams, had remembered that I mentioned those stories as influential for my own writings, and went through the trouble of picking out a rather expensive copy of all his collected works.

But instead, I took my gift horse and inspected every inch of its mouth with a flashlight, prodding and poking its gums with a pick, and had found it a mangy creature.

I have no recollection of what else I opened as a gift that Christmas. But I remember the edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

I remember throwing away the gift receipt, eventually.

***

GIFTING HORSES

Our philosophy of gift-giving mutates for those we love. 

It begins simply, joyfully: “What is this person into that would add to that world?”

And, yet, we somehow morph into this: “What makes the most practical sense to give someone that is practical and useful?”

Through this metamorphosis, we turn our loved ones into Bad Gift Receivers: Those who only measure the practicality of the gifts they receive. 

Is it any wonder, then, that the most common gift for adults is either cash, check, or gift cards? 

Money, uninspiringly, is the most practical gift of all—and also completely bereft of anything meaningful.

Today, the currency has changed. We don’t gift in horses anymore. What would we ever do with a horse, anyway?

I’m not sure, but it would be a gift to remember. Maybe.

Next time, I’ll take the horse as is.

***

  1. “Sleepwalkin’ – Daydreamin’ Version” by Better Oblivion Community Center, Pheobe Bridgers, Conor Oberst
  2. “Sit Right” by HONEYMOAN
  3. “Not A Go” by foamboy

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #59

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

A CASUAL INTERROGATION SCENE

My favorite social anxiety is when someone asks how something has been going in my life

“You’re taking a summer class? How’s that going?”

Do you feel that oncoming panic? It feels like being in an interrogation room, and there are two detectives with arms folded, standing over the (weirdly) metal table. The detective playing the “bad cop” demands answers, while the other is the “good cop” detective, warm and welcoming, but that’s only because he, too, wants answers.

I’m sitting at the table, looking up, pleading my innocence. I have nothing to hide; I’m not even sure why I’m being questioned in this case. I honestly believe that if I explain everything I know, I’ll be let go, peaceably. So, I blurt out:

“I’m taking a psycholinguistics class, which is about the study of how the brain interprets written and spoken language.”

The detectives look on, both are professionally unhappy with my answer.

I keep going: “Umm, so there’s a debate about if the brain is modular or not when interpreting spoken language: Are we thinking about a sentence as a whole, or is syntax – what a sentence means – broken down into parts that make the meaning clear? And we do this all the time!”

I’m expecting something, anything positive from the detectives. I’m impressed by my explanation, which is a first. Considering the class, this is an elegant description of something that has taken me 6 weeks to understand.

Except, the bad-cop detective slams his hands on the metal table. “I’m going to give you one last chance to come clean about this. How’s the class going?”

I’m about to crack; I’ve just told them! “We also go over how best to teach kids to read, which the school systems aren’t doing. We should be teaching phonics! Phonics, damn it! That’s all I know! Really! You can read it yourselves, in numerous published studies. It’s a really cool class, I promise!”

The good-cop detective shakes his head with a mirthless sigh; he’s seen enough. He reaches for the door and says to his partner, “I’ll be outside when you’re finished.”

The bad-cop unclasps his sleeve and rolls it neatly up an obnoxiously muscled and tattooed forearm. Across his flesh is something that looks like a starfish. It looks faded, like the bad-cop detective personally pricked the tattoo into his own skin with an inkwell and a sewing needle. “You should know,” he says, “I didn’t want things to come to this.”

The dangling bulb light above the table grows brighter. I feel the cobra-quick grasp of the bad-cop detective’s fingers around my terribly outdated T-shirt. He grins and pulls his fist back…

I brace for four bulging knuckles to splinter my cheekbones on impact.

“Finished!”

I open an eye, unsure of what’s going on. “Finished?”

The good-cop detective opens up the door, ushering his partner outside. The bad-cop detective doesn’t even look at me as he says, “Yeah, we’re finished here. You can go.”

“But,” I plead, “what about my story? Don’t you want to hear the rest of it?”

“Save it,” says the bad-cop detective. “I was bored after the word ‘psycho’.”

“It was psycholinguistics,” I say. “You couldn’t listen through one word?”

“Get this kid out of here,” says the bad-cop detective to the guard outside. “His syntax is bothering me.”

***

WANTED

I’m terrible at telling a story about myself in person.

The scene you’ve just read, more or less, is how every conversation goes in which I’m asked about my personal life. I often see questions as interrogations, as though I’ve been arrested and placed in a room for police questioning. Even worse, it feels like I’m that suspect with nothing significant to add to the case. Which, isn’t a good experience for the suspect, either. 

Like any suspect, if you’re put through the trouble of being questioned, one would hope it’s because you had something meaningful to contribute. Why dislodge someone from their day and dismiss what they had to say? Nothing hurts a suspect more than not being found wanted, I find.

But this is how it feels when I’m asked things; it’s the twist ending to the interrogation scene: The detectives leave the suspect behind because he’s BORING them with details that don’t apply to the case.

Even for wanted suspects, this is embarrassing.

***

SOCIAL TIME OUTS

I’ve thought about why I’m terrible at talking about myself out loud. Over the course of this week, here’s what I’ve found:

When someone is asking about how life is going, they want to know how you – as a character – have faced some sort of adversity in the course of what you’re going through.

In other words, they want to know how YOU started to approach something, how YOU were met with an obstacle, how YOU figured out how to get past said obstacle, and, finally, how YOU are different from what happened. 

This makes for an enticing story. How do I know this? Because this is the literally the playbook of what makes all stories worth hearing.

Were you ever told a story that didn’t include a character you gave a shit about? Case closed.

The same applies for when saying something about yourself; ultimately, the story is about YOU going through change.

My mistake in answering the question, “How is your summer class going?” was in trying to describe the class. There was no ME in the story. That’s because I didn’t think talking about myself was interesting; the class must be what everyone wanted to know about. So, Instead, I covered the course materials, explained details about theories and modern approaches of psycholinguistics—and exactly NONE of my story had myself as a character going through change.

Can you imagine why faces glazed over with waning interest?

It’s during these times that I wish it was socially acceptable to call a “Time Out” during conversation. If a conversation is going too far off the rails, calling a “time out” to clarify the intention of a question would solve a lot of problems.

Time Out: “Oh, Robert, hey. Umm, I was asking about how you like the class, not what it’s about. That’s interesting, too, whatever psycholinguistics is, but I’m really just asking how you’re feeling about taking a class. Does that make more sense?  Ok, start over.”

Or,

Time Out: “When I ask about your day, you don’t have to list everything that happened in a 24-hour period of time. You can just tell me the things that meant something to you, personally. Ok, go on.

And,

Time Out: “Let’s assume when I ask what we should eat that I simply mean what the both of us would eat together, and not something weird that you consume in private and in the shadows of your home. Ok? Let’s try again.

Can you imagine? It would solve so much.

***

CASE SOLVED

I’ve heard that a good mystery story incorporates two things:

  1. It teaches about a new subject
  2. Great characters navigate that subject to solve something.

I think this is a great stencil for talking about oneself.

So, if I’ve learned anything from this week, here’s my revised response to the question, “How’s your summer class going?”

“It was one of the hardest classes I’ve ever taken. The thing about summer classes is that they are accelerated, so you get 6 weeks to fit it all in instead of the usual 15. I didn’t think I was going to be able to keep up. Four to eight hours of lectures about psychology, reading studies, two quizzes a week, plus assignments and group discussions on top of that. It was basically a part-time job.

What saved me, I think, was liking the material. I love learning about the mind. Did you know that the reason people struggle to talk about themselves is that human beings are wired for conversation? It’s true. Talking introduces more topics, so there isn’t a chance you’ll run out of something to say. If you’re monologuing, like I am, you run out of things to say. Do you know what the secret to better speaking is? Planning. Just taking your time and planning what you’re going to say.

That was a huge stress relief with the class, honestly. I thought I had to get everything right away, but after I learned that, I slowed down and it was a lot more fun. And by the end of the class, I was enjoying it. I got a 96%. The class average was a 78%. Not sure how I pulled that off, but it was awesome.”

**

Not a great answer, but much better than listing off things about the class, don’t you think? I like the person telling me that story a bit more, and I’d listen a little longer…supposing I get one or two TIME OUTS to change the subject with soon after.

I just finished the class and even I’m ready to move on from psycholinguistics for a while. Yeesh.

Time Out: Ok, you’ve read this far. What I really want to know with all of this is how you tell stories about yourself. Do you talk about things or about how you feel as a character about those things?

***

  1. “Colors” by Anaïs Cardot
  2. “BLOOM” by IAMDYNAMITE
  3. “Other Lover” by Mikaela Davis

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #58

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

A DAY FOR MOST FATHERS

I’m not a father, but I try to imagine what Father’s Day feels like each year. Most notably, for my own dad who has seen the same holiday roll around for 36 years. While television commercials and website cookie ads shove every morsel of “it’s time to celebrate dad the RIGHT WAY” in the guilted faces of family members in search of gifts for dads, in the weeks preceding Father’s Day I happen to know that there will not be any celebrating on June 18. It was that way last year and the year prior, and I’ve often wondered why. Some dads like family togetherness and a hearty, grill-cooked meal. Others want a nifty gizmo to add to the household. And the rest just want peace and quiet.

But my dad, seemingly at this stage of fatherhood, wants nothing. At all.

Just normalcy.

Is it because there is so little to look forward to after 36 years of pretending to enjoy this nationally imposed holiday? Or did my sister and I ruin the novelty with gifts that were haphazardly scrounged for at the last minute? Or maybe the gifts were just too trivial to matter, like an electric tie rotator that has since been delivered to the dump, unused.

On a Sunday in June each year, I watch my dad endure the signed cards, feign joy as he eats the one meal of the year he didn’t have to prepare or cook himself, and then thankfully sigh as the day winds down with the usual routine of whatever On-Demand television has on offer. Then, he heads to bed, dreaming about the normal flow of his life that will resume the following morning that was so rudely interrupted.

On Monday, it’s as though Father’s Day never existed. Flash! A Men in Black Neuralyzer wipe of the previous day’s charades.

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Just once, or maybe a bit more than that, I’d like Father’s Day to mean a bit more for my dad.

So, I bought him a pen.

***

THE FATHER’S DAY GIFT EQUATION

Ok, before you think this gift was a panic purchase (also true), it wasn’t. This wasn’t just any pen. It was the same pen model that I had been using for the past six months: the Pilot G2 Limited Matte Black Edition, the one with a squishy “Doctor Grip” of silicon near the tip of the metal barrel. 

Courtesy of Amazon

Not only is it a good pen, but I happen to know that my dad LOVES pens. He takes them as “souvenirs” everywhere he goes (which is the nice way of saying he takes cheaply branded office supplies from banks and stores that aren’t tethered to kiosks or watched with surveillance cameras). His desk drawer is filled to the brim with every make and model pen from the past 20 years. 

Looking at the rows and rows of pens in the office supply aisle of the grocery store the day before Father’s Day, I imagined a new premium pen was what my Dad needed.

The thoughtful gift giving equation in my head went thus:

Something Dad Likes + Gifting Something Similar BUT Unexpected = Happy Dad Moment on Father’s Day.

Therefore:

Dad Loves Pens + The Pilot G2 Limited Edition is a Great Pen = Successful Father’s Day Gift

Based on the numbers, the pen was bound to be a smash hit. And I did it last minute and for just under 10 Dollars. I was quite proud of myself.

Until I was usurped by my mother.

***

THE GIFT OF GIVING BAD GIFTS

I find in the moments when someone is opening your very bad and unimpressive gift, there is a premonition that things are about to go poorly. 

My mother was in the process of handing my dad his gift in the living room, before anyone came for dinner. She did this purposely since it was a special gift, one that would mean a lot to him. She had told me about it for weeks, by then, how nervous she was to buy expensive things for my dad. But she couldn’t resist; she had found the perfect thing to give him. 

Courtesy of Amazon

My dad had recently fallen back in love with old John Deere model tractors. My mother researched his lists of models already in his possession, an elaborate collection of tractor toys ranging back 80 years. She had gone through great pains to purchase this very rare tractor: the John Deere 1/16th 620 with 555 Plow Precision Tractor Toy. 

In the living room, he opened the box.

Watching my dad open up something that is actually surprising and valuable to him is a like watching a farmer find a meteorite on his property that has just fallen from the sky. He took a long look at whatever it was in front of him, put his hands on his hips, stared at the object, and kept muttering, “Well, look at that.”

He had the same reaction when I gifted him an iPhone SE a few Christmases ago: He looked over the phone with stark confusion—not because he didn’t recognize the gift as an iPhone, but because he was confounded that something so expensive and needed should come into his possession outside of his own funds. He held his new iPhone like it was a strange alien relic that ought not belong to humankind.

Meanwhile, I stood off to the side and watched as my dad scratched his head over the surprise gift my mother had handed him. He appeared to be combing through dormant emotions such as joy and flattery that had been little accessed over the years.

It was then that I remembered the equation: “Oh, the pen!”

I retrieved it from its resting place and reentered the living room.

A few things to note: I didn’t wrap it. I’m terrible at wrapping and had run out of gift bags to conceal my lacking skillset. So, like a toddler proud of his scribbled crayon drawing, I handed my dad the pen still in its packaging and said, “Happy Father’s Day!”

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. And finally four…

“What’s this?” he asked, thinking his son had just given him a pen as a Father’s Day gift.

“Your gift,” I said, acknowledging that I had, indeed, just given him a pen as a Father’s Day gift.

“Oh. Cool,” he said.

“It’s the one I’ve been using. I thought you would like it,” I said.

My dad continued looking over the John Deere Tractor on the couch, digging his fingers into the box to extract it from its squeaky Styrofoam casing. “I’ll have to test it out later.”

As in: It will look great on the pile of pens. In the desk drawer. Like all the others.

I grabbed the new pen and put it on the countertop, where I expected it to remain as a relic of Father’s Days past.

“I’ll get to it,” my dad said behind me as he wrestled with packaging, the Styrofoam squeaking to birth the cherished John Deere tractor into the world.

I went upstairs, hoping for a text from my girlfriend. Nothing.

***

SCHEDULE TANTRUMS

I’d argue what I’m about to write isn’t related to this past Father’s Day because it would be too embarrassing if it were true. But, since it is also a little true, I suppose it is necessary to explain.

To make a long story short, I was disappointed that I didn’t deliver on a better gift for my dad. It was the lack of thought and effort I put into getting something for him, I think, and not how impressive my gift was compared to my mother’s. Still, it irked me. 

It irked me all the more when I hadn’t heard from my girlfriend for most of the day.

That’s when the irking mutated into a schedule tantrum.

I think we’ve all had schedule tantrums to an extent, but I’ll define it here clearly:

A Schedule Tantrum is when we expect others to behave as we see fit and on our own biased schedules.

When someone doesn’t text in the timeframe we feel they should; when someone doesn’t show up “on time”, or if someone doesn’t act predictably as they should have…we go berserk. We then throw tantrums, behave like children, and all without asking a single question to find out what’s going on with this other person. We’re just mad at them for not anticipating our secret and silent needs, which we perceive to be objective and true.

I checked my phone again. No reply. The tantrum was building.

***

MILKSHAKE

My girlfriend had been camping with her roommate and was to stop on her way home to see me. She was up north, in a place without cell reception, which was irksome enough, but then there still wasn’t any plan.

And I had made one, in secret, in my head: The plan was for her to tell me her plan. And I had yet to hear of a plan, which wasn’t the plan. My plan.

(You can see how this is idiotic in hindsight)

By the time she and her roommate were on their way to meet me, I was long past annoyed. Didn’t they know they were running behind? Didn’t they know that they should have visited sooner at night? I knew which decent hour they should have visited and it was getting late. Didn’t they know this?

Of course, you can predict how things went when we met that night: a classic cold front of short visits and unsaid things, mostly on my end.

When I arrived home from meeting my girlfriend, I sat down with my parents and told them about all the grievances I had.

I said things like, “How could she not check in sooner?” and “It’s not like I can just sit around all day.”

“Why, did you have anything else you wanted to do today?” my dad asked.

I grunted. That was beside the point. He was right. But this was also beside the point.

The point was that even though my girlfriend ended up visiting town like she said she would, things weren’t copasetic after she left. She knew I was unhappy about how the day went—she had seen the adult throwing a schedule tantrum.

Ding. Dong.

Suddenly, the doorbell.

I opened the front door of the house and there was my girlfriend. She was supposed to have been on her way home. That was 40 minutes ago. Here she was, standing on the doorsteps with a chocolate milkshake from Culver’s in her hands.

“Hi,” she said. “This is for you.”

I took the milkshake. “Thanks.”

“I just wanted to make sure everything was ok.”

We kissed. I said yes, even though it would take a few days to recognize that I was acting like a child in this moment.

She left, finally heading home with her roommate. I entered the living room with the chocoloate milkshake just delivered to me.

“Where did you get that?” my dad asked.

“My girlfriend. She just handed it to me.”

“After all that today, she just hands you a milkshake?”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, doesn’t this make for a grand Father’s Day!” my dad said with a wide grin.

This was just as shocking as the milkshake. “Why?”

He shrugged. He took a pen from his pocket, a Pilot G2 Black Matte Special Edition pen, and clicked it a few times. “You just never know what surprises you’ll get.”

All three of us shared the milkshake, my parents flattered that someone would go to such lengths to see if her tantrum-throwing boyfriend was ok. I remember my dad laughing a lot while spooning melted gobs into his mouth.

Since Father’s Day, I’ve thought about why my dad found such delight from a late night milkshake delivery, and the best I can make of it is this:

Fathers are most fond of those things that they have helped create, purposefully or not, in this world.

In this instance, he saw his son, aged 34 and still blind to his toddler tantrum tendencies, receive a gesture of kindness from someone who appears to very much care about him. I think the sly smile was because he recognized, more than I ever could at the time, that the milkshake was the unexpected gift that mattered most that day.

A gift that wasn’t even meant for him.

“You two can fight all you want,” my dad said between spoonfuls of milkshake. “So long as she brings more milkshakes.”

He clicked his new pen. “I should write that one down.”

***

  1. “Paresthesia” by Wild Ones
  2. “Losing My Mind” by Montaigne
  3. “Thunder In The City” by Future Generations

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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Weekly Post-Ed #57

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

A WEEK OF COMMANDMENTS

The title above is misleading because I haven’t any commandments to share with you. Instead, the past week has consisted of a series of events that made me think, “Oh, I should come up with a rule for that.” 

Like all the rules I’ve ever come up with to govern decision-making in my life, they are all bound to be ignored and abandoned within a calendar week. In the meantime, I thought I’d share what little lessons I’ve developed this past week before they are forgotten.

With these commandments, I implore you to read this happy little Weekly Post-Ed #57.

Enjoy!

***

SERIOUSLY, WHEN DO YOU POST WEEKLY POST-EDS?

For those who keep asking, here is the official schedule for ALL FUTURE Weekly Post-Eds:

  • Ideally, they are published on Wednesdays. 
  • And sometimes Thursdays.
  • Very seldom on Fridays. 
  • By Saturday, I’d start to worry if it gets posted at all, but it’s still possible.
  • Sunday? Who posts on Sundays? No, out of the question…unless I’m running very far behind. Otherwise: No/Maybe.
  • Mondays are technically the next week. I wouldn’t post on a Monday. Unless I do. But yuck, I’d rather not.
  • Tuesdays are considered “early” and as part of the next Weekly Post-Ed. That being said, does the internet post things early? What proactive operation posts things before deadlines? Go ahead: Name me one.
  • Then we’re back to Wednesdays. Ideally, WPs get published on Wednesdays…

Look: as attractive as the “consistent internet writer” identity is to me, sometimes I wonder if the internet-scape is far past the saturation point of information and entertainment—sometimes, I’d rather not babble unless I have something interesting to write about. I appreciate that I have dedicated readers, but in absence of a new Weekly Post-Ed, I would suggest going for a walk outside. Or, really, anything besides perpetually absorbing more things from people looking to be heard on the internet.

TL;DR A new Weekly Post-Ed will be up sometime within a calendar week. So, take a breath, get some air, and hey, read at your leisure when it’s up. I’ll post on Twitter and Instagram (yes, I have those, too) when they’re fully cooked.

Alright, now let’s get to the thick of it.

***

CARRYING TOO MANY THINGS

“If this schedule is true,” I hear you contemplating, complete with wrinkled brow and rubbing of chin, “then where was last week’s Weekly Post-Ed?”

A good question with a defeating answer: I wrote too much and found it unpublishable.

As a visual comparison for what I mean, I invite you to refer to the image below:

While Weekly Post-Eds are kept to about 1000 words, this last week’s WP was eclipsing 3000 and counting. It was a bit much to cram into a single post. 

In an idealized world for how I write for my website, I imagine that I carefully plan each Weekly Post-Ed with whimsical sections that are both personal and funny but are also just long enough to be interesting and worth spending the time to read.

In real life, however, I find that I cram everything I can into a single task without regard for it being too much at one time.

Case in point: Collecting laundry this past week.

I caught myself pausing by my desk because I spotted three dirty coffee mugs that needed to be taken downstairs and placed by the kitchen sink. This isn’t remarkable except that I was carrying a laundry basket full of dirty clothes that weighed as much as a dog kennel occupied by two small, napping Dobermans. Needless to say, it never occurred to me to take TWO SEPARATE TRIPS, so I hoisted the laundry basket full of clothes against the wall where I pinned it in place with my body, I then hooked my fingers through the three coffee mug handles in one hand, and slipped my other arm underneath the laundry basket (also just as topsy-turvy as a kennel with two small, napping Dobermans) to balance down two flights of stairs. 

(I can sense you’re ahead of the story by now, so I’ll cut to the finale.)

In short: the dirty clothes, like two small, napping Dobermans spotting a squirrel, sprung from laundry basket as I lost equilibrium and spilled all over the floor. I stumbled over a tangle of jeans, which led to one of the mugs flinging free from my fingers and went tumbling down the carpet stairs to, finally, crash into the drywall of the landing. Luckily, it was a Yeti mug, which meant the mug itself was fine, but the impenetrable stainless-steel mass cratered the drywall even further. The coffee mug was saved, the drywall was not.

And all of this was easily avoidable.

You would think the lesson I must have gleaned about carrying too much at once occurred to me immediately, but it did not. Alas, my first thought after picking up was this: “I could have balanced one of the coffee mugs on top of the laundry. I’ll remember that for next time. And what better time to find a stairway landing decoration to permanently place in front of the cratered drywall!”

So, why didn’t last week’s WP get finished on time?

Coffee mugs and laundry baskets.

***

NEW RULES FOR MAKING RULES

Rule #1: I shouldn’t be making rules.

Rule #2: Except when I do.

Rule #3: In which case, there should be a grace period to test out these rules.

Rule #4: If the rules can’t be followed, then they should at least be laughed at and enjoyed for attempting to make sense of a world that makes little sense to begin with.

Rule #5: In response of these rules, please refer to Rule #1 for further guidance.

BONUS:

Rule #6: Last week’s Weekly Post-Ed gets the chance to live on as an editorial that’s due for release in the coming week. So, be on the lookout for something new (finally) and also interesting.

Rule #7: Unless it isn’t. In which case, please refer to Rule #5.

***

  1. “Tell Me What You Want” by Caroline Rose
  2. “Sorry Like You Mean It” by HONEYMOAN
  3. “DAYLIGHT DOOM” by MOTO BANDIT

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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Weekly Post-Ed #55

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

REST IN PEACE, ORIGINAL WEEKLY POST-ED #55

Here lies a Weekly Post-Ed that died too young. It was full of great ideas and whimsy, full of great experiences and bits that were sure to delight. However, its life was cut tragically short when draft after draft turned into absolute nostril cancer that would soon tumor the internet with more unnecessary badness. So, in honor of this most recent three-week gap in Weekly Post-Eds, let us now take a moment of silence and honor that which never was.

*Clears throat*

*A polite nod at someone across from you who accidentally made eye contact, too*

*A graceful glance at a wristwatch for how much time has gone by*

Thank you. Let us now proceed…

***

BREAKING THE ICE, AGAIN

What I had not anticipated with writing Weekly Post-Eds again were all the setbacks. Low self-confidence, a lack of material, schedule constraints, performance pressure, fatigue—one thing after the other. The past three weeks were a crude reminder that just because we envision a successful result doesn’t mean that is how things will turn out.

I’ve written four completely different drafts for this entry. The first draft was about an opera I attended for the first, the second about Mother’s Day, and this most recent draft I spent harpooning my own ability to write this damned weekly offering—which, in hindsight, makes  sense, linearly, with the fallout of the first two drafts. 

What you are currently reading is the fourth complete rewrite.

Yup.

I think the problems began once I set an expectation for how this Weekly Post-Ed should read like. I was expecting a plethora of new experiences to magically sprinkle into a Weekly Post-Ed stew—a dash sharp satire here, a sprinkle of autobiographical whimsy there…And by Wednesday afternoon, I could copy/paste my charming thoughts and opinions into Wordpress and bask in the majesty of another dish well served to the internet.

Is anyone actually inspired by cooking shows where all the ingredients are pre-measured in bowls and all the charming host has to do is toss it all into an even bigger bowl to cook to perfection? The heartbreaking part is understanding that, no, the special organic paprika blend that was used in the all-so-delicious recipe is tucked away in an obscure aisle at the grocery store, and that the checkout line is twenty miles long, and the sun is about to go down, which begs the question of how much time there is to cook anyway, and—

There’s a terrible miscalculation going on—what we think is easy and effortless takes a lot more than we think.

And it sucks.

It is now three weeks after I pictured myself triumphantly posting on my website. At this point, I’m publishing this draft not because it is better than the others that came before it, but out of a necessity to publish something instead of nothing.

Sometimes when we get stuck, it’s hard to recognize the path to get unstuck is to stop running circles.  In this case, circles of indecisiveness (which raises questions about the shape of the running in a circle if the issue is insecurity—but perhaps I’m overthinking that one). Yes, I’m afraid of this draft being bad. It’s also a bit late in the process to develop an aversity to attempting new things. It’s concerning that the lessons we often learn in life are ones that come around frequently.

I had forgotten that the point of all this was to experiment and try things. And, as a regressing learner of worldly matters, I have to ask: What is the point in avoiding looking like an idiot, exactly?

I can’t think of a reason. I’ve run out of people to actively seek impressing.

Until that list gains new names, I’ll have to settle for the truth.

Which, I think, is the nature of writing autobiographically—it isn’t important to be anything other than honest about your story.

Even the foibles of trying to put together a measly piece of website content.

So, here it is. Finally. Out the door, being read (hopefully). Next week, there will be new things to tell.

Hang in there with me. We’ll get there together.

***

  1. “Dirt Face” by Peach Face, Not Charles
  2. “Everything Goes (Wow)” by BROODS
  3. “Orpheus” by The Beaches

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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Weekly Post-Ed #54

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

THANKS FOR JOINING US

“Robert! So good of you to join us,” she said. 

Or he said. 

Really, anyone who had a turn to come up and say hello at church after I hadn’t attended in a while used to say this phrase to me. I’m not sure why this specific passive-aggressive line was used by literally everyone who came over to shake my hand. Maybe it was rehearsed. I like to think a group gathered to collectively agree about how best to subtly insult someone who hadn’t been present at church in several months, and that there must have been other phrases that didn’t quite make the cut:

“Glad you could make it this time!” | (Pretty good, but perhaps a little bitter)

Or: “I thought you were dead; I’m glad to see you’re not! Ha ha ha.” | (Maybe a little too much wishful thinking mixed in with that one)

“Didn’t you grow out of puberty years ago; why do you need to sleep in until noon in your twenties?” | (Oddly specific and definitely NOT autobiographical)

And I would smile, trying not to squirm from the cold, clammy hands of the elderly ladies, or the overly aggressive, bone-breaking squeezes of the elderly men. I smiled because there was nothing for me to say: 

They were right to point out that I had been gone for some time without any explanation.

The explanation was simple for me. I was off living a life that required my being elsewhere to fully live it. The fault was in assuming I could return to a place where I supposed there would be no difference in opinion from when I was last there. In fact, I expected a warmer welcome—like a guest hosting SNL or that nod of gratefulness from librarians after returning books to the library after years of being overdue (definitely NOT another autobiographical detail).

There wasn’t any excuse worth giving. I didn’t feel a need to explain myself. I was back. And I was excited to get to the real conversation. 

“You look taller, have you grown?”

“Have you lost weight?”

Yes. And, yes I have. Thanks for asking.

“Glad to be here,” I’d say, smiling through clammy or overly aggressive handshakes, relieved the good part of the conversation could finally begin. “I’ve been busy.”

Truly. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

***

MARIO’S MOVIE

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures

A little behind the times, but I had some thoughts on The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Quick side review: The movie was excellent! There were so many easter eggs and musical score references to previous games layered throughout the movie that really could only be appreciated by fans of the longstanding game series: The score included pieces from Super Mario 64, Super Mario 3D World, Luigi’s Mansion, Yoshi’s Island, and so much more. The voice-acting immediately made sense once Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) said his first lines, and the likes of Luigi, Bowser, and Princess Peach came to life in ways that the games hadn’t touched upon in franchise history. This was truly a movie for generations of fans to come together to get another view of Mario and company in a new way. Mario truly warps to an interconnected world featuring arctic regions (with snowball launching penguins), dangerous lava pits, overgrown mushroom stalks, rainbow roadways, and even a land of rampaging apes (including Donkey Kong and kin). By the end of the movie, there was a call for more: More Nintendo franchises to appear, more worlds to explore (including Mario Galaxy references throughout that included a comically depressed celestial starlit, Luma, that hinted at the eventual introduction of Rosalina). 

The Nintendoverse appears to be getting started, which brings a slew of stories that stand apart from the usual superhero canon that has so saturated moviegoer imaginations for the last decade. It’s an added bit of fun, a twist on nostalgia that was both needed and appreciated by generational audiences. It was a movie made with love by fans of Super Mario for fans of Super Mario.

 And not to mistake it: This was a movie made for the fans.

For critics, on the whole, did not appreciate The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Underneath the joy that fans emoted during the movie, there was a discord of critical review. The Super Mario Bros. Movie scored incredibly high by fans but poorly amongst critics. After having watched the movie, I understand critical arguments that were made about the film: There wasn’t a groundbreaking story, nor was there much emotional depth with any character; and the stakes appeared low as it was clear Mario would save the day…give or take a few extra lives along the way.

And yet, I wholly disagree with just about every critic that scored the movie as subpar.

Where critics lost objectivity in their reviews was in assuming that “good” movies consisted of essential story tentpoles: a rich backstory, high stakes, emotional growth, and a surprising but inevitable conclusion. It’s true that these features are lacking in The Super Mario Movie, but anyone who left the theater thinking the film a failure missed the point.

A movie can be greater than its individual parts—traditionally acclaimed story elements included.

The magic of the Super Mario Bros Movie sparked from its delivery of nostalgia. The movie was a celebration of something so beloved, and by so many, that the fact it exists in a way that compliments the original experience of the video games is a testament to a different kind of satisfaction. There was much more working in the movie than those basic arguments critics were making.

It reminded me of good cooking, and so I thought:

“Story doesn’t necessitate a good movie, much like a prime cut of beef doesn’t necessitate a great meal: The joy of eating has everything to do with how its prepared, who its eaten with, and if you like to eat beef in the first place.“

I would venture to claim many critics didn’t like beef Super Mario before they sat in their chairs to dine out.

Which is fine. Movies live beyond the confines of bad reviews. And from the joyous applause and laughter and excited anticipation for what Nintendo franchise could possibly appear on the big screen next, I looked around at an audience that was one-third kid and two-thirds adult fans of the Mario games: There will surely be second helpings of this dish.

My critical advice: It’s not too late to acquire a better taste for the games before watching next time. It’s a delicacy to many, after all.

***

COLLEGE, SURVIVAL, AND ESPRESSOS

I’m writing a bit extra in this Weekly Post-Ed to say a little more about what I’ve been up to since I last posted: Hope you don’t mind.

I’ve just completed my first year back to college full-time. Two semesters of attending classes, doing homework, studying for exams…and all at the age of 34-years-old. Everyone that I’ve mentioned my current occupation (“full-time university student”) has said, “I could never do what you’re doing. I could never go back to college.”

After a year’s worth of experiences and tribulations, I can conclude these people are 100% right: Being older doesn’t make college easier because, by design, it’s meant to be survived.

That’s because college is not a series of tests that assess how smart you are, but rather how resilient you are. The amount of information that’s taught in lecture, expected to be read and understood for class discussion with assigned readings, and the gauntlet of tests, essays, and exams throughout a semester is designed for most to flounder. The totality of information aside, the performance pressure students place on that holiest-of-idols, FINAL GRADES, leads to scholarship opportunities that are either accepted or revoked. It’s a painful reality since the cost of college is so laughably high that one wonders why there isn’t a “Tip Your University” screen when paying tuition by credit card—just an added cost to an already paid-for service.

(Of course, one could argue there is a “Tip Your University” feature: It’s called alumni donations.)

I’m writing this as a situated adult, someone who has arrived on the other side of young adulthood. I watched my classmates, undergrads ranging from 18-21, mostly, who worried about campus living, friend groups, where the parties were at, how to get sex (and from whom), and who is older and can score some beer. Many worked side jobs, juggling full loads of coursework as well as 20-30 hours as a restaurant server, cashier, cook, tutor. Many experienced homesickness, many traveling across state to attend and live on campus to survive on their own.

I write all of this assuming we’re all comfortable acknowledging the absolute frantic age of always-connected electronic life we live in. Texts, emails, Google searches, late-night notifications, social media likes, 24-hour news, mass shootings (including a particularly close-to-home tragedy at Michigan State University only a few months ago), the still-present Covid-19 variants running amuck, and a slew of intangibles that are probably worth listing but I’ve run out nerve. The constant draw of attention to devices and crises that are pushed into eyeballs at rapid speed makes for a life unlike what past generations have experienced. 

College feels like a triple espresso, now, instead of a double; just enough to induce a constant state of shakiness that is advertised as the new normal. The body can only take so much, however, which is both literally and metaphorically the case with students today.

College life encompasses all of this, condensed into an ecosystem that demands excellence and flaunts those who somehow possess the superhuman strength to achieve everything on the course syllabus with a 4.0 GPA. Attending college is a Herculean effort, one that tests mettle in ways both arcane and unreasonable. And, I have no problem identifying as someone who had it easier than most. Out of my population of college students, I’m quite privileged. For all the reasons I’ve stated above, I didn’t have to work a side job, nor did I have to wrestle with forging an identity amongst a landscape of raging hormones and brand new adulting experiences like my classmates did. I was solely on a mission to broaden my intellectual horizons and gain a bachelor’s degree: A piece of a paper that equates to, essentially, a deli line ticket acting as an expensive placeholder that says, “I have a right to the working world, too.”

And yet, despite all the setbacks and travel and intensive mental Olympics required to survive each semester, it truly was an invaluable experience being back in college. I have so much more to share, about what it meant to succeed as well as what doesn’t work about current education, but all of that can wait for another time. 

I’m thankful for a break before heading back for a final year. There’s a lot to unpack about these past few months, so stay tuned.

***

Courtesy of CAPCOM

This week’s Weekly Finds features the upcoming Original Soundtrack from Street Fighter 6. The themes of each roster character have been fully revealed and feature a dance-centric, urban catalogue of hip-hop, cultural inversion, and it makes for a damn entertaining setlist to fight to in-game. While the musical direction of Street Fighter 6 has bristled many fans of the series who wished for a more traditional remix of song selections from previous titles, I’ve quite enjoyed the new direction for this iteration of character themes. Below are YouTube links to a few favorites I’ve had on repeat lately:

Of course, if you’re a fan of the original character themes circa Street Fighter II, here’s a walk down memory lane orchestration by Games and Symphonies! Enjoy!

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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Weekly Post-Ed #53

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

THE MOST VALUABLE SKILL

A text message came early on in the week. A friend asked: “Which are the most valuable skills to have in life?”

At 33, I have a different relationship with the notion of “success” than I did when I was in my twenties and the world appeared full of potential. In my twenties, I might have answered something like: “Develop a skill, make it as good as you can get it, move to a place where someone values that skill, and then things will likely work out.” 

Which, isn’t bad advice. Many a YouTube guru would gladly make a motivational video about it.

Except, I’m skeptical of such advice now, even if it proves practical. I’m older, full of experiences to the contrary, and am aware that the complexities of career success are beyond how talented or hard working one is. Plus, there are years and years of learned behaviors such as poor relationships, recovering from divorce, and social factors like the Covid-19 pandemic and a world increasingly growing pessimistic and fearful from an overexposure to media of every variety.

In short—it’s much harder to pinpoint which advice applies the most when the floor is constantly shifting underneath.

All of this isn’t to say I’ve grown negative or unhopeful. To the contrary, I feel optimistic about my future and everyone else’s. Having said that, I wouldn’t give the usual American “work hard and your dreams will come true” pathos.

So, I took a night and thought about how I would answer my friend. The next morning, this is what I texted back:

“Honestly, I think my official answer is, ‘I don’t know’. At 33, my best guess is critical thinking, some basic reading and writing, and emotional intelligence. Throw in boundary setting as a bonus. By far, I think the best skill ever is to be naturally lucky.”

It’s been a few days since I sent that text. When I reread it now, I shrug. It’s a typical “I’m nearing my mid-thirties and I’m unsure why things aren’t going better” response. Deductively, this exact line of reasoning is likely why my friend asked me his question in the first place.

And after writing this Weekly Post-Ed, I shrug again. Not from my answer, but because I find the question of essential skills less interesting the older I get. I’m sure the constant hustle and clawing for success matters to some, and power to anyone attempting to climb up their respective hierarchical ladders, but I’ve resigned myself to playing the hand I’ve been dealt.

And like the games of solitaire I play at my desk, I hope to get lucky with the next hand or two. It’s not the most inspiring way to play (or even sell this metaphor), but it keeps me playing the next round without expecting so much, which, by the way, is another great skill to have handy.

Maybe I should have said that in my reply to my friend instead. Oops.

I’ll leave it open for all of you: What do you all feel are the best skills to have in life?

***

  1. “Our Wasted Hours” by Clean Cut Kid
  2. “Northern Lights” by Oliver Harzard
  3. “Them Jeans” by Joe Hertler and the Rainbow Seekers

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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Weekly Post-Ed #52

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

TEN THINGS

This week’s entry marks an entire year’s worth of Weekly Post-Eds. It’s quite the milestone. To commemorate the 52nd entry, I made a list of things I learned whilst writing them. Without further ado, here’s 10 Things I Learned Writing Weekly Post-Eds.

1. I’m Not Sure I Learned Anything at All.

It’s true. When thinking about this list, my first thought: what was it that I was supposed to have learned with all of this? The process for writing Weekly Post-Eds is the same as it has ever been: Frantically jotting down whatever smorgasbord of stuff I could think of and cut what isn’t working. That’s about it. I’m sure there was something meaningful or poignant I was supposed to learn throughout this process, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Which leads me to the second item on this list:

2. [LEAVE THIS SPACE BLANK FOR SOMETHING MEANINGFUL]

I’m sure that meaningful lesson will occur to me at some point. I’ll reserve this space for when I think of it.

Oh: maybe something about sex comment bots?

3. Failure Leads to Somewhere

This is more in line with my belief that writing is the only pure form of magic out there, but despite weeks where it appeared there wasn’t anything to write about, merely sitting down to write something led to Weekly Post-Eds getting written. It was oftentimes awful material, and painful to write, but something always appeared on the page despite the critic in my head lambasting the quality of the words.

If you’re failing, remember: At least failure gets you somewhere else.

You may still be failing, but at least you’re in a new spot to do so. I always enjoyed the change of scenery.

4. Never Make Promises You Can’t Keep

I’m a great planner, not so much a doer. So, when one is confronted with the prospect of writing creatively on a personal website in order to entertain, one wants to dream about all that it can ever be. Projects are conceived, and the end result of finally showing them to the world was addictive to think about.

You know, sans the actual hard work to complete said projects.

Long story short: I often announced projects that weren’t close to being finished without following through. Half-finished essays promised within a week’s time, and entire ideas for projects (such as a series chronicling all my online dating adventures) never materialized. Of course I wanted to come through on projects and bigger ideas; I just tripped over bad habits at every turn: Procrastination, rationalizing myself out of any responsibility to readers, even if their numbers were so few.

A favorite rationalization was this: ” Hardly anyone comes to the website anyways,” which meant the few readers I had would leave with relatively little fuss, or, as it did happen, never say anything. This was a pleasant defense mechanism…until I realized how I was treating anyone who happened upon my website. It was a huge punch to the face of anyone visiting in hindsight.

It turns out the solution to all of this is not to make promises you can’t keep. So, until things are ready, my lips are sealed. 

Either that or I hire someone with a very critical stare to guilt me into working harder.

Nah.

5. Writing About Personal Stories Was the Most Enjoyable

In this quest to stand out from other writers on the internet, I struggled to come up with what differentiated my writings. I found that writing about personal stories was the closest I’d get to solving the riddle. Not only did I enjoy telling embarrassing stories about myself and sharing them with whomever might read them, but strange things happened frequently in my daily life and were easiest to write about. I had a constant stream of oddball memories and strange encounters during my weeks, of which there is still more to unpack. I’m excited to keep writing about more episodes from my past in the future.

You should definitely come back for that. It’s going to be a great time.

(Unless I just broke Number 4 from this list and promised something I won’t adhere to…)

Nah.

6. Comment Bots Are Aggressively Sexual

Most of the comments I received and moderate on this website are from bots, sadly. As far as the internet underbelly is concerned, I’m inexperienced in recognizing all the different types of phishing schemes out there. However, I’m amazed by this wave of bot comments that are overtly sexual towards content creators. Are comments such as, “I want you come over and f*** me, right now!” supposed to warrant some kind of desperate reaction to click on a link?

Secretly, I was flattered that anything I wrote evoked any sexual reaction, even if from a bot consisting of a few lines of code. If you can pique the sexual interest of some defunct phishing program, you know that you’ve made in your heart of hearts.

7. Don’t Come Up With Large Numbered Lists When You Don’t Have The Material Yet

This lesson occurred to me while making this list. Sorry, it’s a fresh one.

This is more of a lesson for me, not you.

Anyway, what else…

8. Try Not to Write About People in a Way You Can’t Defend

On a few occasions, I wrote about real people in my life. It was likely a story or conversation that later I embellished (creative license, they used to call it), or portrayed them unflatteringly. In each case, I heard back from someone specific who was not pleased with what I had written.

And I felt awful: Not because I didn’t like what I wrote, but because I used their words or actions for entertainment’s sake.

If someone enjoys what is written about them, it’s easier to dip into the well of real-life experiences without thinking twice–they liked it, all is well. However, when you receive negative feedback or that this person was embarrassed, it hurts as a writer. The point is to entertain, to use the guise of someone in order to reveal something greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes, you can’t help but write in a negative light, no matter what the intention.

I’ve since learned to weigh seriously if I should write about someone who is bound to read about themselves.

I’ve considered complete strangers, too. But they often say very little about my having written about them.

9. Don’t Be Afraid to Change Your Mind

Along with the previous item on this list, there were times when I wrote about something from my week and I realized I no longer agreed with my take a few days later. At the beginning of writing Weekly Post-Eds, I’d struggle with deleting sections because it was difficult to think up replacement material. I’ve found that it’s more important to evolve with your ideas than stick to what was safer to write about.

People change, so should your writing and ideas about life. It’s a sign of being sane…to a degree, anyways.

10. Was Any of This Worth It?

Without specific numbers, this website is relatively niche and unknown. After 2.5 years of attempting to write content and garnerng a handful of loyal readers over that span (my mother included: She’ll be reading this later; she’s my favorite of my readers), I’ve often questioned why I did any of this. Was the point to become a successful commercial writer? Was the intention to make a name for myself in the freelance industry, or to write stories and build a small Patreon community to pay for my writingly lifestyle? Over the course of 2.5 years, I’ve considered all kinds of solutions to these problems: Either step up my social media/marketing game, produce a hell of lot more content, or bust.

And yet, each time I’ve thought about this path, I sink back in my chair, and retch inside. There’s something about this model to “internet success” that is inherently against why I made all of this to begin with.

I’m not here to push my prodigious writings or become famous (my god, I could care less about that). I’m here to chronicle what my life is like, a living journal/record in the wrapping paper of a guy who likes to make snazzy graphics to go along with the writing. 

That’s. About. It.

And maybe stumble across something profound from time to time.

To really know if any of this was worth it, you’ll have to answer for yourself. Perhaps in the comments below.

And when I later read, “I want you to come over and f*** me, right now”, from a fresh batch of sex bot spam in my comments inbox, I’ll know it was all worthwhile. 

I like to keep my readers titillated. Even the fake ones.

***

  1. “Rose Colored Glasses” by The Collection
  2. “Never Been Better (feat. Orla Gartland)” by Half-Alive
  3. “Dressed to Kill” by The Wombats

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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