A Poem for Expecting Parents
It was my honor to speak recently at the Connecticut Bards Poetry Review’s book launch.
The 2-minute-long video here includes a reading of a poem I wrote for our first-born child:
You Started as a Secret Read More
Welcome to my Redesigned Site
Welcome to the re-designed uncommondiscourse.com. This site spotlights my work as a writer and a public speaker.
From 2017 through 2021, I published a weekly humor column here. It won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ 2019 award for Best Humor Column in its class. The entire 200-column archive may still be found here.
Please take a look around the new website to learn more about my work in genres such as memoir, humor, poetry, and storytelling. Read More
After 200 Consecutive Weekly Columns, It’s Time for Something New
Today is the 200th consecutive Sunday that I’ve published a weekly humor column on this website. There won’t be a 201st.
I’m taking a break.
It’s time for me to scroll off your screen and into the sunset to wherever fate takes me next. Read More
Our Home Still has Good Bones
So we didn’t get a turn-key ready world: there are worse things.
I refuse to let negativity and cynicism become defining characteristics of my children’s childhoods. Read More
I Finally Understand Mom’s Greatest Joy
Before she passed away, Mom always used to say that her greatest joy was sitting in our home hearing all three of her sons make each other laugh.
I don’t remember her saying it very often when we were growing up but it became her refrain after her pancreatic cancer diagnosis when our visits increased in frequency and became less about seeing old friends and more about spending time together as a family. Read More
Naps Aren’t Bedtime and My Kids Know It
My days are divided into two distinct sections: before the kids are in bed for the night and after the kids are in bed for the night.
I love my kids (2.5 year old daughter and 6-month-old son) with all of my heart, but post-bedtime life is just a little bit easier.
Consider this: I’ve never once told my wife, “Let’s wake the kids up a little bit early today, we could use a break.” Read More
Like a Toddler in a Bathtub, Time Keeps on Slipping
This week my daughter officially turned two-and-a-half years old, which means she’s now closer to being five-years-old than she is to birth. I don’t know how to process that. Read More
Stopping to Watch a Summer Storm
The best summer storms are the ones witnessed with a feeling of safety but intense enough to make you feel like you’ve got a little skin in the game. Read More
Singing Without Shame or Inhibition
I loved singing as a child but by my mid-teens I decided not to do it publicly anymore even though it was one of my biggest sources of joy.
I became more inhibited.
For the twenty years that followed that source of joy became a source of apprehension. Read More
So It Turns Out I’m a “Pool Guy”
Halfway through my first summer as a pool owner, I’ve clearly become a “pool guy.”
At this point we’ve survived small gatherings, family swims, and a blowout party without any major incidents so something’s going right.
We don’t yet have the stereotypical lifesaver on a rope hanging on the pool house wall but we’ve got a first aid kit with a lifeguard cross on the cover, a freezer full of freeze pops, and a counter full of sunblock. Read More