This, my 53rd consecutive weekly column, officially marks Uncommon Discourse’s one-year anniversary.
Thank you to the thousands of unique visitors who have visited the site and to the steadily increasing number of subscribers. Read More
Everyone gets a little more introspective around their birthday.
For the past twenty or so years, I’ve funneled my birthday-related thoughts into a unique direction modeled after the president’s annual State of the Union Address. Read More
I resent feeling contemplative while standing on a beach. Somewhere along the way, it got buried deep in my psyche that thoughts on a beach are somehow more profound.
They aren’t, it’s just a beach. Read More
If you had asked me in fifth grade to predict what the world would look like in 2018, I would’ve assumed there would be far less aerosol products.
It seems like they were public enemy number one in 1991, but that category is now surprisingly filled by single-use plastic straws. I saw one taken out of a turtle’s nose on the Today Show. It was disgusting. Read More
I suffer from seating anxiety.
Seating anxiety, for those blissfully ignorant few who do not share the affliction, is when you show up somewhere and immediately become terrified that there will not be a seat for you. Read More
Among my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t keep a journal of my earlier years.
As a writer interested in memoir, I try to remember the person I used to be, but can only do it through the prism of the person I am today. I lack the authentic source material and end up with a book report version instead of first-hand narrative accounts. Read More
Most of the time, I have refrigerator mind, which is where my brain is just quietly humming along, kicking in and out as necessary with no external prompting needed to maintain operations.
For a while, this seemed to be increasing with my age, which worried me somewhat, that it could be a warning sign of memory loss or worse. I feared it could signal that my attention span was getting shorter or that my personal ambitions were being curtailed. Read More
It would be a shame to go through life without ever experiencing the lightness of heart that comes with a solo one-way road trip. My early adult years were full of them. One of my many guilty pleasures has always been indulging in my own potential.
A solo one-way road trip is where you simply pick up and leave everything behind with the hope of finding meaning at your destination (or at least something different and possibly better). Read More
I keep this harmonica on one of my shelves. It isn’t very old, Jenny gave it to me a few Christmases ago inside of my stocking. It was a very sweet gesture after we came across one at a gift shop and I got nostalgic about my former dream of being the best harmonica player in the world.…
People often ask me, if I could time travel, where in time would I go?
Having studied the classics including every Terminator movie, both Bill and Ted’s, and each episode of Quantum Leap, my answer is clear: if I could travel anywhere in time, I’d go nowhere. Read More