Here’s a Story About How to Stop Eating Bullshit

Here’s a Story About How to Stop Eating Bullshit

Passports are amazing. In 1998, when I received my first passport, it was as though I had a golden ticket that could take me anywhere. I flipped through the pages, dreaming of all the stamps that would one day fill this little blue-covered book. I was an insecure twenty-something who graduated from high school two years late and had just been fired from my low-paying factory job. People like me didn't travel. People like me only visited far away places in books and movie screens. That's what I believed. So, it was funny that I had a round-trip ticket to London, a packed bag, and a Let's Go! guide to Britain under my arm.Other countries were an intimidating and weird magic. I wanted to experience that.During that adventure, I explored various parts of England and Scotland. I took the Eurostar to Paris. I rode the métro. I made an ass of myself. I talked with strangers, got lost, rained on,...
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Why I Didn’t Read Your Email

Why I Didn’t Read Your Email

I used to like receiving email.  Back in the day when I had an email account on AOL & the chipper robot voice would exclaim, "You've got mail!", it was a happy occasion. Now, here it is more than a decade later, I've got email accounts on Yahoo!, Google & some other shitty site that I never remember to check more than once a month. I've got widgets on my desktop to notify me of new mail - they're more silent than the robot voice.  (He really got annoying after a while, didn't he?) Of course, I only bother to take a gander at those widgets after I've taken the time to respond to my Facebook messages & Twitter responses.  I think I've still got a Myspace account floating around out there & I respond to the comments on this blog via email, too. When I finally do take a look at my inbox, I might have anywhere between 5 - 50 emails.  Of...
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