Grace Jones, stoner radio, and COVID dreams — I’ve always thought Grace Jones was a real vampire. This is probably due to my first exposure to her being in the 1986 movie Vamp. I was 11 or 12 at the time and believed vampires were real. I still might. I don’t think about this often, but the stoners…

A love story and picking the right lotto numbers — Asbury Park in New Jersey is about a 90-minute drive straight out of Pennsylvania on the turnpike into and onto the Jersey turnpike. We have a lot of turnpikes out here. Someday I will google that. Usually, the trek is a day trip to either camp out on the beach…

And the fostering of my banana trauma — The suction tool hung off the corner of my mouth like a kindergartner’s Christmas ornament, making it difficult to object to the smell of the fluoride paste about to be slathered on my teeth. Bananas permeated. It was unmistakable and putrid. I remember the last time I ate a banana…

My GenX solution to a lousy week of work — At 6:12 p.m, I realized the work day felt like an eternity starting at 11 a.m. and needed to simply end. With my colleagues already offline, as they were when I started the day, I locked the screen and took a deep breath. I gathered my breakfast plate, lunch plate…

Tales from the unbalanced, part 2 — At first, I didn’t like the smell of steel on my hands or the way the traction dug my palms. I was too new for calluses yet and Amazon sells swanky pink lifting gloves. I was in the “big weight” section of the gym without a single clue as to…

Tales from the unbalanced: Part 1 — As a small child, it’s been my understanding via the stories of multiple people, I would disembark from the couch head first. My image of this is a snake-like graceful move down the side of the sofa to the floor, where I would, in an ungraceful manner bang my head…

And other truths about prisons — It was beautiful at the prison this morning, I typed via text. It was a weird thing to say in conversation about the weather taking an ominous turn. Though peculiar, it was more curious that it felt logical in conversation. And the morning had been gorgeous, the kind that made…

That throwback workout song still has fire — My mind was firmly on a pitcher of fake caramel color-induced margaritas as I headed home from the liquor store. I had a big bottle of premixed Jose Cuervo and a bag of ice for taco night. The sun was hot, and the humidity felt like midsummer instead of the…

Exercise bands, small weights, humbling times — My first session of physical therapy happened about a month ago. It was the assessment where we reviewed my goals and current abilities. We talked about my desire to simply want one day a week with the trust that I would do the work in the between times was met…