Genuinely Curious
“This is just stupid!” I roared from inside my boss’ windowless office. Thankfully no windows meant good acoustics for rage-Nate. Debra, my boisterous, blond boss had been trying to teach me the lost art of cold calling. After surviving the third hardest college program in the world, and eking out a short but high-impact career in […]
Story Worthy
An ex-friend (we’ll call him J) called me out of the blue today. I had a hard time remembering why we were ‘ex’ friends, so I took the call and he told me about the last few chapters of his life story. In the past few years, J’s lived what I like to call, the […]
Bigger Rocks
“Move the big rock” At first glance, it looks suspiciously like a vague Buddhist proverb, or mis-translated Kung Fu movie, or Native American nugget of wisdom shared only while smoking a peace pipe at a crackling fire. Nope. That brutally simple piece of advice came from a sales coach. Yep, a stoic, suited, ultra-professional sales […]
Tug of War
I’ve been off my game for a bit – well, five-months to be specific. And as I fall back into the comfort of the fall school and work routine, my subconscious has been slooowly untangling the messy “why” … or perhaps, “what the f*** just happened? When looking back on my life thus far, it hasn’t […]
Helpless vs. Hopeful
My third fight happened the summer before my senior year of high school. Several months earlier, I had received my second denial from the Air Force Academy. So I scammed a copy of a previous year’s application to find out what bubbles I needed to fill out to get their attention. On a long list […]
Emotional Injury
Last month, I clocked just shy of two thousand miles driving zig-zagging all across California. House hunting. School hunting. Business hunting. Sanity hunting. Short version: it stressed me the fuck out. Usually, long drives help mellow me out into an almost zen like state. My zaniest ideas, and gnarliest life-detours were birthed on road trips. So what made this […]
one problem
I’ve learned a lot from my TV addiction. I was a beta customer of Netflix during the red and white envelope days, and am shamefully proud of my early adoption of the Netflix Binge back in the early weeks of their instant viewing days. BURN NOTICE has been on my rotating binge list for ages now, […]
Remember to Breathe
I got him. I finally landed a solid shot on Fred the Dentist, a soft-spoken black belt and occasional sparring partner. During our other fights we always gently slip by all of my attacks and I’d feel soft taps on my noggin and gut where he’d let me know where he would have dropped me. […]
Nostalgic Revolution
I wrote the below ramble a few months after moving to Chico, California. It took me 3-years to do something about it. That “side project” has pulled thousands of local anti-social Facebook junkies onto the dance-floor and landed me some new friends. I can’t tell you why I waited so long to reboot something that indisputably […]
Tangible Reinforcement
Confession time. I’m a resolutions addict. It all started in Murrieta, California. My mom had just achieved three gigantic milestones. After birthing me at 17, not finishing high school and surviving life in SoCal solo and welfare-free for many years, she hustled her way into a real estate job, got her license and started selling. She hit […]
