Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #136: Expensive Soup, Goodbye Dolly, Finally Caught, etc.

1. I have heard of things being marked down in a store, but this one takes the cake. While in a supermarket, I was looking for soup to have with dinner. Of course there are loads of ‘New Low Price’ stickers everywhere. They don’t mention that first they had to jack the costs up a ton, so the low prices are still probably above where they should be. Anyway, I noticed one particular markdown that caught my eye. It was a Campbell’s soup, now marked at $3.99. The old price? $21.99. For soup? Unless it’s made with fresh lobster mixed with real gold, I couldn’t imagine any soup being that expensive. Honestly, I think it was a mistake, but still I had to grab a photo of it so nobody would think I was telling tall tales. You know, like seeing a three-foot garter snake but telling everyone it was a fifteen-foot boa constrictor? Not that I’ve ever told anyone that.

That's some markdown

2. Sometimes workouts wipe you out, and you know it immediately. Sometimes they are sneaky and leave you a puddle after you’re done. This week I had a shorter day at work. Since there literally is a gym attached to the office where I train people, I figured why not just use that instead of driving somewhere else. When I exercise at my work gym, it typically ends up being option overload. I have unobstructed access to almost anything I could want for training. This time it was lots of kettlebells, BOSU, cable machine, and such. I worked every major muscle and even threw in some HIIT cardio while I was at it. Good job for thirty minutes. I got done and had barely broken a sweat, so I figured I hadn’t gone as hard as I did. The joke was on me; before I had even gotten into my car, my body felt like it was turning to dust. All I wanted to do was go home and collapse in a heap on the floor, but I had to stop at the store. If I could have lain on the floor and slept, I would have. The best workouts are when you feel you didn’t do enough but in reality did more than enough. I’m sure some of you are saying the best workouts are none at all. That is a perfectly fine choice as well.


3. One of the banes of my existence during the warmer months is woodpeckers. I am kidding; it’s not that bad, but they do become annoying. Obviously, if you just look at their name, you know this bird loves to peck at wood. Every year they return and choose the areas on the other side of my walls to hammer away at. What do you do to stop them? I’ll bang on the other side of the wall to scare them off, but what if they don’t get scared? I was hitting the wall, and the dang woodpecker just kept going. There was only so hard I was going to pound on the wall. I could just imagine me putting a hole in the wall trying to scare a bird. I mean, how do you explain that to someone? If you say you were trying to scare away woodpeckers, they might just call the nuthouse to come and get you. You’d almost be better off saying it was roid rage or something like that. In the end, the woodpecker got tired of annoying me, I guess, and went away. The only thing worse than a woodpecker attacking the walls is when they do the same thing to the gutters. Then it goes from a dull thud to a jackhammer that never ceases to give me a mini heart attack when it happens.

It was one of these that was the culprit.

4. Live your life in a way that, when you pass, hundreds of millions of people feel like they have lost a loved one. That is the sentiment I get when looking around social media after the death of music icon and humanitarian icon Dolly Parton at the age of 80 this week. She is someone whose music touched generations, but whose contributions to society in general touched so many more. She made life better for countless people whom she never met. I have been reading dozens of stories from celebrities and ordinary people about their interactions and connections to Dolly. I am preparing a blog post to go more in depth, but I will quickly summarize mine. When dealing with a crisis of confidence or uncertainty about where I am going in my life, I look for inspiration and direction. I tend to look toward not just people who have been successful, but people who have been successful and, on top of that, a good person. Numerous Dolly Parton quotes have made the rounds in my life during the last several years. The biggest one in particular is her quote: “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” I felt that, as I have always felt like there was something beyond just a (no pun intended) 9-to-5 job. I have been trying to create my own path for years, and that quote reassures me each time I read it. I think there are very few people who were as universally loved and admired as Dolly Parton. Her death, even though she was 80, has stunned the world. But I circle back to the top. I feel like I am part of the largest group of mourners ever. Hundreds of millions of us feel like we lost someone special even though the vast majority of us never met her or even saw her in real life. There will never be another like Dolly Parton. Rest in peace to the Queen of Country. We will always love you.



5. I want to piggyback on that last entry. There are many celebrities, in particular musicians, who have inspired me with their work. Sadly, when you’re working on creating your own path, you sometimes forget to give thanks to those who inspire you to carry on. Such as it was with Dolly Parton. It was like after hearing of her death, I remembered all of the times that I read quotes of hers that seemed to bring clarity to my mind. I should have put it out in the universe, even if it was a social media post that she’d never see. Yes, celebrities don’t need the validation; after all, they have already made it. However, I would know that they lent a hand in my journey even if they never did. This is going to be a kind of catch-all, thank-you purge while it is fresh in my mind, as I don’t want to have a posthumous thank you as I just did for Dolly Parton. Whether working on a creative project or simply looking for answers in a sometimes overwhelming life, these are the artists whose music I have leaned on the most in those times. Thank you so much to: Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, Norah Jones, Dave Grohl, Elton John, Phil Collins, Thom Yorke, Glen Phillips, Bono, Michael Stipe, Sade, and probably more, but those are the people whose words and music have spoken to me above all others. There are certainly more who have since passed on, but I wanted to thank these people while I still have the chance.


6. My life at times feels like two totally different films smashed together. No matter if they make sense, they are jammed into one hybrid. I feel like I am, on one hand, a health-conscious, wise, confident, and driven person. Then on the other hand, I am a self-loathing, terrified person bound to bits of self-destructive behavior. One day this week, it crystallized in a series of events that saw me ping-pong back and forth from fitness to fatness. I began at my day job as a personal trainer. As the day drew to a close, I was hungry and decided that going for a run was not going to happen. I wanted to eat, preferably something bad. That came in the form of a large pepperoni pizza. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it tasted great, but it left me feeling angry, knowing the amount of exercise I’d have to do to burn off what I’d just eaten. A few hours later, I was doing some writing work and felt the urge to go for a walk. So after eating a large pizza I proceeded to go and walk nearly 5 ½ miles on a perfect summer afternoon. I burned over 700 calories. Finally, the day swung totally in the opposite direction again. I got hungry after the walk and couldn’t decide what to have for dinner. My mind was set on cereal. So I went and got a box of cereal to have for dinner. Not a bowl, the whole box. It is wild when I write it down to think about how I swung in such opposing ways in the same day. I was a personal trainer and went for a long walk, burning lots of calories. Yet on the same day I ate a large pizza and a box of cereal. So yes, my life feels like it can be a pair of diametrically opposed films that are crashing into each other. It’s sort of like when you mix two perfect colors of Play-Doh, and it makes some weird color. The weirdest thing is that I kind of enjoy almost having the best of both worlds. I do heavy bouts of exercise when I want to and don’t deprive myself of the foods I like, even if they are way less than healthy.


7. The latest episode of being the fun uncle. I went to my mom’s to visit, and my 7-year-old niece Sylvie was there. We had fun with stuffed animals playing around. Sylvie had this spray-on, leave-in conditioner, and she started spraying the animals and combing their fur. Naturally, she wanted to style my hair by spraying the conditioner in it. The only issue is that I have less than an inch of hair on my head. I don’t need much conditioner. She also grabbed a pen and said she might be able to color in my gray hairs, but that didn’t work. To say I ended up with a lot of that conditioner in my hair would be a huge understatement. I’d say conservatively Sylvie sprayed the bottle 20 times on my head. It was plastered down with it. I left it in the whole time she was there, but once she had gone home, I went straight to the bathroom to try to wash it out. Despite soaking my head with water, I could still feel it hanging on. I guess that makes it a good conditioner. It took a full, hot shower to finally remove all of the conditioner. I did make the mistake of telling Sylvie that in the winter I will have a lot more hair. That means the odds of a follow-up featuring the conditioner are likely, but with even more to slick my hair down.

This is the stuff she used, I'm impressed I found it.

8. I know we were all kids once. I know most of us did dangerous and reckless things when we were kids. I’m assuming that those who are Gen-X like have way more stories and battle scars than a lot of the younger people do. I preface this next story by saying all of this so that I can then say that kids have to be smarter. I was leaving the supermarket one evening this week. I took a back road behind the plaza and through a neighborhood because in the summer it’s way easier than trying to navigate Route 28 (our busiest street on Cape Cod). On this occasion, I was going slow to a stop sign and preparing to turn right down another road. I would say 99 out of 100 times when I hit that intersection, there is nobody anywhere. No cars, no people, just a wide open road. However, I also never assume, so I stopped and waited a moment. Good thing I did. Without warning, and from an area completely shielded by bushes, a kid on a motorized scooter came flying around the corner. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t look, just flies right in front of my car. I had no idea that he was there until he flew in front of my car. It was a total blind spot. I am so grateful that I was taking my time because if I had started driving a second or two earlier, I could have hit that kid. I can only assume he goes down that route and never sees a car. I also remember, as a teenager, you feel you’re invincible until something comes along to slap you in the face. I shouted a few words at his stunned face and then went on my way. I am glad I didn’t end up being his wake-up call to be more careful, or something worse.


9. This week I finished the series Glitch on Netflix. It was another in my run of sci-fi, supernatural, suspenseful shows. Yes, I guess I have a type. The series is from Australia and has 18 episodes, which are divided into 3 seasons. The gist of it is a group of people returns from the dead, literally crawling out of their graves. The show is then trying to figure out why they came back looking normal and healthy, and also the ramifications of their return. I won’t spoil anything but will say it actually has a happy ending despite it being totally different than what I expected. One thing totally unrelated to the plot of the show has to do with the recent trend on streaming platforms of original shows having incredibly small numbers of episodes counting as a ‘season.’ 6 episodes is a season? Even 8-10 is weak. I guess growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, when TV shows had 20 or so episodes in a season, I have been spoiled. Attention spans and commitment levels are a lot shorter in the 2020s. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t matter much when you’re binging a show that has already run its course, but I have a few shows that are still currently going, and having to wait a year or more for another handful of episodes is pretty lame. I’ll still do it, but yes, I will complain about it along the way.

10. Well, it only took 9 months, but Netflix finally realized I was getting all of their shows ad-free when my subscription was the low tier with ads. I had wondered if they would ever catch on. I mean, I certainly wasn’t going to write to a multi-billion dollar corporation and tell them I was getting a higher tier than what I was paying for. In December, when I got Netflix back, I noticed after a few days I hadn’t seen one ad during my time on the platform. Weeks turned to months, and I almost started taking it for granted, expecting that they might have forgotten about me. This week I was watching something when all of a sudden an ad popped up. Then, maybe ten minutes into the show, a full-on ad break came on. I was sad for a moment, but hey, I had a good run with ad-free Netflix. Besides, I grew up in the times when you couldn’t skip commercials; they were just part of the experience. I guess if I was a kid who had only known streaming, I might be upset. I’m old, though; I can deal with a few ads with my shows. It’s just like the 90s all over again. Well, except my knee doesn’t get sore because of playing sports; it gets sore because it’s Tuesday.


11. As things ramp up for going on location to film The Cabin next week, I have gotten to enjoy recording some scenes with friends that I cast in the movie. First, it cuts down on the search for people to play the roles. Second, it allows me to thank them by giving them roles in the film. Two scenes were audio-only, as they will be telephone calls in the film. A third was a fake Zoom call. The audio scenes went pretty seamlessly. In the end, I decided that it might be better to do the fake Zoom call in person, just in case anything went wrong. Boy, I was lucky I did. There were a few minor mishaps when it came to lighting and sound that would have been harder to try to solve from the other end of a computer. Plus, if you’re on Zoom, you only get something like 45 minutes of video time before it shuts down. I could have just imagined needing to spend most of that time fixing technical issues only to have Zoom kick us off as we finally got going. In the end, we got it all to work and got the scenes shot. It was the final thing I could do on Cape Cod for the film before heading off on location in a few days.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #130: Familiar Scents, Wildfire Skies, Too Many Soups, etc.

1. A favorite recent pastime of mine is going to a park in the afternoon and sitting in my car to listen to a podcast. There is something about the sun, the scents of summer, and the people watching when combined with a good podcast that really sets my soul at ease. I spent so many good times riding around on my bike as a kid. There were certain scents that I remember from back then that instantly trigger good feelings. Don’t laugh, but two of them are dead pine needles and dirt. Yeah, that sounds like an idea for a terrible novelty body wash, but it’s true. The brown pine needles in the hot sun give off a scent that brings back the teenage boy in me. That combined with the smell of dirt, like after you’ve dug a hole or moved it around, it’s like it unlocks something inside. Hey, come on, I know that all of you have certain smells that trigger memories. Mine just happen to be part of the playbook of a typical 1980s boy. So when I am sitting at a park and can smell the pine needles, it’s an automatic release of endorphins. I’m not saying I want to buy an air freshener that smells like dead pine needles, but if someone gave me one for free, I wouldn’t throw it away.



2. I am a connoisseur of energy drinks, if that is a thing. Since college in the late 1990s, I’ve tried pretty much everything there is to try when it comes to energy drinks and pre-workout supplements. There have been some that I liked more than others. Many of those I liked ended up being discontinued or even banned due to their ingredients. Even now, in my late 40s, I will try most energy drinks. I was shocked this week when, of all people, my mother had a recommendation for a new energy drink. It’s from The Loaded Tea Shop. These are in powdered form with 200mg of green tea caffeine and a few other vitamins. My mom and sister enjoy the flavors; many have funny names like Frog Spit. I have had a couple of the powdered sticks and do enjoy them, but I will admit they are a bit pricey. If you click the link and go to their website, you will see that each stick, even when on sale, is $4. I guess my favorite energy drink is usually the cheapest one that is on sale. When I get one, they typically cost $2-2.50. If you go by the directions, each stick could be 2 servings of 16 ounces, so it’s possible it’s more affordable than I think. Anyway, I have enjoyed them and am linking to their site so you can try for yourself rather than just taking my word for it.


3. No matter how old I get, I still find and enjoy the beauty in the small things. Arriving for Monday Runday this week, I ended up being distracted. I spotted a greenish dragonfly landing on a branch nearby. Rather than go off to the track to start some exercise, I was fascinated by the insect. It seemed to be relaxing, so I was able to start getting photos and videos. No matter how much I filmed or how close I got to the dragonfly, it just sat there. Eventually, I had to get going, but first, I wanted an action video of the dragonfly flying. I was shooting a slow-motion video, which was beneficial. I slowly started moving my finger closer and closer until finally it flew off. I probably spent a few minutes hanging out with the dragonfly even though it felt much longer. Ironically, for as long as I hung around the dragonfly, I could have stayed longer. That is because once I got to the track, I was still the first one there. Then again, there was only so much room on my phone to video an insect sitting on a branch.




4. I have to start this off by saying cancer sucks. This week, I found out that a former patient at my work passed away from brain cancer a few weeks ago. Her name was Christine, and she would come in routinely with her husband, Doug. When they first came in, she was battling a brain tumor. I think she had already had one surgery to combat it. She used a pair of our therapies that promote healing at the cellular level. They are PEMF(pulsed electromagnetic field) and EWOT(exercise with oxygen therapy). When they would show up, I would drop what I was doing if I could to spend time chatting with them. She was so sweet and friendly even in the face of something so horrible. I don’t know how she did it. Coming in twice a week for several months, she got positive updates. Her brain tumor was shrinking, and we were so excited and hopeful that she would beat the cancer. Sadly, the last few times she came in, October of last year, I noticed something. She was not able to ride as far on the bike or take in as much of the 93% pure oxygen that makes up the therapy. Then all of her appointments were canceled as she prepared to fight the resurgent cancer. We wished her all the best, which was all we could do. This week we found out that she didn’t win the battle. She was only 68 years old. Rest in peace, Christine. My heartfelt condolences to Doug and the rest of her family. Oh, and most of all, fuck cancer.


5. It was eerie during the middle of this week when the sky went from sunny and very soupy, to a yellowy haze. It felt like a horror movie was starting. We had an air quality alert, which I thought was due to how hot and humid it was. It turned out to be at least partially due to smoke from Canadian wildfires. The smoke rolled in so quickly that the temperature dropped five degrees within minutes. Sadly, there were more than 800 wildfires across Canada, with many located just across the border north of Minnesota. I am sure by the time this blog goes up, that number will change, hopefully for the better. It feels as though this sort of thing occurs far too frequently now. There are typically a handful of days a year when smoke from some wildfire drifts down into New England. It makes for an interesting sky, but there’s nothing else good that comes from a wildfire.




6. Over the last 12 years, I have been privileged to do easily many dozens of author events based around various books I have written. It is never lost upon me that people, most of them total strangers, take time out of their days to come out and hear me speak. It is a humbling experience I will never take for granted. I have done multiple events at many libraries all over Cape Cod. It is increasingly rare for me to do an event at a place on Cape Cod that I have never been to before. This week I got to speak at the Snow Library in Orleans for the first time. It was a fun event with a beautiful setup. I am distantly related to Cape Cod’s Snow family, so it was fitting. In addition to the rows of chairs in the conference room, I was fascinated by a sort of balcony level of seats. There were two rows of fixed seats in the upstairs level of the conference room. I wish that it had been a busier event where people had to go and sit up there because I bet the visual would have been cool. Of course, I forgot to go upstairs to see the view from there. I am so grateful to everyone who came to the event at the Snow Library and hope to do it again at some point in the future.




7. In a sort of ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ moment, I was out on the tidal flats this week during the time when the Canadian wildfires were impacting the skies over New England. I walked out to get some surreal photos of the red/orange sun over a boat resting on the sand. I brought my trusty selfie stick. It allowed me to get a few cool angles on the photos. I had to hurry to get to work, so I was walking back to my car across the sand. I guess I was a little too rough trying to get my phone out of the holder on the selfie stick. Not only did my phone come free, but so did the holder itself. Yes, I managed to break my selfie stick after taking some cool photos with it. But wait, longtime readers of this blog will remember that the same thing happened last June. So I have broken two of the same selfie sticks in 13 months. Now, the big question is, do I get the same stick again, which is convenient, affordable, but also apparently pretty fragile? Or do I spend a little more on something that claims to be sturdier? I say ‘claims’ because with my luck I’ll spend more money on a new selfie stick and probably break it when opening the box or something. We’ll see what happens.


8. Some things can’t be blamed on the runner’s high. I went for an afternoon run one day this week. It was a perfect afternoon with sunny skies and the temperature around 80. I had a great run, ending up putting in 5.5 miles in total. When I got back to where my car was parked, it was natural to think about what was for dinner. Luckily, it was a short walk across the parking lot to a supermarket. I was exhausted but walked over to grab a few things. I went to the self-checkout as I always do. While scanning, some pissed-off-looking Karen came up complaining that she couldn’t find containers of Parmesan cheese dust to shake. That idiot distracted me, and I didn’t notice that I had scanned my one can of soup five times. I had to call an employee over to start voiding my mistakes. Once he was done, he had no sooner walked away than I accidentally scanned the dang soup again. That made six times. He had to come back over, and I swore I wasn’t messing with him. He didn’t seem to care either way. I could blame it on the runner’s high or that entitled Karen, but I’ll just laugh and say it’s par for the course for me.


9. I’d like to think that I am not that hard to see when I am out for a walk or run. Yes, I like to dress in black a lot of the time, but I also am out during the day and not at night. So it comes down to a select few drivers who either shouldn’t have their licenses because they can’t see properly, or shouldn’t have them because they are dangerous and don’t care. I’d say it was the former during one incident this week. I was down a quiet road in a quiet neighborhood on a beautiful morning. Even on quiet roads, I run on the side, not in the middle, out of respect for other drivers. This red sedan goes by me, so close that if my left arm had been anywhere but by my side their mirror would have smacked me. They could have easily slowed down or maneuvered slightly to the left; there was plenty of room for both of us. But no, this car just kept right on going like I was invisible. I saw it was some old lady driving. Didn’t matter, I let her have it, yelling and swearing. Seriously, what if I hadn’t been hugging the side of the road? Would this old bag have just plowed into me? She stopped about five houses ahead of me. Rather than keep going so I could get up close and scream at her more, I decided to just let it go and turn around and run back the other way. The run and the scenery were too good to let some blind cotton ball ruin it.


10. This week saw the return of the new Cape Cod tradition, Big Nick’s Ride For the Fallen. It is in honor of Yarmouth resident Nicholas Xiarhos, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009. The ride itself consists of well over 1,000 people on motorcycles traveling from the Massachusetts National Cemetery down into Yarmouth, where it ends. The wild part is that the procession goes right by where I live. It ends up being roughly ten straight minutes of revving engines going by. Every year, I plan on filming it, and every year, something comes up. This year, the plan was to set up my selfie stick tripod and shoot a cool time-lapse video. Of course, you know from a few entries back that my stick broke. I wasn’t going to stand there for at least ten minutes holding my phone, so I just watched from a window. It is a cool new tradition and one that has a lot of meaning and raises money for good causes. Some year, I will film it, but you can see it yourself at the link: Big Nick's Ride For the Fallen


11. I tend to type pretty fast and wild when I get into a groove. Luckily, with spell check and Grammarly, I can cover my tracks and not look too foolish with any mistakes I make. However, the problem comes when the word you misspell is actually another correctly spelled word. The one that keeps coming up for me is the word ‘core.’ Why? It happens when putting together notes for workouts I did with clients. There are a lot of people who I have do core rotations to strengthen their abs. Way more times than I’d like to admit, I rush to get my notes done and have misspelled ‘core’ as ‘crow.’ I have gone back through my notes and wondered what in the world is a crow twist? I know there is a crow pose in yoga, but none of my senior clients could do that. That one isn’t bad since only other office people would see it, and they really never check what I am doing in the gym. The one that is more embarrassing is misspelling my own name. I will text clients and preface it by saying who it is. ‘Hi X, it’s Chris from Mind Body Spine.’ Pretty simple, right? Except it’s not when I get caught between names way too often. I have typed Christ and sent it. Not Chris, not Christopher, but Christ. ‘Hi, this is Christ…’ Those I can’t get back. I haven’t had anyone say anything yet. One of these times, I should give some profound advice after. ‘Hi, this is Christ, the answer you seek will come after giving $500 to your trainer.’ That would never work, but if it did, yay, cash windfall!

Yay, windfall!

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #88: Simpsons Podcast, Dr. Dolittle, Unique Gifts, etc.

1. I am beyond excited for the launch of the new podcast, Simpsons Declassified. It’s cohosted by Nancy Cartwright, who voices Bart Simpson. It’s only just begun, and I believe it will be along the same lines as Office Ladies, where they will be reviewing every episode with lots of behind-the-scenes info. I have been a huge Simpsons fan since Season 2. The show incredibly started when I was in 6th grade, and I am very much no longer of school age. Now I won’t lie, the show is still going nearly 40 years later, and I believe it hasn’t been very good in about 10 years, but that’s beside the point. It had nearly 20 seasons of some of the best television ever, so getting to go on deep dives of these classic episodes is going to be the type of Gen-X nostalgia that I’m used to dishing out in my own podcast. I highly recommend it to any Simpsons fan.


2. One new title I can add to my list is that of film location scout. No, I didn’t apply anywhere. I actually got lucky. The director of the film where I made my acting debut in March is down on Cape Cod to shoot another film later in October. To my surprise, he is planning to set up shop in the same town as me. This gives me a major home-field advantage. I offered to help him find locations for his film. So far, I have sent him sets of Google Maps links of possible spots, including wooded areas and beaches. I don’t know if I’d be good at this type of job or if it only works if the film crew comes to Cape Cod. If they asked me for locations in Southern Wyoming, I’d be kind of screwed.


3. I believe the term ‘fake it until you make it’ can be useful. It’s useful if you eventually end up, you know, making it. In looking for funding for the short film that is to be my directorial debut, my crew and I have reached out to a few local chambers of commerce and historical societies. We thought we had a good connection with one local chamber, which I won’t name, and you’ll soon see why. The lady in charge offered to do promotional work, including sending out links to the fundraiser I’d made in their newsletter to what she said was upward of 3,000 people. I should have known it was BS when it took her 10 days to respond to an email. It turns out that the vast, vast majority of emails for the newsletter to go to were fake or dead. In reality, the newsletter probably went to closer to 300 people rather than 3,000. Oh, it gets better. This lady has now been fired for gross incompetence. This included not paying bills. She was ordered to not leave the premises before she gave them all of the passwords and vital info that she had changed as well as filling the people in on any other screw ups she had made. Luckily, the interim head of the chamber is way more competent, and things seem to be progressing well for our film. Still, 4 months is a quick turnaround to go from being hired as the head of a chamber to being fired for gross incompetence. It must be close to a record.


4. Maybe animals just trust me, but I have noticed on a couple of occasions this week, when animals should be running away, they really don’t. First, there was a rabbit in the front yard when I got home from work. It was eating some clover. As I came up the walkway, it definitely froze and watched me. I’m sure if I had lunged at it, the rabbit would have fled. Instead, it flinched a bit but then went back to eating its clover. I did say hello to it. On the bike trail this week it happened twice. One day, a little dark gray mouse was wandering in the grass along the trail as I was walking by. It should have fled deeper into the brush, but it just meandered along like it couldn’t have cared less. That, or it was just depressed and wanted me to stomp it. Lastly, there was a chipmunk that crossed in front of me on the bike trail. Instead of diving down into its hole, it kind of sat in front of it, looking at me. Then once it slid down the hole, it popped its head back out and looked again. I’m not saying I want to be like Dr. Dolittle though. The last thing I need is to go outside and have coyotes and owls gather around me looking for advice. It’s like when Homer Simpson befriended animals, and they were in the shower with him.

5. It was a speechless and grateful moment when a day this week turned out to be the best single day for downloads ever for my podcast in its nearly 5 years. Not only was it the best day, it was more than 3x the previous best day. It was also more than double the best week ever. I have worked so hard on all of my creative work, whether podcasts, books, or YouTube videos, so when something I do catches on with an audience, even if it’s briefly, it’s humbling. I do wish I knew what caused these spikes in viewership so I could better capitalize on them. Still, I know these types of ‘big win’ days can be few and far between, so I do my best to appreciate them and the viewers/listeners who make it possible. Thank you.


6. While in the supermarket this week I went down the soup aisle looking for something for dinner. I came upon the Progresso soups. It was here that I saw something odd: 2 cans of the exact same soup, right next to each other, and yet one soup had fewer calories. This isn’t like the greedy ‘shrinkflation’ that Doritos did. Their small bags of chips suddenly had fewer calories, but only because they were giving you less. Not a lower cost, just fewer chips for the same price. Jerks. No, the soup was exactly the same but somehow one was 10 calories less. Oh, don’t worry, I have the evidence. And yes, I bought the one with fewer calories.



7. I am a very sentimental person. I tend to keep things that most might toss out if they mean something to me. I have loads of cards I’ve been given over the years. These mean a lot more as I have several from my grandparents who are all no longer here. That being said, I do think my youngest niece, Sylvie, takes advantage of my sentimentality. I have little heart stickers she gave me that have been stuck to my car’s dashboard for nearly 2 years. I have on my desk a tiny little jar of what looks like dried neon green paint. Now, to top it off I have a single blade of grass in my car’s center console. Sylvie handed it to me and demanded that I keep it. Obviously, I could just lie and say I kept it, but she’s way too smart and would probably demand to see it. Not sure how long this blade of grass will survive, but it’s sitting in that center console as we speak.


8. What is it about the specific day and time that I record my podcast weekly that seems to attract every single large, loud truck possible? I swear that it’s only when my mic is on that every few seconds, huge delivery trucks, loud construction trucks, and every jerk with a super bass-filled stereo goes passing by. Once I finish recording? It goes back to normal. A loud vehicle goes by every once in a while, but it’s mainly regular cars, and spaced out enough that there are actually nice moments of silence. Then I get to hear the endless parade of blue jays yelling at each other.


9. While in the freezer section of the supermarket, I had a fun encounter with a little old man. Now, when I say ‘little’ I mean it. He made me look like Shaq, and I am all of 5’8”. Anyway, he casually walked up to me and asked what was for dinner. I said I honestly had no idea. Shopping while hungry is a problem I always have. The old man started raving about these black bean burgers. He gave me a rundown of how to cook them right, all while showing me the box of them he was getting. I didn’t have interest in veggie burgers, but I did take a walk over to where they were as he was leaving, just to make him feel good. I did try to avoid him during the rest of my time there, in case he checked my cart and didn’t see any veggie burgers.


10. When it comes to eating healthy, I have been having a rough go of it for the last few years. I tend to use food, specifically bad-for-you foods, as a reward for getting through whatever challenges there are in daily life. I try, keyword ‘try’ to track my food on MyFitnessPal. This means sometimes logging my breakfast but no other meals, just to keep my consecutive days streak going. The irony is that a lot of my need for ‘rewards’ comes from not being able to fully pursue my goals in creative fields. Why this is ironic is that working at a typical day job are the days when it’s easiest to stay way under my calorie goal. When I work at home on my various creative projects, those are the days when my diet goes off the rails. So as much as I want to have a job in some sort of creative field: writing, podcasting, film, etc, I am also terrified of how out of control my weight would get. It’s like the whole monkey’s paw thing.

Me, the day after I become self-employed

11. I have to say, if you think that spray painting someone else’s property with hate-filled garbage, or your stupid loser nickname, makes some kind of statement, you’re right, it does. That statement is: I am scum and was raised by idiots. Here’s a better idea. Take the money you spent on spray paint, assuming you actually bought it and didn’t just steal it, and buy a big, thick, hardcover book and bash yourself over the head with it because there’s no hope for people like that. Yes, I did see way too many spray-painted spots on a walk this week, and yes, it did really piss me off.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog - #25: Squeaky Wheel, Soupy Air, Deja BBQ, etc

1. It usually pays to be a squeaky wheel. I placed an order a few weeks back for some books for an event I am speaking at on July 19^th. Everything was good on my end with the person at the publisher confirming my order. The only thing was I didn’t get any sort of receipt email or shipping confirmation. I reached out after the 4^th of July weekend just to be safe and sure enough, the person at the publisher had never even placed the order. Nice. That person was even away on vacation so if I had waited I’d never have gotten my books. Instead of pitching a fit I just thanked the new person who helped me, lest they get mad and then not place my order, again.

2. On Cape Cod it finally made it to the overwhelming heat and humidity that summer is known for this week. Wanting to keep on my running comeback trail I met a friend to do some evening running around a school track. It was so soupy that I felt like I had just gone swimming in my clothes. We also had done a lap around a neighboring cemetery, which was appropriate because I was so beat after that run that I could have just picked an open spot and dug myself a bed there.

3. So in a fitting bit of insanity I was at the grocery store and couldn’t for the life of me remember if I had any BBQ sauce at home. I thought I didn’t so I grabbed a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s. I got home and not only did I have BBQ sauce but it was Sweet Baby Ray’s down to the exact flavor, Sweet & Smokey. I am a creature of habit even when my mind is blank.

Maybe I have too many of the same BBQ sauce?

4. While on a bike trail run in the afternoon, I came to a road crossing. Coming out of a parking lot was a friend’s father. Not taking into account how I looked or sounded I just started yelling at him and waving. Now, he might not have heard me, or more likely he thought I was a wacko looking to carjack him. Or possibly his dog told him to floor it to get away from me.

5. For the last month or so I’ve been using Duolingo trying to relearn French. I took it for 4 years in school and was curious about what my brain retained even though it had been almost 30 years since I last studied it. Surprisingly more of the French came back than I expected. Granted I’m only into the 5^th unit of study but it’s almost like muscle memory except using your actual memory. Je suis impressionné!

6. One of the most annoying things while driving is when you stop to let a car pull out and then the car behind them comes barreling out too. Talk about entitled people. I let one car out at an intersection and then pulled forward to make my left turn when the car behind the one that pulled out began turning right into me. Luckily they actually looked at the last second and didn’t t-bone me. The looks on their faces plus their stupid vanity license plate confirmed their ‘entitled’ status.

7. I read this week that the current stretch of humidity, at least on Cape Cod, is the worst it has ever been for July. We are currently setting a record for most consecutive hours of the dew point above 72 degrees. By the time it(hopefully) gets drier late next week we will likely pass 260 straight hours of the soupiest air I’ve felt in my life. I like summer but am already looking forward to the crisp fall weather.

8. A true mark of my selective laziness is that my mother gifted me a nice new bedding set, sheets, pillow cases. She said I should wash them before putting them on my bed. I waited 2 days with the intention of not washing them and just using them. I mean how dirty could they be in a sealed package after all? I did relent though and threw them in the washer. At least now I won’t have to lie when she asks me if I did. I never could lie to my mother which I guess is a good trait.

9. Fun Fact: For most of my life I thought that the occupation known as a Notary Public was actually a Noted Republic. Misheard song lyrics, misheard job titles, it’s all the same. In case you were not sure of what it was A Notary Public is an official appointed by a state government to serve the public as an impartial witness during notarizations. I may or may not have had to look that up to make sure I was right.

10. There are summer days on Cape Cod where I don’t want to go to the gym because it’s packed like sardines in there and I’d rather be outside in the warm weather. There are summer days on Cape Cod where I don’t want to be outside driving because it’s packed like sardines on the roads and I worry about bad drivers. Then some days are both and I think it would be best to hibernate until Labor Day.

11. I am lucky that I live close enough to the Cape Cod Rail Trail that I can run it pretty much whenever I want. Over the years they have slowly expanded it west. It used to end suddenly at a random road after going through a golf course. In the last year they have continued expanding from there. It’s been little bits, a hundred feet here, hundred feet there. So in order to keep my designation of running every step of the CCRT I have to run to the new end each time it gets expanded. In total it’s been extended about 1,400 feet and I’ll be there when it goes to 1,500.

The new 'end of the line' on the bike trail