my careless contagion

Disconnected, from Face to Face's 1992 album Don't Turn Away (which is, in my opinion, a perfect punk rock album) is a simply-worded song. The lyrics aren't complicated. The singing is straightforward and predictably angsty and overwrought in typical punk-rock fashion. I saw Face to Face perform a few times. Keep in mind this is a three-piece band. These sounds are coming from three people each playing an instrument. The bass alone is perfect. As a whole, it's profound and simple at the same time and paints a perfect picture of what many people feel at some point in their lives, which is a disconnect from those around them (and maybe even themselves).  Before I go off on a tangent, here are the lyrics.  You don't know a thing about me Is there something that you should know? I can tell you what you want to hear Let your inhibitions just go No you don't know what you will give up You don't know what you want It may take you years to find out You don't kno...

I have to admit, stoicism has an allure for me. Too often, I've been overwhelmed, paralyzed, pummeled, and defeated by my emotions. But, just as often, I've told myself I don't care or that I shouldn't care. This pendulum swing is something I've struggled with most of my life. I've endured so much heartache, and acting like I didn't care only let the heartache continue. I was strong through so much pain. In the end, the pain overcame all the walls I built to keep it out. I don't consider myself an emotional person. Yes, I have emotions. As I've gotten older, the repressed stuff has gotten more vocal, so I've allowed myself to show my feelings more. I see it as a volcano letting off steam. Better to have a constant release of pressure than all at once. I can't repress my feelings forever, after all. Traditionally, though, that wasn't the case. As with many men, I was reared to be mostly emotionless. And I think that's wrong. ...

"Just say you're sorry," I said, over and over again.  My son was crying, and it was obvious he felt sorry, but he just couldn't say it. He had pushed his friend off a chair while they were playing, and his friend went splaying out across the hard floor. I think he did eventually say he was sorry, but it was like pulling teeth. Why is saying sorry so hard?  I've talked about the ex-Marine teacher who humiliated me in front of my entire class (when we were trying out for parts for a play/musical thing) when I was in like the 7th grade. He made fun of the way I talked. I admit, I probably have a speech impediment of some sort (I blame my constantly-inflamed tonsils). He should have apologized in front of the entire class for humiliating me. Public mistakes deserve a public apology. And he could have apologized one-on-one for humiliating me, but he didn't. Instead, he insisted he was right that I was wrong for the small part I had and suggested I not do i...

  Netflix offers a mind-boggling assortment of garbage shows, many dark and twisted in nature. Basically, it's perfect for me. Except when I don't want my mind getting dragged down yet another dark corridor to some predictable end. Enter Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour!  This show captures Swift's final performance of her Reputation tour at Dallas. Her entire tour was stadiums, in fact, which is a testament to her wide-ranging appeal and popularity. By contrast, I've only seen one performance at a stadium — the Beastie Boys in Cleveland (during their Hello Nasty tour, I believe). They played Egg Raid on Mojo , one of their early punk songs, as I recall. I don't remember much else except we were far away.  Okay, I know Swift can make a good pop song, and traditionally I don't care for pop songs, but there's no reason I'm sitting in my recliner crying as I watch her perform. Suddenly I was alarmed. What's happened to me?   I don...

My brothers and I dressed in our Sunday finest. Family get-togethers can be hard for me. As someone I once knew would say, "Going home reminds of why you left." And, for me, there were so many reasons. Why did I move more than 1,000 miles away from my parents and hours away from my brothers? Even though they were a day's drive away, I still didn't visit them unless I was rolling through on my way to some other place. Even then, I often wouldn't stop. At first glance, it would seem that I'm a bad son and brother. I can't really deny that, but there's more to the story. I have two brothers; the oldest is seven years older. The other is three and a half years older. I was never unaware of my status as the youngest, the smallest, the runt. It was constantly reinforced. When my brothers got BMX bikes, I got a retro girly-looking thing. With training wheels. Hot Liner. All the kids wanted one, right? Perpetually tagging along and r...

My parents in 1984 surveying the house they were having built. I have this memory, but not because I actually remember it. I was too young to remember it, but the story was retold often enough by my mother that it seems like I actually have the memory.  I was very young. It was the mid-1980s. My parents had a house built (which went wildly over budget) in 1984 on Happy Hollow Street in a little town in the Southern Black Hills in South Dakota. Parents raised their kids a little differently then than they do now. There was also the matter of finances, which meant that a babysitter wasn't always possible. My parents had a colleague leave their company and start up a competing business across the street. In order to compete, they were putting in 100 hour weeks, both of them. This continued for years.  My mom didn't want to work, but my dad was the boss and women were working a lot in those days, so he said she should too. She started out as the bookkeeper, setting ty...