The Bloggy Blogface!

I was once part of a company that eventually went out of business. The process was a quick one, from changing key leadership personnel to total liquidation in a span of roughly three years. As part of the management team, I was made privy to the stories coming out of the corporate office, but was told not to tell anyone under me, who were full and part-time hourly employees. It was a little surreal because I had just helped open a new branch of our company out in California. The new staff there was pretty thrilled and anxious, and we all had a pretty wild and fun time bonding while transforming an empty warehouse-size building into something amazing. Alas, the excitement of that new location would be very short-lived.  The first real instance where some of us in management realized something fishy was going on was the sudden end of a marketing partnership with, at the time, a budding online organization helping sell our products. That same company just last year enjoyed a ...

  Once every couple months, I get fed up with the squeaking storm door and spray some lubricant onto the hinges. Sometimes I'll put a little straw thing at the opening, in order to keep the lubricant a steady stream onto the afflicted area. Other times I am either drunk or lazy and just wing it without the straw. If it sprays the area, good enough for me. They're just door hinges, right? The strange thing with this door's squeaks is that it elicits a different sound after every elapsed period of spraying the hinges. As if the hinges wish to sing me the songs of their people. At first I don't mind the melodic sounds of metal rubbing against one another, but once it begins sounding like a screeching hyena top forty jam, it's time to take action. Since I tend to uproot every few years, I've yet to find the comforting sounds that reassure me this place is alright. The closest thing here so far might be the faint noises of church bells some six-hundred feet aw...

   A friend and I talk from time to time through various messenger applications. She is married with a few young kids, and works typical weekday hours for the state government. As a parent I'm she has her hands tied for quite a long time after work. Picking up kids from here and there, helping with dinner, eating, cleanup, family time, then tucking everyone into bed at a reasonable hour. We'll speak late, for her anyway, up until a time where I don't hear from her anymore. Usually between ten and midnight, but closer to ten. She doesn't tell me she's falling asleep, doesn't tell she's checking up on kids - she just stops typing. We'll either reconnect the next day, or whenever. Sometimes she'll apologize then, but she really doesn't have to. This friend and I have known each other for awhile - about fifteen years to be exact. As our lives have kept us apart, we've been able to use various forms of social media to connect and check in whene...

 Look, stop trying to bamboozle me, parmesan garlic popcorn. You inside your violet-colored bag, resting on that top shelf. Top shelf popcorn, you're goddamned right. And you probably deserve it too. I bet you're tasty as hell. I would undoubtedly eat all of you in one sitting, that empty bag collecting dust and dog hairs on the cushion next to mine for the next couple hours. Just inhale all of you, no regrets. All those tiny kernel bits caught in my teeth would totally be worth it. And if you weren't almost four dollars for a bag that's twenty-five percent air, I'd totally buy you - and a few of your friends behind you for that matter. There's something about a bag of snacks costing more than this price point that turns me off from them. For some reason, I set the bar at four bucks. Even when alleged deals are on the table, I'll scoff at the bargain. Two for eight bucks? Hell no. How about two for seven? Still seems excessive. Two for four? Now we're...

   Listen, you aren't the first person to do this, so I don't mean to target you. Or maybe I do, I don't care. Maybe you'll read this. Maybe you can't read. Maybe you, like the others, are just having a very difficult time grasping something that involves such little comprehension. I don't blame you, really. You're probably in a zone. Got all your groceries on the belt and what not. Big ol' tub of butter, bread, some greens, plus a bottle of wine. Just one bottle though! Have to pretend you have it together. But I know better. I know you're wound up so tight that slapping the grocery divider down like a clapperboard is very important to you. Shows you're in charge! And studying the bill screen like a damn hawk as the cashier scans each item tells me you're a penny-pincher extraordinaire. Nothing gets by you. My guess is you also want that border wall built. It's the only logical conclusion I could come to when you emphatically deci...

   I blame a longtime dresser that occupied my bedroom growing up. I remember this dresser because one time, I accidentally left one of the top drawers open, and our first cat managed to jump inside of it. The weight of the cat forced the entire dresser to topple over, banging up against the end of my bed and scaring the crap out of me as I lay there flipping through a magazine. The cat quickly got out once he realized how much peril he was in for, but all of the items that sat on top of the dresser did not make it. Papers, toiletries, loose change spilled all over the bedroom floor. Most of it, naturally, spilled directly under the bed I had to stretch and reach beyond my abilities to retrieve. And of course the cat was completely absolved of this heinous act. Seems like they always are, aren't they? The drawers to this dresser weren't too deep, but there were enough of them to hold all of my clothes. And this was important, seeing how I grew up without a closet. I would...

   The first time I ever heard of this place, its thick paper catalog sat collecting dust on the coffee table. The front cover had a mailing address label with my parent's names on it, slowly peeling away on the bottom corner. Some days it would rest underneath the TV Guide, other days on top of it. Sometimes it would be hidden underneath a pile of that day's two local newspapers, my father having worked for one of them, bringing home the late edition. The catalog always arrived in the early fall, a few months before Christmas. I was six years old when I started flipping through those pages, the freshly-pressed ink bringing all the color photographs to life. What seemed like thousands of vibrant photos on every page came with product descriptions at the bottom. I was captivated by just how much they jam-packed into this catalog, three-hundred pages of almost every marvelous thing. Many things, of course, I did not need. But I wanted. My parents never ordered anything thro...

Netflix stand-up comedy special, or a TED talk? A theatrical introduction, your name voiced by someone else through a loudspeaker, or sung by their charming voice. Arrive onstage through billows of manufactured smoke, maybe rising to the stage deus ex machina style. Wear whatever the hell you want - like denim shorts. A Hawaiian shirt. Leather-looking workout gear. A dress shirt a little too unbuttoned for someone your age. There is wild applause from the completely sold out, cavernous arena or open-air stadium. Most stand, clapping for a solid ninety seconds as if you just saved the world. Greet the raucous crowd by identifying the city you are all in, regardless if many commuted from out of town, yourself included. While greeting the crowd, pace around the stage, maybe clap yourself a little. Look astonished, not humbled. Point into the audience pretending you recognize someone here, or over there, and definitely up there. While pandering, say "yeah" or "w...

   Some of the folks in whatever constitutes my social circle here were born when I started high school. I didn't deliberately mean for this disparity to exist, yet it does. It's really what I get for hanging out with some of the food service people around this town, as they're the clientele other bars tend to see just prior to closing time. More often than not, I'm the oldest one at the table, and maybe the oldest one in the building. For the most part, they're good company. Some have checkered pasts, or however much checkering can be done when you're just twenty-four. Others at the table have led normal, simple lives, and are just trying to find their place in the world. I can identify with that latter group, which explains our compatibility while throwing back pitchers. The good news with this crowd is that many had no idea how old I was, and were surprised when I told them. I guess I'll take that as some sort of compliment. I have always treated ag...