Holly Golightly sings about whether it’s easy being me. Spoiler alert – it isn’t. Continue reading Walk A Mile In My Shoes →

There’s a classic line from Friends where the character Rachel is speaking with her supervisor and says, “Now just to brief you I may cry. But they are not tears of sadness or of anger but just of us having this discussion.” That pretty much sums up my fear of confrontation. I am not shy about speaking my mind but in professional environments I’ve been conditioned to keep quiet. Maybe to a fault. I’m often told that my manager isn’t aware of my wants or needs until it’s too late. In my mind I can’t imagine them NOT knowing something that seems so obvious and then I remember how stoic I seem to the uninformed observer. It’s like assuming a dog is happy because he’s wagging his tail. Continue reading We Have AC →

“What do you want for your birthday?” Continue reading Cuarenta →

Scott deosn’t like dogs. Why did I even want to be friends with him? One of those pretentious U Dub graduates that thinks living in Seattle for 10 years makes him a native citizen. People from Seattle appreciate dogs, even a transplant knows that. It’s one of the main reasons Texan and Californian ex-pats migrate here. Dogs are respected more than children in the PNW. After adopting Bowie I got an endless amount of congratulations from strangers and loose acquaintances. People who know me are skeptical but that’s only because they know me. Changes this big tend to stretch me thinner than pizza dough. It’s still baffling to think I could care so much about what a guy who doesn’t like dogs thinks of me. Those few years without canine companionship are going down in the book as dark dark times. Continue reading Year of the Puppy →

When I play pinball it’s just me and the machine. The first time I ever stood in an arcade and chose to play the game I decided it was all or nothing. I equate it with my yoga practice in the sense that I don’t care what I look like while I’m doing it, how I feel is what matters. Like any excellent hobby, it didn’t take much to learn and will take forever to master. If it was just the game, I’d do it forever. Unfortunately it’s also the time, money and worst of all – people. While you can make a career out of playing solo pinball, the culture around it is inescapable for anyone not blessed with a private collection. Part bar game and part arcade politics, the mix of two strong addictions is volatile by nature. Add a smattering of incestual romance and a whole heap of social media to complete modern day Gatsby greatness. The range of strong personalities drawn to the game is vast and I’m only talking about the Seattle area. Continue reading Pins and Needles →

When it comes to a bad tattoo, there’s a scale. So many things have to be considered. Time, subject matter, placement, size, cost, color, detail, quality, and most of all sentimentality. The thing most people worry about before their first tattoo is the permanence of the process. By the time most people are in their 60’s an old tattoo is rarely the ugliest part of life. They should probably focus more on the speed and quality of the piece. Protip, the ability to suffer a ridiculous number of hours under an artist’s needle does not necessarily make it better art. I thought deciding what to get tattooed was the hard part but now I know the real trial is finding a good artist. My artists in Memphis ranged from apprentices to masters and almost none of my art took longer than 3 hours. It’s easy to tell which pieces were done by more experienced hands.    Continue reading Good Tattoos →