Matt Gordon's Blog, page 10

In Hope, In Belief, In Faith, Nonetheless

Often, I’m inwardly petulant.

I imagine the child–usually in the grocery store of all places–asking a question of his father. Every answer his father gives is met with the whiny moan ofWhy? Why? Why? Eventually the child ends up sprawled on the tile floor–usually ahead of me in line–kicking and screaming because he can’t know it all.

Yep, I’m that child.

I want to know how the stars are hung or why the earth goes round or, more importantly, why this life goes the way it does. “Why do bad things...

We’ll Be Animals

The thing I need to realize is that I’ve done this to myself. All this stress and pressure I’ve felt about not being able to find a place to live in a new town is all part of some silly mantra I’ve allowed society to foist upon me: You need to find a place to live.

“Sleep in a bed,” they say.

“Indoors,” they add.

But what do they know?

I am a man, yet at the core of that brazen manliness is a beast, an animal, a mammal, a manimmal. Surely, my wife and I can survive a mild Missouri winter out-of-d...

Quitting My Job

The other day I decided to quit my job and move away.

I had always dreamed of doing it too: Walking into the boss’s office and raging on about the way I had been treated and how he ought to go do this and that to himself. Don’t judge me, you’ve had this fantasy too. Just imagine your smug, old boss in his smug, old chair with that smug, old face, and then just the sweetness of freely being able to rage all over him and his stupid, smug face.

Unfortunately, I love my job and the people for whom...

Vacation

This blog will be taking a one week vacation as its primary contributor tries to avoid a mental breakdown due to shoddy planning and general over-extension. If you are just devastated and don’t know how you will fill the reading void, perhaps try reading a book. I don’t know, I heard this one is good. Or, you know, just get a life #justkidding

Learning Wisdom

“He’s good at school, but he’s got no ‘street smarts’,” I’ve heard it said. You probably have heard this, too, in describing some everyday fool who gets in meaningless squabbles while making the Dean’s List.

In my own life, there have been times when I’ve been neither book nor street smart. Like the experience I chronicled in my book about boarding a bus illegally in Rome and then falling asleep on the bus without knowing where I was headed. The experience was neither smart nor wise.

I’ve known...

I Wonder

I wonder. And perhaps that is enough? Do the antelope wonder? My gut tells me they do not and my observation confirms: Day after day, millennia after millennia, the antelope are prey; they are the hunted. They do not rise up and fight back. They do not do much of anything about their existence really, just eat grass and run, eat grass and run, eat grass and run.

But I, a human, wonder. Surely that alone means something. But if it does not, perhaps the object and ultimate destination of my wond...

Where in the world is Edward Sandiego?

The following program is paid for by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Viewers like you.

Chief: All these people want to know . . .

Rockapella: (sings) WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO!!!!

Chief: Hold it, Rockapella, didn’t you get the rewrite?

Rockapella: (sings) OUR BAD!!!! WHERE IN THE WORLD IS EDWARD FREAKIN’ SNOWDEN!!

Host: (whilst Rockapella sings and makes funny noises, video of each contestant shows on the screen) This is John Kerry. JK likes to play mini-golf and sort of re...

This [Present] Decay

(Yesterday) was the best!

(Yesterday) will always be the best!

(Yesterday) is what I’ll always yearn for!

But . . .

I’m gonna do so much (tomorrow)!

I’m gonna start to care (tomorrow)!

I’m gonna change the world (tomorrow)!

And in remembering yesterday and thinking about tomorrow, [today] dies and the now-me with it.

Scrawny and Not Pictured

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of our Nation’s Independence, but it also marks one of the personal highlights of my life. It was on this day, like many a Fourth of July before it, that I ventured out—insect-like—to play in a mud volleyball tournament. I was good too. Small but good, like an elf who plays in a league. We won some, we lost some, and then we went home and got cleaned up for fireworks. And still I did not know.

I didn’t know that it was the single greatest moment of my life.

I didn...

Amid the Frothing Storm

My dad was speaking to me the other day about Muhammad Ali of all things. In a visit to Louisville, my dad had been impressed with the Ali museum and was encouraging me to visit it upon my next trip to Louisville.

I won’t though, partially because I don’t visit Louisville aside from that one time I did, but even more so because I care little for Muhammad Ali. Yes, sir, you keep on floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee over there and I’ll be over here watching TV, I imagine myself s...