Matt Gordon's Blog, page 7

The Age of Our Dreams

I’m getting old. And it isn’t the frumpy shape my body is taking or the fact that I am leaving my twenties behind in a few weeks that informs me of this. No, it isn’t that at all.

It is my dreams.

Last night, I dreamed, as I so often have, of professional baseball. Growing up, I would have night visions of taking the field in a #1 jersey to the wild applause of the crowd. I would make acrobatic plays in the field, and then in the bottom of the ninth I would work the count full against a no-nons...

Existential Cupcakes

We live in a world with cupcakes. It’s true—I’m looking at one right now. Little personal mini-cakes of sugary sweetness, frosting dancing upon a fluffy sponge of goodness.

Oh yes, there are cupcakes.

And there are bad things too. Last week, I was set to write some charmingly funny post when I got word that a person had died. It was a young person, and one of those totally unpredictable deaths that leaves those left behind, staggering in life, groping for answers.

Today, a friend came by to spea...

Puig is Good for the “Game”

If you saw last night’s St. Louis Cardinals-LA Dodgers NLCS game, you likely care a bit about baseball. And if you care a bit about baseball, you might have paid attention to the headlines covering the game . . . Yasiel Puig. The coverage didn’t focus on the fact that Puig is built like some sort of bear-man Greek god. It didn’t focus on his blazing speed or harsh swing. What it focused on was his behavior after thinking a triple—that likely should have been a double if not played horribly—wa...

My New Life! (and Car!)

Yesterday, as part of a visit home and after a family lunch, I decided to strike gluten from my diet. A family member of mine has a gluten allergy, and now that I am aware such a thing exists I’m finding all sorts of other people who are also attacked by this edible monster. I figured now would be a good time to show solidarity and all.

I’ll be honest, I don’t exactly know what gluten is, but I went 18 years without eating eggs because of a taste aversion—so I’m pretty sure I can do without a...

Long, Drawn-Out Pauses

There is nothing quite like October baseball. Sure, the playoffs of near any sport are exciting—like when a football team marches down the field in a taut two-minute drill, their very season hanging in the balance, or when a basketball team draws up the in-bounds play that, at least for a moment, becomes a diagram of hope.

But there is nothing quite like baseball playoffs.

Other sports are essentially the same whatever time of year, the stage is just magnified. These sports, which are always ex...

Sister is Coming

The lights are on at home

Shining through the day

Beckoning the gleaming hope

That sister is coming to stay!

Her visit is one night

Most of which she’ll be asleep

We’ll return home just in time

To begin to count the sheep

But even with this fact

That her stay will be quite short

We had to go ahead and act

as if the Queenhad cometo court

We cleaned and swept and scrubbed

Then we vacuumed up the floors

For all of seven days

My whole life has just been chores

You’d think to see Adelle

Or perhaps the President

But...

A Reason I’d Die in Olden Times, Pt. 1

There were times in my life—typically while watching some epic war movie like “Gladiator,” “Spartacus,” or “Brave”—during which I thought I would thrive as a primitive man. Whether in Classical times or Medieval ones, I felt that I would be a quick, scrappy fighter or a winsome bard or a cunning thief. Somehow, perhaps solely because I am so woefully inadequate at being in the here and now, I duped myself into actually believing I could thrive in the then and there.

But today I rethought the w...

Run, Baby, Run

Going against every conviction I hold dear, I went for a run the other day. It wasn’t out of fear—no bad guys were chasing me. Nor was someone handing out free things, like the last time I ran; it wastoward the guy handing out free sub sandwiches.

Nope, this was simply a run. I would say a “fun run” as people are prone to do, but there was very little fun to it. No, it was more a sense of obligation—I’m getting older now and fatter too. I noticed this the other night—not the age thing, the fat...

I Will Have My Revenge . . .

Payback is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?

You wait and you wait and you wait for the right opportunity, and then, BAMO, you blindside someone with a healthy dose of comeuppance. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

I was attending a leadership conference the other day when University of Missouri coaching legend Norm Stewart said one of those things I hope stays with me. You know, the kind of things you jot down even though you are definitely not a note-taker? The kind of thing you tell yourself to cling to a...

We’d Take Flight

I’ve been spending a lot of time in a coffee shop lately. Let me set the record perfectly straight—I’m not cool. I hate coffee and my legs, not my jeans, are skinny.

I hang out here because my office is cold and loud—a good kind of loud—but when I really need to crank some things out or research an issue, the coffee shop proves a better bet. Also, it is a short walk from where I work, so that is why I don’t seek some more personally-fitting refuge—like a candy buffet or something.

At the coffee...