Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 137

Pet Cemetery

Charlie came downstairs this morning to tell me that he dreamt that I was sad last night, so he decided to try to bring our dog, Kaleigh, back to life.

“I know how much you loved her.”

This planned resurrection also took place in his dreams, of course. He’s not planning to attempt this resuscitation in real life.

So still creepy, but not nearly as much as it could’ve been.

In his dream, he explained, he actually went to the cemetery looking for her gravestone so he could dig her up and restore her to life.

“I thought this would make you happy, Dad.”

Then he explained that he wanted it to make me happy both in the dream but also in real life by telling me about his dream.

A few thoughts:

Apparently Charlie is not aware that Kaleigh’s ashes are sitting on my desk. This is weird because I actually had a stone made under which we’ll be burying Kaleigh’s ashes (alongside the ashes of Jack and Owen, our deceased cats) in the spring. That stone -which weighs one million pounds – is sitting on the stoop outside our front door. Charlie has seen the stone one million times.

So what’s up with the cemetery?

Also, he’s obviously not yet aware of Stephen King’s “Pet Cemetery” – neither the book nor the film. So he’s not yet aware of the dangers of reanimating deceased pets.

Also, listening to Charlie speak about his dream this morning was truly the definition of bittersweet. Sweet that Charlie was willing to go to Frankenstein lengths to make his father happy, but also saddened by the thought of my little furry friend who I still miss every single day.

It was a lot to take in at 6:22 AM.

Your grandmother and vaccines

Amazing data on vaccines and boosters out of Alberta, Canada. Essentially: The hospitalization rate among people 80+ years-old who are vaccinated and boosted is lower than the hospitalization rate among people 12-29 years-old who are unvaccinated.  In other words: A fully vaccinated grandmother is less likely to end up hospitalized with COVID-19 than her unvaccinated, ignorant, selfish grandchild. If only data actually meant something to those who believe that the vaccines contain microchips or make you magnetic or somehow alter your DNA. Or those who believe that they are so big and strong and healthy that the coronavirus can’t harm them.  Or those who are still “doing the research.” Or those still clinging to their freedom while simultaneously vaccinated against a dozen other diseases.  Science is a damn miracle. Hospitals are swamped with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. Our healthcare workers deserve better.  Get the damn shot.

The Patriots loss stung a little less for a surprising reason

A strange thing happened on Saturday night.

I watched one of the worst performances in Patriots playoff history.

The Super Bowl loss against the Bears in 1986 was the worst, for sure. I cried after that loss.

There was also a loss to the Ravens in the first round of the 2009 playoffs that was almost as bad. The Ravens scored 24 unanswered points in the first quarter, and the Patriots never made it close. I watched that game from my seats in Gillette Stadium and have rarely felt more despondent at a sporting event.

But Saturday night was pretty terrible. The Patriots never had a chance. They were overmatched and outplayed. Ordinarily, a loss like that would’ve saddened me for days. I’d enter a media blackout to avoid hearing about the loss. I might be downright surly.

Even though I’m admittedly still saddened about the end of the Patriots season, I’m not nearly as upset as I usually am. I awoke on Sunday morning feeling okay. Hopeful about next season. Prepared to watch playoff football again.

I think the difference was Charlie. I watched the game with him, and even though the Patriots were losing badly, I had fun.

We laughed at a commercial for a cancer medication that had the longest list of side effects that I’ve ever heard.

I taught him about some of the nuances of the game. He asked one thousand questions.

We shouted at Sean McDermott, the Buffalo Bills head coach, who I despise.

He shouted at a sneaker commercial, saying, “I don’t need any sneakers! I have too many sneakers already!”

We alternately tried to boost each others spirits and offer hope.

I had so much fun watching that playoff defeat with Charlie. We sat side by side on the couch, watching football, talking football, eating Doritos, and laughing despite the score. I think it made the loss slightly more palatable. Maybe even more than slightly.

It probably helps that the Patriots were back in the playoffs after last year’s hiatus. They found their quarterback for the next decade and beyond, and their future appears bright.

But mostly, I think it was Charlie. I loved watching the game with that boy.

He still can’t remember to put his dishes in the dishwasher without three reminders, and he whines about putting away his folded clothes, but it turns out he’s got some good qualities, too.

He’s not so bad after all.

Best super power of all

My wife, Deadspin, and many others argue that teleportation is the greatest of all the super powers.

It’s admittedly a fine choice. As someone who prizes every second of his day, I would love to be able to teleport from location to location instantly.

However, it is clearly the third best super power.

Objectively, the best super powers, in this order, are:

Time TravelImmortality

All others – including teleportation – pale in comparison.

Or course, if you’re not interested in living forever, then I am willing to acknowledge that immortality might not be the greatest super power for you. But you must also be willing to admit that until you actually face death, you might be wrong about your distaste for immortality.

As someone who has faced death three times (and actually died twice), I can assure you that immortality is quite appealing.

But time travel is better than all of them because of the ability to see into the future and warn humanity about (and perhaps even prevent) certain natural disasters and other calamities:

Alert authorities about the September 11 attacks in order to stop the terrorists and save lives.Issue evacuation warnings ahead of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters.Inform the Chinese government of the emergence of the novel coronavirus before it has a chance to spread.Stop George Lucas from creating Jar Jar Binks.

It would be an enormous burden on the person with this super power, but morally and ethically speaking, how could you not acknowledge that this super power is better than the ability to pop in and out of New York City without having to deal with traffic?

There are some understandable concerns over the dangers of traveling into the past and catastrophically altering the future (and possibly threatening the existence of the time traveler in the process). There are also concerns over the potential for universe-ending paradoxes and the like.

But there is also a simple answer to all of these problems:

Never travel into the past.

While traveling into the past would be appealing, concern over these issues could be mitigated by limiting travel into the future, and only traveling for observational purposes. A time traveler need only to travel to a library and spend some time reading newspapers, browsing the internet, or studying history books in order to find the information they need while risking almost nothing in terms of unintentionally changing the course of human events.

See? Paradox problem solved.

The choice is clear:

Immortality is appealing, at least to me, but a deeply selfish choice.

Teleportation is also appealing, but it’s also fairly selfish.

Time travel, while fraught with obligation and burden, seems like the only ethical choice to me.

Save lives? End suffering? Prevent the making of the second and third Matrix films?

How could you choose anything else and live with yourself?

If you disagree, how about this? Not only could the time traveler prevent future disasters, but if human beings ever invent the technology that makes teleportation or immortality possible (and scientists are already making progress on both fronts), the time traveler could take the knowledge of that technology back to their own time and make it available to them as well.

Hand over the schematics of the teleportation head band to Apple with the agreement you get the first one.

Or turn over the immortality serum to your local compounding pharmacy and ask them to whip you up a batch.

Time travel is not only the ethical choice, but it’s also the logical choice.

I rest my case.

The many memories of Almacs

These photos were recently posted on a Facebook page dedicated to the history of my hometown of Blackstone, Massachusetts. I was instantly transported to the past.

Almacs was my childhood grocery store, located just a mile from my home. The company went out of business in 1995, but there was a time when Almacs was the largest grocery store in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Almacs featured a conveyor belt that carried groceries from inside the store to the sidewalk outside, where customers could pull up to the sidewalk and load their cars.

The bakery department sold gingerbread cookies year round in the shape of gingerbread men. If my siblings and I behaved as my mother shopped for groceries, we would each get gingerbread cookies before heading to the check out.

We were not well behaved human beings.

Canned goods were refilled from behind the wall, rolling down can-sized chutes. Take one can, and the cans stacked behind it would roll down, filling the spot once occupied by your can.

I pulled many cans from those chutes that my mother did not want or need just to watch those cans roll down the chute. In the absence of cell phones, we had to find ways to amuse ourselves.

It was a far better time.

My brother and I would collect the frost from the open freezer cases at the back of the store and create snowballs that we would throw at each other, seriously jeopardizing our chances of receiving a gingerbread man at the end of the outing.

Gumball machines were placed beside the exit, filled with gumballs and many other small, useless prizes. For a nickel, dime, or quarter, we could leave the store with a prize that we would likely forget about by the time we arrived home. We were sadly never allowed to buy gumballs from the gumball machines. My mother did not think children should be chewing gum.

To this day, gum has no appeal to me.

S&H green stamps were given to customers based upon the amount spent on groceries. Those stamps were then be “licked and sticked” into a S&H saver book. Fill enough saver books, and you could trade them in for merchandise.

The kids did the licking and sticking. Our mother chose the merchandise. I have no idea how the S&H company earned a profit.

The brown paper bags that were used to pack our food were known in our home as “Almacs bags.” To this day, I still think of the brown, paper bags that I receive from grocery stores as Almacs bags.

My parents bought our set of Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedias at Almacs, letters A-J only before money got tight and encyclopedias stopped being important. I read those encyclopedias cover to cover more than once.

Almacs would stop selling eggs to teenagers one week before Halloween, a fact that I discovered only after trying to purchase eggs on October 30 for nefarious reasons.

The Fotomat stood in the middle of the parking lot, usually manned by a teenager who collected film for processing. Over the course of my childhood, my mother forgot to pick up dozens of processed rolls of film from that Fotomat, thus leaving our childhood memories in the hands of a stranger, who probably threw them away after a month.

To the left of the Almacs was a restaurant called Stewey’s Diner, where we would very, very occasionally eat when I was little. When we did, my parents would sit at one table and seat the children at another. This struck me as clever on my parent’s part at the time, but I can’t imagine not sitting with my own children today.

Even at their worst, I enjoy spending time with them.

To the left of the Stewey’s Diner was the bank. After grocery shopping, my mother would stop in the bank and deposit money into the Christmas club account, a bizarre means of saving for Christmas by giving the bank $5 each week so that at the end of the year, you’d have saved $250 for Christmas presents.

Why adults in the 1970’s and 1980’s didn’t just deposit this money in an interest-bearing saving account is beyond me.

Why the need for a special Christmas account?

Also, interest rates were as high as 15% on savings accounts in the 1970’s and 1980’s, making saving this way a legitimate return on investment.

When I was a teenager, I took my girlfriend, Laura, on a date to Almacs. We took a carriage up and down the aisles, filling it with oddities while I cracked jokes about cereal brands, frozen dinners, and stewed prunes. We played catch with an orange in produce. We rolled canned goods down the aisles like bowling balls. We shook up cans of soda and left them on the shelf for unsuspecting customers. We tore open a package of hot dogs, and I taught Laura the joy of eating an uncooked, precooked hot dog.

I wrote “MD + LM” in the frost of a freezer case’s glass door.

Once we had filled our carriage with groceries, we abandoned it in the bakery department alongside those gingerbread men, purchasing only a bottle of grape soda and a can of vanilla icing. We ate that icing with a shared spoon while sitting on the hood of my car in the parking lot, and we washed it down with grape soda.

Laura was skeptical of the idea at first, but she later admitted that it was one of our best dates.

I’m at my best when I have lots of material to work with, and it turns out that the grocery store is filled with a multitude of material. Sources of humor, stories, malfeasance, and amusement.

It’s incredible how a couple of photographs can suddenly transport you back in time and bring back so many memories.

Your most valuable assets and greatest returns on investments

For the last five years, I’ve been a serious investor in the stock market, making it my daily habit to read, analyze, and study industry trends, macroeconomics, financial legislation, and the earnings reports of hundreds of companies.

Also buying stocks, of course, and recently dipping my toes into cryptocurrency.

As much as I enjoy earning the returns on my investments, I find the subject incredibly interesting, too. Even if I wasn’t investing money in the markets, I would still be following them closely, which I did for about three years before investing a dime.

Unexpectedly, my knowledge of companies, sectors of the economy, industries leaders, macroeconomic trends, and more have assisted me enormously in my consulting business. Understanding the business plan or marketing strategy of a client’s competitor has made me far more valuable to the people who hire me for my opinions.

But of all the charts, graphs, earnings reports, and other data that I’ve read in my study of the markets, I found these two charts – produced by Brian Feroldi – the most compelling and applicable to all people. Feroldi is an analyst in the healthcare and technology sectors. He spends his days studying companies and making recommendations for the buying and selling of stocks.

Despite his chosen profession and life’s work, Feroldi’s charts remind us that money, property, stock portfolios, and retirement accounts are not our most valuable assets, nor do they provide the greatest return on investment. None of these things mean anything if you don’t have the other things included on Feroldi’s charts.

I especially like his inclusion of “confidence ” as one of our most valuable assets.

I couldn’t agree more.

Not only do I see how confidence play out in people’s lives almost daily, but I have also worked with exceptionally successful business leaders who are envious of my confidence and want me to help them build their own.

You’d be shocked at the number of people who lack confidence but compensate with enormous amounts of preparation and practice. Men and women who have struck me as supremely confident have admitted to me that it’s one of their greatest struggles.

But they understand its value.

Confidence makes work easier. It saves time, reduces stress, and allows for greater flexibility. Confidence makes risk taking more possible and allows you to navigate new situations more effectively.

Feroldi is correct. Confidence is an enormous asset if you’re fortunate enough to posses it or wise enough to work on improving it.

I also love the inclusion of “self education” on the second chart. I only know of Brian Feroldi and only saw these charts because I decided to study finance about eight years ago. I chose to become educated about something I knew very little about, and it has enriched my life considerably.

The process of self education continues today. I’m currently studying aviation, even though I have no intention of ever flying a plane. I simply find the subject interesting enough to spend some time learning.

I’m also studying brain science – specifically the way the brain responds to information acquisition – because I see the understanding of this science as an asset to things I already do (teaching, speaking, storytelling, consulting).

As teachers, we hope to produce lifelong learners because Feroldi is correct. Life long learning produces enormous returns on investment.

I’ve printed copies of both of these charts and have them hanging in my office as a reminder of what really matters. The ideas aren’t exactly profound, nor were they unknown to me prior to seeing the charts, but concise reminders like this are still valuable, I think, particularly for those hard days when good decisions are more difficult to make and we sometimes forget to see the big picture.

On those days, reminders like these might make all the difference.

Natalie Merchant’s singular performance

My storytelling friend, Steve Zimmer, pointed this out to me recently:Natalie Merchant performing at TED Live 2010. I love this performance so much. The best part – first pointed out to me by Steve – is when Merchant tells the audience to quiet down: “Curb the enthusiasm, just a little bit. Just bring it down a little. It’s my turn.” Then she chats with the audience a bit as she sings, injecting humor and heart into an already beautiful song. It’s a perfect example of what it means to perform live, and how powerful and memorable a performance can be when the performer isn’t locked into words and meter and beat. It’s the difference between singing a song to an audience as it was written and performing for an audience, making it your own and transforming every moment a singular experience.   It’s why I tell storytellers to avoid memorizing their stories word for word. If you’re locked into the text, and if you’re desiring perfection, you’ll miss the moments when improvisation and inspiration can take hold and the performance can become something so much better than you ever expected. I’ve seen Natalie Merchant perform before, and I’ll likely see her perform again, but I don’t think I’ll ever remember a performance like I’ll remember this one, for all the right reasons.

 

I’ve been told that Ted Lasso is going to be great. I hope it’s true.

I’m only one episode into Ted Lasso, so excuse me if I’m way off, but after watching the first episode, my first thought was this:

It’s just the 1989 film Major League, except instead of baseball, it’s soccer.

Wealthy female owner and corporate male sidekick attempt to ruin a major league sports franchise for personal gain.

In Major League, the owner needs ticket sales to plummet so she can move the team from Cleveland to Miami.

In Ted Lasso, the owner wants the team to fail because her ex-husband adores the team.

In order to accomplish this goal, both owners hire managers who are clearly out of their league. In Major League, the owner hires an aging manager from a far lower level of baseball. In Ted Lasso, the owner hires a successful football coach who has never coached soccer.

Either way, the managers are expected to fail because of a lack of experience.

Perhaps things will change as the season moves forward. Maybe the show is intentionally modeled after Major League. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, so I didn’t check. But even the casting of the shows seem eerily similar.

Here is the female owner and male flunky of Major League and Ted Lasso.

Also, here are the managers of the teams, Lou Brown and Ted Lasso.

Notice how both have enormous mustaches?

If the similarities continue, I can expect that in future episodes, the team will be stocked with aging and ineffective soccer players, and that discord will erupt when one soccer player unintentionally sleeps with another soccer player’s wife, who is seeking revenge for her husband’s infidelity.

Also, the team will discover the true motivations of the owner, rally against her, bond as a team, and win the championship.

I hope Ted Lasso proves to be an extraordinary show. My fear is that it’s been so hyped for so damn long that it’s going ti be impossible to meet or exceed the accolades that so many people have bestowed upon it.

Especially if it’s simply a derivative of a movie from my past.

Only one thing has ever managed to meet or exceed the considerable hype foisted upon it in my experience:

Hamilton.

I heard about that musical for more than a year before finally seeing it, so I couldn’t help but worry that it would never measure up to the praise. Less than 30 minutes into the show, my skepticism was washed away.

The filmed version of the musical for Disney+ was just as good. Maybe even better given I saw the musical live from the mezzanine.

I’m hoping Ted Lasso can meet or exceed the hype as well. I’m once again entering a show with a bit of skepticism based upon the overwhelming praise that it has received and the pilot episode’s striking similarities to something I already enjoyed 33 years ago, but I also begin every film, television series, play, or musical with an open heart, an open mind, and the hope that it will be excellent.

I want the world to be filled with great entertainment. I want to love everything I see and hear. I won’t pretend to love something if I don’t, but I give everything an honest chance to be great.

I really hope Ted Lasso is great.

Things that Kept Me Going in 2021

The past couple years have been hard on all of us. Recognizing the challenges of the past year – which included COVID-19 infections, a major surgery, political and social unrest, and some unbelievable tragedies, I put some thought into the things that kept me going when times were especially hard.

I was hoping that the list would give me ideas on what might keep me going in 2022.

Happily, it has.

It would seem that trying new things, finding reasons to laugh, and filling my life with good people are pretty much the answer.

Good to know as we enter another potentially challenging year.

________________________________________________

THINGS THAT KEPT ME GOING IN 2021

Vaccines

Our family is fully vaccinated, and for some of us, boosted at least once, which undoubtedly made an enormous difference when we all tested  positive for COVID-19 during the week following Christmas. Between the four of us, we’ve been injected with the Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Phizer vaccines. Each is a scientific marvel for which we are grateful every damn day.

Sailing

Elysha and I took two weeks of sailing lessons this summer, then we spent the rest of the summer sailing on Dunning Lake. It was a joyous way to spend our summer days.

Heavyweight

Jonathan Goldstein’s podcast was my favorite in 2021. The stories are brilliantly told, but it’s Goldstein’s humor and sweetness that I love most.

Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show

My morning ritual was to watch Colbert’s monologue before doing almost anything else, and I was never disappointed. I’d squeeze Seth Meyer’s “A Closer Look” and sometimes Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue, too, but Colbert was a never-miss for me in 2021.

Sarah Sherman, Cecily Strong, Bowan Yang, and Pete Davidson

These four comedians were my favorite members of the SNL cast in 2021. The whole show makes me happy, but I am most pleased when these particular performers are onstage.

Winding Trails

We spent most of our summer days at Winding Trails, the lake club to which we belong. We swam, went boating, and played all day. The kids spent weeks at summer camp, and we enjoyed sunset dinners of pizza and ice cream throughout the summer. It was a place that filled our souls.

Elysha

I know that the pandemic put a strain on many marriages, but fortunately, this was not the case for me and Elysha. It turns out that the added time spent together was lovely and appreciated, and I think we supported each other brilliantly in 2021.

At least she supported me brilliantly, and I tried like hell to support her.

It’s good to be married to someone who you never get sick of being around and always find incredibly interesting. This has probably not been entirely the case for Elysha, but it has been for me in 2021. I couldn’t have done the year without her.

My students

I was blessed with two extraordinary classes of students in 2021. Both groups were wonderful to teach, but they were even better people to simply be around. While so many Americans were working remotely or in sparsely populated settings, I spent much of 2021 in an enclosed space with two dozen other human beings. Many of my clients couldn’t believe it. In the midst of enormous fear and uncertainty, my group of 18 and now 24 fifth graders were my source of inspiration, happiness, and purpose.

Parents

Equally supportive and appreciated have been the parents of my students this year. The parents of my students have always been kind to me, but last year’s two sets of parents – including the parents still with me in 2022 – have been especially sweet. Knowing what I face every day – a room full of potentially infectious but probably asymptomatic human beings who require a lot of reminders about wearing their masks properly – have made these people grateful beyond measure. A little bit of gratitude, whether it is spoken, written, emailed, or texted, can go a long, long way.

Hello Fresh

I learned to cook thanks to the pandemic and Hello Fresh. There are weeks in 2021 when I cooked dinner every night, which is astounding given that I could only cook pasta and hot dogs prior to 2020. Every Sunday evening, a box of Hello Fresh meals arrived, offering me the ingredients and instructions to make a delicious dinner, and with each one, I learned a little more about food preparation and made me feel better about doing something good for my family.

The New England Patriots

After a disappointing season of football in 2020 – a losing record and no fans in the stadium – the Patriots are back, and my friends and I returned to our seats for Patriots home games in 2021. I missed the last home game of the season with COVIS-19, but I was thrilled to be in the stands for all the rest, cheering on a playoff-bound team that I irrationally adore.

Playing with my children

Poker, chess, and the many other board games, card games, sports, and best of all, the constant wrestling, filled many of my days in 2021. I accomplished a lot less because I spent a great deal of time playing with my Clara and Charlie. I’m so glad I did.

Golf

It turns out that golf is an excellent sport for a pandemic. Outdoors, socially distant, and a perfect way to spend time with friends between grass and sky. I played a lot of golf this year and introduced a friend to the game. Every round of golf – even the ones played exceptionally poorly – filled my soul.

Loki and Wandavision

Both of these Marvel shows were wonderful. Wandavision was a love letter to the history of television, and Loki returned a bad guy to the screen who I can’t help but love. Elysha and I had so much fun sitting on the couch, holding hands, watching these shows.

Joey and Lionel

I launched a new business in 2021 with two partners, Joey in Canada and Lionel in Isreal. It was my most exciting project of 2021, and oddly, one of the most physically taxing given my surgery and the project’s requirements. But I expect 2022 to be a big year for us.

Tobi and Pluto

Our cats do some terrible things, but mostly, they brought me unfathomable joy snd love every single day of the year.

Kaia Pazdersky

I’ve been blessed with Kaia in my life for a long time, as a friend, colleague, and babysitter of our children. This year Kaia and I began writing a musical together, but even better, I was smart enough to hire her to work with me, first as my production assistant and then as my production manager. Life in 2021 was a lot easier with Kaia working by my side.

Springsteen on Broadway

After missing his first stint on Broadway, Elysha and I managed to see the show in 2021, and it thankfully coincided with that 6 week period post-vaccination and pre-Delta when masks were temporarily a thing of the past and we thought the world was returning to normal. For one night in a theater in Manhattan, it had, and I will never forget it.

Daniela Mendez

My kids have been fortunate enough to have Daniela in their lives for the last three years, including 2021 She took our kids to school every morning, picked them up every afternoon, and brought stability, kindness, and a fantastic role model into their lives every day. The more good people you can inject into your children’s lives, the better off they will be.

Zoom

I spent an enormous amount of time in 2021 on this platform, consulting, coaching, teaching, and meeting with business partners, all from the safety of my own home. The acceptance of video conferencing as a viable way to work exploded my business in 2021, allowing me to meet new people, make new friends, and do work that I never before imagined. Had this pandemic hit even a decade ago, life would’ve been a lot harder and a lot more stifling without the near-seamless technology we enjoy today.

Joanna Burgio

I missed two weeks of teaching in November because of surgery and a week of teaching this month due to COVID-19, plus another two weeks back in January of 2021 when I was quarantined for 12 days after being exposed to COVID-19. That five full weeks of teaching missed in 2021, but thankfully, every one of those school days were taught by Joanna Burgio, who works in our school and filled in brilliantly for me every time. The kids love her, I love her, and she made my absences in 2021 far more bearable.

The Simpsons

Charlie and I started watching The Simpson in 2021, beginning with season 1, episode 1. Watching episodes alongside my son that I first watched 30 years ago in an apartment in Attleboro, MA with my buddy, Bengi, has been fantastic.

Surgeons and nurses

Surgeons and nurses made my surgery both successful and bearable. I still have a month of recovery ahead of me, and there is still some pain and unexpected neurological complications to address, but medical staff cut me open in 2021, repaired my body, and sewed me up. Pretty remarkable.

Sick leave

As started above, I missed more time from work in 2021 than in the last decade combined. Thankfully, the teaching profession is blessed with adequate sick leave, and since I have rarely used it, I had nearly 200 days banked away in case of an emergency, as 2021 proved at times to be. I know that many Americans are not blessed with fair and adequate sick leave, so I counted my blessings every day in 2021.

Moth StorySLAMs

After missing out on live Moth StorySLAMs for more than a year due to the pandemic, I returned to New York and Boston in 2021 and performed on the stages that I adore most. I was joined by a variety of storytelling friends on these adventures, including a former student-turned-adult. These were all memorable, entertaining evenings spent with dear friends doing something I love. On the nights when I won, it was even better.

Scott Gottlieb

Former Commissioner of the FDA has been one of my primary sources of public information since the pandemic began (in addition to my knowledgable and forthcoming clients medicine and  biotech). His information has been accurate, measured, predictive, and supremely helpful. His appearances on Face the Nation and CNBC were must-listens for me in 2021.

Unexpected uncertainty

Elysha and I were listening to Ear Hustle, a podcast about the daily realities of life inside prison, shared by those living it, as well as stories from the outside prison, post-incarceration. It’s a favorite of ours. A fascinating look at the life of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.

Having been to jail but thankfully never prison, I’ve learned a lot. Exposure to an entirely new world for me.

Then I ran into episode #62, which deals with stories about bail, bail bonds, and “the strange purgatory of waiting to get locked up.”

Before I knew it, I had been instantly transported into the past, and tears were filling my eyes.

Back in 1992, I was arrested, jailed, and eventually tried for a crime I did not commit. The time between my arrest and my trial was more than a year long, which meant that I spent a lot of time wondering if my future was destined for continued freedom or longterm incarceration.

Until I had listened to the episode, I had forgotten how frightening and debilitating that waiting had been. I was also homeless for a period of that time, the victim of a violent crime, and I was facing a $25,000 legal bill that required me (once I managed to get off the streets) to work 90 hours a week at two full time jobs to pay the bill.

Purgatory isn’t the word for that time in my life. It was hell.

But amongst those many miseries, I had forgotten about the enormous weight of uncertainty that results from not knowing if your day in court will result in imprisonment. And when you’re alone, entirely on your own, facing a district attorney, police officers, and a host of witnesses all working hard to put you behind bars. that uncertainty feels good even more profound.

Elysha and I were driving as we listened to the episode, and before I was even aware that it was happening. I was crying. All of those feelings of fear, isolation, and anxiety had returned, and with it, the forgotten memories of a time when I worried that each thing I did would be the last time I would do it for a long time.

I remember eating ice cream with a girl at Dairy Queen and wondering if this would be the last ice cream cone I would eat for years.

I was walking on the beach at the Cape and thinking that I might not feel sand between my toes and hear the sound of surf pounding the shore again for a long, long time.

I wondered how long it would be before I would swim or see a movie or attend a concert again.

This ever-present uncertainty filled every moment of every day with impossible dread and the desperate desire to make every experience count. I searched for moments that I could capture in my mind and hold onto in the event that I faced imprisonment.

I suspect that a lot of people facing the possibility of incarceration feel this way. The men and woman interviewed on Ear Hustle certainly did.

And I suspect that many people are feeling this way in the midst of the pandemic, especially those who are more vulnerable to this disease than most. COVID-19 is frightening enough, but if you have an underlying condition making this virus even more dangerous for you, I suspect that similar feelings of  uncertainty are filling your days.

It’s a terrible feeling. I’m constantly urging my children and my students to embrace uncertainty. Be more flexible with your thinking. Don’t be afraid to step into the unknown.That advice makes sense when the stakes are low and outcomes relatively benign.But when the possible outcome is prison or worse, uncertainty can be overwhelming and debilitating. I had put those memories aside a long time ago, probably just after I was declared not guilty, but it turns out that memories often linger, waiting to be resurrected at a moment you least expect it.Like driving with your wife, listening to incarcerated men and women on a podcast talk about a similar time in their lives, and suddenly finding yourself unexpectedly awash in the past.