Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 18

Wax beans? Anybody?

I told my students how much I despised wax beans when I was growing up.

They had no idea what I was talking about.

So I pulled up the image of a can of wax beans to show them.

Still nothing.

Not a single one of them had ever been subjected to the horrors of wax beans.

So I asked a handful of colleagues. None of them had ever eaten wax beans. Most had never heard of the dam things.

So I asked Elysha.

She, too, had never eaten wax beans. Never out of a can, at least. Maybe as a part of some dish, but never on their own.

What the hell is going on? Was my mother the only person on the planet subjecting her children to this horrible vegetable?

Wax beans seem to still be on the market today, but is anyone buying them, and if so, why?

I talk to Elysha

I spend a lot of time staring into a camera lens, recording courses, YouTube videos, promos, and more.

My ingenious production manager, Kaia,  realized that I am far more animated and engaging when speaking to a person than an inanimate object, so she placed a photo on the lens of the screen so I have someone to whom I can speak while recording content.

Naturally, she chose my favorite person in the world.

It’s good to have bright, clever, insightful people working for you.

Who didn’t Trump tariff?

In case you missed this, Trump imposed tariffs on nearly every nation on the planet, including islands around Antarctica that are only populated by penguins.

Trump didn’t impose additional tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but he had already increased tariffs on those two allies two weeks ago.

But one nation managed to avoid his new blanket tariffs entirely:

Russia.

Why?

The Trump administration said it would be “inappropriate” to impose tariffs on Russia while they are negotiating a ceasefire with Ukraine.

But guess which country Trump still chose to impose his blanket tariffs on?

Ukraine — the ally attacked and invaded by Russia, which is also participating in negotiations.

You can’t make this stuff up.

While markets tumbled, the world economy teetered, and the remains of fallen soldiers who died in a training accident in Lithuania were returned to Dover Air Force Base on Friday, Trump ignored the economic turmoil, refused to meet with lawmakers, and skipped his planned appearance at the airbase to attend the dignified transfer of remains.

Why?

To play in a golf tournament in Florida because you apparently need not make anything up anymore. Trump has decided to be so stupid, cruel, and immoral that you simply need to report the facts to paint him as a monster.

He won the tournament, by the way, despite being known by golfers around the country — including many who have played with him — as an insufferable cheater who has never played an honest round in his life.

Trump also bragged about his victory and even issued a press release about his club championship while refusing to take questions about fallen soldiers and falling markets.

And yet Republican lawmakers remain lock-step behind this illogical, economically disastrous policy because they are cowards and sycophants who place their own political power ahead of America’s future.

At least we have the penguins on our side.

Someone thinks like me

Sadly, but also realistically, this thought occurs to me constantly.

More often than you could ever imagine.

I’m happy to see I’m not the only one.

Terrible laws by terrible people

Flouride has been banned in Utah.

Legitimately banned.

The new law bans cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems despite mountains of evidence demonstrating its benefits for oral health, especially in children.

So even if every single person in your town votes to add fluoride to their water system, you cannot because the Republican-dominated state legislature and Republican governor have regulated against it.

Republicans believe in small government only when it suits their purposes.

Also…

As Florida aggressively deports undocumented immigrants, the state finds itself without enough workers to fill low-income jobs.

In response, Florida’s Republican-dominated state legislature advanced a bill that would loosen child labor laws, allowing children as young as 14 years old to work overnight shifts.

If the new law is passed, teenagers can work overnight jobs on school days.

They are currently prevented from working earlier than 6:30 am or later than 11 pm per state law.

So, the jobs that undocumented workers were reportedly “stealing from Americans” were actually overnight jobs being stolen from 14-year-old children.

It’s hard to imagine a single human being thinking either of these laws makes sense or helps children in any discernible way, yet apparently, most Americans in both states believe these are right and just laws.

Nostalgia and an old friend at The Moth

I competed (and won) a Moth StorySLAM in Boston last week — my 62nd victory.

It was my 111th performance in a Moth StorySLAM, alongside another 37 Moth GrandSLAMs and half a dozen Moth Mainstage performances.

Many stories are told on many stages in New York City, Boston, Washington, DC, Seattle, and elsewhere.

I started competing in Moth events in July 2011, exclusively in New York for the first five years until The Moth expanded to Boston and beyond. Back in New York in 2011, The Moth was dominated by a collection of regular storytellers — outstanding and hilarious performers who told incredible stories night after night. Whenever I walked into The Bitter End, The Bell House, Housing Works, and other venues around the city, I would meet friends and fellow storytellers who treated storytelling as a serious, artistic craft.

Names like Diana Spechler, Adam Wade, Michaela Blei, Kate Greathead, Jim O’Grady, Erin Barker, and my hero, Steve Zimmer.

Many more.

Hosts like Peter Aquero and the great Dan Kennedy.

Over time, that first crew of storytellers began to disappear. Some moved on to bigger and better things. Others moved out of New York and quit storytelling or launched their own storytelling shows in smaller communities. Some moved away from storytelling either because the fire had burned out or they had run out of stories to tell.

A new collection of regulars emerged, and for a time, they dominated the scene. Eventually, most of those moved on, too. When The Moth arrived in Boston, it took a while for storytellers to emerge, but once they did, a band of regulars also emerged there, too.

As I continued to perform in New York and Boston, I watched as my storytelling friends came and went. Incredible performers told stories on Moth stages before moving on to somewhere else or something else.

I certainly understand this desire.

The Moth is an incredible venue for storytelling, but when you attend a StorySLAM, you’re not guaranteed to take the stage on any given night. I’ve performed more than 150 times at Moth shows over the years, but I’ve also attended at least another 75 shows when my name remained stubbornly in the bag.

Moth StorySLAMs and GrandSLAms are also unpaid performances. For someone like me who is paid to speak on stages all over the world, performing for free doesn’t make a lot of sense to people, and I get it.

But I continue to tell stories at The Moth because I love the stage, the audience, the community, and the competition.

On Tuesday night, I had a glorious moment of nostalgia when the first storyteller who took the stage was Stacy Bader Curry — someone who once performed alongside me in New York during those early days. She now lives in Maine and drives to Boston and New York to compete in StorySLAMs. To see her onstage, telling another incredible story, was a joy—a blast of nostalgia from days gone by and people I miss seeing and listening to their stories.

Stacy recently won the New York City GrandSLAM championship. She’s an outstanding performer.

Not many people remember those early days at The Moth anymore when venues like The Bitter End and Housing Works were packed with people waiting to hear stories. Few can recall that the complex form a Moth storyteller fills out to compete today was a simple slip of paper where you wrote your name, phone number, and address.

Over the years, I can clock the venue changes, rule changes (one made because of me), culture shifts, and unforgettable nights.

A night at the Bell House in 2012 when eight of the ten names drawn from the hat were all GrandSLAM champions. Many said it was the best night of storytelling they had ever seen.

Diana Spechler was judging that night and spoke some of the kindest words ever said to me after the show.

The night at Housing Works when a woman told a story about murdering her husband and spending two decades behind bars. Thanks to a quick Google search, we discovered she was telling the truth.

She won that night.

The night host Peter Aquero pulled a person’s name from the hat who had already performed, meaning he had put his name in the hat twice – a cardinal sin. It took all of Peter’s self-control not to verbally destroy that storyteller, and it took all of my self-control not to urge him to destroy the scoundrel.

The night at the Bell House when a storyteller began preaching the Gospel and the founder of The Moth, George Dawes Green, sitting in the audience, stood and shouted, “Tell a story, damn it!” until the preacher finally fled the stage in shame.

I was sitting beside George that night. It was hilarious.

The night at a venue in the Bronx, the thunder outside was so intense that it set off the fire alarm, causing the audience to partially evacuate before turning back when it was determined there was no fire.

I won that night.

The night in some small town in New York when my friend, Jeni Bonaldo, won her first Moth StorySLAM, and I was at least as happy for her victory as I am for one of my own victories.

Those memories and many more thanks to 14 years of performing at The Moth. Not many of those old friends remain. Comedian Ophira Eisenberg still hosts The Moth, and at a recent GrandSLAM, said to me, “We’re still here. Huh?”

Yup.

So, to see Stacy take the stage on Tuesday night was quite a joy. To see an old friend who remembers those early days and is still performing today was like seeing a friend from high school after many years, except we’re both still in high school, still walking the halls, still doing our thing.

Stacy was brilliant, as always. A section of her story was as good as anything I’ve ever heard onstage before, and thankfully, her name was drawn first from the bag on Tuesday, or I may not have won.

Satisfaction and joy come from doing something well for a long time, but alongside those positive feelings are also the feelings of erosion and loss as the world changes around you, but you remain.

I often feel this after 27 years of teaching in the same school, and I often feel it at The Moth:

Thrilled to be a part of something great. Honored to continue to play a role. Excited to remain at the top of my game. Still as enthusiastic as ever about taking the stage.

But I also long for those earlier days in New York City when Stacy and I were performing alongside brilliant people whom I don’t get to watch shine anymore.

Stacy shone on Tuesday night. For the briefest of moments, the old and new collided, and I was so happy to be there to see it.

I could see the future, excpet it turned out to be the past

I awoke feeling refreshed and happy this morning, as I almost always do. I set my alarm every day for 4:30 AM, but because I maintain a consistent sleep schedule, I nearly always open my eyes a few minutes before the alarm fires off, which I did this morning.

If you’re like most people, you, too, can awaken without an alarm, feeling refreshed and happy if you wake up at the same time every day, no matter what.

No sleeping in on the weekends or vacations.
No snooze alarms.
No falling back to sleep for 12 minutes.

If you arise from bed at the same time every day, it won’t take long for your brain to adjust to your consistent sleep schedule and begin releasing norepinephrine, cortisol, acetylcholine, histamine, and serotonin, which regulate wakefulness, alertness, and body temperature, which create a smooth transition from sleep to wakefulness. 

Most people don’t benefit from these chemicals because the brain doesn’t know when to release them.

Why?

They lack a consistent sleep schedule. They sleep later on the weekends. Hit the snooze alarm repeatedly. They linger in bed, slumbering, long after they open their eyes.

This is why most people wake up feeling groggy, confused, uninspired, and tired.

They’re not actually tired. Their brain wasn’t prepared to wake up in the way it was designed.

But I digress.

I awoke this morning, and as I was brushing my teeth, I checked the score from last night’s Yankees game.

“We won 9-7,” I thought as I clicked the app, and lo and behold, I was right.

As I clicked on the boxscore, I thought, “Judge had a home run and four RBIs, and they stole three bases. Grisham had a good game, too.”

Also true. And bizarre. I didn’t recall looking at the score before bed, but did I?

Ten minutes later, my phone was propped on the counter as I cut mango for the kids’ breakfast. I was watching Stephen Colbert’s monologue, and something odd was happening.

I knew the jokes.

I saw them coming like never before.

Then it hit me about a minute before it actually happened:

Stephen is going to play the bassoon. I played the bassoon in high school, so maybe I was conflating my life with this monologue, but then it happened.

Stephen Colbert played the bassoon.

I checked the date on the clip. Last night. Posted just after midnight while I was asleep.

Then I knew.

I’m a sleepwalker. I don’t sleepwalk every night or even every week, but I sleepwalk a lot, and I’ve been known to do some remarkable and ridiculous things like sleepwalking.

I once wrote the first 500 words of the next chapter of one of my novels while sleepwalking, and they are the same 500 words you can find in that book today.

I eat cereal while sleepwalking. Complete chores. Engage in entire conversations with people that are so coherent that the person speaking to me rarely realizes that I am asleep.

Famously, I once spent half an hour in the dead of night with Elysha, debating if we should spend thousands of dollars on spinal surgery for our dog that had less than a 50% chance of being successful. The vet had called and informed us that what was initially thought to be constipation was a ruptured disc requiring immediate surgery.

We agreed to spend the thousands of dollars on the surgery and went back to bed, but I had been sleepwalking the entire time and had no recollection of the conversation.

You can imagine how surprised I was to receive the call in the morning that the first of two surgeries was successful.

So, I sleepwalk—quite a bit, including, apparently, last night. While I was sleepwalking, I apparently checked the Yankees score and watched Colbert’s monologue, and it occurred to me moments later, his interview with Jenny Slate.

Then I found my laundry, removed from the dryer and neatly folded.

The basket of folded clothes wasn’t too surprising. I’ve done chores before. I may have swept the floor last night, too. The broom wasn’t hanging on the hook but was instead learning on the wall in the pantry, and I do about 95% of the sweeping in our home, so it was probably me, last night, sweeping up Cheerios and the tiny screws from Charlie’s most recent reverse engineering project.

But I’ve never found myself with weirdly prescient knowledge like today.

Knowing the boxscore before seeing it. Predicting jokes like I had written them myself. Forseeing the emergence of a bassoon.

It was the most intense version of deja vu I’ve ever experienced, except it wasn’t deja vu.

I’d actually done those things. Maybe more, too. Who knows?

As often as it happens and as unsurprising as it may be, I can’t help but wonder what else I may have done last night while sleepwalking.

Pet the cats? Dined on Cheerios? Watched something else on YouTube?

I’ll never really know.

When you’re a sleepwalker, it’s like you have a second operating system in your brain that occasionally turns on when the first is shut down for the night. You can do almost everything you do with your primary operating system, except it lacks a hard drive to store your memories. You move through the world just like your other self, unbeknownst to the people around you that a secondary operating system is running the machine.

If you watch Severance, it’s probably the closest I’ve ever seen to what it’s like to sleepwalk:

Another version of you exists and is doing things that you will never know or understand.

But here’s the best part:

Even though I was awake and apparently doing chores last night, I still awoke refreshed and happy because I maintain a regular sleep cycle and allow my brain to work on my behalf as it’s designed.

I’m not sure if I would recommend sleepwalking to anyone — though it’s occasionally productive — but establishing a consistent sleep cycle?

I can’t recommend it enough.

Samuel Ullman and “Youth”

In 1840, an 11-year-old Samuel Ullman left his home in Germany to move to America with his parents.

They settled in Port Gibson, Mississippi, and eventually, Ullman started his professional career as a businessman, city alderman, and on the local board of education in Birmingham, Alabama.

During his 18 years of public service, from 1884 until 1902, Ullman advocated educational benefits for black children in a region of America that wasn’t willing to accept change.

Before he died in 1924, he wrote a poem titled “Youth,” which was made famous by General Douglas MacArthur.

_________________________________________

YOUTH

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease.  This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty.  Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.  We grow old by deserting our ideals.

 Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

 Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living.  In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

_________________________________________

“… there is hope you may die young at eighty.”

I like this a lot. Other than the dying part, which I have no intention of ever doing.

Every morning, I remind my students that I’m 54 years old and still seem to have more energy than they do, and to both their credit and terrible discredit, most agree.

It’s easy, convenient, and perhaps delusional for someone in their fifties to say, “Age is a state of mind,” but I believe this to be true.

As some people get older, they seem to stagnate and eventually contract their lives. They stop trying new things. Cease to be daring. Refuse to take risks and do scary things. Their listening and viewing habits stagnate. They find it impossible to see the new as better than the old. They no longer dream of the next big thing. Routines become ingrained and immutable. Bedtimes become inflexible. Days become habitual. Travel slows and eventually stops.

They allow themselves to get old by acting old.

Worst of all, they start using that terrible word:

Old.

Once you refer to yourself as old, you’ve decided to be so.

Avoid it at all costs, and reject all of the trapping associated with it.

Ask yourself:

Is my life expanding or contracting?

Do I have a new horizon to chase, or has my life become comfortably stagnant?

Am I seeking new connections, unforeseen opportunities, impossible challenges, and greater pursuits? Or does my life resemble the same life I had two years ago? Five years ago? A decade ago?

Youth is the “temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.”

Ullman died in 1924 at the age of 83. My hope is that he adhered to the wisdom of his poem and died young.

You, too.

Phone advice for parents and kids

A parent and teacher recently asked me, “How have you managed to avoid giving your children phones?”

My answer was admittedly snarky but accurate:

“We just didn’t give them phones. It’s not hard to not do something.”

Simple but true.

Then I added, “It’s also not that hard when you know it’s the healthy, safe, and right thing to do for your kid.”

This, of course, is also true. Avoiding phones for as long as possible is essential to a child’s health and well-being because handing a phone to a young person — with unfettered access to social media, the internet, and constant connection — is disastrous for a young mind.

Many adult minds, too.

We probably knew this in our hearts long ago, but the research now proves it disastrously true.

The average age that a child is given a phone in the United States is, depending on the survey, 11 to 13,

Anecdotally, I can tell you that I know many ten-year-olds who own phones, and I know children as young as five who own one.

Having read “The Anxious Generation” and worked with the book’s researcher, I believe even more strongly about a mobile phone’s damaging impact on children. Every moment spent on a phone is a moment not spent in the real world.

We wonder:

Why don’t kids love books like they once did?
Why do many kids struggle with anxiety and stress?
Why do so many children and adults feel lonely?
Why do so many people feel disconnected from the world?

The answer, or at least one of them, is staring our children in the face all the damn time. It’s the tiny screen on their constantly connected phone. It’s the means by which phones have stolen away vast amounts of our children’s attention and interaction with the world.

And I understand:

It’s not always simple nor easy to keep a phone from your children when most of their friends and classmates own phones, but as a character in one of my novels once famously said:

“The hard thing and the right thing are often the same thing.”

That said, I have some advice for parents who want to navigate this phone-based culture:

First and most important, our kids are 16 and 12 years old, and neither owns a phone. Neither child has a social media account, nor do they post online or scroll through Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or anything else like it.

Actually, I have also never been on TikTok, and neither has Elysha. Elysha also does not use Instagram, and my IG use extends only to posting the occasional photo at the bequest of my publicist.

I treat Facebook similarly. Every morning, I re-post my blog to the platform and then walk away. Later in the day, when I’m standing in a line or waiting for something to start, I will check to see if I’ve pleased or annoyed people with my post and sometimes respond.

But that’s it. No scrolling. My time and life are too valuable to be spent scrolling through an algorithmically-designed social media feed designed to hold my attention and steal my time.

I post and walk away.

I promise you that we are the better for it.

But we’ve devised strategies that work well for our kids. These strategies allow them to remain connected to their friends without being exposed to the hazards of an unfettered phone in their pocket.

Here is what we have done:

Each child owns an iPad that operates on Wifi only. These iPads allow for texting, video calls, photography, and movie watching. There is no social media on either device, and they don’t work on the cellular network, so they can’t be used outside the home.

These iPads allow the kids to text and call their friends when they are home, which makes them akin to telephones of the past, which were affixed to a wall in the house by a cord and limited to the home.

When the kids leave the house, they are no longer connected to the internet or constant messaging from their friends, which is a glorious thing.

We also purchased a “house phone,” which is a cell phone that the kids can use when needed. For example, if one of our kids goes to a place where they want to take photos or videos, they can take the phone. If they need to contact us at some point for a ride or anything else, they can take the phone. This phone also does not contain social media apps of any kind.

It’s nothing more than a phone, texting, and photography device.

When not in use and not lost, this “house phone” remains in our possession.

But it’s also important to remember that nearly everyone on the planet has a phone in their pocket, so even when our kids don’t have this third phone with them, they can always contact us at any moment because everyone around them has a phone. The world is awash in phones, so all they need to do is ask to borrow a phone and call.

When I was a kid, I had to search for a payphone to call my parents. Today, nearly every human being has become a phone booth.

This system has worked well. Our kids have never been exposed to TikTok, Instagram, or any other social media platform. When they leave the house, they rarely have a cell phone in their pocket and are more than likely to be walking around with a book or a Rubik’s cube.

Honestly, they don’t mind very much. We made it clear early on that it would be a long time before they ever received a phone, thus setting the expectation early and making it consistently and abundantly clear. Both kids have also told us that they see social media’s impact on their friends and want nothing to do with it.

Charlie actually gets angry when we’re eating in a restaurant, and he sees a family of four at an adjacent table, all staring at phones.

It happens all the time.

“We’re cooked!” he’ll say, and he’s not wrong.

I’ve also had many former students—teens and college kids—visit me and talk about the negative impact of social media and constant contact with friends on their lives. Quite a few of them describe going on a “phone diet” and removing themselves entirely from social media.

I have spoken to my own students similarly. I tell them that I don’t scroll through any social media feeds and am absolutely, positively happier and more productive for it. Somewhere in the future, I will never think:

“Boy. I really missed out on a lot by not scrolling through TikTok or Instagram.”

My hope is that this new generation of young people will be like some of my former students who have seen the error of their ways. The last thing I want for them — or any human — is to spend time staring at tiny screens while life passes them by.

Resolution update: March 2025

Every month, I record my progress on my yearly goals to hold myself accountable and occasionally seek help and advice from readers willing to offer insight, ideas, and solutions.

Here are my results from March.

PERSONAL FITNESS/ATHLETICS

1. Don’t die.

A tube in my ear has dislodged — yes, I’m a grown-ass man with tubes in his ears — so I lost my equilibrium and dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, nearly landing on one of my students, but she was in more danger of serious injury than me.

2. Lose 10 pounds.

I lost two pounds in March. Three overall.

3. Do a targeted push-up workout at least four times per week. 

Done.

4. Complete 100 sit-ups four times per week. 

Done.

5. Complete three one-minute planks four times a week.

Done. Planks are super boring.

6. Cycle for at least five days every week. 

I completed 28 rides in March. Two were actually outdoors as the weather is finally starting to improve.

7. Try at least three new vegetables I have never eaten before or do not like. 

No progress. Does anyone want to suggest a vegetable?

8. Get a DEXA Scan and VO2 Max test at least once in 2025.

Local facility identified. The appointment will likely happen in the summer.

9. Lower my handicap to 19.9. 

I took four golf lessons in March, and my progress is excellent. So many new things to master.

As temperatures warm, an actual round of golf is in my near future.

WRITING CAREER

10. Complete my eighth novel.

It’s begun! Only about 500 words, but the race is on!

11. Write, edit, and revise my golf memoir.

No progress.

12. Write my “Advice for Kids” book.

Solid progress. Closing in on completion.

13. Write/complete at least three new picture books, including one with a female, non-white protagonist.

No progress.

14. Write about my childhood in partnership with my sister, Kelli, at least once per month. 

No progress.

15. Write a new solo show.

Work continues. I have an outline of the show and am now working on the stories, jokes, and transitions. I am sending material to my director for review.

16. Submit at least three Op-Ed pieces to The New York Times for consideration.

No progress.

17. Write at least four letters to my father.

I sent my father a birthday card.

One letter so far this year.

18. Write 150 letters.

A total of 12 letters were written in March to neighbors, students, the parents of students, colleagues, and my daughter’s principal.

A total of 70 letters have been written in 2025 so far.

19. Write to at least six authors about a book I love. 

No progress.

STORYTELLING/SPEAKING CAREER

20. Launch a new Homework for Life app.

The design is complete. Building has begun. I feel so lucky to have found such an ingenious, passionate, brilliant partner and friend to make this happen.

21. Record and publish at least 25 videos to my YouTube channel.

Four videos were posted in March. A total of seven posted so far in 2025.

Thanks to my production manager, my YouTube channel is really taking off.

Subscribe here.

22. Perform a new solo show.

Dates have been locked in: May 4 and 5 at TheaterWorks in Hartford.

Purchase tickets here.

23. Revise my free Storyworthy Academy.  

Done. Thanks primarily to the work of my partner and production manager, we have an outstanding free academy for anyone who wants to learn more about storytelling.

Check it out at storyworthy.com.

24. Record and produce at least three new Storyworthy courses.

Courses have been determined. Recording begins soon.

25. Produce a total of six Speak Up storytelling events in 2025.

No shows were produced in March.

We have produced two shows in 2025:

January 11 at the Connecticut Museum for History and Culture.February 7 at District in New Haven.

Our next show is slated for May.

26. Submit pitches to at least three upcoming TEDx events, hoping to be accepted by one.

No progress.

27. Attend at least eight Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended two Moth StorySLAMs in March.

A total of three Moth events in 2025.

28. Win at least one Moth StorySLAM.

Done! I won my 62nd Moth StorySLAM in March.

29. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

No Moth GrandSLAM opportunity yet.

30. Pitch “You’re a Monster, Matthew Dicks” or my new show to six theaters in 2025. 

No progress.

31. Produce at least 24 episodes of our podcast Speak Up Storytelling.

No progress.

32. Perform stand-up at least six times. 

No progress in March.

I’ve performed stand-up once in 2025.

33. Pitch three stories to This American Life.

No progress.

34. Submit at least three pitches to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.

No progress.

35. Send a newsletter to readers at least 50 times. 

Five newsletters were sent in March.

I’ve sent 21 newsletters in 2025.

HOME

36. Organize the basement.

A smidgen of progress. Some additional items have been thrown away. I’m going to need Elysha’s assistance to complete this project.

36. Clear the garage of unwanted items.

Large items that were added in January are now gone via donation and the trash. We need a purchase a shed to remove most of the remaining items.

37. Replace our backyard shed.

I attempted to look at sheds last Sunday, but apparently, shed retailers are closed on Sunday afternoons.

38. Get the hardwood floors refinished.

The estimate was obtained, and work is scheduled for June.

FAMILY/FRIENDS

39. Travel to Europe.

Waiting on possible speaking tour dates to Australia, Germany, and Portugal before we finalize European dates.

40. Text or call my brother or sister once per month. 

Done.

41. Bring my brother, sister, and me together at least twice in 2025.

No progress.

42. Take at least one photo of my children every day.

Except for days when I was away and unable to take the photograph, done.

43. Take at least one photo with Elysha and me each week.

After two successful months, I only took one photo with Elysha and me in March.

44. Plan a reunion of the Heavy Metal Playhouse.

No progress.

45. I will not comment positively or negatively on the physical appearance of anyone except my wife and children to reduce the focus on physical appearance in our culture overall.

Done.

46. Surprise Elysha at least 12 times.

No surprise in March, that I can recall.

I’ve surprised Elysha three times in 2025:

A surprise birthday party on January 4Post Valentine’s Day flowersClever and amusing office supplies

47. Play poker at least six times.

I played poker twice with Charlie in March — both times using a video poker game on the plane.

I’ve also found a way to play poker online again if I so choose, though a live game is what I really want.

Two games of poker in 2025.

48. Spend at least six days with my best friend of more than 30 years.

No progress.

MUSIC

49. Memorize the lyrics to at least five favorite songs. 

No progress.

50. Practice the flute at least four times per week.

No progress.

MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTS

51. Host at least three dinner parties where I cook.

No progress.

52. Develop a course on self-confidence. 

Progress continues. Strategies are being collected, an instructional outline is being developed, and I’m interviewing people for thoughts and ideas.

53. Develop a list of strategies to help people deal with loneliness and produce it in some form.

I’ve begun writing a book on the subject based on the list of strategies I am developing.

This was a surprise to me and my literary agent.

54. Read at least 12 books.

I read two books in March:

”Miracle and Wonder” by Bruce Headlam and Malcolm Gladwell
“Revenge of the Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell

I’m currently reading:

”Factfulness” by Hans Rosling.

I’ve read 7 books thus far in 2025:

“Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara
“Schtick to Business” by Pete McGraw
”The Humor Code” by Pete McGraw
“Catching the Big Fish” by David Lynch
“Simply Said” by Jay Sullivan
”Miracle and Wonder” by Bruce Headlam and Malcolm Gladwell
“Revenge of the Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell

55. Finish reading TIME’s 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time. 

No progress in March.

I’ve read five additional books in 2025, bringing my total to 44 total books read off the list.

56. Edit our wedding footage into a movie of the day.

No progress. 

57. Digitize a pile of DVDs that contain dance recitals, plays, and other assorted moments from the past.

The material was sent out for digitization. I await its return.

58. Memorize three new poems.

I memorized “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost in March.

I’m currently memorizing “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer.

I’ve memorized the following poems in 2025 thus far:

“This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams
“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost

59. Post my progress regarding these resolutions on this blog and social media on the first day of every month.

Done.