Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 239

Resolution update: April 2018

PERSONAL HEALTH

1. Don’t die.

Healthy as could be. 

2. Lose 20 pounds.

Two more pounds lost in April, bringing my total to eight. 

3. Eat at least three servings of fruits and/or vegetables per day. 

I had three servings of fruits and/or vegetables on 24 of 30 days in April. 

A lot of these servings were admittedly fruit, and specifically bananas, apples, and grapes. Still, a fruit is a fruit. 

4. Do at least 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 3 one-minute planks for five days a week.

Done.

5. Identify a yoga routine that I can commit to practicing at least three days a week.

No progress.

6. Stop using the snooze button.

Done and highly recommended. 
Science is right. Snoozing is a terrible practice that you must end immediately.   

WRITING CAREER

7. Complete my seventh novel before the end of 2018.

My agent and I have settled on the next novel. Progress has begun. 

8. Complete my second middle grade/YA novel.

I've submitted my first middle grade novel to my editor and am awaiting word. I can't choose or start the next book until the first is complete. 

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

No progress. 

10. Write a proposal for a memoir.

My agent and I have decided upon the memoir, and progress has begun. 

11. Write a new screenplay.

No progress.

12. Write a musical.

The musical originally planned for a summer camp is no longer needed. I have an adult musical in mind that my writing partner has been asking me to write for a long, long time, so perhaps this is the time.

13. Submit at least five Op-Ed pieces to The New York Times for consideration.

I've submitted one piece for consideration in April, for a total of two. Both were rejected.

4. Write a proposal for a nonfiction book related to education.

No progress, though Elysha has told me what this book should be. 

15. Submit one or more short stories to at least three publishing outlets.

No progress.

16. Select three behaviors that I am opposed to and adopt them for one week, then write about my experiences on the blog.

No progress. I'm still looking for possible behaviors to adopt. Suggestions welcomed. 

17. Increase my author newsletter subscriber base to 2,000.

Twenty-one subscribers added in March. A total of 110 added since January 1. At this pace, I will come close to hitting my goal by December.  

If you'd like to subscribe to my newsletter and receive tips on writing and storytelling, as well as links to amusing Internet miscellany and more, please subscribe here:

Subscribe

Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates.

Email Address













Sign Up

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!

18. Write at least six letters to my father.

One letter written in April, bringing my total to two. 

19. Write 100 letters in 2018.

Eight letters written and mailed in April. Twenty-three in total so far. 

20. Convert Greetings Little One into a book.

No progress.  

21. Record one thing learned every week in 2018.

Done! My favorite from April:

Rouketopolemos is the name of a local traditional event held annually at Easter in the town of Vrontados on the Greek island of Chios. As a variation of the Greek custom of throwing fireworks during the celebration of the service at midnight before Easter Sunday, two rival church congregations in the town perform a "rocket war" by firing tens of thousands of home-made rockets across town, with the objective of hitting the bell tower of the church of the other side. 

It's insane. 

STORYTELLING

22. Produce a total of 12 Speak Up storytelling events.

No shows produced in April. Our 2018 total stands at two. 

23. Deliver a TEDx Talk.

Both of my TEDx Talks - at Wesleyan University and The Birch Wathen Lenox School in New York City - have been cancelled.

Annoying.

I've applied for two more TEDx conferences and await word. Suddenly this goal became a lot more challenging.    

24. Attend at least 15 Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended a Moth GrandSLAM in Boston in April, bringing my total Moth events in 2018 to three. I'll make up ground this summer.  

25. Win at least three Moth StorySLAMs.

I won my 35th StorySLAM in NYC in February. I have not competed in a StorySLAM since.
One down. Two to go. 

26. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

Done twice over! I won my fifth GrandSLAM in February and my sixth GrandSLAM in April.

27. Produce at least 25 episodes of our new podcast Storyworthy. 

Logo created.
Format decided.
Music chosen.
Stories chosen. 
We are ready to record.

28. Perform stand up at least four times in 2018. 

I performed in at an open-mic night at a local comedy club in April, bringing my total stand up performances in 2018 to one. 

29. Pitch my one-person show to at least one professional theater.

No progress.  

30. Pitch a new Moth Mainstage story to the artistic director of The Moth. 

No progress.  

NEW PROJECTS

31. Write a syllabus for a college course on teaching. 

No progress, but I am frustrated, annoyed, and disappointed by developments with a local college in terms their curriculum for student teachers, so I'm doing a lot of thinking on this issue. 

32. Cook at least 12 good meals (averaging one per month) in 2018.

No progress. 

33. Plan a 25 year reunion of the Heavy Metal Playhouse.

No progress. 

MISCELLANEOUS

34. Pay allowance weekly.

Done! 

35. Ride my bike with my kids at least 25 times in 2018.

No progress. But the weather is finally ripe for bike riding. 

36. I will report on the content of speech during every locker room experience via social media in 2018. 

Done. I spent 24 days at the gym (including the locker room) in April, and I did not hear a single comment related to sexually assaulting women.  

37. I will not comment, positively or negatively, about physical appearance of any person save my wife and children, in 2017 in an effort to reduce the focus on physical appearance in our culture overall. 

Done. Also not hard. Once you stop commenting on physical appearance, you quickly realize how pervasive it is in our culture.

I've also noticed that when you stop commenting about physical appearance, you stop noticing it as much. While there are occasional comments that I think but don't say (a very large man on a very small motorcycle comes to mind), those moments are fewer and farther between.  

38. Surprise Elysha at least six times in 2018.

I surprised Elysha once in April with a brand new blow dryer with some mystical qualities. She found it waiting for her on the bathroom sink when she awoke. 

Two down. Four to go. 

39. Replace the 12 ancient, energy-inefficient windows in our home with new windows that will keep the cold out and actually open in the warmer months.

I've received some more reasonable estimates for this project. It might actually be doable.     

40. Clean the basement. 

I threw away another handful of items in April in preparation for a full cleaning later this year.

The actual cleaning might take less than an hour at this rate.  

41. Set a new personal best in golf.

I played several rounds of golf in April, including in the rain on Sunday morning. 

None of my rounds have come close to eclipsing my personal best. 

42. Play poker at least six times in 2018.

For the fourth time this year, a poker game was cancelled, this time in the home of a friend when he became ill. A May poker night is planned. 

43. Spend at least six days with my best friend of more than 25 years.

No progress. I invited him to a Patriots-Green Bay football game in November, a Def Leppard-Journey concert in May, and standup in April. All declined.    

44. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.

These people exist, and I can't stand them.

There are few things I despise more than a person who attempts to use their authority, wealth, or privilege in order to procure unearned or undeserved favors or benefits, which is why this video so appalling to me. 

Though I believe that we should never judge someone by their worst moment, this particular moment (captured on video) is especially egregious. It's the kind of behavior that could only be perpetrated by someone who possesses a great deal of entitlement, elitism, and privilege.  

The number of times Port Authority Commissioner Caren Turner attempts to bully these police officers with her position, her residency, her ties to politicians, her children's Ivy League education, her law degree, and threats of retribution are unconscionable.   

Conversely, the police officers performed brilliantly. They were calm, professional, frank, and followed the rule of law. In case you're curious, the car was pulled over for overly-tinted windows and an obscured license plate and was then found to also be unregistered. 

It will come as no surprise after watching this video that Turner has already resigned her position at the Port Authority (a political appointment of former Governor Chris Christie) in the wake of an ethics probe.  

It may surprise you to learn that Turner chaired the Port Authority’s ethics committee.

It will also come as no surprise to learn that while Turner has issued an apology, she also asserts (in that same apology) that she did nothing wrong, and that the police need to do a better job in the future. She writes:

"As a long-time Tenafly resident, I have always taken an active role in the community, including working with law enforcement officials, and I encourage the Tenafly Police Department to review best practices with respect to tone and de-escalation, so that incidents like this do not recur."

I thought the police officers made heroic attempts to deescalate the situation while operating within the rule of law. The driver of the car was an adult and unrelated to Turner. The police offerers had no right to reveal the driver's legal standing to a third party.     

They did their job. Turner no longer has a job. As it should be. 

Before you worry about Turner making ends meet, fear not. This former commissioner of the Port Authority is also is chief executive of Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group Turner Government and Public Affairs. She's going to be fine.

Despicable and entitled and possibly facing ethics charges, but fine. 

She's studying volume.

I went to bed at 3:30 AM because Elysha went to bed early and didn't make me come to bed with her, so I stayed up all night writing and drinking A&W root beer.

Then Clara woke me up at 5:20 because she sleeps like her father, which is to say not much at all. She sat on my bedside, shook me awake and said, "Hey Daddy, we started a new math unit yesterday. Want to know what we're studying?"

I did not. I had been asleep for less than two hours at that point and had hoped to sleep until 6:30 AM. 

Not surprising, she told me anyway. 

It's 11:30 AM as I write this, and I'm a little tired, and it's all their fault.

Writing is already hard enough without this.

I'm trying to complete the revisions of my next adult novel, and it seems like at every turn, someone is hell bent on slowing my progress.

Last night it was the cats, Tobi and Pluto, choosing the space on the table directly in front of me to commence their battle.

How is a guy expected to get anything done with this to distract him?

I was probably typecast.

About a dozen years ago, I starred as the ogre in Plato Karafelis and Rob Hugh's children's musical Stone Soup at the Park Road Playhouse in West Hartford, CT.

Tonight the roles were reversed, and I had the pleasure of watching middle schoolers perform the musical while I was sitting in the audience alongside Elysha Dicks and our overly verbal, mistakenly participatory children.

At one point during the show, the ogre rhetorically asks why nobody likes her.

Charlie shouted out, "I love you!"

What a wonderful trip down memory lane to the many, many nights of rehearsals and weekends of shows that brought a small band of actors together for a short but unforgettable moment in my life.

More than a decade later, I could still sing all the songs, including my solo, and I remembered most of the lines. Had the girl playing the ogre been sick, I could've filled in admirably.

Sadly, I was made to be an ogre.

In fact, during our first performance way back when, I broke the third wall as I was directed me to during the first scene, running up to audience members and roaring my disapproval. But I was apparently too frightening, sending Plato backstage between scenes to calm me down.

"Kids are crying! A couple of them already left!"

I loved that. I still do. I loved all of it.

For a few months, the cast of Stone Soup were like family. That is one of the many beauties of the theater. Human beings comes together, relying wholly and completely on one another to do something hard and wonderful, and through that process, experience a trust and a harmony rarely seen outside the walls of a theater.

Thanks so much to my former cast mate Sara Demos Avery for getting me to the show tonight. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Philosophy explained. For real.

I'm not a philosopher by training, but I studied philosophy in college and have continued to pursue my study to varying degrees in my personal life.

This does not make me an expert.

But if I were to teach a class on philosophy on the high school or college level, I would use this board as both the syllabus and the final. It's a brilliant, succinct, and amusing summary of the general tenants of philosophy.

I love it so much. 

Run to The Moth. Allow stories to lighten your load.

Here is my suggestion:

Run to The Moth. On the radio, the podcast, or a live show. 

As you probably know, The Moth changed my life. It gave me a stage to tell stories. It provided me with a platform to be noticed. It opened the door to a new career. A bunch of new careers. Storyteller. Teacher. Consultant. Inspirational speaker. Producer. Most recently stand up comedian and the author of an upcoming book on storytelling.

In many ways, these careers (alongside my writing career) have allowed Elysha to stay home with the kids for these last nine years. For that, I will be eternally grateful.  

Seven years after telling my first story at a Moth StorySLAM in New York City, and after having traveled the country and the world, performing on stages and teaching and consulting with individuals, nonprofits, schools and universities, the clergy, hospitals, museums, and more, one of my favorite things in the world is still to go to a Moth StorySLAM, drop my name in the bag, listen to stories, and hope to be called. 

But even if your dreams do not include performing, I still say to run to The Moth. Listen to the podcast. Tune into The Moth Radio Hour. Go to a live show. The magic of The Moth (and excellent storytelling in general) lies not the opportunity to stand on a stage and perform but in the opportunity to listen to another human being tell a story and realize that you are not alone in this world.

Case in point:

On this week's Moth Radio Hour and podcast, Daniel Turpin tells a story tells a story about an encounter with a armed man that was eerily similar to my own experience in a McDonald's restaurant 25 years ago. Listening to the story triggered my PTSD and guaranteed me a long night of nightmares, but in listening to the story, I found another human being in this world who understood my experience. 

Suddenly I was not alone. 

Though I have spoken at length about my robbery, first to a therapist for years and then on a Moth Mainstage, there have always been parts of the story that have remained locked away. Aspects that I have never spoken about. Moments that I was still unwilling to admit. 

Included in those locked away parts was the guilt I have always felt about not fighting harder for my life. Not battling to the death and the dirt. The paralyzing fear and inexplicable surrender to men who I knew were about to kill me. 

This is the first time I have ever admitted to this to anyone, and it is because Daniel Turpin did so first. He spoke the words that were hidden away in my heart.  

Near the end of this story, Turpin says:

"I stared at the ceiling and I'd go back to that moment, that moment when he told me to get on my knees and feeling that gun press up against your head, that gun loaded with lethal possibility. And the sorrow that I felt, the shame of my inaction, its a guilt that doesn't go away. I couldn't under stand how I gave up on my life so effortlessly. 

But there was I was, kneeling on the floor. I wasn't pleading I wasn't struggling, I was waiting. Waiting for this stranger to kill me. People try to make you feel better. They say everything happens for a reasons. And I understand the sentiment, I do. But I don't agree with it. When they say that, it sounds like there's some arcane justification for senselessness. There's some cosmic fatalism at play. What I believe is that everything happens. And it's our job to give reason to it. To give reason to the inscrutable. 

I'm a little more suspicious today. Maybe a little more guarded, because moments like that - they shape you. They change you. You never forget them and that's the terrible beauty of the past. You remember the good and the bad."

I wept when I heard those words. Something hidden inside of me that I had thought was mine alone was suddenly less ugly. Less frightening. Less terrible. 

Daniel Turpin opened a door to my heart. I feel lighter today because of it. Less burdened. Happier. The anger, disappointment, and guilt over my surrender on that greasy floor on that terrible night is gone, not because anything in my past has changed, but because I feel less alone in the present.

Run to The Moth (and if you live in Connecticut, run to our show, Speak Up, too). Listen to stories. Open your heart. You'll feel better for it. 

Stop with the woke. You'll look just as clueless and horrible as everyone else someday.

I can't stand the notion of being woke. I can't stand the assertions of those who claim to be woke. 

For those of you fortunate enough to be unaware of this term, "woke" was originally used to describe a continuing awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice that came to widespread use as a result of Black Lives Matter.

This was good. It made sense. It's a fantastic call to action.

The term has since been co-opted by mainstream culture to refer to any situation where people should be more aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially but not specifically issues of racial and social justice).

While the idea of being more active and attentive to racial and social issues is also a very good one, the use of the word in many circles has come to imply new state of being. An enhanced level of social consciousness. A more evolved understanding of the injustices of the world.

I find this silly and annoying. The world has been evolving in this way since the dawn of time. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said:

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

The people who take so much pride in being woke today and see themselves as more evolved than previous generations will look as problematic as we did 25 years ago when restaurants featured no smoking sections, public buildings were not accessible to the disabled, we still used words like "midget" and "retarded," and I was riding in the way-back of my parent's station wagon, seatbelt-less and fancy free. 

Like ever previous generation, the woke of today will be the shame and ridiculousness of tomorrow. 

Bill Maher makes this point better than I can, so please watch, particularly if you are a person who takes pride in being woke. 

Live forever?

Every Friday, students and teachers in my school gather for an assembly called Town Meeting to celebrate children's voices.

Through writing, art, and song, kids share their work with hundreds of fellow students and parents. Part of this process is an interview with one of the writers, and one of the questions traditionally asked is, "If you could have any super power, what super power would that be?"

For twenty years, I have waited for a child to answer the question in the way I would answer the question, and last month, it finally happened. 

When a little girl was asked what her super power would be, she said, "I would live forever."

I happened to be the person emceeing Town Meeting at the time, so I was able to ask the young lady why she wants to live forever. Her followup response was just as brilliant:

"There's just so much I want to do. And never enough time."

Precisely. 

Somehow, this young lady understands the fleeting nature of time and its inherent, immense value, even at such a young age. While super powers like teleportation and super speed also hint at an understanding of the value of time, living forever (presuming you're living in such a condition to allow you to experience a full and complete life) demonstrates a wisdom beyond her years. It demonstrates a curiosity and a zest for life. A desire to do experiment. Experience. Try new things. 

I have a list of jobs I'd like to hold at some point in my life. The list looks like this:

Behavioral economist|
Bookstore owner
Therapist
Instructional coach
Attorney
Camp director
College professor
Financial analyst
CEO of Boy Scouts of America
Firefighter
Filmmaker
Newspaper columnist
Postal carrier
CEO of Girl Scouts of America
Professional poker player
Hot dog vendor at an MLB stadium
Bartender
Sociologist

I'll need half a dozen lifetimes to try all of these professions, and I'm adding to the list constantly. 

That little girl gets it. There's so much to do. 

 I was so impressed. So happy to find a child who thinks like me.

It only took 20 years.

Setting goals is almost always important, except in this case

After being tucked in for bed every night, our five year-old son, Charlie, sits in bed, reflecting on his day before assuming his customary and bizarre sleeping position (on his face) and going to sleep.

This is something he started doing on his own more than a year ago. One night, before the lights went out, he decided that it would be good to think back on this day and consider all that has happened.

Kind of remarkable.

Recently, he explained this to one of our babysitters as she was putting him to bed. She was impressed, too. "Do you think about tomorrow, too?" she asked.

"I can't," he said. "I don't know what we're doing tomorrow."

"Maybe you could set some goals for tomorrow," she replied. "Make some plans."

Charlie thought about it for a moment before answering, "I think I want to talk about poop more." 

And reader, as my wife, Elysha can attest, he did.

Just in case that his decision to be reflective each night made him sound like some soulfully advanced, hyper-mature kindergartener.  

Not so much.