Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 448

Sentimentality has its benefits.

I’m not a sentimental person when it comes to physical objects. I rarely attach meaning to things, even when given to me for specific reasons and by specific people.

Truthfully, I rarely recall how or where I acquired a possession. While my four year-old daughter can often tell me the origin of  each of her toys and much of her clothing, I can’t come close to doing so with almost everything I own. I often can’t recall if I purchased an item or it was given to me as a gift.

My wife could not be more dissimilar to me in this regard. She comes from a home where nothing was ever thrown away, which I would find mind-numbing, except that she can now watch our children play with toys that she adored as a child. My daughter loves playing with those toys, and presumably my son will, too.

I can’t begin to imagine what that must feel like.

To be able to give your daughter your favorite childhood stuffed animal when her tummy is upset, as she did recently, must be amazing.

I think there is a lot of benefits to avoiding attaching meaning to physical objects. The ability to dispose of items that have ceased to have value in your life is liberating. I’m convinced that my ability to eliminate clutter from my life makes me more efficient. I’m also rarely upset when one of my possession is damaged or destroyed.

But all of this may pale in comparison to a moment like this, when your daughter is cuddling with the same teddy bear that you cuddled with as a child. 

Resolution update: August

In an effort to hold myself accountable, I post the progress of my yearly goals at the end of each month on this blog. The following are the results through August.

1. Don’t die.

Still good.

2. Lose ten pounds.

Still down ten pounds for the year. I’m attempting to lose another ten pounds during the second half of 2013 but have not made any progress on this secondary goal yet.

3. Do at least 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups five days a day.  Also complete at least two two-minute planks five days per week.

Done.

4. Launch at least one podcast.

In addition to the equipment being ready, I think we may have found a producer as well. I hope to finalize details in September.

5. Practice the flute for at least an hour a week.

I can’t find the flute. Not in my car. Not in my classroom. This will hinder the completion of this goal considerably

6. Complete my fifth novel before the Ides of March.

7. Complete my sixth novel.

The first 20,000 words will be sent to my agent on Tuesday. With any luck, we should be able to sell this book and possibly the next book soon. I am still on target to actually finish the manuscript by the end of the year.

8. Sell one children’s book to a publisher.

I will send at least one of the manuscripts to my agent by the end of September, which I also said last month and the month before.

9. Complete a book proposal for my memoir.

This one is tricky.

I finished a memoir this month. It is in the hands of my agent.

It is not the memoir that I planned on writing when I set this goal. Instead, it is a memoir of a summer spent on the golf course. It’s an accidental memoir. I did not plan on writing it, and then I wrote it. In addition to completing the book, I have also done the work required to draft a book proposal. In terms of this goal, one memoir is complete. 

Work on the proposal for my originally intended memoir continues. I plan on completing this by the end of the year as well.   

10. Complete at least twelve blog posts on my brother and sister blog.

No posts published in August. We remain one post away from reaching our goal. It is my turn to write a post, so I hope to meet and exceed this goal in September.

11. Become certified to teach high school English by completing two required classes.

I remain one class and an inexplicable $50 away from achieving certification. Since I have no intention of leaving my elementary school within the next two years, this goal has taken a bit of a backseat to others. I may not complete the final course in 2013 depending on when it is offered.

12. Publish at least one Op-Ed in a newspaper.

I have now published three pieces in the Huffington Post and one in Beyond the Margins. Nothing in an actual newspaper yet.

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

I attended three Moth events in August, bringing my total to fourteen. I completed in two of the StorySLAMs, placing first in both and running my consecutive winning streak to four.

My name was not drawn from the hat at the most recent event.

14. Locate a playhouse to serve as the next venue for The Clowns.

The script, the score and the soundtrack remain in the hands of a New York City playhouse. 

15. Give yoga an honest try.

No progress.

16. Meditate for at least five minutes every day.

I missed 6 days in August because of days when my son awoke before I had a chance to meditate.

17. De-clutter the garage.

I have been told that the remaining furniture will be removed soon.

18. De-clutter the basement.

Work continues, albeit at a glacial pace.

19. De-clutter the shed

Work ceased on this project in August. I’d love to think that it will begin again in September, but with the month ahead, that is hard to imagine. 

20. Reduce the amount of soda I am drinking by 50%.

I will begin recording my soda intake today. My first glass of Diet Coke is sitting to my left. 

21. Try at least one new dish per month, even if it contains ingredients that I wouldn’t normally consider palatable.

I tried a new cheese in August that Elysha did not think I would enjoy. I did.

22. Conduct the ninth No-Longer-Annual A-Mattzing Race in 2013.

No progress.

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

Done.

Best prank ever

I pride myself on some outstanding pranks over the years. True moments of embarrassment and surprise perpetrated on my closest friends and colleagues.

Nothing has ever come close to this. This is truly the greatest prank I have ever seen and probably ever will see.

Every Daddy’s dream

A smiling, little boy with a golf club in hand, wearing an RJ Julia Booksellers tee-shirt and riding a fire truck.

Perfection in its purest form.

Unbridled enthusiasm

I’m always a little excited about the new school year, but that excitement is always tempered by the fact that it spells the end of my summer vacation.

This is apparently not the case for my daughter, who just began her last year of preschool  (though in fairness, she only had a week of vacation, so perhaps the transition was a little less jarring).

So close to joy!

Can you believe this? So close to losing. So close to deserved heartbreak.

So close to unbelievably joyous schadenfreude.

Left handers rejoice! Ink smears be gone!

My friend (and fictional character), Mrs. Gosk, has a tradition of giving me a new pen at the onset of every new school year.

This year she has outdone herself, introducing me to a product that I did not know existed. 

 

To think that I could’ve spent my childhood free of the smear of ink that could always be found on the side of my left hand.  

Kids have it so good these day.

I still want my $25,000 back, damn it.

George Zimmerman has asked that the state of Florida to reimburse him for up to $300,000 for expenses he incurred while successfully defending himself in court after shooting and killing Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman has a good chance at recouping these losses. Florida law requires the state to cover some legal costs for defendants who are acquitted.

For anyone who was appalled by the verdict, the idea that George Zimmerman will now be collecting taxpayer funds in order to reimburse his expenses will not go over well.

As appalling as I found the Zimmerman verdict to be, I was not upset by this news. Rather, I was thrilled to hear that the state of Florida has a law like this in place.

When I was 21 years old, I was arrested and tried for a crime I did not commit. I was refused legal counsel from the state despite the fact that I would be unemployed and homeless just three weeks after my arraignment. I lost two years of my life working 18 hours a day in order to pay for my $25,000 in legal fees (more than $45,000 in today’s money) for something that I did not do.

When it was ultimately determined that I was not guilty, I was sent on my way without so much as an apology.

Like many people, I was outraged at the idea that George Zimmerman might be collecting taxpayer money, but I am not upset that a law like this is in place. When a defendant is truly innocent of any crime, it is only right that the state reimburse his or her expenses, especially if the state has refused to provide legal counsel in the first place.

Twenty years after my trial, I remain shocked that this was not the case. The state of Massachusetts disrupted by life for more than two years and imposed an enormous cost upon me, and there was no means for me to gain restitution for their error.

While it sickens me to think that George Zimmerman will likely be collecting money from the state to cover part of his legal defenses, these laws need to exist. There are defendants like myself who did nothing wrong, whose actions did not result in the loss of human life, who suffer financially for years as a result of a horror on the part of police officers and prosecutors.

I wrote about this issue and my personal situation in greater detail two years ago. I said it then, and I’ll say it again now:

I want my $25,000 back, damn it.

If you’re still upset about a forgotten wedding gift, the blame my lie in your genetic code.

From a New York Times piece entitled When You Can’t Forget the Gifts You Didn’t Get:

In the hierarchy of social transgressions, the wedding-gift omission, for some, is a sin of the highest order, the cause of relationship breakdowns and unwavering resentment.

“You could talk to a 98-year-old woman and she won’t be able to tell you what song she danced to at her wedding, but she can tell you who didn’t give her a gift,” said Jodi R. R. Smith, an etiquette expert in Marblehead, Mass., and consultant for the wedding industry.

The piece goes on to describe a handful of women who are angry and continue to hold grudges about wedding gift omissions, some from decades ago.

I have theory on these women and people similar to them:

Scientists have discovered that as a result of interbreeding hundreds of thousands of years ago, most of us have a little bit of Neanderthal DNA inside us. In fact, you can purchase a genetic test to determine exactly how much.

I’d like to go out on a limb and predict that someday scientists will also discover that human beings who fixate on a wedding gift omission have at least a little bit of pond scum DNA inside them as well.

Anyone who would allow the lack of a wedding gift to impact a relationship or even linger in the memory years after the big day has to be one of the basest, most materialistic, most petty persons on the planet. Can a person be so bereft of meaning in their life that something like a wedding gift omission is the thing they choose to remember long term?

Add to this the tunnel vision required to allow your name to be used in a piece like this. It takes a fairly pathetic person to harbor these feelings of anger about the lack of a wedding gift, but it requires a whole new level of stupidity to announce these vile and self-loathing thoughts to the world and a New York Times reporter.

Shortcomings and Flaws: 2013

A reader once accused me of being materialistic after I wrote about my lack of a favorite number, specifically criticizing me for saying that when it comes to my salary, my favorite number is the largest number possible.

You can read about that debate here if you would like.

After refuting the charges of materialism, I acknowledged that I had plenty of other shortcomings and offered to list them in order to appease my angry reader. I did. Then I added to the list when friends suggested that I had forgotten a few.

Nice friends. Huh?

So began an annual tradition of posting my list of flaws and shortcomings. Here is the revised list for 2013. I’ve added 7 items to the list, bringing my total to 29. In all honesty, most of the new items on the list have existed for a long time. Only the last two items have become pronounced enough over the previous year to warrant inclusion on the list.

Sadly, no item was removed from the list this year.

If you have a suggestion for a flaw or shortcoming that you do not see on the list, please feel free to submit it for review.

Matthew Dicks’s List of Shortcomings and Flaws

1. I have difficulty being agreeable even when the outcome means nothing to me but means a great deal to someone else.

2. I have a limited palate (though I would like to stress that this is not by choice).

3. I often lack tact, particularly in circumstances in which tact is especially important.

4. I am a below average golfer.

5. It is hard for me to sympathize with adults with difficulties that I do not understand, do not think are worthy of sympathy and/or are suffering with difficulties that I would have avoided entirely.

6. I have difficulty putting myself in another person’s shoes. Rather than attempting understand the person, I envision myself within their context and point out what I would have done instead.

7. When it comes to argument and debate, I often lack restraint. I will use everything in my arsenal in order to win, even if this means hurting the other person’s feelings in the process.

8. I do many things for the sake of spite.

9. I have an unreasonable fear of needles.

10. I become angry and petulant when told what to wear.

11. Bees kill me dead.

12. I am incapable of carrying on small talk for any length of time and become extremely irritable and uncomfortable when forced to do so.

13. I become sullen and inconsolable when the New England Patriots lose a football game.

14. I lack adequate compassion and empathy for adults who are not very smart or resourceful.

15. I can form strong opinions about things that I possess a limited knowledge of and are inconsequential to me.

16. Field of Dreams makes me cry every time without fail.

17. I am unable to make the simplest of household or automobile repairs.

18. I would rarely change the sheets on my bed if not for my wife.

19. I eat ice cream too quickly.

20. I procrastinate when it comes to tasks that require the use of the telephone.

21. I am uncomfortable and ineffective at haggling for a better price.

22. I am exceptionally hard on myself when I fail to reach a goal or meet a deadline, thus impacting my performance and creating a negative feedback loop that further hinders progress.

23. I take little pleasure in walking.

24. I cannot snap a onesie correctly.

25. Sharing food in restaurants annoys me.

26. I drink too much Diet Coke.

27. I forget my EpiPen far too often.

28. My hatred for meetings of almost any kind cause me to be unproductive, inattentive and obstructionist.

29. I have developed a tendency to express my displeasure or boredom with people through unconscious verbal exhalations and sighs.