Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 523

Curmudgeonly thinking

I loved this quote from a New York Times opinion piece by Oliver Burkeman, who has a book coming out entitled “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.”

You can try, if you insist, to follow the famous self-help advice to eliminate the word “failure” from your vocabulary — but then you’ll just have an inadequate vocabulary when failure strikes.

I have always preferred a healthy sense of realism (and even a little self-flagellation) over any power of positive thinking. 

My wedding vows

Last month, in conjunction with our upcoming anniversary, I shared some posts that I had written about our wedding in 2006. Those posts originally appeared on a blog that no longer exists, so I wanted to revisit them and share some of my favorites here. 

As a result, readers began asking me questions about our wedding, including what vows Elysha and I recited. Rather than using standard vows, Elysha and I wrote our own vows and kept them secret from one another until reciting them on our wedding day.

I asked Elysha if she wouldn’t mind me posting them here, and she has agreed.

Today I am posting the vows that I wrote for Elysha. Tomorrow I will post her vows to me.

_______________________________

I used to believe that life would be perfect when all my dreams came true, but then you came along
and I realized that I didn’t know what dreaming was.

Elysha Jaffee Green, you are more than a man could ever ask for
and more than I deserve.

I vow to spend every day of my life
giving you as much as you have given me.

I promise to remember the darkness before you
so that I will never forget the brilliance that you have brought to my life.

I promise to share everything that I have
and to try to give you everything you could ever want.

I promise to stand beside you,
hold your hand,
and be your strong and loving friend
through good times and bad.

I promise to always be the one to go into the basement at night
when the darkness frightens you,
to find you the best parking spots available,
and to shop with you and eat sushi no matter how much I despise both.

Most importantly, I promise to love you,
to love you like no man before,
with all of my heart and mind and soul,
until the end of these days and beyond.

My boy!

My father-in-law has somehow made my little boy look a lot older than his smidgen-over two months.

I swear he does not look this grownup yet in real life. 

Three packages arrived last week. Only one was creepy and sexually inappropriate.

On Friday the first copy of MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND arrived at my door, wrapped beautifully and accompanied by a note from my editor. It was the kind of note you tuck away into a box and save forever.

The mailman has been especially good to me lately.

Earlier in the week, I received two other interesting packages.

The first was my official title confirming my status as a Lord of the Principality of Sealand. It’s official. As soon as I have an actual office, I’ll be hanging this beauty up in a place where everyone can see it in hopes that they will start referring to me as Lord Dicks.

 

The second package contained a book that I couldn’t resist ordering after seeing it in a list of the Ten Worst Book Covers in the History of Literature. I was expecting the book to be silly and amusing, but it turned out to be creepy, cringe-worthy and overly-explicit. Sadly, I ‘m going to have to stuff it into a drawer in fear that someone might see it and think the worst.

It was clearly not written with the sense of humor needed to pull this kind of thing off.

In truth, I was hoping to order HOW TO AVOID HUGE SHIPS: SECOND EDITION first, but the cheapest copy on Amazon costs more than $100.

Prepare to cry

I will show this video to my students in hopes that it will have the same effect on them that it had on me:

It will remind them how fortunate they are and how much of a difference they can make in this world if they work hard. 

Maybe yoga isn’t such a good idea after all.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to give yoga an honest try.

After reading Lee Anne Finfinger’s The 10 things you’ll do once you start yoga (that have nothing to do with yoga), I’m not so sure that it’s a good idea anymore.

Here is her list along with some of my reaction.

Should I be worried?

________________________________

1.  At least once, you will force yourself to try to be vegan.

I’d starve to death within a month if I attempted to be vegan. 

2.  Your iPod will now include a heavy serving of Kirtan.

This would be reason enough to never attempt yoga.

3. You will pretend not to notice that your ass now fits in a size 6.

I don’t think this applies to me. Men’s clothing sizes actually match our  actual physical dimensions. In terms of pants, for example, I am a 33-30, meaning my waist is 33 inches and the length of my pants from groin to cuff is 30 inches.

Women use meaningless numbers like 6 or 8. When I have asked the reason behind this indecipherable numbering system, I have been told that the fashion industry uses amorphous numbers like 6 because women vary so much in shape that using actual dimensions would not be useful in determining fit.

This is nonsense, of course, since there was a time when actual measurements were used in women’s fashion. Also, a meaningless number like a 6 is not more helpful in terms of fit than actual physical dimensions.

This piece in Slate explains the history of this absurd system rather well.

Regardless, I doubt that I will have an thoughts in terms of my ass when I begin yoga.

4. You will go back to your natural hair color

Again, this does not apply to me. 

5. You’ll attempt to read The Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, or the Upanishads while your stack of fashion magazines calls to you from the next room.

Apparently The Yoga Sutras have nothing to do with sex, and I have no fashion magazines in any room whatsoever, so I don’t see this happening, either.

6. You will take a retreat.

A writer’s retreat? That might be nice, unless it involves picnic baskets and ping pong.

7. You’ll start taking photos of yourself in yoga poses. 

This would presumably require someone to take the photograph, and I don’t see my wife helping me out.

8. You will at some point wear mala beads.

I don’t wear jewelry of any kind.

9. You will become a cheap date.

I already am.

10. You’ll get over yourself. 

This seems like the least likely outcome of all.

Is my extreme honesty hurting myself or helping others?

Last week I posted a revised list of my flaws and shortcomings. It was the third time I have revised and posted the list. You can read about the reason I began writing and posting the list here if you are curious.

Every time I post this list, I receive responses from readers that fall into three categories:

A tiny percentage of the respondents criticize me based upon the list, essentially using it as a means of attacking my character.

The rest of the responses, and the great majority of them, are split evenly along two lines:

About half of my readers question the wisdom of listing all my shortcomings and flaws for the world to see. They point out that many of the items on the list make me look quite rotten, and as a result, this is not the kind of thing I should be sharing with the world, especially if I want readers to continue buying my books.

The other half thank me for sharing the list, expressing appreciation for my willingness to be so honest and finding comfort in the knowledge that their flaws are not unique. As one reader said, “It’s such a relief to know that I’m not the only person in the world who can be such a stinker.”

At its heart, this is a question of sharing versus oversharing. With the exception of the few who use my list in order to attack me or make assumptions about my overall character, the vast majority of the readers  who respond to the list seem to genuinely care about my wellbeing. Half of them simply believe that sharing this kind of information could hurt me, while the other half find the sharing of this information helpful to them.

As a result, I am left wondering how to feel.

Should I be concerned about what people (and potential readers) will think about me after reading the list, or should I be pleased that my list is helping people?

I’m not sure.

My mother soaked me in neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors as a child

When I was a boy, my mother would literally lock me and my brothers an sisters and me out of the house during the summer, only permitting entrance for lunch, which consisted of a slice of bologna and a dollop of catsup between two slices of Wonder Bread and a cup of Kool-Aid. Apples. Pears and peaches could be picked from the trees of my grandfather’s orchard next door if desired and if ripe enough.

If we got thirsty while locked outside, our parents instructed us to drink from the hose, so we did, in vast quantities for years. Eventually my parents bought an attachment to the outdoor spigot that converted it into a bubbler (a drinking fountain for all of you not from Massachusetts), but that came much later. I actually grew to love the taste of water from a garden hose, and I have been known to take a drink from it even today if given the chance.

All this explains why my day was ruined when I read a story about the dangers of drinking from a garden hose in TIME:  

Research released by the Ecology Center, which tested water coming from standard garden hoses and found that it can contain lead, endocrine disruptors and neurotoxins, especially in older hoses.

If my mother was alive today, I would be on the phone with her right now, complaining that I could have been an astrophysicist or a cardiac surgeon if not for all the lead, endocrine disruptors and neurotoxins that she forced me to consume as a child.  

I’d also point out to her that this would technically be the second time in my life that she attempted to poison me. When I was two years old, she tried to kill me with a bottle of paregoric as well.

Thankfully I cannot be killed. It’s my super power.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend is here!

 

Revised list of shortcomings and flaws

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 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?

I also stated that I would return to the list from time to time in order to ensure I had nothing new to add. I recently examined my list and found that both revision and additions were required.

Here is my new list:

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 people in 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 when forced to do so.

13. I become sullen and sometimes 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.