Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 545

Gratitude journal: Gramps

Tonight I am grateful that Clara is able to spend as much time with her grandfather as she does. She loves the old guy, and he loves her right back.

Not every child is fortunate enough to grow up with a grandfather, and not every grandfather is willing to get down on his hands and knees and play with his grandchildren.

Clara's grandfather is quite a special guy.

Not perfect, mind you, but perfect when it comes to being a grandfather.

   

What kind of discount would you expect after a night like this?

Our plan:

Cancel the trip to the movie theater. Instead, enjoy a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant and then return to the hotel room for dessert and a pay-per-view movie in bed.

What really happened:

Enjoyed a nice dinner. I had the filet. Elysha had the salmon. 

Returned to the hotel room and attempted to order ice cream but was told by the kitchen staff that they had no ice cream, even though the bananas foster that we eventually ordered was comprised primarily of ice cream.

We still haven't figured that one out. 

Discovered that the television in our room was not receiving a signal. Called the front desk. Spent the next 90 minutes with an engineer who attempted to repair the TV before replacing it entirely. At one point there were two engineers in the room working on the job, and at another point, I was asked to hold up the television while the engineer mounted it to the wall bracket.

After 90 minutes, which would have been the duration of our movie, the television still did not work. We finally sent the engineer away, defeated and dejected.

This was to be our last hurrah in New York City before the birth of our second child, and while most of the day went exceedingly well, it certainly ended on a sour note. 

At 8:00 this morning, a smoke alarm in the hallway began beeping. It awoke Elysha, who was unable to go back to sleep. It has beeped on and off for more than an hour now.

What kind of discount should we expect today when we check out?

Keep in mind that a very cute, very pregnant woman will be presenting our case.

Times Square: The place that New Yorkers love to hate

I get annoyed when I hear New Yorkers complain about Times Square, which they seem to do a lot.

Yes, it's crowded, and yes, tragically, many of the people crowding the streets are not New Yorkers, so they are not nearly as enlightened as the rest of you. They look up a lot. They pose for photographs in front of things that you find benign and commonplace. They crowd street corners and fail to act quickly when the light changes. They wear colors other than gray and black.

I know. It's terrible. Inexcusable, really.

But three things:

1. You have chosen to live in the most densely populated location on planet Earth. Complaining about the crowds in Times Square just makes you sound stupid and pretentious.

2. All of those people are bringing dollars to your city. They support your vibrant theater district and fill your hotel rooms and eat in your restaurants and buy your hats and tee shirts. Cities would kill for the kind of tourism that Times Square promotes.

3. It's not nearly as bad as you want us to think you think it is. Not even close. 

Get over yourselves. 

Budo and company are well traveled

One never knows where your book is going to land after it is published.

This week a reader sent me a link to an online bookstore in Dubai where MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND has cracked their bestseller list at number 10.

And then there's this photo of my book, taken in an airport in Singapore.

It's strange and wonderful to think my characters are traveling to places I will probably never see.

Gratitude journal: The benefits of dragging a pregnant woman around the city with you

It is remarkable how much more patient and kind people will be to you when you are holding the hand of your pregnant wife.

Valets smile and try to be more helpful.

Hotel rooms get upgraded to the finest available.

Desk clerks send complimentary plates of fruit and water up to your room with a cute little card featuring a stick-figure drawings of a pregnant woman.

Cab drivers patiently wait as your wife says goodbye to her parents and sister.

Waiters are decidedly more attentive.

Tonight I am thankful to the dozen or so New York City service personnel who treated us like fragile little birds today.

Elysha's back hurts like hell, but at least we're getting something out of it. 

Our little scientist!

  

Davy Jones no more. And youre next.

I can't explain it, but watching this video makes me feel so sad.

Watching someone with so much life ahead of him and knowing that it has now come to an end. That it was always going to come to an end. That his life had but one singular direction. Straight into the grave.  

Knowing that the men off-camera who are speaking to Jones are probably dead, too. That every item in that office; the desk, the pictures on the walls, the arm chair, the curtains, the telephone, no longer exist. And being reminded that the objects that we treasure will someday, much sooner than we think, become valueless and cease to exist as well. 

It saddens me to look at someone with so much future ahead of him and be reminded about how time inexorably grinds away at everything. To see such vitality and hope ruined by death, and to know that the people and things that populate my life will someday cease to exist as well, and then, eventually, will be forgotten as this world is replaced by another.

All that from a one minute audition video. 

Great way to start a Saturday. Huh?

Gratitude Journal: This guy

I don't think anyone should spend the exorbitant shipping costs to have my new book, MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, sent from the UK or Australia to the US.

The book is coming out in America in August. That's only six months away. 

Besides, the UK version of the book is slightly different than the United States edition. Language was changed to better suit slight differences in British vocabulary.

Not many changes, but some.

So just wait, my American friends. While I am honored and humbled by your anxious support, the book will be in a store near you soon enough.

Or you can preorder it from any retailer that sells books. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or best of all, go to IndieBound and preorder from your local, independent bookstore. Preorders are great for authors.

Publishers love those sales already in the bank.

So when an American reader who I only know through social media is excited enough to order the book from the UK and have it shipped to his home in the United States despite the expense, I think that's pretty special. 

And when that reader photographs his newly-arrived book, still resting on its bed of bubble wrap, and sends the image to me, I think that's pretty amazing.

That's what I'm grateful for tonight:

Readers who go out of their way to support authors and make them feel exceptionally fortunate to have them on their side.  

I won another Moth StorySlam, and this time my wife deserves all of the credit.

On Wednesday night I won The Moth's StorySlam at The Bell House in Brooklyn. The theme of the night was Theft, and I told a story about stealing shoes when I was nineteen years old.

I'll order a video recording of my performance and eventually post it and all of my previous Moth performances on a YouTube channel for you to see.

In July of last year, I competed in and won my first Moth StorySlam, and I was ecstatic. Beyond excited. It was one of those moment you never forget. My feet didn't touch the ground for days.

Last night marked the third time I have competed in a StorySlam, and the excitement over winning was at least equal to my first victory, if not greater. I couldn't be more thrilled. Nothing will bother me for days. 

Sometime this summer, at a date still to be determined, I will have the honor of competing in another Moth GrandSlam championship.

I can't wait.  

And I learned an important lesson from my performance on Wednesday night:

My wife always knows best.

Unfortunately, I had about five stories that I could have told that would have matched the the theme of Theft perfectly, and that didn't even include the three stories in which I was the victim. I had stories of petty theft, grand larceny, embezzlement, theft for the sake of a prank and more. I have a theft story that actually includes an arrest and prosecution, complete with trial and acquittal. 

But right form the start, Elysha told me to tell the Kid Shoes story. I considered using that story briefly but then dismissed it, thinking it lacked the gravitas I desired. Instead, I decided to tell a story about a time when I was forced to misrepresent myself as a charitable worker in order to acquire the proceeds needed to get home.

I'm being deliberately vague because I still may use this story someday.

But the problem with the story is that it was too long. When I first wrote and spoke it, it was ten minutes long, twice as long as allowed at a StorySlam. In the week I spent preparing the story, I began cutting out unnecessary material, eventually getting it down to the five minute limit. 

That was the story I was going to tell when I awoke on Wednesday morning.

But as I began running through the story in my mind during lunch on Wednesday, something felt wrong. Too many of the pieces of the story were now missing, and though the audience wouldn't know that the story has been edited and condensed, I knew, and it felt as if I had stripped the story of its heart.

My wife had read the story earlier in the week, and her reaction wasn't sitting well with me, either. She liked the story, but the enthusiasm that she usually has for my work was not there, and I knew it. 

So about eight hours before the StorySlam, I decided to forgo a week of preparation and switch to the Kids Shoes story, as she had originally suggested. During my lunch hour, I wrote the story as quickly as possible and then began running through it in my mind, editing and revising on the fly. I told the story aloud just twice before the StorySlam: once in the car for my friend, Shep, who accompanied me to the show, and once in a McDonald's in Brooklyn so that I could time the story and ensure that I was under the five minute limit.

And it worked. Though the story was not nearly as prepared as the first one, the great thing about The Moth is that you're always telling a true story, so it's not as if you can forget the details. The story may not come out as eloquently as you'd hope, but it's not as if you will get lost along the way.

It was a great honor to win on Wednesday night, as I ended up competing against some of my favorite Moth storytellers, men and women who are considerably more experienced and skilled than me. I squeaked out a win by a tenth of a point, but there were two or three other stories from that night equally deserving of victory. 

I owe my win to my wife, who always seems to know best, and who I try to listen to whenever I can.

I'll just listen a little harder and a little sooner next time.

Gratitude journal: Simplicity

Tonight I am grateful that my daughter, Clara, requires so little to be happy.

I know this will not always be the case, so I am trying to enjoy it now before the world gets much more complicated.

I treasure moments like these.