Public Radio

So, I’m famous now. I had a radio piece of mine appear on the local NPR affiliate, WUNC. Check it out here: Carolina Connection. I come on with a piece about facial hair around the mid-way point. It’s taken me a while to get on public radio.

Pyro

Fire is awesome. It’s hot and bright and different colored and always in motion. It can warm cold hands and cook hunks of meat. I started really liking fire in middle school.

Brother

Thanksgiving is this week. I don’t really remember any epic Thanksgiving stories. I remember planning on going to my Grandparents’ place one year, but my Dad turned the minivan around after 4-5 hours on the road. The heavy traffic meant we didn’t even get to cross the state line. Though, that might have been July 4th. Mostly, Thanksgiving means family coming together and reverting back to old habits while trying to behave well for each other. I’ll be arriving home mid-week, but my brother, Mark, went home today for a dentist’s appointment because his front tooth fell out again.

Tupperware

I almost always cook too much food. I cook knowing that I’m going to have leftovers, and I generally cook with a plan for what to do with the leftovers later in the week. If I’m going to spend a lot of time preparing a meal, I might as well get the chance save time later. I made a couple gallons of chickpea and leek soup over a month ago. I’ve got one last container waiting in the freezer for me. But there was a time when tupperware wasn’t just for leftovers.

Epic Poo

The subject of this post is pretty off-color, but it came about in an honest enough manner. My girlfriend is watching the late ’70s movie, “Ice Castles” on Netflix. She’s watched all of the good films available for streaming and has now resorted to scraping the bottom of the barrel. In the movie, [Spoiler Alert!] the heroine is a young, hot-shot figure skater. Then she cheats on her boyfriend. Then she falls down, hits her head, and is blinded. Naturally, everything works out in the end.

Laundry

The weather is getting cooler. I put on jeans for the first time yesterday and followed suit today. I’ll probably do the same tomorrow, too. Not even because it’ll probably be cold, though, but because they’re already worn. I used to wash my clothes a lot. Probably too often. Now I’ve got the opposite problem.

Halloween

Halloween is this coming weekend. When I was a kid, it was all about dressing up, staying out late, and eating too much candy. Now that I’m older, it’s pretty much the same.

Old Fleece

It’s getting cold in North Carolina. The leaves are just starting to change color. The air conditioner has been off for a while, and the heater will probably go on within the next few weeks. When I was a kid, my friends and I would have competitions around this time of year, seeing who would be the last one to make the switch from shorts to pants. Dan would always win, but I did fairly well myself. I’m still planning on wearing shorts some this week, but I already caved in and put on pants earlier this month. My gray fleece has also been added to my wardrobe. I used to have this green one, but it fell into disrepair.

Facial Hair

I’m growing a beard. My girlfriend is away on a research trip, and I’m growing a beard. It’s pretty fantastic, though I’ll probably be shaving it off in the next few days. I’m not (completely) whipped; I just like growing facial hair every once in a while. It’s manly. There was this guy in middle school who had a beard and drove to school. He was manly. And scary. I mostly stayed away from him. But I, too, grew facial hair in middle school.

New Orleans

I attended a sociology conference in New Orleans this past year. I had never been and was excited to check out the city, but I passed up an opportunity to see the “real” New Orleans when it was offered to me.