Category Archives: Personal

Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal, Relationships, Romance, Social Rules

I Paid It Forward

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Hey guys, I probably changed a couple of people’s lives tonight. Really.

Recently, someone surprised me with a kindness. It gave me a little breathing room. I can’t think about it without feeling like I owe the universe a big hug.

Because I had already worn myself out exercising, I left the apartment to visit my local inconvenience store. Today was a light day: I had 20,000 steps without taking a “walk.” I don’t get bored, but I do miss the interaction with people sometimes. This evening was one of those times. As I stood near the case of odd corndogs and snacks, a pretty young lady stood at the counter, vainly attempting to get her visa card to work. The clerk was showing her a video of his puppy. It was apparent that both of them were doing the dance of interest, even as the young lady became frustrated. “Try the card again,” the clerk told her. She tried twice more to prepay $10 in gas.

I interrupted them both and said, “Ma’am, I’ll pay for your $10 in gas. In fact, let’s make it $20 if your car holds it. We’ve all been there.” She looked at me in wide-eyed surprise. I pointed at the clerk, “He would want me to.” The clerk smiled a huge smile, realizing that I had shifted my surprise act of generosity to him.

The young lady almost started crying. “That is so nice of you!” I thought she was going to hug me. “Yes, my car will hold $20 of gas. It’s basically on empty.”

I thought of all the times I was poor or needed help. Her wide-eyed features and noticeable relief and gratitude rendered me a bit floorless.

“Then have a great night and pay it forward. It’s really okay.” I smiled at her. She smiled at me, then smiled at the clerk, who watched it unfold. It’s hard to describe how beautiful that smile was, as she reacted to a total stranger giving her such a gesture.

When she exited, the clerk shook my hand and introduced himself. “Ryan,” he said. “That was really cool of you.”

I introduced myself too and then showed him my ID. People often don’t believe my name is X. “Whoa, that’s cool!”

I told him, “You ought to ask her out. She already thinks I paid for her gas because you’re a nice guy. You’re halfway there.”

He smiled, “Yeah, I’ve been wanting to ask her out for quite a while.”

Y’all know me, so you know I couldn’t leave it there.

“Then ask her out,” I said. “It’s obvious she likes you. I’m 54. I’m telling you that you should take 100% of the shots you want when you’re young. The worst that could happen is she’ll say no. The best is that you will have a great story to tell about how you got the nerve to ask her out. Me.”

The clerk said, “That’s some wisdom right there. Thank you.”

We both laughed as I grabbed my bag of Cheetos Puffs and left.

As I started the car, I decided to forget the rules of life and social etiquette. I rolled down my window (yes, my car has actual rollers) and drove over near the white car at the gas pumps. The young lady looked over at me.

“I know this is awkward, but the clerk likes you and has wanted to ask you out for quite a while. He’s a great guy. Have a great night, young lady.”

She smiled so big that I thought her face might shatter. “Thanks! And thank you.”

I drove away, glad that I’d decided to leave the apartment for a dumb snack. And ignored the ridiculous social expectations of perhaps going too far. I can thank Lexapro for making me more “me.” Where life and love are concerned, there is no step too far.

I was glad I’d been able to help someone randomly.

I was glad that someone had helped me to be able to.

And that it was likely that the clerk and the young lady with the defunct visa card might be able to overcome the ridiculous shyness and distance that so often separates people who are interested in one another. There is no reason for such attraction not to find purchase in people’s lives.

Somehow, I think they will.

And I love that I might be at the nexus of their story, however it unfolds.

More than that, though, I would love for them both to take a risk and find out how their mutual interest might blossom.

What a life.

Thank you, universe, and thank you, kind souls who made it possible.

I’ll say a little prayer for love, for kindness, and for humanity.

And for Ryan and the nameless pretty young lady who needed a little bit of help tonight.

Love, X

Animals, Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal, Uncategorized

Max & Max Sr. Or Vice Versa

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Another interesting person who I don’t know by name laughs because I call him Max Sr. I did ask him his name but due to the nickname I gave him, I can’t recall what it is now. And that’s okay, as you’ll understand after reading this.

I started seeing him at random times on the trails near work, especially at odd, early hours of the morning. The first few times, we exchanged casual greetings. Each time, I noticed his voice was louder and a bit more friendly. It’s obvious that Max Sr. is a kind, gentle soul who probably doesn’t get to talk to as many people as he once did.

The truth is I wanted to pet his cute 3-year-old dog the first time I saw it. It politely barked at me the first time I passed him and Max Sr. around 3 a.m. one morning. I laughed. I didn’t take it personally.

When I finally got the opportunity to pet the dog, Max Sr. told me that the adorable dog’s name is Max; thus, I brilliantly forgot the owner’s name on purpose and started referring to him as Max Sr. He loves the nickname. Max Sr. thinks of Max as his guard dog and guardian instead of him being Max’s owner. It’s only appropriate, then, that the owner adopt the dog’s name.

I sometimes take short walks, aka Sanity Walks, to get out of the building and see the creek, trees, and people exhausting themselves on the trail. I never step out there without hoping I’ll get to say hello to Max Sr. and to rub Max’s little ears and feel him shiver a little as I pet his back and sides.

I’d be a lot happier if Max and other animals were nearby to pet. A lot of people would. Animals show affection without regard to circumstance. It’s a good lesson we could learn to apply to our lives. The social shield does in some ways protect us. In others, it limits us.

When I see Max Sr. I smile. When I see Max, I smile and get to see immediately that he’s happy with just my presence. What a gift that is!

Maybe you’ll get to pet Max one day, too. He’ll show you the same love after he barks a few times to remind you that he loves his human.

Love, X

Ancestry, Biographical, Family, Personal

I Brought A Knife To a Gunfight

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The picture is one I struggled to colorize. The girl behind the first row of boys is my mom Carolyn. This photo looks amazingly different with color. She looks amazingly different too; no matter what happened to her later in life, you can see for that moment through her smile and radiant eyes that she was happy.

I wrote something a couple of weeks ago that someone posted anonymously. They asked me to write something personal about life. Instead, my piece was about the tendency to let time gauze over the harsh parts of our stories. While I have no children, I was allegedly once one myself and I learned all the wrong lessons. Most of them didn’t translate into adult behavior or mechanisms to a good life. Earlier this week, I was telling a friend about my chance to skip my senior year of high school and attend John Brown University. It was difficult to attempt to explain that such an opportunity was an impossibility, given my homelife.

While all my missteps and stupidities are mine to own, I do find myself understanding my parents a little more now that I’ve stumbled in lesser ways than they did. It’s harder to be quite so judgmental after recognizing that intentions and actions often don’t coincide. I was no match for them; they were both immature adults pantomiming their lives. That’s not an accusation; it’s a realization.

That my mom had it in her to be as vibrantly happy as she was in the picture softens my criticism of her as a person.

“I brought a _ to a ___fight” was the encapsulation of my childhood in that piece of writing.

Love, X

Behavior, Fayetteville, Personal

s u r p r i z e

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I stopped at the local inconvenience store a little bit ago. As I entered, I saw two stoner skateboarders talking to the cashier. The cashier is in his 20s and is a reserved person. He speaks Nepali, English, and probably a couple of other languages too. Because I take an interest in people, I love that he works at the store. People assume his job, reservedness, and accent indicate that he’s not smart.

I LOVE to find people working in regular jobs who are far smarter than me.

The secret? He’s brilliant. He’s finishing his master’s degree in genetics. The two stoners were astonished that he was getting an advanced degree in genetics and started excitedly talking to him about Crispr, asking if he knew anything about it. I laughed and wanted to say, “Uh yeah, he is finishing a master’s in genetics!”

The cashier, in his way, answered their questions quietly and politely.

He might be the CEO of the company which cures cancer one day.

I knew the first time I talked to him that he was hiding a huge dose of brains.

He hides in plain sight, undeterred by how people misjudge him. People like that go far. As they should.

That there are people like him everywhere and in all manner of jobs gives me hope for us all.

Love, X

Mental Health, Minimalism, Personal, Psychology

Wisdom From The Internet + Thoughts

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“When you close your eyes to sleep it doesn’t matter how big your bedroom is.”


Wisdom from the internet.

It really doesn’t matter how big your house is, either, if you are not happy. Having all the things you need should result in all of us being content and satisfied, but not necessarily happy. If your life is flooded with things but not satisfaction, no amount of clutter or creature comforts will fill your heart with gladness. But we try. Me too.

I try to not imagine how happy the people are, the ones around me. But I do. We’re supposed to make such judgments based on how people act rather than what they say. Words are often glib, camouflaged, or misdirected. It’s not in most people’s nature to honestly communicate. Some of that is from social politeness. If we’re not baring ourselves to those who matter, though, a big chunk of our potential is drained away. People make assumptions, right or wrong about themselves based on how well they think their cohort is doing. Being honest gives them a benchmark to compare. Lords knows that social media isn’t an accurate reflection for most people. Thank you to everyone who has shared something about themselves with me. It is a comfort, even as I sit in my living bedroom, looking out the front windows, watching the world drive by.

Love, X
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Ancestry, Health, Personal, Technology

Much Ado

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The picture is of me in 1985 at graduation. My Uncle Buck was so proud of me. As reticent as he generally was, he somehow managed to tell me that he was glad to be there to see me finish high school, something neither of my parents did. Mom got her GED when she was much, much older. She worked for Brinkley schools and somehow motivated herself to do it.

I have a FitBit now, another thing in a long series of things I thought I wouldn’t find interesting. I was wrong! The biometrics and mindfulness parts of what it provides are astonishing. This is something I obviously should have had back when I had to try to learn how to sleep again. The app doesn’t appreciate the fact that 6 hours is a great benchmark for me for sleep, or that I need an 18-hour notification window. I am fascinated by sitting in silence and breathing, watching my heart rate fall twenty-five beats per minute.

In the last couple of days, Ancestry provided me with yet another reminder of how tenuous life is. A friend of my dead wife Deanne had searched for her to reconnect. They were friends for several years back in the nineties. They lost touch. The friend, as so often happens, sought to reconnect with Deanne now that she’s older and appreciates the value of friends, especially ones who went through things together. She was heartbroken to discover that Deanne had died in 2007. I shared my 10,000 pictures of Deanne’s life with her through my OneDrive account. I’m sure there will be a lot of memories floating in her heart when she dives in. It’s one of the reasons I’ve kept my Ancestry account active. I’ve become the curator and biographer for so many friends and loved ones. I take the time to share the meaningful pictures there and document their lives. It is the least I can do to leave such memories for others to enjoy for as long as the internet survives. And the pictures? What sweet treasures, ones we often fail to appreciate and give them air to breathe and be seen.

Love, X
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Medicine, Mental Health, Personal

Making Me Me

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Tomorrow marks two weeks since I started taking Lexapro. After three days on half doses, I increased it. It’s definitely starting to work. The old cliché, “It’s making me me again” definitely applies. It is both a blessing and a curse that it revives my ability to just tell people what’s on my mind. It’s both awkward and exhilarating to state my truth. A year ago, I never would have believed I’d be at less than 150 lbs, on the other side of a jolt to remind me that pretty much everything distills down to being a human being among other beings. We can dress it up and distract ourselves with subterfuge; at the end of the day, we’re left with the idea that finding meaning in ourselves and other people is the only way to live. I’m 19,956 days old. You’d think wisdom would come easily to me.

Love, X
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Fayetteville, Humor, Personal

On This Day

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I will start with a bit of humor for a friend, who will appreciate the inside joke: “My boss told me to start every presentation with a joke. The first slide was my paycheck.”

I went to the Dollar Tree to buy my demanding cat Güino specific cat treats. I ended up helping two Latina ladies with their questions. My bright orange shirt and hospital name tag evidently identified me as an employee. Because I was playing the part of an exemplary employee, I told them to go to Hobby Lobby too, as they were searching for decoration ideas that weren’t going to take all their cash. I used an index card to draw them a diagram of where to find what I was recommending. They were very happy. I’m definitely in the running for employee of the month. And people tell me speaking Spanish isn’t useful. 🙂 Hobby Lobby should write me a check too, as I am certain that once the two ladies go into the store, they are going to get a lot more ideas than they entered with.

At checkout, I saw that the woman in front of me had to leave a few items on the register rail because she didn’t have enough money. I bought them and handed her the bag of her items when I went outside. The look on her face was priceless. “It’s just $5, ma’am. You’d do the same for me if you could.” Covid be damned because she hugged me unexpectedly. “Is it too early to say ‘Merry Xmas?’ I asked her. “No, this gesture is a good start.”

I went over to Garland to use the ATM. A man was standing near the out lot of the parking lot, his driver’s door open. “Can you help me push this a few feet?” he asked as I pulled up and got out to help him. I told him that I couldn’t because I’d had surgery a couple of months ago. About that time, another man stopped and he helped push it several feet into a parking spot. “I can give you a ride to wherever you want to go, as long as you’re not wanting to go to Nebraska. I hate that place.” He laughed. I moved my bags from the front and he got into my car. As we pulled out onto Garland, his cellphone rang. His wife had listened to his voicemail and was on the way to pick him up. “No worries, I said. I can take you home or drop you back at your truck.” He thought about it as I turned right at the light to double back around. “It’s my brother’s truck but yeah, I’ll wait for my wife.” I dropped him back at the parking lot.

Driving down Sycamore, I must have sensed the oncoming yellow car was going to ignore the traffic signal. As I stopped and waited to turn, the car sped through the red light. I honked. The driver proudly waved high with a single finger as he sped away. I could tell that man would live a long, short life. 🙂

When I got home, I opened the fresh bag of cat treats and proudly laid several on the kitchen floor. My cat Güino sniffed them and then walked away. I’m pretty sure he was saying “Kiss my butt” in cat language in the way only a cat can. To prove I am at least smarter than him, I scooped them and put them back into the bag. After he was doing losing his mind with a Looney Loops doo-dad, I put them back down and he ate them like he hadn’t seen food in sixty-two days. The picture shows two of the Looney Loops at his feet.

Afterward, I made 14 servings of protein drinks. After doing it the hard way for a couple of weeks, I bought a cheap blender. Then, I realized I could make a lot more by using a gallon jug and shaking it like a pair of dice at a Las Vegas craps table. It’s good exercise, too, especially when the lid comes off and sprays thick protein drink all over the kitchen. Yes, I did that. I still love eating the powder dry, too. It gives me teeth that thick pie dough look that people find so attractive.

I still have my bedroom in my living room. No couch. Just my red rocking chair. Two big-screen televisions, one of which I sometimes use to stream my window camera view to. The other, to mostly ignore as I play the news. Four cat beds, one cat. One bed, one human. I spend more time vacuuming and sweeping the floor than I do watching tv, thanks to my beloved litter-scatterer.

I’m considering becoming the first-ever minimalist hoarder., but as Steven Wright says, “You can’t have everything–where would you put it?”

Anyway, I hope your day is full of wonder and also a jar of loose, vengeful spiders.

I’m just kidding about that last part.

Love, X

DIY, Lemon Moment, Personal, Project

The Bright Box

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Over the last months, I made an ornate wooden box and painted it, adding some touches to it. I had plans to do something special with it for myself. Originally, I thought to add a light mounted on a spinning motor to cast shadows in the dark. Instead, today I walked over to one of the apartments and handed it to a husband and wife with a small child. I told them I’d made it and wanted their son to have it. The husband said, “Man, thank you! His birthday is coming up.” I told them I’d add his name to it but I wasn’t sure how to spell it, as not everyone has an elegant and simple name like X.

We were all happy and smiling. Me, for surprising someone with something I’d put a lot of love into. They, for being so surprised and touched that I wanted to give their son a gift out of the blue.

I’ve surprised them anonymously and otherwise since I’ve lived here. I admit that I failed and prejudged them based on one of the family members. They are good people. I hate that I did that.

It was a lemon moment. For once, I didn’t take a picture of the surprise box before I let it go. I will remember it for a long time, because it was one of the things I worked on a little bit at a time for quite a while, imagining all sorts of uses for it.

I think it found the perfect home, in the perfect moment.

I needed a win this afternoon.

P.S. I took the picture in front of an art display. I had a hell of an anxiety issue not long after, yesterday. Life overwhelmed me for a bit.

Love, X

Fashion, Personal, Weight Loss

Turn On The Light If You Want To See

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I realized that I don’t own blue jeans anymore. I bought more when I fell to a 36″ waist. Of course, I didn’t wear them even once. I left the last batch of clothing on the dumpster. Someone took it, as I knew they would. Now I’m at 30″ and can’t find my favorite kind of travel pants. Sam’s Club got me hooked on them for work and leisure; now I can’t find them. The kind I love looks like slacks but feels very light and flexible. It’s a first-world problem to be unable to find 30″ pants. I float around in my pants now. As my surgery wound subsided, I found myself cinching my belt tighter and tighter to keep my pants up. Not everyone wants to see me in my Marvel character underwear.

Note: I didn’t plan on getting to a 30″ waist. I did know for certain I wouldn’t be fat forever.

But despite some of the problems in my life, I sometimes feel like I’m walking on air when I move. It’s on my gratitude list. I got reminded today that I was headed for something bad weighing 100 lbs more than I do. (That’s 12 1/2 gallons of milk in weight extra I was lugging around.) I still wear my old belt that originally was a 44″ belt, having cut it twice now. It’s a reminder to me every time I put it on. If I had to sum it up, I’d say, “What a dumbass I was!” Unironically, I know that I’ll think the same thing about myself this time next year if the universe grants me the time to revitalize my appreciation for life and its tumult. I’ve declared a truce with my intestines and asked them politely to please stop trying to kill me.

At the risk of sounding egotistical, yesterday was the first time I looked in the mirror and felt like it was truly “me” staring back. I knew that I had conquered my fear of being fat again. I trimmed my beard and as I did so, I laughed at myself. I’m probably the most vulnerable person on the planet; for a moment, my anxiety vaporized and I realized I had surpassed my wildest goal.

Yesterday, someone said, “Turn the light on if you want to see.” It wasn’t meant to be a meta-comment, but it was.

I hate the concept of daylight savings time but I also relish the sensation that it’s later than it’s supposed to be. Maybe sleep will blanket me in its velvet curtain and I’ll dream of what life will look like in a year.

I count my blessings. I don’t have enough fingers. Don’t tell anyone that I find a lot to be grateful for. When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll put my pants on and remember that I am capable of imagining so many things. Baggy pants are the least of my worries. Being the right kind of human being is a constant battle.

Love, X
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