Banal Hemorrhage

Marriage is not for the weak hearted. However,  it remains to this day the best decision I’ve ever made, to propose to this girl in an ornate pool in a temperate city in a beautiful South Asian country. At the beginning of the trip to this different corner of our known world, I had no idea I was going to pop the question. But pop went the question in my head and it was one of the most pervasive and intrusive thoughts I’ve had. I bought a 5 cent ring and proposed to her immediately.  Navigating these 8 years has been a learning opportunity for the both of us, as we have grown and the world around us has arguably grown as well. Thinking and reacting about how your spouse is feeling while realizing how you are feeling and what your surrounding loved ones are feeling would be a challenge for artificial intelligence and we’re just meat puppets with small buffers! Finding someone for whom you are willing to endure these kind of mental gymnastics is the biggest privilege I’ve ever kn...

Hey classic horror films were fine and dandy back in the day. They had real horrors happening, too, with two world wars happening in the span between the first Frankenstein film (1910) and House of Dracula (1945). Monsters were a fantastical thing to fear in a time in which people were seeing human monstrosity on the daily.  Today, many regions are still experiencing daily horrors, but the things that terrify me the most don’t have legs, claws, fangs or bolts on their necks. It’s the realization of entrenched institutionalized racism, the obvious encroachment and popularity of white supremacist philosophies, the infinitesimal but prolonged deleterious effects of our lifestyles on the environment and the systematic erosion of truth and science. These are the things that are all around us and seem to be at a crescendo. These are the things that make me hide under the covers. The most impactful moment while viewing a horror film happened to me in 2017, eight years ago. The movie was “...

Friendship in adulthood is difficult and not to be taken for granted. I hear tales of married couples with kids who now are limited to hanging out with the parents of kids they befriend. These situations fill me with anxiety, like hoping to get a real connection in a work networking event. The odds for authenticity are low and the opportunity for awkwardness high. For me, as an introvert, I’ve always relied on fun extroverts I feel comfortable around to take a liking to me and adopt me. I’ve been rich with friends throughout my life under this paradigm. But it gets more and more difficult as you age and stack up complications. It seems that after a certain period in life you are more likely to lose friends than to gain them. I’ve lost friends to so many causes, including: my depression episodes, their depression episodes, Trumpism, Chavismo, and the biggest killer, geography. I’ve lost friends because it’s been so long it’s kind of awkward now, and some to the fact I don’t enjoy partyi...

Sex appeal is a construct. There’s no further proof needed for this than our own experiences. As we’ve aged together I’ve noticed how sexuality has changed with us. At present, I believe some of Roxanne’s erogenous zones include literal zones of cleanliness and order in the house. As for me, I have never been attracted to a woman more than when I saw my wife protectively yelling at the owners of an unleashed dog that was about to attack our pups. She’s such a badass and I love her when she stands up for herself. Like the hairs-on-my-arm-raise love. Neither of those things were in the equation when we were playing the field, back in the day. For those of you who’ve been married a long time, have you thought what it would be like to be single again? I know for a fact that for some married peeps fantasize about it, but in my case, I dread that imaginary situation with intensity. Dating was awkward as heck for me. To get to the appropriate level of socialization needed for me to approach w...